MUSICAL DESIGN IN SOPHOCLEAN THEATER

MUSICAL DESIGN IN SOPHOCLEAN THEATER

WILLIAM C. SCOTT

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
PUBLISHED BY
UNIVERSITY PRESS OF NEW ENGLAND
HANOVER AND LONDON

Dartmouth College

Published by University Press of New England, Hanover, NH 03755

© 1996 by Trustees of Dartmouth College

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Scott, William C. (William Clyde), 1937–

Musical design in Sophoclean theater / William C. Scott.

p.       cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.

ISBN 0–87451–739–7 (alk. paper)

1. Music, Greek and Roman—History and criticism. 2. Sophocles—Dramatic production. 3. Sophocles—Stage history. 4. Greek drama—Incidental music—History and criticism. 5. Greek drama (Tragedy)—History and criticism. 6. Drama—Chorus (Greek drama) I. Title.

ML169.S38 1996

781.5′52′0938—dc20

95–21611

ISBN 978-1-61168-151-2 (e-book)

For Thomas McFarland

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION FOR READERS IN TRANSLATION:

Vital Tools for Staging a Sophoclean Choral Song

1. Music in Sophoclean Drama

The Importance of Perspective

The Creative Shaping of Traditional Forms

Signs of Sophocles’ Interest in Music

2. Choral Meter and Musical Form in Antigone and Ajax

Meter and Form

The Musical Design of Sophocles’ Antigone

The Musical Design of Sophocles’ Ajax

3. Musical Design in Trachiniae, Oedipus Tyrannus, Electra, and Philoctetes

Trachiniae

Oedipus Tyrannus

Electra

Philoctetes

4. The Importance of Musical Design in Sophoclean Drama: Oedipus at Colonus

Musical Design in Sophoclean Theater

Oedipus at Colonus

NOTES

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE CHORUS IN SOPHOCLEAN DRAMA

INDEX

PREFACE

In my earlier study, Musical Design in Aeschylean Theater, I employed a method of analysis based on the play as performed. The full experience of the audience in the theater, hearing the music and seeing the dance, can be far different from that of the study-bound scholar. G. H. Gellie well stated the critic’s puzzlement in evaluating Greek choruses: “Even if we perform our Greek plays in the open air, and thereby avoid some of the staging difficulties, there seems to be no way to put across the words of a Greek choral ode that will on the one hand preserve some of the Greekness and on the other hand induce the proper sentiments and emotions in a modern audience.”[1] This comment is gentle compared to reviews of recent productions that reveal how crippling the failure to understand Greek tragedy’s essential musical nature can be. For example:

In “Oedipus the King” and “Antigone,” the chorus shuffles about in somber Victorian dress, seeming less a conduit for high emotion than a scrimmage line of butlers announcing, in unison, that milord’s goose is cooked. And in “Oedipus at Colonus,” which is supposed to be set in Sophocles’ birthplace—described in one poetic passage as a cool, green place where pure springs nourish wildflowers and olive groves—the chorus spends most of its time prowling like a squadron of tweedy Sherlock Holmeses across a stage resembling (for no good reason) a post-nuclear wasteland.[2]

In original productions, the audience heard the music develop from the parodos through a series of odes to the final song. The design in the music was revealed in the forms so firmly established in the parodos and modified in succeeding odes that the audience could hear the musical reference and appreciate the emerging patterns in the accompanying dance. Just as Aeschylus and Sophocles enhanced their audience’s awareness of themes by a series of verbal images that developed through each play, so also their music was designed to guide the members of the audience in understanding the scenes that were being played before them. In fact, Aeschylus and Sophocles designed their music with such care that several individual scenes and major sections of the plays cannot be fully realized on stage unless the musical effects created by the poet are incorporated in a production.

In the earlier book, I identified places in which words sung to specific metrical patterns were repeated, and also assessed adaptations of the traditional strophic form of Greek dramatic song. The variation possible within the traditional meters and forms of Greek tragedy provided the playwrights with an effective and subtle mode of enhancing the words of their odes. In fact, Sophocles wrote with such a consistent and concentrated focus that several scenes actually become clearer in meaning when evidence from the metrical patterns is added. Even though the music of the original production is now gone and the scansion patterns provide only scant bits of evidence, it is becoming clear that we know more than nothing about the effects of music in the dramatic performance; there are, in fact, several elements of musical design that can be reconstructed. It is my hope that this book—along with the earlier study of Aeschylus—will encourage scholars and directors to set as their goal the presentation of the full dramatic conception of the Greek tragedians.

The opening section of this book, “Introduction for Readers in Translation,” closely modeled on the similar section in the book on Aeschylus, presents a brief scheme to aid the reader of Sophocles in translation. These pages illustrate how to annotate the text of a translation so as to reveal the musical design of the play. The first chapter describes Sophocles’ methods of working within traditional forms to provide varied perspectives in the texts of his plays, including the perspective of the chorus. This chapter closes with a collection of the evidence from the texts showing Sophocles’ awareness of musical effects in a dramatic scene. Chapters 2 and 3 analyze meters and forms in six plays. Then, after a summarizing description of Sophocles’ musical style, the last chapter describes the artful incorporation of music into the basic structure of Oedipus at Colonus. This play, the final work of a virtuoso, reveals, as no other of his plays, the individualistic musical style of Sophocles.[3]

Two recent studies, R. W. B. Burton, The Chorus in Sophocles’ Tragedies, and C. P. Gardiner, The Sophoclean Chorus: A Study of Character and Function, have made my task easier, as will be clear from the numerous references to both in the notes. In discussing the consistencies underlying each Sophoclean chorus, they have clarified many individual problems and have often provided me with a firm foundation for describing the poet’s use of musical design to support his words.

It is my hope that this study will be profitable to classical scholars as well as to those who do not know Greek. When the argument becomes technical, I have presented the evidence in the notes. The bibliography on Sophocles is sufficiently great that it is impossible to list all references or to review previous discussions of individual passages fully; there are, however, five major bibliographical resources that mitigate this problem:

H. Friis Johansen, “Sophocles 1939–59,” Lustrum 7 (1962) 94–288

A. Lesky, “Sophokles, “Anzeiger für das Altertumswissenschaft 20 (1967) 193–216

H. Strohm, “Sophokles, Euripides,” Anzeiger für das Altertumswissenschaft 24 (1971) 129–62; 26 (1973) 1–5; 30 (1977) 129–44

R. B. A. Buxton, Sophocles in Greece and Rome. New Surveys in the Classics 16 (Oxford 1984)

D. Jakob, “Bibliographie sélective concernant Eschyle, Sophocle, et Euripide (1500–1900),” Métis 3 (1988) 381–92

These articles contain bibliographic listings and discussions of opinions on standard problems up to 1988. I refer readers to them for a review of bibliography up to that date and provide here only the more recent references. I use the edition by H. Lloyd-Jones and N. G. Wilson as the basic text throughout this study, noting the few departures in the notes.[4] Not only have these two editors prepared the new Oxford text, they have also provided a reasoned explanation and defense of their choices in the accompanying volume, Sophoclea (Oxford 1990).

Keeping in mind the general reader, I usually use the spellings of Greek names that are found in translation; for example, Oedipus Tyrannus, Oedipus At Colonus, Dionysus, Nessus, etc.

I have been supported in writing this book by grants from Dartmouth College and especially by the reduced teaching schedule permitted to the holder of the Humanities Research Professorship. I wish to thank the staff of Baker Library at Dartmouth, which has shown customary willingness and ingenuity in tracking down articles, books, and manuscripts—especially Patricia A. Carter and Marianne H. Hraibi.

Many friends have assisted me in the course of this study. M. W. Blundell, E. Bradley, A. Brown, A. F. Garvie, M. Griffith, P. E. Easterling, J. March, and C. Sourvinou-Inwood have read sections and offered valuable comments. T. M. Falkner, K. Hartigan, J. P. Poe, and R. J. Rabel have read the whole manuscript patiently and carefully and aided me in avoiding many mistakes. To these and to the many other friends and colleagues who have read parts of my work and offered generous criticism—especially to the members of the Classics Department at Dartmouth College, I offer my grateful appreciation.

During the past twelve years there is one person who has consistently supported my interest in publication with his thoughtful and unselfish advice, his interest, and his unstinting effort. He has always worked to create a sense of easy cooperation between editor and author. It is a pleasure to dedicate this book to a proven friend, Thomas McFarland.

Hanover, New Hampshire
May 1995

W. C. S.

INTRODUCTION FOR READERS IN TRANSLATION

Vital Tools for Staging a Sophoclean Choral Song

Greek lyric metres are a subject which reduces many a classical scholar to despair; one in which he sees little profit and no certainty, its approaches defended by a veritable battery of metrical apparatus, and by a kind of Foreign Legion of music-symbols . . . he is inclined to resent them as interlopers, which they are not, or to suspect them as being only another way of talking nonsense, which very often they are. The whole thing, as a Regius Professor has said, is like Black Magic.

H. D. F. Kitto

Despite H. D. F. Kitto’s eloquent expression of frustration with regard to choral songs,[1] not only classicists but also readers in translation can quite readily learn how to hear scansion patterns. The metrical schemes presented in this section provide both a key to creative stage direction of a Sophoclean play and an impetus to more representative and lively productions of all Greek dramas. The rhythmic patterns are too important to be ignored and too simple to be a continuing cause of lasting confusion and frustration. A sample metrical analysis of the first two stanzas of the famed Ode on Man (Ant. 332–52) is given on the next two pages. Using this model, the scansion patterns presented in Chapters 2, 3, and 4 can be quickly and easily transcribed into a reader’s translation.

The first step is to obtain as accurate a translation as possible. Although Sophoclean Greek is compressed in expression and subtly imagistic, several good translations are available, as well as books discussing the development of the chorus’ thought through-out the plays.[2] The words used in the example are adapted from D. Grene’s translation.

To appreciate the sound and the rhythmical qualities of each line, one should acquire a Greek text of the play and learn the twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet, given at the start of any standard grammar. Their pronunciation is straightforward; there are no “hidden” syllables as in French. Therefore, a transliteration of each line of Greek, shown in brackets in the example, is entirely optional; it is simply another way of showing how the line is pronounced.

In the righthand margin of the text, the reader should enter the scansion pattern of each Greek line.[3] One way to discern the rhythm is to drum it out on a tabletop. It is immediately evident how tightly the words and rhythms are joined: there is one syllable for each mark. This scansion pattern will normally have to be noted only once for each pair of stanzas because the normal form of Greek choral song is strophic; that is, the meter of the first stanza (the strophe) is immediately repeated with different words in the next stanza (the antistrophe). Thus the structure of the normal tragic ode is in strophic pairs: aa, bb, cc, etc. In the example, the scansion pattern is given only once in the second column because—as usual—it is the same for both strophe (332–41) and antistrophe (342–52).

In the lefthand margin of both texts, the reader should enter the abbreviated names of the meters used in each line. For the Ode on Man, these abbreviations appear in the fourth column. These terms are important because small standard units are often joined in varying order to form a full line. Below are the five basic meters in Sophoclean drama, along with their related forms:[4]

At first glance, even the list of the five major meters may appear formidable. In fact, however, to discern the basic musical design in Sophocles’ tragedies it is necessary only to be able to hear the difference between the iambic, aeolic, and dactylic and to identify the choriambic and dochmiac. Thus, in the example, the aeolic (glyconic) in the first five lines is balanced by sections of iambic and dactylic; two choriambic lines punctuate the metrically different sections.

Beneath the scansion pattern for each line of the Ode on Man is an approximation of the metrical scheme in quarter notes and eighth notes. Although it is doubtful that the rhythms of Greek meter were equivalent to those of modern musical notation, this form most clearly illustrates the differences in rhythm in sequential passages. Therefore, either at this point or when recording the scansion patterns earlier, the reader may enter in the translation this simple musical notation.

After adding this information to the translation, the reader can perform the analysis necessary to create music and a dance pattern for the choral odes. Because no translation successfully reproduces the metrical patterns of the Greek original—the cadence and structure of Greek are very different from those of English—the reader should consult the margin of the text for the names of the meters, especially to note where a longer section of a stanza is built from the same basic rhythm. This analysis will produce significant sections of the major meters. From this organization of metrically similar sections, it should be possible to see the general musical design of whole sections of an ode. For example, the full Ode on Man can be analyzed into metrical units as follows:

After such an ode-by-ode analysis, a comparison of the clustering of metrical patterns throughout all the odes will reveal where in the play certain metrical forms are repeated with similar thoughts and where changes in metrical patterning occur.

With this clear and useful representation of the musical design, the reader or director can then devise patterns of music and dance that will signal to the audience the recurrence of motifs or the shift in subjects and tone throughout the production. Whether the music chosen for a production is shepherd’s pipe, Strauss, or Shostakovich, the use of a musical line and dance pattern in one ode should prepare the audience to hear that line and to see that pattern when they appear in a later one. A shift of rhythm in a neighboring stanza can be represented by a change in melody, instrumentation, or musical tone of the accompaniment; the repetition of a rhythm can be signaled by a repetition of the earlier musical line and mode. Finally, both the music and the dance should make clear, through repetition and rounded units, the basic balanced form of strophe echoed by antistrophe, so that there will be a strong effect at those places where there is no repetition. Wherever a musical stanza is not repeated, an unbalanced form, traditionally called an epode, occurs, which may be intended to impress or surprise the audience.

Setting the libretti of Greek tragedy to music involves imposing an alien musical form on the original text, but the imaginative reader or aspiring director can at least be certain that the original production had musical accompaniment and that the restoration of music to the choral odes serves concepts of stagecraft that Sophocles deemed vital. The playwright has provided encouragement for such an endeavor by using images of music-making and by incorporating in his dramatic texts several scenes that cannot be realized without aural and visual stage effects. An awareness of the full musical design will bring a new dimension to the odes of the chorus, enabling reader, director, and audience to appreciate their complexity in both thought and form.

MUSICAL DESIGN IN SOPHOCLEAN THEATER

CHAPTER 1

MUSIC IN SOPHOCLEAN DRAMA

Aeschylus is the poet of early Athenian democracy; Sophocles, the poet of its mature, more complex years.[1] Sophocles was not only active in the theater as performer, actor, and poet, he also entered into the political and social life of the state by serving as treasurer for the empire, as general, and as counselor to deal with the crisis following the Sicilian Expedition. In addition, he is reported to have been a priest of healing deities, especially of Asclepius.[2] As a result of his service in a wide range of state offices, problems in Athenian policies and values not only surrounded him in his daily life but were brought home to him with special force by such assignments as suppressing the revolt of Samos. His participation in this campaign involved Sophocles in the nexus of conflicting loyalties that bound the Athenian Empire into a fractious unit. When a Greek shed Greek blood, both sides fighting for the sake of a stronger and more independent existence, officials of the Athenian state needed precise and disciplined judgment to negotiate the tangled issues, to separate right action from expedient assertion, and to serve the best interests of Athens.[3]

It is therefore understandable that Sophocles’ plays require just such careful judgments from characters, audiences, and critics. He is a subtle playwright who peers deeply into his characters’ souls to explore the adequacy of their convictions in confusing and ambiguous situations. Firm purposes mix with hasty judgments: Ajax pronounces the Greek leaders guilty without trial; Creon is quick to judge friend and foe, as is Antigone; Oedipus rashly condemns Teiresias and Creon; Electra has long since sentenced her enemies—so too Philoctetes. In addition, Sophoclean audiences are required to make judgments: again and again, in the final scenes of his plays, characters give conflicting interpretations of what has happened in earlier episodes. Sophocles’ plays never close neatly, with all passion spent, new resolutions affirmed, and all dilemmas dispelled; rather they end with conflicting perspectives still alive among the characters and opposed interpretations of the play’s action still circulating.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PERSPECTIVE

In the long final scene of Oedipus Tyrannus there are four speakers, each of whom attempts to evaluate the blinding of Oedipus: the messenger from within the palace, the chorus of loyal Thebans, the new regent Creon, and Oedipus himself. The messenger can only understand the blinding of Oedipus as an act of madness, a deed that will smear the house of the Labdacids with shame and sorrow for years to come. The Thebans in the chorus do not agree; they fear that there are lessons to be learned from Oedipus’ downfall, lessons about a god who has ruined their king and could even now turn against them. Creon, however, feels that Oedipus’ sinful life has been brought to its proper end: Oedipus sinned and has paid the price—thus the account is settled. But Oedipus seeks to reassert himself in going to the countryside to live out the fate that awaits him. He feels that his blinding is the fulfillment of Apollo’s plan and refuses to call himself a cursed or broken man. Sophocles lets these four interpretations confront one another so directly at the end of this play that his own judgment is not clear. Thus he forces not only his characters but also his audiences and critics to formulate their own explanations in the face of conflicting opinions.

Characters’ judgments at the ends of the other plays are similarly unresolved and fragile.[4] Ajax is finally allowed to be buried, but the good will of the Atreidae seems limited and momentary; Creon exits from Antigone to an uncertain future; Electra’s stability is open to question as she reenters the empty palace to an existence that cannot be determined from the text. Most unsettled of all are the futures of Heracles and Hyllus; the most determined is probably that of Philoctetes, yet his change of mind is achieved only through the unique intrusion of a deus ex machina. Sophocles ends Oedipus at Colonus typically, with the old king’s fate settled, while his daughters face a situation that will further test their endurance and judgment.

While he does not plunge his characters into a thoroughly dark and mysterious environment, he does cause them to live in such a clouded atmosphere that the fixed points and larger structures, designed and maintained by the gods, are difficult for men to see:[5]

Sophoclean drama . . . articulates a whole spectrum of responses to moral problems which, though clothed in the grandeur of the heroic age, were living issues for the fifth-century Greeks who had inherited the values of that age. Conflicting loyalties to friends, family and city, justice towards friend and enemy, expediency versus justice, retaliation or forgiveness—these were the stuff of moral life as well as tragedy. Through his plays, Sophocles articulates some of the confusions surrounding these issues and the ambiguous terms in which they are expressed, drawing out implications and pitting alternatives against each other. If the poet teaches, it is not by expounding answers, but, like the Socrates of Plato’s early dialogues, by provoking questions.[6]

Several scenes demonstrate clearly that there are set limits and purposes.[7] Teiresias is the clearest spokesman for the existence of a “right” answer to the problem dividing Creon and Antigone; and, in addition, the fate of Oedipus is largely predetermined in both of his plays, Philoctetes will go to Troy, Orestes is ordered to gain vengeance for his father, and oracles known by Teucer, Deianeira, and Heracles do come true. Characters, however, do not easily learn to live in such a structured universe; final scenes center on figures who have been required to make decisions on the grounds of limited insight, reaping the fruit—often bitter—of those decisions.

Bitter though this fruit may be, most of the characters would make no other choice even if they could predict the results of their actions. In fact, several of them foresee the disastrous consequences of their choices and make them anyway.[8] For example, Antigone foresees that Creon will punish her for burying her brother’s body, and Electra, even in the face of increasing hardships and threatened with entombment, stubbornly insists on the necessity of murdering Clytemnestra. The strength of these characters allows them to defend their own self-defined purposes and to die resolutely, although in a world where answers remain unclear. Others on stage who lack the stubborn will of the major characters have a more difficult time choosing a course of action. They are often disillusioned and confused, and end by balancing uncertainties: Haemon finally dies in despair of finding any clear direction for his life, Hyllus surrenders to an uncertain future, and Antigone and Ismene at the end of Oedipus at Colonus have little idea what awaits them in their new life without their father.

Critics seeking a point of firmness and stability on the Sophoclean stage have often lighted upon the chorus, even assigning it the abstract role of speaking directly for the poet or being the “ideal spectator.”[9] Yet given the defined characterization, costume, and individualized musical design for its odes in each play, the chorus cannot be assigned either role. The ideal spectator would be able to rise above his day-by-day existence and even to grow in understanding through observing the events in the play. Sophoclean choruses are too enmeshed in the uncertainties of the plot and invested in their own explanations to view events objectively. Further, the role of Sophocles’ choruses shrinks as the plays move toward their conclusions, just when the observations of the author or an objective observer would be most useful. The soldiers in Ajax want to leave Troy once they have understood the situation of their commander, and the young women in Trachiniae are ready to leave the moment they hear Heracles approaching. The men and women of Sophocles’ choruses are presented as too normal to cope with—or even to understand—the idiosyncratic demands of the major characters, and thus they fade away in final scenes with little pertinent to say.

Aristotle’s statement about Sophoclean choruses probably approaches the truth: “It is necessary to regard the chorus as one of the actors, a part of the whole and a sharer in the action, not as in Euripides but as in Sophocles” (Poetics 1456a25–32).[10] Since chorus members are not as deeply or vitally involved in controlling the course or timing of events as the actors, they are only witnesses to the mighty actions surrounding and pressuring the characters—sufficiently involved in the results to have opinions about the action but only able to present their own perspective.[11] Probably no critic has found such clear metaphors to describe the relationship between chorus and actors as Karl Reinhardt, when he describes the kommos (a song shared between chorus and character) between Antigone and the chorus (Ant. 806–82):

The four short strophes of the chorus alternate with the lament: not echoing, not reinforcing, but standing out in contrast—a kind of frame, or like two banks on either side, between which the lament runs like a stream, or like groups of people standing on the bank and following with their eyes someone who is being snatched away by the current. That is how the chorus stands in safety and watches, participating, but outside.[12]

Moreover, the playwright does not simply use the chorus to express transitory reactions, but through a series of odes each chorus reveals a consistently developing evaluation of events. The musical design of the odes reveals a pattern of meters and forms that corroborates the identity of the choral persona and evolves in response to the unfolding action. Through a close combination of words, meters, and forms, the odes provide another of those vital perspectives which an audience must incorporate into the complex mixture of judgments generated by each play.

The proper “spectator” of Sophoclean drama is not then the chorus but the audience, which watches both characters and chorus as they observe and react to the developing situation. The total dramatic experience results only from the audience’s synthesis of the actions of the characters and the reactions of the chorus.[13] Consequently, Sophocles avoids making his choruses either ideal spectators or representatives of his own views, creating each chorus instead to present its particular point of view—self-interested or generous, biased or objective, limited or wide-ranging.[14]

The choice of the persona of the chorus is virtually free, unencumbered by demands of the myth. Yet because Greek tragedies are performed at the major Athenian religious festival of the year, they inevitably and necessarily respond to the basic elements of the myth and dramatic tradition. Choruses construct mythical backgrounds for the plays, most notably when they bring the full weight of the Labdacid family to bear on Antigone (Ant. 594–603) or seek the cause for Electra’s fallen state in Myrtilus’ primal crime (El. 504–15). The dramatic performance itself is a ritual action, and at times the chorus reveals an awareness of its participation in a rite. Nowhere is this clearer than when it questions its need to continue dancing in Oedipus Tyrannus (883–96). Yet choruses also mirror the social and political environment surrounding the festival; choral members respond as though they have been formed by principles appropriate for their corporate persona.[15] The women in Trachiniae and Electra reflect the social position of women as well as a Greek mythical and religious upbringing; they are different in their demeanor from Creon’s councilors in Antigone or from the citizens of Thebes who support Oedipus—even though they all share common values. In each case the fifth-century setting of the performance has brought into their words customs and concerns drawn from their fictive personas.

The play that most clearly demonstrates the highly developed individuality of a chorus as well as its limited perspective is Trachiniae. The chorus enters as innocent girls, younger than Deianeira. In the first two-thirds of the play (1–946) they sing four long strophic odes in which they project an image of Deianeira as the simple, gentle girl, easily overwhelmed by powers against which she has no defense—a romantic view of her character that reflects their youth, their sentimental outlook on the world, and their naiveté. Not even Deianeira is able to accept their description, and she interrupts their first song to correct them. When Deianeira later kills herself in grief and remorse for being the innocent agent of her husband’s death, she demonstrates the inadequacy of the chorus’ description. Later, as Heracles is borne on stage, these young girls, unable to confront this new reality, long to flee the play. They stand silent—even at the end of the play—as Heracles appropriates their lyric role and sings strophic songs. The critical label of the “ideal spectator” is unsuited to explain the behavior of this chorus of young friends and neighbors, who present a consistent persona reacting to events over the series of episodes.[16]

THE CREATIVE SHAPING OF TRADITIONAL FORMS

Master artists always exercise supreme control over their material, as Charles Rosen explains in regard to individual musical style:

The idea of a Form striving to define itself, to become flesh in . . . different ways, is attractive, but even as a metaphor it sets a trap. It leads one to assume that there was such a thing as “sonata form” in the late eighteenth century, and that the composers knew what it was, whereas nothing we know about the situation would lead us to suppose anything of the kind. The feeling for any form, even the minuet, was much more fluid. But “complete liberty” describes the situation no better than “occasional license.” In a long-range way, it is no doubt true, or at least fruitful as an hypothesis, that art can do anything it wants; societies and artists call forth the styles they need to express what they wish—or, better, to fulfil the aesthetic needs they themselves have created . . . for a composer, music is basically what was written last year, or last month (generally by himself, once he has developed his manner). His own work is not determined by it in any rigid sense, but it is what he must work with or against.[17]

This type of creative adaptation of previously used forms pervades every element of a Sophoclean play. Evaluating the relationship of the individual scene’s design to the full dramatic conception is a major problem that continues to challenge critics. The chorus is particularly subject to these adaptations because it is never wholly a dramatic character; yet, although Sophocles’ chorus never functions simply as the mouthpiece for the poet, this function, among others, is never rigidly denied to it. As a result, the Sophoclean chorus is never totally any one thing.[18]

Any adequate discussion of the Sophoclean chorus’ contribution to the individual play must assess the various levels at which the chorus communicates its message through words, meter, form, and the placement of songs within the action. When the poet writes in the intense style of lyric and at the same time reports his words through the filter of dramatic characters, problems in sorting out levels multiply. For example, G. M. Kirkwood comments on the qualities involved in the questioning ode in the Oedipus Tyrannus, “Why should I dance?” (863–910):

First, it is relevant to the context—not just because it discusses topics that have a place in the episodes before and after, but also, and mainly, because the manner in which the chorus make their reflections is fitting both to the personality of the elders and to the dramatic atmosphere in which the ode is set. Secondly, instead of interrupting the course of the drama with a sermon by Sophocles, settling moral and religious problems, the words of this ode simply express, in language of vigor and beauty, the religious thoughts of the chorus, evoked by their doubts and anxiety. The ode settles nothing. But . . . the very ambiguity and inconclusiveness of the song increase dramatic tension, where a sermon would break it. Finally, there is a distinctively Sophoclean touch in the ironical interplay between the ode, Jocasta’s prayer, and the appearance of the Corinthian.[19]

In the next paragraph Kirkwood admits that he has not mentioned the contribution of imagery, meter, and thought. Martha Nussbaum, however, effectively describes the role of language and imagery in the odes:

Each [ode] has an internal structure and an internal set of resonances; each reflects upon the action that has preceded; each reflects upon the preceding lyrics. Already, then, we find that to interpret fully any single image or phrase requires mapping a complex web of connections, as each successive item both modifies and is modified by the imagery and dialogue that has preceded. But once we mention that the succeeding item modifies the preceding or deepens our reading of it, we must then acknowledge that the web of connections to be drawn is much more complex still: for the resonances of a single item will be prospective as well as retrospective.[20]

In the staged play there seems to be no one exclusive voice in which the chorus speaks. So often, when it offers a simple opinion or interpretation, it errs and must later ruefully admit its mistake; at such moments (most prominently the joy-before-disaster odes) the authority for choral words is only the chorus itself. Even in more complex meditations, such as the Ode on Man and the Ode to Zeus in Antigone, the idiosyncratic voice of the choral persona continues to sound clearly even though other voices can be heard—sometimes speaking softly, sometimes forcefully—modifying and enriching the words, meters, and forms. At this point libretto readers are inevitably frustrated, but to the extent that scansion patterns can offer a clue to the rich effects available in a full musical performance, the voice of the poet can be heard. At least this has been the guiding principle of this study. Lyric singers state positions firmly and purposefully—even if they are expressing their own state of uncertainty, confusion, or perplexity.[21] But the poet has created the words and music for all these statements—and it is possible to see from the scansion patterns that there are ironies and enriched meanings in the words that are supported in the musical design.[22]

Even those odes which are the easiest to define, which seem relatively uncomplicated and are often interpreted as mere heighteners of emotion, the so-called joy-before-disaster odes, interact with their surrounding scenes in surprisingly complex ways.[23] The fifth stasimon of Antigone (1115–54), which occurs as Creon rushes off stage to bury Polyneices and to free Antigone from the cave, fills the time between the departure of the king and the arrival of the messenger. In a balanced strophic structure the chorus, invoking Dionysus, sings a recognizable hymn form; both form and content suit the hasty exit of Creon and the expectant mood of the councilors. Of course, the audience should realize the irony in Sophocles’ placement of the ode immediately preceding the messenger’s entry to announce that the prayer has been rejected, abruptly undercutting the optimism of the moment.

This song, however, must also be interpreted as part of the series of odes that began with the chorus’ entrance in the parodos. The councilors entered optimistically singing a victory song and ready to hymn the inventiveness of mankind, the power of a just Zeus, and the wisdom embodied in the mythical tradition as proper guarantors of the morality of the city’s actions. Even when events began to disprove their theories, they clung to their belief in their gods as inspirers of correct human action, certain that Zeus was justly punishing Antigone for ignoring state authorities and that Aphrodite had misled Haemon into a rash disagreement with his father. Yet, for the first time in this play, in the fifth stasimon they choose not to interpret divine will, but rather they surrender themselves into a god’s hands in order to be rescued. In this ode the tight metrical structure of the earlier songs loosens, a subtle sign that they have abandoned their firm trust in the necessary wisdom and holiness of the city’s actions. Never openly despairing of the aid of their gods or condemning the actions of their city, they still assert:

In immortal words

we hymn the god

who watches the ways of Thebes.

You honor her

as highest of all cities

along with your lightning-struck mother.

(1134–39)

The report of the messenger not only breaks this optimistic mood, but also undermines beliefs asserted earlier by the chorus; the failure of Creon’s expedition to the countryside decisively shatters the chorus’ trust in the king’s moral sense and in the favoring force of the gods to whom they attributed Thebes’ victory over the invaders. Such undercutting of previous choral convictions is signaled by the shift to a submissive attitude toward the gods, which is echoed by changes in the musical design.

Even more ironically, the old men of the chorus close their prayer asking Dionysus to be with them:

Dance master of the fire-breathing stars,

overseer of voices in the night,

son of Zeus, come now,

our king, in the company of your Thyads,

who in their frenzy

dance to the lord Iacchos

throughout the night.

(1146–52)

At this moment their earlier wish has been fulfilled:

Forget the present.

Let us go to all the temples of the gods

throughout the night in choruses;

I wish Bacchus, the shaker of Thebes,

to be our leader.

(151–54)

Just as each character in this play has ironically reaped the fruits of his/her sowing—Antigone has her marriage with death and Creon finds his crown to be hollow—so also the old councilors now find themselves dancing at night to Dionysus. Yet the god has not changed; rather the chorus’ unquestioned patriotism has weakened and they now hold a more realistic attitude toward the actions of Creon—one they should have had from the very first.

There is a similarly intricate interweaving of form and content in all Sophocles’ choral odes. On one level the audience hears the chorus respond to the immediate situation on the basis of its limited knowledge and previous theories. Yet on another level the audience members recall the earlier odes in the play and interpret them progressively as responses to the preceding scenes. On a third level the audience sees more clearly the poet’s dramatic concept as it emerges in the course of the play through the direction of the story and the relationships of the characters, the words and images, the meters, the forms, the events surrounding the individual songs, and the themes that develop through the full series of odes. The poet is clearly in charge of keeping the particular message of each of these levels separate and distinct, but of equal importance is his ability to let each level comment on the others.[24]

SIGNS OF SOPHOCLES’ INTEREST IN MUSIC

The texts of the plays offer ample evidence of Sophocles’ interest in music as an expressive form. Words related to music, dance, music-making, and sound occur frequently in Sophocles’ plays, though not in such profusion as in Aeschylus’, nor are they are as programmatically effective.[25] Some are literal sounds, like the bird voices stirred by the morning sun at the opening of Electra, the screeching at Teiresias’ altar (El. 17–18 and Ant. 999–1004), and the cries of lamenting or surprise that occur throughout the plays. Also, in a few scenes, words describing sounds are prominent. The chorus in Antigone describes the night’s battle through sound-words—the screaming eagle, the rattle of war, the ringing of gold—that will all resolve into the choral victory dance to Bacchus (110–54). In addition, each play contains metaphors related to music and dance. Since music easily accompanies moods of joy and sorrow, the two most common moods in drama of any period, it is reasonable for such words to appear in passages where one of these emotions is dominant or the two are being contrasted. The chorus in Electra is an example:

O voice for men in the underworld,

cry out my pitiable words

to the sons of Atreus below,

carrying them complaints which invite no dance . . .

Betrayed, alone,

the wretched child is drowning,

always bewailing the death of her father

like the lamenting nightingale

(1066–69, 1074–77; italics mine)

In Sophoclean drama there is no one speaker who characteristically uses words of music, with the possible exception of the chorus of Trachinian women; nor are words and images of music and music-making developed consistently within any one play. Generally such words and actual sounds contribute to the effective presentation of the individual scenes. At the end of Oedipus at Colonus, old, sightless Oedipus rises from the ledge where he has been sitting since the first scene of the play. Suddenly granted a vision given to no other man, he firmly and confidently leads his children and Theseus, his previous guides and protectors, off stage to the appointed place of his death. The signal for this moment is a series of orchestrated thunderclaps sufficiently loud and unexpected to cause the chorus to interrupt its own stanzas:

Look! See the lightning again!

The piercing crash of thunder surrounds me.

(1478–79)

Several times the lyric is punctuated by the sound of thunder. Both the chorus and Antigone are startled and confused at this sound, but Oedipus knows the sign and immediately asks for Theseus. In Ajax, Tecmessa and the chorus respond similarly to Ajax’s offstage cries (333–45). Knowing the events of the previous night, both she and the chorus assume that Ajax is still mad when they hear his first cry:

This man is either sick or in deep pain

from sicknesses which have long been with him.

(337–38)

But as they listen to him call for his child and his brother, they slowly realize his groaning arises from a natural desire to preserve his honor and destroy the shame of his failed mission. The use of offstage sound effectively reintroduces the new, now sane Ajax for a rational discussion of his plight.

In several places the idea of orderly choral music-making and dancing reflects the situation on stage. The chorus in Antigone, as we have seen, concludes its prayer to Dionysus by addressing him as the choral leader of the flaming stars and director of the voices of the night, imploring him to appear with his chorus of dancing and singing Maenads (1146–52). The messenger from the countryside, in reporting the attempted burial of Polyneices’ remains and the deaths of Antigone and Haemon, not only shatters all hope of reestablishing this orderly chorus, but also ends the chorus’ participation in song during the rest of the play. Yet as Creon comes to understand the order that has been controlling his life, he becomes the singer of strophic lyric. Similarly the chorus in Oedipus Tyrannus, alarmed at the bold skepticism of Jocasta and the possible inadequacy of the oracles given to Oedipus, dwells on the growing impiety of their world and questions its own status as music-maker for the god’s festival:

In this situation what man will find a means

for driving the arrows of wrath from his soul?

For if such acts are honored,

what need is there for me to continue the dance?

(893–96)[26]

These singers, who regard the performance of the tragic chorus as a celebration of divine and human order, fear that their songs and dances will become irrelevant as the events in the play threaten to undermine their faith in the divine control of the universe. Yet they re-form themselves into an effective chorus for several more odes after the hand of god begins to emerge more clearly, especially in the song addressed to Mt. Cithairon (1086–1109). In these examples from Antigone and Oedipus Tyrannus, the performance of music is a metaphor for an orderly, functioning world.[27]

The passage containing the most developed description of music occurs in Trachiniae. When Deianeira rejoices that Heracles will soon be home and invites the women of the community to cry out for joy, the chorus responds with a lyric ode:

Let the house cry out

with jubilant shouts by the hearth

in honor of marriage! Let the voices of men

join to honor Apollo . . .

Together, maidens,

sing the paean, the paean

and cry out the name of his sister . . .

I will raise up the sound of the aulos—

I will not refuse you, tyrant of my heart.

See how it shakes me—

Euoi—

the ivy which twirls

the Bacchic dancers in their rivalry.

Hail, Hail, Paean!

(205–20)

In this ode there are words for shouting and music, words naming cult songs and imitating appropriate ritual cries, words for instruments and for the ivy worn by the dancers.[28] Later this chorus envisions the reunion of husband and wife accompanied by harmonious music:

Soon the lovely-sounding aulos

will echo among you—not in a strange clamor,

but lyre music for the gods.

(640–43)[29]

This imagined joy, however, evaporates at the appearance of Heracles, who finally stills their music. His entrance is appropriately accompanied by total denial of sound:

How do they carry him?

They have a heavy silent step

as though mourning a friend.

Alas, they are bearing him with no word.

(965–68)

The Old Man restrains the emotional outbreak of Hyllus by ordering him to be silent and “to bite his lip” (974 and 976–77). The music that characterizes the first section of the play is purposefully silenced; both singer and song are replaced by the new music of Heracles.

From this last example it is clear that music and sound can even serve as significant elements in Sophoclean drama when they are expressly denied. Oedipus wishes to plug up his ears to block painful intrusions from the world (OT 1386–90). The chorus describes Philoctetes’ life as wretched and pitiable when it first finds his cave; he spends his days starving and lonely, with animals his only friends, hearing only his own voice in a distant echo:

The babbling echo

which comes from afar

hears his bitter cries.

(Phil. 188–90)[30]

Finally, the fullest denial of sound is death:

The aiding god attends all equally

when the end comes—Hades,

with no wedding song, no music, no dance.

Death to the end.

(OC 1220–23)

While throughout Sophocles’ plays there are individual words for music and sound, they are neither as striking nor as numerous as the bold statements in the dramas of Aeschylus.[31] Sophocles, who typically employs words or special effects that arise from the scene on the stage, introduced music in all its forms in tightly focused structures: directly through the words of characters, indirectly as metaphors for experiences, and openly in the performance of lyrics throughout each of his dramas. In each play he has created a highly individualized role for the chorus. The design of the chorus’ music is appropriate to its persona, to the occasions of its entrances and exits, to the placement of its songs, to its choice of words, and to the development of—or the interruption of—a consistent pattern of thought. Even the choice between male or female choruses is important because the chorus is not only a significant observer but also aids in highlighting themes. In the plays that contain male protagonists, Ajax, both Oedipus plays, and Philoctetes, the presence of a male chorus supports the values implicit in the community. In Trachiniae and Electra, female choruses reflect the individualized concerns of the female protagonists, and masculine characters introduce the dominant, aggressive forces of male society: Heracles so dominates the chorus that he quashes their music, and Electra momentarily assumes a man’s task until she is replaced by Orestes. Antigone, however, is a family-oriented woman isolated by the male chorus’ support for the city-oriented values of Creon.

The guiding impulse for this study of musical design in Sophoclean drama arises from admiration for the sheer artistry of Sophocles in writing intensely focused, economically structured dramas. In many ways he sharply modified and confined Aeschylus’ large-scale theater of community.[32] Abandoning the broadly based trilogy, Sophocles could narrow his focus from the larger group to one or two principal characters and probe deeply into their being. By employing the other roles as prisms refracting the light radiating from the main character, he diminishes their claim to an independent existence, as, for example, Ismene or Chrysothemis. By choosing language proper to the speech of individual characters, he avoids such rhetorical diversions as the larger-than-life declamations of Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra. Finally, having focused his dramas so intently on one or two characters, Sophocles used the choruses to provide a reasonable, consistently developing perspective on the issues of the drama—a very different role than the comprehensively designed movement toward the grand community benediction that closes the Oresteia and the final lament of The Persians. The finely wrought design of Sophocles’ choral persona through words, music, and dance is the topic of this study.

CHAPTER 2

CHORAL METER AND MUSICAL FORM IN ANTIGONE AND AJAX

METER AND FORM

Critics of Sophocles’ tragedies have long admired his focused and economical plot construction, subtle characterization, refined language, and controlled staging, but we must consider these elements in the light of Edward Cone’s comment on the role of music in opera:

In any opera, we may find that the musical and the verbal messages seem to reinforce or to contradict each other; but whether the one or the other, we must always rely on the music as our guide toward an understanding of the composer’s conception of the text. It is this conception, not the bare text itself, that is authoritative in defining the ultimate meaning of the work.[1]

Certainly, in Sophoclean drama music does not dominate as it does in grand opera, and it accompanies only half as many lines as in the plays of Aeschylus.[2] Nevertheless, the chorus in the average Sophoclean play is allotted about one-fifth of the total lines, and several major characters have lengthy musical passages. Inevitably the music, written and supervised in production by Sophocles himself, contributed to the interpretation and staging of these individual songs and was a major element in the full design of the play. Unfortunately, the written record of Greek musical composition is so incomplete that there survives only a reader’s record of the words with almost no indication of sound. Some early copies of the plays included musical notation, but probably this feature disappeared by the time of Aristophanes of Byzantium (ca. 257–180 B.C.) who produced an edition of the plays for an age of readers rather than performers.[3] With the musical notation gone, it is tempting to ignore its contribution to the performance; yet the words of the songs survive, and the colometry of Alexandrian and Byzantine critics often indicates how the metrical phrases were divided.[4] Thus the study of this missing music is not impossible—indeed, information derived from the texts themselves usually proves more productive in providing analytical categories for these “libretti” than the explanations of later commentators or of modern theorists.

Music is a language with its own syntax, structures, cadences, idioms, metaphors, and inflections. Although the texts remain mute, the written record of the Greek language is full enough for scholars to gain some awareness of the dynamics of lyric expression and even to reconstruct an approximation of oral speech, if not of song.[5] Problems abound, however. There is virtually no information about the specific music used for any one production of a Greek tragedy.[6] For every general statement about music by an ancient author, the number of exceptions in surviving dramas would probably fill a large book. The comments about ancient music by Plato, Plutarch, and several other writers are generalized, of questionable authority, and often reveal little more than a basic acquaintance with the modes and theories of Greek music.[7] Undoubtedly the music of ancient Greece embodied many of the complexities and subtleties of phrasing common to the music of any era and these were expressed idiosyncratically because of the Greeks’ unique sense of rhythm and harmony. Written descriptions of the music or indications of notation are extremely valuable, but very rare; the few written records that exist derive from such varied genres and periods that there is insufficient understanding of fifth-century conventions and their development to allow a reconstruction of a musical norm. As a result, previous studies of choral metrics and music in early performances often explain more about what cannot be assumed or stated confidently than what can.

Not only are the actual scales and melodies of tragic music lost, but it is almost impossible to speak confidently about rhythm.[8] The easiest assumption in defining rules for rhythm would be that one long equals two shorts: expressed in modern musical notation, one quarter note is equal to two eighth notes. If this equation could be strictly applied throughout the choral meters of drama, there would be at least a firm foundation for defining significant differences between rhythms. Unfortunately even such a basic assumption is unjustified. The initial short syllable of an iambic foot can become a long syllable by substitution ; in exceptional cases that long syllable can be replaced by two shorts ,[9] Thus one short becomes equal in time to two shorts; one eighth note has come to equal two eighth notes. Suddenly the precision that seems so clear when Greek lyric meters are transcribed into modern musical symbols vanishes. Syncopated meters offer even further difficulty because each contains a value, a short syllable, that has been diminished or suppressed ; yet it remains unknown whether the chorus sang a syncopated line as though there was something missing—indicated by a brief pause in the flow of music—or whether later metricians merely employed syncopation as an analytical tool to regularize certain shorter forms of a basic meter.[10] Although a series of many successive short syllables requires faster delivery than a succession of long syllables, most lyric meters fall between these two extremes, and it is much safer to admit ignorance than to hazard guesses about rhythm.

Amid this welter of uncertainty there are two precious and certain facts about dramatic meters. First, dramatic lyric, even in its most confusing configurations, is generally reducible to a certain limited group of standard and basic forms.[11] Though there will always be lines that elude even the most ingenious metrician, these are relatively few. For the majority of lines in dramatic choruses there is a standard metrical form as a base. From such a standard form it is possible to determine the metrical clarity of the lines. Second, there is a characteristic phenomenon called responsion. The metrical pattern of each foot in the antistrophe is identical to the corresponding foot in the strophe. For metricians, responsion offers at least two chances to recover the scansion, however mutilated the manuscript may be. For the poet, the close responsion between strophe and antistrophe meant that the same rhythm occurred twice, a fact that strongly suggests that the music was repeated and the dance pattern was similar, if not the same, in each stanza. Thus the inferior poet had only half as many melodies to write, whereas the master tragedian could enrich his scene in several ways, knowing that the audience had heard the rhythm and probably the music twice in succession even though the words were different.

The two statements, (1) the music of the strophe was repeated during the antistrophe and (2) the dance pattern was similar if not precisely the same, are not known to be true from any ancient source but are also not denied by any available evidence and are supported by the statements of the critic Dionysius of Halicarnassus in the first century B.C.[12] More important, there is an argument from the potential effectiveness in choral performance; the audience’s expectations of repeated music and dance would contribute powerfully to the staging of choral music in ways that enhance the developing thoughts and consistent characterization of the chorus. Even if a critic denies the validity of either statement as well as the cumulative consistency with which music can be shown to be employed in the dramatic design of Sophoclean plays, the repetition of a small number of basic meters and the relative clarity with which these meters can be stated are easily represented on paper in scansion patterns.

Comparison of the structure of choral songs in one play, and especially of stanzas within the same ode, yields further inferences. Such comparisons identify repeated metrical configurations, the rate of substitution, and variations on the basic forms of the meters. Repetition and clarity remain the two fundamental measures. For example, the repeated glyconic is the base meter in the first strophic pair of the ode at Oedipus at Colonus 1211:[13]

After a shift in meters at the end of this pair of strophes, the next stanza begins with clearly contrasting meters and therefore a different structure (OC 1239–45):[14]

Although it is impossible to know the original melody and rhythm of this ode, it is at least clear from the bald schematization of the scansion patterns that the juxtaposition of a clearly stated, repeated glyconic meter with an equally clear iambic pattern signifies a major difference in the music within the ode. Because such shifts between metrical sections occur frequently in the body of a single stanza, a critic may reasonably seek explanations in the words of the ode.

Through years of attending dramatic performances, the Greek audience developed an ear for the traditional forms of the most common meters; these basic meters were the patterns that the poet varied when he introduced substitutions and resolved long syllables. The scansion pattern of a choral ode reveals the rate of such substitution and resolution. For example, lyric iambic meter can run along line after line in the same standard unresolved pattern. But when the poet begins to make a series of resolutions within the basic pattern, the modulation would have been perceptible to the hearer and would undoubtedly have been represented in the music and in the dance. Here and there, of course, the poet introduces resolutions in the base meter to suit his language and create variation, but there are also passages where he seems to choose a highly resolved form of the meter as part of a larger program. Contrast the rate of resolution in two passages from Trachiniae (each resolved metron is underlined):

The barrage of resolutions in the passage at 947 ff. would have a strong effect on an audience because the departure from the customary iambic pattern occurs twice (in the strophe and the antistrophe). The high degree of resolution reflects the uncertainty of the women; now that Deianeira has killed herself, the chorus wonders what calamity the next scene will bring. The rapid pace of pronunciation, with an accompanying difference in the music as well as the dance, would reinforce this mood aurally and visually. A poet who deviates so strongly from the base meter is clearly using musical design for conscious effect.

Then, there is the form of the choral lyric. While the basic Sophoclean form is the ode, or stasimon, formed by a sequence of paired strophes and antistrophes, there are striking variations from this scheme. Sometimes a character interjects spoken lines that appear to break up the strophic form; or a character will join with the chorus in singing a lyric, thus aiding the chorus in shaping the strophic form. Sophocles concludes many of his odes with a single lyric stanza, a strophe without an antistrophe, commonly identified by the term “epode”; yet it is often possible to see this form as the result of an entering character’s interruption of the chorus in midsong. Then there are long lyric conversations among two or three speakers that are not strophic but rather free-standing lyric passages in the midst of spoken lines; some even replace a strophic ode.

A critic can analyze these two features of dramatic lyric—the repetition or variation of meters and the symmetry or lack of balance in basic forms—without any knowledge of the melodies or the rhythms of Greek tragedy. The musical passage in its individualized shape is so powerfully conditioned by the surrounding scenes that no independent fragment of choral lyric can be confidently interpreted in this way; yet because the poet both wrote words and music and choreographed the odes, such analyses can aid interpretation when integrated into a unified conception of a specific play.

Because an ancient dramatic première was in the fullest possible way the creation of the individual poet, he could directly mold the audience’s expectations of meter, music, and form to support and enhance his dramatic conceptions. Since choral songs in Aeschylus’ plays are generally composed of several short stanzas, he tends to use a single meter for each stanza to construct a series of strongly contrasting metrical sections. The normal Sophoclean ode, however, is composed of only one or two strophic pairs, a structure that encourages variation or counterpoint meters within the single stanza. As a result, the contrast of metrical sections within the strophe provides strong markings of the stanza’s structure.[15]

Of course, a study of musical form must finally derive its power from performance. Any production is a collaboration of writer, director, actors, and designers with the audience. In the fifth century, writers could assume that their audiences knew the conventions of the Greek theater, including the broad outline of the repeated mythological plots, the forms of dialogue, the choral dance formations, and the basic song forms. It is often surprising to learn from parodies how much detailed knowledge of earlier productions a playwright could assume. Euripides parodied the recognition scene from the Oresteia some forty years after its première performance, and Aristophanes even depended on the recall of a specific line from Hippolytus.[16] It seems reasonable to assume that the audience was sufficiently familiar with both customary choral meters and the traditional form of an ode to be aware of innovation when the playwright deviated from these norms.

In this chapter only, I have separated the discussions of form from those of meter. This is admittedly unsatisfactory since the odes of Sophocles are highly unified creations, in which choral form and meter work together to achieve the plays’ full meaning. Yet from the earliest surviving plays Sophocles takes traditional choral forms to new expressive heights, especially in the development of the hyperform and lyric dialogue, and it is to make this early interest clear that I have organized the discussion of Antigone and Ajax around separate analyses of form and meter.

THE MUSICAL DESIGN OF SOPHOCLES’ ANTIGONE

The intense opening scene of Antigone sets the tone for the rest of the drama.[17] Antigone leads Ismene from the palace. Though she first speaks words of love and sharing, her gentleness quickly disappears and she rejects Ismene as a partner even if she were willing to join in a common action (69–70). Antigone characteristically opens her short first speech with a question supercharged with her own evaluations and anticipating the answer she already has determined; she closes with a staccato series of still more questions—no simple sequence of requests for further information, but a demand for instant answers. The outraged Antigone refuses to live with uncertainty; her language is filled with absolutes:

Do you know any of Oedipus’ evils

which Zeus has not brought on our lives?

There is nothing painful, free from doom,

shameful, or dishonorable which

I have not seen as part of our troubles . . .

(2–6)

Ismene echoes her words of love and family relationship but does not speak in extremes, being conscious of the full spectrum of experience:

To me has come no report of our friends

pleasant or painful . . .

I know nothing further

either of good fortune or of ill.

(11–12, 16–17)

By the end of this scene, a basic difference in attitude, extremism vs. tolerance, splits the two sisters. Rejecting both aid and advice from Ismene, Antigone becomes even more isolated, sarcastically charging her sister with a neglect Ismene never intended. Unable to perceive shading in words or actions or to accept any partial fulfillment, Antigone closes the scene by measuring her decision to act against a final and absolute standard, death:

I shall suffer nothing

as bad as not dying well.

(96–97)

Predictably Ismene watches her sister depart, disapproving of her wishes but insisting on love:

If it seems best, go. Yet know this—

you go showing no sense—but loved by your friends.[18]

(98–99)

Antigone is a play built from conflict and its consequences.[19] Throughout, Creon and Antigone are poised in such balanced opposition that critics continue to debate which is the hero.[20] Conflict and division dominate the whole design: the guard from the countryside wants to escape the wrath of Creon, Haemon openly fights with his father, Antigone rebukes the chorus for its lack of understanding, Creon quarrels with Teiresias, and Eurydice kills herself while pronouncing a dying woman’s curse on the king. Antigone refuses to allow her sister to have a share even in her tomb. The only trustworthy relationship among the characters is that between Creon and the chorus; yet even this loyal chorus closes the play insisting on the need for mortals to find wisdom, while Creon enters the palace alone and dispirited.

The play is structured around a repeated action that shapes the whole work as well as most of its scenes: individuals are brought together, enter into conflict, and finally exit singly—often to die or hoping to die—having found no resolution. Disagreement arises over deeply ingrained, fundamental values and priorities, and reconciliation is impossible because there is no opportunity for the characters to mediate their differences. Most characters have made their decisions prior to the beginning of the scene; and often they have already taken action that renders talk useless as a means of finding solutions. Thus, words serve only to define divisions, while attempts at conciliation are often so shallow that they are counter-productive. As a result conflicts are brief, pointed, and bitter—ill-suited to resolution, fertile in tragic results. The characters scarcely have time to think as the issues become so intricately entangled around them that they find freedom to act only by violently breaking through the strands. Such a break occurs on stage only once under extreme pressure from Teiresias, but the offstage suicides of Antigone, Haemon, and Eurydice are similar, though extreme, reactions.

In view of the dominant tone of stubborn conflict established in the first scene, it is not surprising that the poet sought a contrasting element of stability and harmony in the chorus, that component of Greek tragedy which is naturally devoted to group singing and dancing. The fifteen old men of the chorus enter at Creon’s invitation and remain his advisors throughout the play. They consistently support traditional and customary beliefs about religion and the state: the orderly rule of a dominating Zeus, the necessary dependence of humans on the gods’ aid, the rightful power of the just state, and the ability of individuals to survive and perhaps prosper in a complex world. Stated in such general terms these themes can easily be traced directly back to Athens’ first political poet, Solon; they were also themes basic to the thought of Aeschylus.[21] To these poets the integrated presence of such elements in society’s structure was the hallmark of a healthy state capable of balancing the moral demands of the gods, the need for community action, and the desires of the individual.

In Antigone, however, Sophocles examines and tests the notion that these fundamental elements of the state form a workable, interconnected unity.[22] He uses the old men of the chorus to construct a background of conventional thought and wisdom that cannot in the end make sense of the actions of the play.[23] In other words, while the old men of the chorus support traditional principles singly, it becomes difficult for them to find a working system in which all can be accommodated together. They sing a series of odes celebrating the values they believe to form the foundation of their state and to guarantee its future life, yet each ode maintains an intense and narrow focus on only one or two elements. They offer theoretical support for Creon’s actions as he clutches at his prerogatives and prejudices, but they base this support on a nexus of preexisting conceptions that neither derive from nor are necessarily relevant to the actual choices made by the characters. When Teiresias finally reports the grim outcome of Creon’s policy, the chorus is the first to lose confidence in its leader and to suggest that he change. Thus, though the principles supporting the state have less and less to say about the reality of Creon’s governing of Thebes, the chorus remains steadfastly devoted to them through its final exit lines.[24]

The music of the play accurately reflects this separation of chorus from character through a design that reveals the councilors becoming less analytical and theoretical, and more simply reactive even as their words show that they believe themselves to be elucidating the forces driving each scene. In their early odes the consistency of the meter, greater than in any other play of Sophocles, demonstrates the councilors’ unchanging perspective on each scene. Their balanced strophic forms are the most regular in all of Sophocles, with little presence of nonstrophic modifications; their music appears unaffected by the problems that relentlessly develop in the episodes as a result of the values they celebrate. Individually, these odes are classic statements of Hellenic beliefs and values, often the results of progressive fifth-century thought. Only when they are read as a series, each in the context of its surrounding scenes, is it clear that Sophocles has created a chorus that becomes increasingly helpless because of the limitations of its theories, and unable to sustain its principles with any power. Marking this development, the musical form of the play changes and the meter of the final songs becomes less tightly structured. In other words, the individual odes of the old men must be heard as components of a larger musical design in order for an audience to appreciate fully Sophocles’ creative hand.

The audience’s familiarity with two traditional features of choral lyric are basic to the formal design of Antigone: the repetition of form essential for strophic lyric and the use of anapaestic stanzas to introduce entering characters. These two elements are strikingly mixed in the prologue and from that point on become an integral element in the design and meaning of the drama’s songs. There is no other play of Sophocles with so many complete strophic songs, six full strophic stasima and two kommoi. All song forms are completed without interruption with one exception: the sole nonstrophic lyric passage that is specifically motivated by Creon’s command to end the unendurable delay caused by the lyrics of Antigone and the chorus (833–34). Otherwise there is no splitting of strophe from antistrophe, and no division of speakers within a strophic structure.[25] Anapaestic stanzas appear as regular markers of each successive entrance in the play’s first section (1–943). Antigone remains a special play not only because of each speaker’s strongly stated, firmly defended principles, but also because of the stern consistency in its musical design.

The chorus in Antigone, as we have seen, is composed of elders, twice addressed as “Lords of Thebes” and called wealthy men by Antigone; they have been summoned by Creon on the morning after the successful resistance to Polyneices’ attack in order to discuss some undefined new plan.[26] They are social and political leaders of the town, devoted to maintaining the prosperity and happiness of the community. In their entrance song they speak for Thebes in calling for an evening celebration of victory at the temples of their gods (148–54). They do not praise individual warriors who fought on the preceding day, preferring instead to think of large forces responsible for guiding their city’s victory and to attribute Thebes’ success to its protecting divinities and the ethical behavior of its citizens.[27] Talk about the gods comes easily to them;[28] in the course of the play they insist on the active presence of Zeus, Justice, Ares, Eros, Aphrodite, and Dionysus.[29] Propriety in both religion and government are natural concerns for these leading nobles, whom Creon has quite properly summoned to be his allies and councilors in his first official act as King of Thebes.[30]

Wisdom and order are this chorus’ watchwords.[31] Not only do the odes reflect its zeal for proper deference to the authority of both state and religion, but they include also its spoken responses within episodes.[32] Immediately after Creon has announced his decision to deny burial to Polyneices, the members of the chorus defer to the authority of the king, offering neither approval nor dissent (211–20);[33] they similarly yield to his authority in their nonjudgmental questions at 770 and 772.[34] Even when the problem concerns family relations rather than political affairs, as in the scene between Creon and Haemon, the chorus is careful never to deny the authority of its king even though it urges caution on both father and son (681–82, 724–25, and 766–77). Unwavering respect for religious authority is clear in its immediate explanation for the first burial (278–79) and in its acknowledgment of Teiresias’ powers at 1091–94. Yet when there is confusion between conflicting authorities, the chorus retreats to a safe position, as when it fails to respond to Creon’s immediate rebuke at 280 ff. In the last scene, the councilors characteristically submit to religion and fate, abandoning the king whom they have previously encouraged; they brusquely advise Creon to care only about the matters of the moment and leave the future to work its way out (1334–35 and 1337–38).

The Parodos: Anapaestic Systems in Antigone (100–61)35, 36

Form. When the chorus enters to sing a song of victory,[37] the customary formalism of strophic lyric is broken for the only time in this play by the systematic interjection of anapaestic stanzas.[38] Although anapaestic recitative is a standard musical form in Greek drama, Sophocles promotes its significance in the total design of Antigone by giving anapaests a unique role in the parodos.[39] Following each of the four strophic stanzas there are seven-line anapaestic units, two and possibly three of which contain five dimeters followed by a monometer and a paroemiac; the other, the third anapaestic stanza (141–47), also contains seven lines: six dimeters closing with a single paroemiac.[40] As usual, such anapaests do not attain the precise corresponsion of strophic lyric, yet they are so similar to each other in form that they echo that balance.[41] Thus this parodos is built from two metrical structures usually opposed in form and function: strophic lyric interrupted by the insertion of anapaests. The regularity with which the anapaests appear, however, soon dispels any sense of discontinuity the audience might feel at the end of the first strophe, and the ear would begin to hear the whole as an enhanced form that incorporates the anapaestic stanzas into the musical plan of the ode.

Yet these opposed forms do reflect a division in content. The lyrics present an imagistic vision of the battle: the sun rising over the day of victory,[42] the enemy as the eagle poised over the battlements of Thebes, the attacking warriors embodied in one torchbearer hurled back from the walls by Ares, who has joined the defenders as a strong trace-horse,[43] and the arrival of the goddess Victory as Bacchus leads the Thebans to the temples of the gods. In contrast, each of the first three anapaestic stanzas reports the background for the lyric descriptions and is grammatically dependent on the preceding strophic stanza:

110 ff.: connection through a relative pronoun; the chorus identifies the cause of battle against “our” land in the quarrel of Polyneices and introduces the image of the enemy as an attacking eagle;[44]

127 ff.: connection through gar (“because”), offering a moral interpretation of the frustrated attack of the eagle in the previous stanza: Zeus so hates the boaster that he strikes him with a thunderbolt;[45]

141 ff.: connection through gar, explaining the facts of the victory, which has been presented as the act of Ares in the preceding lyric stanza; the chorus also reports the exception, the two brothers’ mutual slaying;

155 ff.: there is a new beginning in the chorus’ train of thought marked by all’ . . . gar dê[46] (“But now . . .”), which marks a break from the preceding stanza as Creon enters for a meeting with the councilors whom he has summoned.

In the first three musical units (lyric + anapaests), symbolic and imagistic descriptions of the battle (lyric) precede more direct explanations or interpretations of the image (anapaests). In addition, the anapaests introduce new topics that carry over into the following lyric.[47] The chorus, in presenting an ode that is tightly unified in its words and in the structure of its thoughts, attempts to overcome the conflicting forms.

The parodos is a rousing victory hymn that seeks to rally all citizens by attacking the morality of the enemy and praising the strength of the Theban defenders. There are, however, troublesome features in the chorus’ celebration of the victory. In the first strophe the chorus ignores the problematic relationship of the attacker to the attacked.[48] It describes the enemy in language more appropriate for a foreigner,[49] consistently masking the fact that the celebrated victory is really the messy conclusion to a civil war: “ . . . having driven the man who had come from Argos in full armor in headlong flight with a bridle’s bite” (106–109).[50] The perplexing quality of this description, appropriate for a victory hymn but in fact a disguise, is evident in the phrasing of the following anapaests: the land is “ours,” no longer regarded as the joint concern of the two brothers; the attack, which resulted from the political contention of two men, is presented as though instigated by Polyneices alone; if amphilogos means “dubious” or “of little moment,” then the chorus judges Polyneices’ response personal and unworthy.[51] In addition, the image of the eagle recalls several Homeric similes in which the powerful eagle pursues smaller and more helpless creatures,[52] a characterization reinforced here by attributing the implements of war, “the many weapons and crested helmets,” only to the enemy.[53] Thebes, by implication, is unprotected and helpless against its bloodthirsty attacker. If the historical background were considered, the presentation of the battle and its outcome would be complicated by an assessment of each brother’s claim to the throne, of Eteocles’ provocative refusal to surrender the kingship, of the appropriateness of the expedition organized by Polyneices, and of the anomaly at the seventh gate. As it is, the chorus’ explanations in the anapaests permit the enthusiastic optimism of the first strophe.

This pattern is carried through the parodos, maintaining the optimistic tone necessary for a victory ode as hindsight causes a patriotic reevaluation of the crucial battle: bold, hopeful, creatively colored overstatement in the lyrics that is supported by the assertions in the following anapaests.[54] This support, however, is purchased at the price of nuancing and twisting words in the anapaests in order to avoid the obvious realities that would otherwise invalidate the impressionistic images in the strophic stanzas. The poetic construct of the ravening eagle, which continues to dominate the description of the battle in the first antistrophe, blocks discussion of any possible justification for the attack. The moralizing anapaests that follow invoke the traditional hatred of Zeus against the boaster and avoid further analysis of the causes of the dispute by concentrating on the typological portrait of one enemy warrior’s hybristic attack on the city. In the second strophe the exultant old men use Ares’ defeat of Capaneus as a safe model for Thebes’ victory; in the following anapaests, however, they must acknowledge that there was a deviation at the seventh gate.[55] In the final antistrophe the chorus openly admits that it wishes to forget (lêsmosyna, 151) the war by organizing a thanksgiving procession to the city’s shrines.[56]

The entrance of Creon, announced in a final anapaestic stanza, interrupts the chorus.[57] While entrance announcements are a customary function of anapaests in tragedy, here a pattern for such stanzas has already been so firmly established in the parodos that this stanza does not automatically mark a break in the song, but completes the lyric as the expected balancing anapaestic stanza.[58] Thus Sophocles has created a tension between the audience’s knowledge of traditional choral forms and the expectation created by the structure of this particular ode.[59] The poet takes advantage of this feeling of uncertainty to couple the parodos and the following episode: the anapaests look forward by introducing the entering character, who provides a new force to drive the plot; at the same time they both refer back to the ode by completing its symmetry, yet also undercut the edifying vision of the victory celebration developed by the chorus. Creon, in pursuit of his new plan, enters to promulgate a decree that prevents forgetfulness of the previous war, curtails choral joy, disunites the state, and ultimately turns the present music of celebration into a lament.

In the parodos, each anapaestic stanza, while serving to preserve the optimism of the victory song, bears implications that threaten the chorus’ bold construction in the preceding lyric, and this pattern of strophic lyric followed by more factual comment in anapaests is established firmly in this entrance song, becoming the major feature of choral form throughout Antigone and the best indicator of the play’s structure.[60] Anapaestic stanzas follow the Ode on Man as the chorus introduces Antigone for the trial scene; they also follow the second stasimon (the Ode to Zeus), accompanying the entrance of Haemon, and the third stasimon (the Ode to Eros) as Antigone enters. There is even a lone anapaestic stanza to announce the entrance of Ismene at 526–30,[61] in which the chorus comments on her tears and her blood red cheeks, assuming that they are solely signs of loving concern for her sister (philadelpha, 527).[62] Yet once again this chorus, in its misperception of the sisters’ closeness, actually identifies a second difficulty. Ismene’s love and her emotional response to the situation, which threaten to sap the force of Antigone’s challenge, create problems in the coming scene as she is compelled to dissociate Ismene abruptly and crudely from her action. Repeatedly the chorus makes a powerful lyric assertion and then, in anapaests, introduces a new element, usually an entering character who seriously challenges the loyalist position expressed in the previous lyric; appropriately the first three groups of announcement anapaests are built around questions (155–62, 376–83, and 626–30).

But the pattern does not end there; Sophocles continues to work upon the audience’s expectations, which he has so painstakingly built. Immediately following the Ode to Eros and Antigone’s entrance at 806, a kommos recalls the patterned structure of the parodos but with a significant difference: Antigone sings the lyric strophes while the chorus responds to each of her statements, first in balancing anapaestic stanzas and then in lyrics.[63] Though the chorus attempts to console Antigone, there has been little in its previous words to encourage mutual understanding. The old men almost immediately begin to correct and, finally, to rebuke her, thus continuing the interpretive function of anapaests in this play. As Antigone is being led to her entombment, anapaests again accompany her exit (929–43). Thus the first part of the play (1–943) is closed by an anapaestic system shared by Antigone, Creon, and the chorus marking the final withdrawal of Antigone from the play—an action that will ultimately demolish the theories of the chorus and topple Creon from his high confidence. The pattern is consistent and pervasive: the poet has schooled his audience to expect the appearance of yet another of the developing problems that confront the new king of Thebes each time an anapaestic stanza is heard.

The major structural division in the play occurs with Antigone’s departure to the cave at 943.[64] After Antigone’s exit the chorus no longer sings anapaests to announce entrances. There is no further debate of political or ethical values; because action replaces the thoughts and valuations of the characters, there is no further need for specially marked stanzas to identify problems.

Meter. The meter of the first strophic pair further supports the regularity and symmetry of the form by being organized in a framing pattern. There are only two basic meters. Three lines of glyconic introduce the stanza, a glyconic line appears in the middle along with the related form of the hipponactean, and pherecratean, a meter closely associated with glyconic, ends the stanza.[65] In the second half of the stanza are three lines of choriambic dimeter, thus creating an opening and closing four-line pattern with reversed meters: a a a b a a b b b a. The orderly balance of the initial pattern stands out all the more clearly when balanced against the slightly more drifting quality of the meters in the second strophic pair, composed of praxillean, dodrans, choriambic, cretic, and reizianum (related to dodrans): c c a b d b b a. Thus the meters in the lyric sections of this ode move from the strict balance and orderliness provided by a repetition of the same meters to a broader collection of meters contained in a slightly less severe frame.

An important effect arises from this design: The anapaests are the regular and repeated element in this song as the patterned structure within the lyric stanzas becomes less rigid. There is little doubt that the chorus’ imagistic description of the battle expresses its confidence that Thebes has been released from all threat and has been vindicated. The music, however, presents these confident words in a less insistent metrical pattern; in contrast, the rigidly repeated anapaestic systems emphasize the problematic implications raised by the chorus.

If the problems in Thebes’ victory were the sole focus of the song, it would have been clearer if the playwright had designed a chorus that would sing its two conflicting songs separately, each to its own music—perhaps even opposed half-choruses.[66] Some of the old men could first indulge their poetic vision of the victory with little concern about the objectivity of their imaginative pictures, and then a separate group could focus on their analysis of the problems raised by Thebes’ triumph. But the presentation of a chorus with a complex persona is of such major importance to Sophocles that he has designed the words and music to heighten the patriotic rhetoric of the old men as they avoid including troubling facts within the victory song. The councilors of this chorus—so buoyed by defeating their enemy that they ignore present facts—are appropriately introduced by the poet through a mixture of varied interpretive lyrics and steadily repeated, but more factual, anapaestic stanzas.

First Stasimon: The Ode on Man (332–75)[67]

Form. After the councilors of the chorus learn that Creon’s edict has been violated, they express their astonishment at the brazenness of the criminal in the first stasimon, the Ode on Man (332–75). This song of triumph celebrates the achievements of the human mind as the race attains ever higher levels of civilization:[68] the ability to sail the sea and to be master of the earth; the skill to capture and domesticate wild beasts; the capacity for speech, building a community, and perpetuating it; and finally, the ultimate evidence of its competence, the successful governing of a state.[69] Yet even as the councilors chronicle this optimistic record, their phrasing implies unstated limitations.[70] They suggest that human thought and effort have increased technical skill more rapidly than the capacity for moral judgment; humans dominate nature wherever they are able but for no expressed purpose, thus raising the thought that nature may have been better off without such interference (342–52). Furthermore, humans are unable to eliminate or change the worst situations but can only avoid them until they confront death (356–64). The seeds of perplexity sown in the words of the first three stanzas blossom in the final antistrophe: the chorus recognizes that the human mind can bring the race to good or ill, but it never explains how to determine which is which.[71] As the chorus has outlined it, the whole record of human progress could lead to an unfortunate result; indeed, if the chorus’ high degree of confidence in man’s ability has produced a state wedded to Creon’s standards and methods of government, the record of progress will be shown to be flawed. In lines 368–69 and 373–75 the chorus unites major ethical forces using the particle te (“and”): in the first, the laws of man[72] and the justice of the gods;[73] in the second, the family or xenia and the community of like-thinking men. The combined power of such sanctions is meant to be a guarantee of morality. Yet in so glibly aligning these complex forces, the chorus fails to deal with situations in which opposing good actions are sanctioned either by state law or divine commandment, compelling a choice between the two sides of the equation. Similarly, in the closing lines of the antistrophe, the connection through (mê)te shows the assumption that the concerns of personal philia and xenia (“friendship” and “hospitality”) are automatically the concerns of all members of a community. The connection between human and divine law, as that between familial relationships and public policy, can easily become more complicated than the chorus’ simple te implies. Yet the chorus is in an optimistic mood and its good-natured thinking glides over such problems.[74] This celebratory ode is based on gnomic generalities that, in fact, mean so little without a precise definition of the evaluative words that they are inadequate guides to the complexity of the world.[75] Since the old councilors use the polis as the criterion for measuring the rightness of any ethical choice,[76] they will be befuddled when Antigone claims god’s support in favoring the family as she breaks the law of the polis designed and defended by reason.

In fact, the loose linkage between these values is challenged immediately when Antigone, under guard, enters to anapaests; her appearance exposes a series of questions latent in the preceding ode.[77] She does cause the old men confusion (amphinoô), since they never suspected that someone from within the royal family of Thebes would violate the king’s command; indeed, how far the chorus is from expecting Antigone to be the criminal is clear when the ode’s final words, sung just as Antigone is led on stage, describe the criminal as a male (375). In a larger perspective, however, she does exacerbate the ambiguities implicit in their ode, where they so neatly joined the laws of god and man with little awareness that such sanctions might be used to defend the rightness of contradictory actions. They call her appearance a daimonion teras (“a divinely-amazing sight”); she is actually the wondrous creature who will cite god’s law in opposition to the laws of the state; but they never meant the word daimonion in this sense. They admit that they would even like to ignore the facts of the play but cannot: “knowing [that this is Antigone who is brought by the guard] how would I deny that this is the child Antigone?” (377–78).[78] They finish their anapaests with another “and” construction: “They aren’t bringing you as the breaker of the king’s law and caught in an unthinking act (aphrosynê), are they?” (381–83). Once again they link city law and human thought; in fact, Antigone is both the lawbreaker and the most precise thinker in the play. She enters as a renegade carrying her challenge into the next scene, where she will demonstrate the limitations in the theory of human progress offered by the chorus.[79]

In the Ode on Man the chorus presents a complex nexus of principles in which human thought, divine sanction, and civil law work together to produce the same good action. In the following trial scene Antigone will attack the necessity of such an inflexibly unified, rigidly interconnected ethic. As she enters, Sophocles uses anapaestic lines to bridge the gap between lyric and episode, a stanza in which the words both look back at the problematic linkage of principles in the ode and simultaneously look forward to the response demanded by her challenge. In giving the chorus such an anapaestic stanza, Sophocles continues the musical form of lyric followed by anapaest, which was strongly established in the parodos, to present the specific person who threatens the hopeful structures framed in the lyric.

Meter. Following Creon’s edict and the announcement of the burial, the councilors’ strong statement of support for Creon’s policies in reuniting the city is presented in an ode unified by its organized pattern of varied meters. They begin with choriambic and glyconic, recalling the meters of the parodos (100–26) as a sign of their intention to develop ideas consistent with the principles in their victory ode. The first strophe then closes with iambics surrounding two dactylic lines. The pattern is: abbba ccddc. The second strophic pair continues the dactylic pattern in the double enoplian,[80] followed by a run of iambic lines; the pattern continues from the first set as: dd + C[81] (seven lines). Continuity is the goal; by linking the two strophic pairs together through shared meters, by continuing the final meters of the first antistrophe into the second strophic set, and by designing this ode to allude to the meters of the parodos, Sophocles uses meter to support the characterization of this chorus as adherents to a fundamental set of beliefs. The old men love the state above all and want to see it preserved and furthered under the good will of the gods.

Immediately following their ode the entrance of Antigone under guard shocks them.[82] Their response to her appearance is appropriately set apart in meter, form, and content; yet thereby they further continue singing the pattern of lyric + anapaest with the full implications of this form which were introduced in the parodos.

Second Stasimon: The Ode to Zeus (582–625)

Form. In many ways the second stasimon (582–625), the Ode to Zeus, reflects and continues the Ode on Man; not only are there metrical references to the previous ode but the second stasimon likewise consists of two strophic pairs followed by the anapaestic introduction of an entering character—in this case, Haemon. Just as the chorus earlier expressed its almost unlimited belief in the ability of humans working with god to overcome the challenges of their world, here it professes its total trust in the unchanging and inflexible power of Zeus.[83]

In its words the chorus agrees with Antigone, who also speaks in defense of the unwritten laws of Zeus and Dike, neighbor of the nether gods, which “are not of today or yesterday, but live forever” (450–57); yet the councilors are certain that her theodicy depends on beliefs that are inconsistent with theirs since there is such an unbridgeable difference in their judgments about the burial. The chorus cites the tragic history of the Labdacids as evidence for a long chain of misfortunes linking successive generations of the family.[84] In each generation there has been disaster, and this final child, like her forebears, is blinded to the morality of her actions; as the old men assert in the second antistrophe: “evil seems to be good to the one whose mind god leads to destruction” (622–24). Thus throughout this ode they raise again the question of mortals’ ability to distinguish evil action from good (compare the previous stasimon at 365–75), only to decide that the continuous downfall of the members of the Labdacid house is proof that Antigone’s act was performed under divinely sponsored infatuation and is therefore properly deserving of punishment.[85]

Critics have often discussed the Aeschylean qualities of this ode, especially the chorus’ unwavering belief that Zeus and the Erinyes are causative forces behind the ruin of doomed individuals who recklessly commit acts that lead to their own downfall.[86] From this combination of divinities the old men conclude that the life of striving is always accompanied with severe risk (613–14).[87] Antigone’s challenge to the state is merely the most recent expression of the continuing calamities infecting the family;[88] she, as an individual, speaks without understanding (anoia), and yet her mind is controlled by an Erinys, which has remained active throughout the history of the family (603).[89] In the final antistrophe the chorus analyzes the mixture of human and divine forces causing humans to fall: the sinner is deceived by light-minded desires and his consequent punishment is the action of a just god who leads him to destruction.

This ode gathers a variety of religious sanctions against the sinner in a powerfully expressed populist statement that is not strictly consistent with Greek religious tradition;[90] yet it effectively combines human and divine action into a unified and dynamic pattern of events directed by a god of justice. The major difficulty in this ode is not in the structure of the theory; it is in its application to the events on stage. For example, since the chorus fails to consider the possibility that the mutual slaying of the two brothers might equally well be an expression of the Erinys that continues to plague the Labdacids, they do not think to question a human law that attempts to distinguish one brother from the other. They ignore the paradox that Antigone finds a rationale for her actions in the laws of Zeus just as they do;[91] such a meditation would impel them to assess carefully the event before them rather than retreating to a general theory.[92] The audience would easily suppress such questions as it listened to this consistently pious ode that presents divine law controlling human actions—but they are questions that nag nonetheless.

Moreover, the chorus ignores the fact that the beliefs it expresses are not always compatible. Although these councilors demand that humans align their actions with divine laws, their trust in human striving and thought, expressed earlier in the Ode on Man, is obviously qualified in the Ode to Zeus (369).[93] They could easily claim that any inconsistencies lie in the differing perspectives in each ode, yet the disparity between the two odes needs to be reconciled if they wish their grand pronouncements to stand as unified principles for serious actions.[94] The old men, however, are content with the broader statement of the gods’ enforcement of Justice and untroubled by critical questions. In the parodos they viewed the victory of the previous night as an unambiguously happy occasion; in the first stasimon they implicitly accepted Thebes’ triumph over its attackers as solid proof of the rightness of their state; and now they place such trust in their religion that they are willing to identify disagreement and challenge as betrayal and to subject the rebel to the punishment demanded by their belief.[95]

Immediately following this ode the chorus once again sings an anapaestic stanza, this time announcing the entrance of Haemon.[96] The words of the old men, as is usual for anapaests in this play, turn to specific facts raising concerns that directly challenge the profound beliefs just expressed in the ode. They say that Haemon is Creon’s youngest child, thus raising the thoughts of Megareus,[97] the older child, whom the father has already sacrificed for the interests of the state—a family history that should make these men wary of ethical judgments based on a selective inspection of past events. Then they ask whether Haemon will grieve at the fate of his promised bride and the “deception of his marriage,” apatês lecheôn (630)—a clumsy phrase meaning “the deprivation of his marriage.” Because this phrase echoes the chorus’ theoretical statement at 617, where it talked about the doomed man deceived by light-minded desires (apata kouphonoôn erôtôn), the chorus unconsciously includes Haemon and perhaps others from Creon’s family in the theory proposed in the ode. Given the deaths of Jocasta and Megareus, the old men, by drawing upon their own memories, could structure a history of deaths within the house of Creon that would provide a close parallel to their theory about the Labdacids. Though no one charges Creon with incest or parricide, members of his family, betrayed by their hopes, will rush to their doom as a direct result of his decree: the impassioned suicide of Haemon spurs Eurydice to suicide, thus destroying Creon’s house, and the death of Antigone deprives him of his chance to escape guilt. By the end of the play both Creon and the chorus will identify a god as one of the forces leading Creon to his downfall. But for the moment the chorus directs its thoughts only to Antigone and her ancestors, in spite of the loaded words with which it unconsciously introduces Haemon: the last child, suffering for his bride, and deceived.

Meter. The old men continue building their series of regular odes by repeating a strongly stated, repeated iambic for six of the nine lines of their first strophe, a metrical reference to the ending of the Ode on Man (357–64 = 367–75). This stanza, however, begins with dactylo-epitrite, a meter that appears nowhere else in the play, though it is related to those few earlier dactylic forms (339–40 = 350–51 and 355–56 = 365–66) and thus appears to be another attempt by the playwright to continue an earlier meter.[98] The same struggle to retain consistency appears in the second strophic pair, which begins with glyconic and the associated hipponactean, both of which appeared in the parodos. Yet after these two lines, the chorus fails to produce a clear statement of any previously used meter; in fact, it fails to establish any organizing metrical pattern in this stanza. The chorus tries choriambs but produces long choriambic lines rather than the concise choriambic dimeter heard in the parodos. The lone anacreontic is rare in Sophocles’ plays in any case. In general, then, the movement of this ode is from familiar and repeated rhythms in the first strophic pair to unfamiliar meters, more randomly structured, in the second.[99] The dominant organizing meters of the ode are iambic and choriambic (aristophanean)—both signs of the old men’s desire to develop the thoughts of the Ode on Man just as the earlier glyconic and choriambic opening to that ode (332–36 = 342–46) recalled the parodos (100–109 = 117–26). This time, however, the linkage between strophic pairs is not reinforced by accompanying meters, and the tight construction of the previous two odes is lost in the second strophic pair.[100]

The chorus’ failure to develop such a song occurs at the moment it projects the authority of Zeus as the ultimate justification for Antigone’s suffering. In the parodos the old men interpreted Thebes’ victory as Zeus’ judgment against the arrogant boaster (127–33). In the Ode on Man they maintained this theme by insisting that the good citizen will always follow the demands of both his gods and his country in making moral choices (365–70). While both of these theories are consistent with a patriotic, loyalist position, they are shown to be insufficient to explain the events of the play. The assertion of Zeus’ judgment as the cause of Antigone’s suffering as well as that of her ancestors is arbitrary and is being tested by Antigone. The musical design of the first part of the play underlines the chorus’ efforts to expand its original religious interpretation (parodos) to include religious guidance (The Ode on Man, 365–70) and finally religious determinism (The Ode to Zeus, esp. 604–25). As this expansion continues step by step and the chorus moves toward stronger statements of the position that will be exploded in the coming scenes, the tight self-consistency of its meters is not maintained past the second stasimon. Thus musical design gives a necessary clue to the growing inadequacy of the chorus’ analysis of the episodes.[101]

Third Stasimon: The Ode to Eros (781–800)[102]

Form. The third stasimon (781–800) is also followed by a short anapaestic introduction of Antigone as she is being led to the cave. In corresponding lyric stanzas the old men of the chorus invoke the god Eros, blaming Haemon’s rash behavior on his passion for Antigone (793–94).[103] Actually marriage is their general theme: Haemon’s misguided infatuation in the lyric stanzas; Antigone’s impending marriage to death in the anapaests. In reacting to the criticisms and threats of Haemon, the chorus attempts to normalize his stern and angry response (cf. 767); but its ode is short and seems curiously unresponsive to the episode. The old men do believe in this god’s power and acknowledge the profound disturbances that he causes among both gods and mortals; but, ignoring Haemon’s words, they trivialize his behavior, just as earlier in the Ode on Man they identified the powerful force of individual consciousness motivating the burial of Polyneices’ body as reckless daring (371) and rationalized the protest of Antigone in the Ode to Zeus as a divinely sent madness (603). Yet by equating the passionate pursuit of a desire with unjust behavior, they only create problems. At 790–92 they state clearly: “The man who has you within him is mad. You divert the minds of just men to crime and they are ruined.” Once again, they have judged the individual fired by passion to be automatically opposed to the interests of the state, leaving no room for Haemon’s claim that wise action may be different from his father’s policy.

As a result the chorus limits acceptable human actions and major ethical forces to categories of behavior that fail fully to describe the complex world being molded by the characters. Haemon states that there are men in the city who agree with Antigone; in fact, the sight of Antigone in chains will compel even the loyal councilors to admit their own diversion from strict adherence to the divine thesmoi (“basic laws,” 801–802) that are the basis for state law and good action.[104]

Therefore when the now familiar choral anapaests announce Antigone’s entrance, it is only natural that the audience should expect to discover implied difficulties with the chorus’ theory.[105] First, the old men succumb to their quite natural emotions by weeping for the condemned criminal. Then, they hint at the perversion of natural values that Teiresias will identify as the major failing of Creon’s policy: this maiden’s chamber will be the tomb where all find eternal sleep (pagkoitan). The chorus’ feelings toward Haemon and Antigone blind them to a fact that has become increasingly obvious with each passing episode: passions are driving these two young people—but not primarily sexual passions.

Meter. Following the stormy exit of Haemon, the councilors maintain their support of the state by blaming Eros—an understandable reaction if they were trying only to spare Creon personal embarrassment; but they are also striving to defend the authority of their king’s proclamation by claiming that it was the irresistible power of Eros and Aphrodite that caused Haemon’s impetuosity.[106] The choice of these gods as forces motivating young people is traditional,[107] and the application to Haimon is tactfully indirect. The concentrated fervor of the councilors’ previous assertions about the achievements of man and the power of Zeus has faded, and their meter indicates this change. The stanza begins with a clear statement of choriambic dimeter. Then they work a series of shifts that is almost a textbook presentation of acceptable variations on the basic choriambic metron. The choice of this meter, which appeared prominently in the parodos, reflects their continuing desire to develop a consistent ethical and political theory based on religious faith; but the lack of contrasting meters reveals this lyric as an exercise in inversions on a basic theme—not a unity created from structured and balanced meters.[108] For a chorus whose skill in song has been so persuasively demonstrated, this limp performance as it attempts to save Creon’s authority, using a poetic device whose weakness was well known in Sophoclean drama, is appropriate.[109]

Kommos: The Musical Design of Antigone’s Final Exit (806–82)

Form. In the song between Antigone and the councilors that completes the musical design of the play’s first section (806–82), Antigone directly confronts the old men’s inability to understand her protest.[110] She sings lyric strophes while the chorus responds in anapaests; only later does it join in her strophic song. She then sings a single lyric stanza (876–82), but before she can continue or the chorus can respond, Creon enters urging his soldiers to put a stop to her laments and to lead her to her death.

In her lyrics Antigone tries to put her sufferings into perspective. She hears the chorus weep for her as she goes to the chamber “where all sleep” (pagkoitan, 804), but insists that she is being led in a wedding procession as the bride of death, an inversion of everyone’s expectations.[111] The chorus attempts to set her right, but gently,[112] trying to console her with thoughts of the praise that she will receive; but then the old men remind her that she is paying the penalty of death because she has chosen to live as a law unto herself. The pattern is familiar: the lyrics present an imagistic construct of a scene while the following anapaests point out the difficulty with that lyrical interpretation, but in this kommos the addition of a second singer has brought into the open the conflict implicit in the opposed forms.[113] Previously the chorus sang both the lyrics and the anapaests, thus unwittingly introducing ideas in its anapaests that challenged the integrity of its theory. Here Antigone’s lyrics construct a theory of the play’s action that is countered in anapaests by the chorus’ objections.[114] The chorus retreats to its legal phrasing by calling her autonomos, “guided by her own law” (821).[115] Unfortunately the old men have already had problems in defining nomos in the first stasimon (365–75), and when they say that she will be celebrated as a unique woman, she counters by citing Niobe as another model of the cold glory they propose.[116] Again in anapaests they attempt correction: Niobe was a goddess[117] and Antigone is a mortal. When they add that she should in any case be edified by achieving the fate of a descendant of the gods, their attempts to understand her motives seem no better than their analysis of Haemon’s passion.

Antigone now feels openly mocked: “I am mocked now. In the name of our fathers’ gods, why not insult me once I have died—must you do it to my face?” (839–41).[118] She turns from the feckless consolation offered by this chorus to invoke the fountains and groves of Thebes as her witnesses; she has been made a nonperson, a person neither living nor dead.[119] In serving her friends, she now is friendless; in pursuing the law of heaven, she is persecuted by the law of the state. The chorus returns to its religious beliefs of the second stasimon to explain that she has collided with the lofty foundation of Justice in going to the extremes of daring,[120] and it even insists that she is paying for the pains of Oedipus. These words are not chanted as anapaests; rather they are sung, and they echo the iambic meter of Antigone’s lyrics. She laments the sufferings of her family (857–71), but the choral response in corresponding lyrics is only an unhelpful restatement of its earlier judgments: since the power of the authorities is not to be transgressed, Antigone is killing herself by self-willed anger.[121] The old men’s thoughts have finally returned to the Ode on Man with its trust in the laws of the state (368–70); but in their word orga at 875 (“temperament, anger”) they revive one of the ambiguities of their earlier optimistic account of man’s progress: “astynomous orgas edidaxato” (355–56), an untranslatable oxymoron: “he teaches himself the dispositions/passions that regulate cities.”[122] In this scene the old men directly confront a living exemplar of the passion that seeks to regulate the city for the city’s own good—and they fail to live up to their own language of human progress when they dismiss Antigone as driven solely by self-willed anger.

Antigone continues her lyric:

Unwept, friendless, with no marriage hymn,

wretched I am led

on this assigned journey.

No longer is it right for me

to look upon the sacred eye of the sun;

no friend groans or

weeps for my fate.

(876–82)

Every word in these lines reflects the previous kommos.[123] The tears shed earlier by the chorus have indeed dried up; now she is mocked and misunderstood. When it does not accept any of the interpretations she offers, her last chance for winning friends is gone. As she said in her first strophe, her marriage hymn is properly a dirge; she is compelled to travel a road prepared for her and to see her last sun (806–809). There is no further consolation or correction, only coercion. Creon, ordering Antigone removed from the stage, abruptly breaks the balanced strophic pattern characteristic of all the previous songs in this play.[124]

Yet he does not stop the scene. Antigone gives her final defense in iambics and then she, Creon, and the chorus chant a series of anapaests that both summarizes the rigid attitudes previously expressed and provides a prelude for the immanent violence of the conclusion (929–43).[125] In Antigone’s final defense the chorus can hear only repetition: “Still the gusts of the same winds . . .” (929–30).[126] The chorus, in its series of odes, has consistently defended the state, but Antigone never organizes her attack as forcefully as in her final statement, which closes with a series of questions and problems that receive no answer or solution:[127]

What is the divine justice that I have violated?

Why should I in my unhappiness look to the gods for aid?

What ally can I call upon?

By being pious I now appear impious.

If it is the gods’ will that I die,

then through my pain I will learn that I have done wrong.

But if these men are wrong, then let them suffer no more evil than they in their injustice are doing to me.

(921–28)

Each statement is so loaded with implications that an adequate response to any one of them would unravel the issues of the conflict. Earlier in this speech Antigone has spoken movingly of personal familial ties, instead of simply defending principle (897–903). Yet the chorus, already portrayed as blunt and deaf to complications, hears only the same familiar words and offers only limp sympathy. Creon, exasperated at the delay caused by Antigone’s defense and the chorus’ sympathetic utterances, wants to get Antigone off stage. She finally departs with an address to her ancestral city and the gods of her family, calling them to witness her suffering, her persecutors, and the nature of the charge against her.

The words of this exchange alone would provide an effective end to the first part of the play since they expose the total lack of communication among the participants, but here the playwright makes good use of the anapaestic pattern he has been building throughout the play.[128] Previously anapaests accompany the entrance of a character; here they are used for the final exit.[129] Repeatedly anapaests have been sung at the end of a choral ode to begin a new scene; here they formally end the scene and are followed by a choral ode. The immediate singing of an ode suggests that the chorus will look back to offer comment on the previous scene; but the earlier usage of the anapaestic stanza in this play suggests equally that all three characters—Antigone, Creon, and the chorus—now will enter upon a new action that will once again challenge the theories operative earlier. The audience should question—as they have been compelled to question before—whether this anapaestic stanza is the ending of the previous scene or the beginning of a new movement.[130] As is customary with anapaests, Antigone’s final words also raise the major problem with which the remaining characters on stage will have to struggle:

See, rulers of Thebes

what things I suffer, and at whose hands—

I, the sole survivor of the royal family,[131]

showing reverence and piety.

(940–43)

Meter. The degree of misunderstanding between the chorus and Antigone is immediately clear in this kommos, where Antigone as major singer leads the chorus to lyric song. She not only takes over its role as singer, she also appropriates its meters from the parodos; her first strophic pair is structured around choriambic dimeter and aeolic (dodrans/glyconic/pherecratean/adonic). The first two lines are variations on the choriamb and aeolic forms, but the ode rapidly settles on the precise meters used at the chorus’ first entrance; with the exception of the single adonic (812 = 829) and the closing spondee, the other lines are all sung to meters the chorus has used frequently. Antigone, in presenting her perspective, is clearly not trying to ally herself with the positions expressed in the previous choral songs; rather she signals her desire to compete against them by using their meters. The chorus feels pity and responds in anapaests, attempting to correct and to stop her lyric by conventionalizing the content of her song,[132] but the old men communicate their feelings so poorly that Antigone feels mocked. Her second strophic pair opens with scattered meters, of which aeolic is prominent; the others—anacreontic, choriambic enoplion, and spondaic—have not been established as major lyric meters in this play, but at least choriambic and spondaic do join with aeolic to echo meters from her first strophic pair.[133] Antigone has borrowed the chorus’ technique of continuing meters from section to section in order to emphasize the continuity of her thoughts. The chorus, however, for the first time fails to continue its meters as it shifts from anapaests to lyric iambics in its responses. At line 847 = 866 Antigone settles on a firmly stated repeated lyric iambic, and this meter is echoed by the chorus in its response. The musical movement of this kommos has been from the familiar lyric + anapaest to lyric + lyric.

The character has begun to lead the chorus in singing; the contest to determine the proper perspective on Antigone’s defiance has become a lyric debate in which the chorus members must seek to defend their beliefs. In abandoning anapaests they remove the critical tone of correction the earlier anapaests have uniformly implied, but only to assert in summary form the charges derived from their previous songs. Antigone continues her lyric challenge in a fifth stanza, opening with the familiar iambic and choriambic, but moving to trochaic at its conclusion—a new meter that is her own as she assesses her isolated situation (876–82). Creon enters to put an end to music in this scene without allowing the chorus to respond.

Fourth Stasimon (944–87)134, 135

Form. From this point on there is little need of the anapaestic meter. Carefully announced entrances and exits have structurally characterized the first part of the play; the second half is marked by frequent entrances and exits: Teiresias (988), Creon (1114), messengers (1155, 1156, and 1278), and Eurydice (1180 and 1244)—but only Creon’s entrance at 1257 is announced in anapaests. The characters who enter now are reporters of the off-stage events caused by earlier decisions,[136] not subtle challengers to previously stated positions.

In the fourth stasimon the chorus begins this section of the play seeking mythological precedents for Antigone’s situation (944–87). Critics have not found it easy to determine the common features in the three myths chosen.[137] The most successful interpretations are those which acknowledge the inappropriateness of Antigone’s method for challenging the pronouncements of the state—even though she is correct in realizing that Polyneices must be buried. Each of the myths contains an agent dangerous to the king/father, a god and his worshipper(s), and a form of enclosure/imprisonment. At least this much seems clear even in the highly poetic language of this ode. Thus each myth offers a simplified precedent for entombing or punishing Antigone for her offense against the political, social, religious, and institutional authority of the state, but these precedents are not justification for, or even close analogies to, such a punishment. First, the chorus does not choose myths in which connections between the imprisoned person and Antigone are sufîiciently persuasive: Danae becomes a mother and is released from her bronze cell, and Lycurgus commits a religious offense bearing little relation to Antigone’s act. In fact, the chorus does not specifically mention Cleopatra’s imprisonment in the final strophic pair, and any threat to Phineus is attributed to the children. Second, the myths seem to offer parallels that are more critical of Creon than Antigone: Acrisius was the king who tried to evade his fate and failed; Lycurgus was the irascible king who attacks women intent on performing their religious duties; and the insults to Cleopatra and her children do call for vengeance as fate works to its end. Yet these parallels, ominous for Creon, are not underlined by the chorus; rather the whole ode provides the audience with numerous connections to the developing action of the play.

Such multivalency is inherent in the nature of myth. Perhaps the chorus, which has earlier sought support for state policy in the moral victory of Thebes’ defenders, in the political ingenuity of humans devising rules for organizing and maintaining states, and in the punishment of sinners by the god of Justice, now uses myth to support its position but finds that the case against Antigone is not all that clear.[138] I would suggest, however, that a further clue to interpretation depends on the lack of anapaests at this point; for the first time in Antigone, Sophocles has abandoned the cardinal musical pattern of the play. In this ode the chorus, reclaiming lyric song from Antigone, attempts to find mythological analogues for her punishment but now includes highly problematic phrasing and real unclarity in its song. Doubts arising from the chorus’ lyric would earlier have been presented in the anapaestic announcements of the entering character; but these anapaestic systems provided only an indirect, oblique way of introducing criticism. The mythological parallels found by the chorus are seriously misleading; with Antigone’s departure, the time for reconsideration has now passed and disaster is immanent. Appropriately, in place of the anapaestic hints the audience has come to expect, Teiresias enters to iambies, directly telling Creon that his actions are misguided—and indirectly letting the chorus know that its attempts to find mythological models has failed.[139]

Meter. This is the councilors’ most problematic ode in that their theorizing does not help—and may even harm—their case against Antigone. Consequently it is no surprise that their meters in both strophic pairs bear only tangential resemblance to those appearing earlier. Even in the second stasimon, as they attempted to argue from basic principles that were shown to have limitations, they had difficulty in maintaining regular meters. Now as they try a new tack, they sing a stanza built around a core of previously unheard asclepiadean meter with the insertion of choriambic and a close of three iambic lines. The second strophic pair begins with very long enoplians in comparison with those found in the first stasimon (355–56 = 365–66); this meter is closely related to dactylic and thus has been heard before. Two lines of choriambs, to link the two strophic pairs, and a lone aristophanean (seen before at 607–10 = 618–21) follow, and the stanza again closes with iambics. The closing iambic lines of each stanza provide the only significant resemblance to earlier meters; essentially the metrical structure of this ode presents a new mode for this chorus as it struggles to find clear mythical precedents for the state’s punishment of Antigone.

In fact, the decline in the chorus’ ability to find consistent meters for its song may offer a clue to a problem that is difficult for all critics of the play: why does the chorus surrender so easily to Teiresias’ threats? It is plausible to say that this chorus respects the gods’ spokesman over Creon. Yet the councilors’ shift to unfamiliar meters in this ode may reveal that they are already wary of Creon’s judgment after Antigone’s defiant insistence on her innocence in the previous scene and will only need the encouragement of Teiresias to reverse their previous approval of Creon’s policy.

Fifth Stasimon (1115–54)140, 141

Form. As soon as Teiresias enters to state the truth, the trial mythological parallels fail; there is no longer the possibility of normalizing. Antigone, the bride, has been buried, and the corpse of Polyneices has been left above ground; Creon’s acts have inverted normal practice and divine command. Consequently the councilors change their minds and sing to Dionysus an emotional, hopeful prayer for aid,[142] placing themselves and the city of Thebes totally in Dionysus’ hands.[143] Yet no anapaests follow the hymn. Though these singers earlier celebrated the abilities of men boldly and confidently, this stasimon through shifts in formal and metrical structure conveys aurally that the events of the play have defeated them. This song is a fervent hymn sung by believers; it contains no abstract principle nor any interpretation whose problems an anapaestic stanza could identify.[144] The chorus no longer seeks to analyze or explain events; the old men have become mere reactors to a threatening situation. The problem is not in their words or tone; their prayer is simply too late—as the messenger immediately makes clear.

Meter. In addition, the order that characterized their previous thoughts disappears and the meter becomes a nightmarish conglomerate of previously used patterns, no one of which is repeated to develop a structure, to signal an opening or a close, to make a strong musical statement, or to extend any previous idea. The councilors pray fervently for aid but the musical structure of this ode openly portrays how far they have fallen from their former confidence.

This final choral ode is a balance to the parodos. There the chorus entered singing of the sun’s golden light and hymning the gods who revealed themselves in the enemy’s defeat; here the old men hymn a god of the night (the leader of the fire-breathing stars), who has shown his powers throughout the world as a god of nature more than a god of the city—though he has special affiliation to Thebes. He was born from the fiery ashes of Semele, thus connected to an earlier destruction of the city’s rulers (in fact, destructiveness among Theban nobles is well precedented in the sowing of the dragon’s teeth, mentioned at 1124–25). In both songs the councilors are happy to entrust themselves to the care of the gods, but in the fifth stasimon they are highly dependent on a god whose destructive potential they acknowledge and whose aid they now will accept without, as in the parados, imposing moral lessons.[145] And, of course, the two songs offer a radical contrast: the one complexly structured and organized, the other a simply structured, repeated cry for aid sung to randomly patterned meters.

Kommos (1257–1346)

Form. Choral anapaests reappear when Creon enters carrying the corpse of Haemon, the explicit symbol of his disaster, although he does not adequately understand the depth of his guilt. His blindness, the problem the next scene will expose, is characteristically hinted at in the anapaests:

Here the king himself has come

holding in his hands the clear sign

of mad errors which are not another’s,

but—if one can say it—his own.

(1257–60)

No ode precedes this stanza, but the old men, faithful to the consistent import of anapaests in this play, present the specific facts of the scene in short statements; they announce Creon, defining him as the responsible agent, as he enters bearing the clear sign of his own disaster.[146] Creon now appropriates lyric song while the chorus responds in iambics. Though the councilors retain their sense of justice, they have abandoned their allegiance to their leader. They tell him that he has learned, but too late. Creon, attempting to avoid responsibility and seeking to put the blame outside of himself, answers in lyric that some god has broken him (1271–76). When a messenger announces the death of Eurydice, Creon laments the death of mother and son in the corresponding antistrophe. But when the messenger adds that Eurydice died cursing him as the killer of both her children, thus recalling the earlier death of Megareus (1301–5), the guilt is transferred fully to Creon. Eurydice has spoken the truth: Creon himself is the sole cause of many deaths in this play.

The form now shifts to mark Creon’s new and more serious confrontation with facts. In the second strophe (1306–11) he admits being shaken by fear and asks why someone will not kill him; the messenger counters that Eurydice was able to kill herself. In the next stanza (1317–25)—in what appears to the audience as a third strophe or a noncorresponding lyric[147]—Creon admits that he was the only cause of these deaths, abandoning the defense of a god’s attack on him. He is reduced to the status of nonbeing. His apparent failure to produce corresponding stanzas in a play built on balanced strophic structures is a perfect complement to the disturbance in his soul. Yet he immediately invites death in a stanza the audience will recognize as the second antistrophe (1328–32), and after a few lines with the chorus, he sings the “missing” third antistrophe (1339–46). In these final words he asks to be led away, although he admits there is no place for him since he has so sinned against the world that he will find no resting spot:

I do not know which way to look;

I have no place to lie down.

All things in my hands are twisted.

And on my head a crushing fate has brought suffering.

(1343–46)

The possible disorder suggested by the apparent noncorresponding stanza at 1317–25 was only superficial. If the world were really in such chaos that the consistent lyric formalism of this play were violated only to portray an individual attempting to adjust to his fate, then there might be an escape, even sympathy, for Creon. But he is denied even this meager comfort. The balance achieved by the antistrophes at 1328–32 and 1339–46 affirms the order implicit in the scene.

Once again, in structuring Creon’s lyrics Sophocles has played upon his audience’s expectations of traditional song. Creon’s stanzas are far from chaotic; for the first time in this play of carefully structured and balanced odes, an interlocking order weaves the actions surrounding Creon into a greater and more complex whole than he or the audience suspected. The series of events at the end of the play and his response to them are not unconnected. Creon’s personal sorrow has grown during this last scene as he has been forced to acknowledge that he was the root cause of suffering yet is unable to kill himself—as Antigone, Haemon, and Eurydice have done. Creon is left, lost and alone, his thoughts constrained by lyric stanzas whose content and meter become tightly interlaced to form an inescapable whole. He has befouled his own world and now has left himself neither ally nor refuge; he leaves the stage to enter his empty palace, a house of death that he himself has built. He departs in frustration and despair—although finally with the clear understanding, won in the course of six increasingly emotional stanzas, that his values have collided with the laws of the universe and have ruined him. It is often noted that Antigone does not appear in the final scene nor is there any mention of her. But the victory over Creon was never hers—it was Zeus’; the late-emerging order in the music reflects the fulfillment of Zeus’ justice in the action, a justice hymned earlier in strophic stanzas but not understood in its wholeness.

Meter. Throughout this final scene the chorus speaks in iambic trimeters while Creon sings lyrics. His first stanza is almost pure dochmiac with a section of mixed iambic and dochmiac continuing through the second strophic pair. The final strophic set is sung by Creon to pure dochmiac as his sorrow and repentance shift to despair. He enters, mournfully calling himself as much the victim of a hostile god as the majority of mankind (1272–76); but he leaves the stage drained even of the personal resources required to kill himself, cursed by his wife as the ruination of his family, and calling himself worse than nothing. Dochmiac, often mixed with iambic, customarily accompanies songs of deep emotion, particularly sorrow.[148] Thus when Creon’s song closes in pure dochmiac there is an increase in personal anxiety, and the lyric meter of the play cornes to reflect personal emotion and ceases to convey consistent, unified, developing thought.

This shift is significant. Only toward the end of this play do the psychological state of the singer, the reality revealed by the action, and the meters become fully congruent—and appropriately this splendidly simplified and significant style of lyric appears in the final songs of the now-educated Creon. The play moves from the confusion and clash of strong-willed characters to each individual’s confrontation with his or her own personal situation. Whatever else one may say about Creon in this final lyric, no one can deny that he has learned the price of his principles. When this broken character leaves the stage singing music that traditionally expresses precisely the emotions appropriate to his situation, then music has ceased to be the result of the manipulation of traditional patterns by the poet. Traditional musical structures in form and meter now present a character returned to humanity and ready to offer instruction to others from his own experience.

The play is built throughout on the musical contrast between lyric and anapaest. Antigone makes her final exit from the stage singing a nonstrophic anapaestic stanza; Creon, singing strophic dochmiacs. Antigone leaves the stage praying for vengeance on her persecutors; Creon does not even mention Antigone during his final scene. The radically different final musical stanzas for each are appropriate in a play that begins in conflict and ends with characters unable to communicate, utterly isolated, and discordant. Each leaves separately, accompanied by music whose elements have been orchestrated into a coherent design from the first entrance of the chorus. Antigone’s actions and words shatter the brittle surface of Creon’s actions in defense of the polis and corrode the piety and patriotism of the chorus. She goes to her lonely death, unrepentant and assertive, questioning the ability of the governors of the state to accommodate, or even recognize, her deep religious dedication. The musical form and meter that have underlined unresolved problems and inherent dilemmas throughout the play accompany her final exit. Creon, the master of rational speech and the character who forces an end to the musical kommos between Antigone and the old men, learns to sing a balanced lyric form and somehow brings a high level of musical order out of potential chaos when he enhances the strophic symmetry that is a pervasive characteristic of lyric in Antigone. The chorus finds it increasingly difficult to maintain tightly structured metrical patterns as the events of the play create complications that overburden its philosophy, but Creon closes the play appropriating the role of music-maker as he sings interlocked corresponding stanzas to a repeated, clear form of the dochmiac. Order is restored as music presents an accurate picture of the situation of the fallen king rather than accompanying the theoretical structures of the chorus.[149]

This study of the choral meters in Antigone may have provided one valuable clue for future interpretations. While the words of the chorus may at any given time be right or wrong, the full position that its statements support is in itself an unreliable guide for human action. Thus, even in its balancing of component truths, the chorus offers only one perspective on the play’s major action. Creon and Antigone make use of the same elements of political theory, moral necessity, and religious authority as bases for their actions; yet they too are only presenting individual perspectives. As Sophocles clearly does not feel that the chorus’ position is “right,” so also he probably does not feel that any character has grasped and mastered the clash of human passions so solidly that he or she provides an answer for others. Through its final words Antigone remains a play of conflicting perspectives. If Sophoclean drama provides models of human thought seeking a firm place to stand—and failing, then this experience is as much that of the chorus, Haemon, and Ismene as it is of Creon and, surely, of Antigone.

Final Anapaestic Song

The councilors chant the final stanza of the play in anapaests, the exit song for Creon and themselves. The audience’s ears have been so trained that they would expect this meter to signal once again a problematic statement challenging the whole play; and indeed, the statement is there and it is devastating. The chorus closes the play by joining human thought and reverence for the gods (to phronein and mêden aseptein) into a seamless moral imperative. Though such traditional words sung in isolation would find little disagreement and have earlier been significant elements in the chorus’ moral theory,[150] they are inappropriate in the conclusion to this play in which Antigone has identified the necessity of burying Polyneices through a kind of inspiration and devotion to familial piety rather than the human rationality and state-oriented religion celebrated by the chorus in the first stasimon. The gods have punished Creon because the political and religious assumptions at the root of both his actions and the chorus’ odes have not led him to proper or acceptable decisions. This single stanza of anapaestic meter more than any of the others contains the seeds of future problems, dilemmas, confusions, and deaths. Surely after the events of this play it is time for the chorus to encourage the audience to acknowledge intuitions, to critique the policies of the state, and to realize that traditional social norms do not provide a complete and flawless standard for human conduct; yet the councilors’ final words honor rational thought. This closing stanza shows how little these witnesses to the play have learned, while the anapaestic meter prepares the audience for the next difficult “scene,” the play beyond the play of humans trusting in reason.[151] When the spectators leave the controlled world of the theater and return to the streets of Athens, they will make their own personal decisions and determine state policies with full confidence in the power of rational thought; indeed, they will give direction to their lives within a political community that guarantees their freedom to employ reason and is based on the trust that they will use this freedom responsibly. Reverence for the gods and service to the state in the customary Athenian manner will not in themselves, Sophocles has warned them, provide the necessary answers. The closing combination of words and music has portrayed in powerful theatrical symbols the inability of this chorus of normal humans to fulfill the role of rational beings that it has so proudly defined and so confidently accepted.[152]

THE MUSICAL DESIGN OF SOPHOCLES’ AJAX

The actor who plays Ajax should be strikingly large and physically impressive because he must draw upon every resource to dominate all scenes even when he no longer has lines to speak.[153] This play does not center on political or familial relationships; there is no urban setting with a palace and a clutch of kings, queens, and ministers, or a gathering of sisters, cousins, and aunts. There is only Ajax as the source of energy for all the other characters—and when he leaves the stage, the play follows him.[154] By every dramatic device available—plot, character-drawing, language, staging, movement, and even setting—Sophocles has focused his audience’s attention on Ajax as the central ordering force in the lives of all the characters. From Ajax—from his speeches, his responses, his actions, his movements, his character, and his whole being—an enlivening energy radiates outward to every corner of the stage. When he enters, he brings the whole warrior world with him: tents, armor, comrades, values, and traditions.[155] The cast is largely men, hulking warriors. They are not concerned with loftier questions of statesmanship or the driving passions of love and hate. They are caught in the harsh world of war as competitors who daily risk their lives to gain fragile symbols of honor. The props are protective arms and weapons marked by sweat, rust, and the blood of combat. Surrounded by the desolate and lonely landscape of a hero’s world, these solitary men, confronting extreme danger, easily and naturally address their gods, the forces of nature, the planets, and their native earth. Every element in this play is derived from the one hero and his fate, with no distracting intrusions from outside characters or irrelevant sets or superfluous props; this play is Ajax and all other elements shrink into insignificance.

Disappointed expectations are the heart of the hero’s story. In the Homeric epics, and presumably extending even further back into early heroic tales, Ajax is a bold and powerful general, a trust-worthy aid to those in danger, a man of sound intuitions, laconic, and indisputably the second best fighter who came to Troy.[156] The award of Achilles’ arms to his enemy and rival Odysseus, however, is equally part of this early story.[157] Sophocles’ Ajax is taken directly from this tradition: a brilliant battlefield hero whose frustrated hopes dominate a play marked by disappointed expectations for characters and audience. His tent sits alone as an unpenetrated defense protecting one end of the line of ships beached at Troy. Appropriately large and eye-catching, when it is opened it does not reward the audience’s expectation of an austere soldier’s quarters; it displays rather, to the extent that it can be seen, a garish, red, inner-Hell strewn with the bloody carcasses of slain cattle. Consistently and pervasively in this play, customary and familiar elements reveal suddenly features sharply at odds with their initial impression of normality. Athena, the champion of the Greeks, seeks to humble Ajax, yet at the end of the play he is celebrated as the best of men: the great villain becomes the great hero.[158] All rejoice when Ajax explains his plan, but then they find him dead. Agamemnon and Menelaus demand that Ajax be left unburied; yet the play closes with his burial. Athena invites Odysseus to gloat over his discredited rival; but he refuses, and later he ignores the traditional imperative to maximize one’s honor by harming one’s enemies.

Many elements of the play’s dramatic design support the theme of rule-breaking,[159] of fulfillment of the unexpected. Not even the scene remains the same. When the chorus calls for Ajax, Tecmessa enters. Ajax shuts himself inside his tent in order to kill himself but abruptly reemerges to announce his decision to live—or so the chorus tells us. Odysseus seeks to join in the burial procession but is refused.[160] Of all the characters, only Ajax rises above disappointed expectations, taking charge of his own fate in the only way left to him.

It comes as no surprise to find the chorus responding to the jagged movement of the play’s events in songs whose design disappoints normal expectations in both meter and form. Comprised of lower-class, practical soldiers, the chorus’ sentiments take a surprising turn. As soldiers, these men are trained to deal with specific problems and not to look beyond immediate danger;[161] yet despite their professional commitment to minimizing difficulties and finding a secure, defensible position, they are inextricably bound to the spirited hero whose daring actions upset their thoughts, interrupt their odes with unpleasant surprises, take over their song, and finally force them to understand, or at least to accept, what is beyond their ken.

In the intensely focused plot of Ajax,[162] the chorus of Salaminian soldiers, like the other characters, moves into the background, both in its characterization and in its subordinate role. Even so, it embodies compelling forces pressing on Ajax and highlights his brash assertiveness by its willingness to respond so frankly to the developing situation on stage.[163]

The Parodos and Epirrhematic Scene (134–262)

Form. The entrance song of Ajax’s fellow Salaminians contains more variation in form than any ode in this play. The long anapaestic section (134–71), a traditional opening for a parodos, allows the chorus time to come from offstage and assemble in the center of the orchestra.[164] As expected, strophic lyric follows these anapaests, yet no other extant Sophoclean chorus immediately returns as this one does to anapaestic conversation with a main character (201–20) and then begins to sing again while the character interjects anapaests (233–44 and 257–62). This unusual mixture of forms presents a group striving to sing a normal strophic ode, who are interrupted by the entrance of an actor, try to restart their normal lyric, then are interrupted again by the actor, and finally turn to iambic dialogue. The repeated breaking of strophic form further suggests that the actor purposefully interrupts the singers in order to block their lyric; finally this actor leads them to spoken lines. Such a design suggests a frustrated yet malleable chorus, thus reinforcing through musical design the theme of disappointed expectation.

The words of the Salaminian soldiers support this analysis of their form. They enter seeking Ajax, the ruler of Salamis, as the source of their security. In their anapaests they portray themselves as small and inadequate creatures—doves, or a garrison incapable of protecting the city walls (140 and 159);[165] their happiness and their distress both depend on Ajax:

For with the aid of the great the small man best stands straight

while the great man is held high by smaller men . . .

we are not strong to defend ourselves

against such forces without you, my king.

(160–61 and 165–66)

True to this self-characterization, a rumor has driven the soldiers to seek Ajax. They build his stature through imagery, calling him the giant eagle whose mere appearance silences a screeching gaggle of smaller birds (167–71). At the moment, however, they fear only words, having no reason to believe that the absurd charge of cattle-slaughtering is true. They have come to ask Ajax to stifle the spreading rumor.

Their fear is echoed in their strophic stanzas. In spite of the heroic and sensible behavior typical of their leader, they wonder whether a slighted god is seeking revenge or enemies are plotting his destruction. They speculate that Ajax has denied Artemis her due, or that he has inadvertently slain one of her stags, or that Ajax has angered Ares by slaying one of his favorite warriors (172–81). In any case they are so unable to believe that Ajax would actually have gone out to slaughter cattle that they call him from his tent to still the outrageous talk.[166]

These reactions are typical of the plain and direct thoughts of this chorus throughout the play. When these soldiers hear words endangering the honor and reputation of Ajax and therefore affecting them, they measure the truth of the report against their understanding of Ajax and then seek a rational source for such a rumor. They consider the most likely explanations to be stories taken from the mythological tradition or human envy. Once they have isolated possible causes, they rely on their champion to deal directly with the rumors, since they will remain unsettled until he has resolved them. Suitably these straightforward and uncomplicated men enter to anapaests followed by strophic song, a conventional form for a parodos.

Their expectation is disappointed, however, when Ajax does not emerge from the tent; Tecmessa does.[167] Her entrance, which surprises the soldiers, is marked by a break in the usual strophic form. Her report that Ajax is so sick that there is cause for grief is even more disruptive. As a result their stanza at 192–200, a strophe for which the audience would anticipate a balancing antistrophe, is left as an irregular, nonstrophic unit; their song has been interrupted by the entrance of a character—indeed, the wrong character with information they had not anticipated.[168] Compelled to surrender hope that their problem is limited to mere rumor, they also abandon the form of their song.[169]

Anapaests are so associated with stage action that Tecmessa’s anapaestic description of an offstage situation, like the much longer anapaestic monody of Electra’s entrance, is unusual and probably more related to the downscaling of intensity from lyric song to iambic speech than to traditional usage. Asking for futher information, the soldiers echo her anapaests (208–13). Tecmessa’s response is detailed and controlled; she describes Ajax’s situation, confirming the truth of the grizzly rumor. Though she is appalled by Ajax’s deeds, she shows concern for his soldiers in attempting to report the grim facts to them unemotionally. Thus her presentation of the situation is appropriately delivered in anapaests; the chorus bursts forth in lyric, foreseeing his immediate death (221–32). Tecmessa remains a center of reason as she interjects another anapaestic stanza. The chorus’ confused and frantic response is an explosion of lyric lines urging flight by land or sea foreseeing vengeful punishment against the mad Ajax as well as its own destruction.[170] Tecmessa respoonds a third time in anapaests, assuring the soldiers that he is now calm and pensive, pained by his actions and puzzled as to the future.[171] The chorus has been subtly led to a more rational dialogue appropriate to spoken iambic meter.[172]

Tecmessa has come on stage seeking support and solidarity from the soldiers of Ajax. She calls them aiders of Ajax (arôgoi, 201) and includes them as fellow-sharers of grief though she seems to realize that she must not feed their tendency to overreact. She leads them to the facts slowly and deliberately—assuring them that Ajax is now quite sane and that they should begin planning. She interjects her reasoned stanzas of anapaests into their strophic lyric because they show themselves quite willing to surrender completely to fear and panic. Through her words and her less lyrical, moderating form she joins them in moving to speech, a mode in which she can carefully explain to them the situation once she has defused the probability of an exaggerated reaction:

Chorus (in lyric meters):

I fear to suffer death

struck by stones—

the awful fate which awaits him.

Tecmessa (in anapaests):

No longer. No more does the lighting flash

and the storm-wind blow; he is calm.

And now, though his mind is clear, he has new miseries.

For a man to view troubles,

which he himself—ail alone—has made

is hugely painful.

(254–62)

In terms of form, this opening choral scene is composed of two elements, the parodos and an epirrhematic scene. The parodos proper begins with the soldiers concerned about a trivial thing, mere talk—but they are interrupted. When they learn the truth, the standard choral form is abandoned and a contest begins between the resourceful Tecmessa and the excitable chorus. Tecmessa controls the men by her words, tempering their threat to abandon Ajax; the sign of her victory is the scene’s movement from song to speech.[173]

Meter. The meters in this two-part choral scene support such an interpretation. The stage is left empty by the exit of Athena, Odysseus, and Ajax; thus the audience expects the entrance of the chorus, which sings an extended passage of anapaests, a meter establishing it as a typical entering chorus.[174] In addition, the soldiers have adequate motivation for seeking their general.[175] At the center of the orchestra, in front of Ajax’s tent, they sing two corresponding strophic stanzas to a predominantly dactyloepitrite meter, stated clearly and even repeating individual patterns (173/183 = 177/187 and 178/188 = 179/189 and almost = 180/190). The setting, the characters, and the words of the first scene have conditioned the audience to expect a play about heroes—an expectation enhanced by the choice of meter for the parodos since, from the times of Homer, dactylic was established as the prime meter for heroic tales, and Pindar commonly employed dactyloepitrite to celebrate the achievements of heroes and victorious athletes. The soldiers inquire about a vital heroic issue: what could have given rise to the evil rumor impugning Ajax’s honor among his colleagues? Immediately they sing another lyric stanza (192–200) to a highly varied series of meters, a pattern that separates this stanza from the first strophic pair. Such opposed metrical structure reflects a predominant characteristic of this chorus, its tendency to jump from topic to topic and meter to meter. In contrast to the chorus in Antigone, these soldiers have difficulty in singing any one ode that refers by subject or meter to a previous ode. They are able to structure an individual song around a single theme, but, typically, they begin their second lyric strophe with new meters arranged in a different pattern. The first strophic pair is dactyloepitrite and relatively uniform; the second lyric is composed of four different basic meters within nine lines (dactylic, iambic, aeolic [glyconic and reizianum], and choriambic). As the soldiers change meters and structure, they also shift focus, turning toward Ajax’s tent and summoning him to defend himself.

After Tecmessa tells the chorus about the slaughtered cattle in the tent, it bursts into a third lyric stanza (221–32) that—predictably—is difficult to analyze. There are surely iambics, choriambs, and dactyls, but other lines have resisted easy definition by traditional categories. At the very least this stanza is not built around a standard meter, as was characteristic of the first strophic pair, and it lacks the textbook clarity of the metrical patterns in the previous lyric (192–200). Though it may be impossible to reach agreement on the basic forms because of syncopations and the unusual patterns, it is clear that the meters join the words in being nonrepetitive and freed from the earlier, more organized forms of anapaest and dactylo-epitrite. And this pattern is continued, of course, in the antistrophe, where the members of the chorus express fear for their lives. Thus both form and meter serve to introduce a chorus that rapidly finds its intention to stay within traditional bounds challenged by new information, by intrusions into its normal forms, and by its own excited, emotional reaction, which prevents it from singing a clear, dominating meter when faced with a crisis.

Kommos (348–429)

Form. The design of this scene solidifies Ajax’s control of the play. The musical dialogue again begins with a reversal of expectations: the set of three strophic pairs is sung by Ajax while Tecmessa and the chorus respond in a few spoken iambics. The first and third strophic pairs are lyric stanzas for Ajax with only two spoken lines for the others following the lyric. The second strophic pair contains spoken lines within the lyric form; in the course of the scene, however, the lyrics of Ajax become longer. Thus, compared with the parodos, where a character leads the chorus to spoken dialogue, neither Tecmessa nor the chorus is able to shorten Ajax’s lyrics by interjecting their spoken lines; rather he sings longer lyrics in spite of their words. Further, he addresses the soldiers in the first strophic pair; in the second he speaks to his men and calls on Odysseus, who is absent; in the third he addresses only powers of nature.[176] Thus he projects himself as the center of an increasingly larger world and will finally lead himself to speech by directing his focus beyond the presence of the chorus and Tecmessa.

To begin this scene Tecmessa opens the tent flap to show Ajax sitting amidst slaughtered animals.[177] In the first strophic pair he calls the soldiers his only friends and invites them to look at him (348–53), and then he requests their help in dying (356–61). They interject an iambic doublet at the end of each stanza; in the first calling him insane, and in the second rejecting his desire for death.[178] In the first response, ignoring Ajax’s specific address to them, they do not speak directly to him in their astonishment.[179] The difference in the forms, lyric vs. spoken iambic, further emphasizes the lack of communication between Ajax and his men.

In the second strophic pair Ajax laments his shame, imagines the laughter of Odysseus,[180] and in a practical way ponders escape from his predicament through the open murder of the Greek commanders. In each case he seems to those on stage to be pressing too hard. First, Tecmessa protests his sense of shame and he dismisses her peremptorily; the chorus objects. When he continues to lament his actions, the soldiers assure him that they cannot be undone. As he pictures Odysseus, they try to mollify him, but when he appears to threaten Odysseus, they interrupt him. Finally, he asks to die and Tecmessa tells him that this wish implies her death too. He hears little of this, makes almost no response to any speaker, and is unaffected by their attempts to restrain him. Growing increasingly isolated within his own thoughts, he virtually sings one long lyric. Yet the scene’s effect on the audience is subtly orchestrated. The interjected lines match similar lines in the antistrophe, if not syllable by syllable, at least in placement and in the careful alternation of speakers.[181] Although in form and content Ajax’s lyrics increasingly ignore the chorus and Tecmessa, these seek to communicate with him and to restrain him.

Now Ajax moves to long, uninterrupted lyric stanzas invoking the powers of nature as he foresees his death at the hands of the Greek generals (394–427). The others no longer interject lines into his lyric form; Tecmessa’s lines at 410–11, though following his lyric, are addressed to herself, and at 428–29 the soldiers openly acknowledge their inability to communicate with Ajax.[182] When he begins to speak at 430, he first cries out in pain and then comments on the echo of his name in his own cry, “aiai.” He makes no response to the others on stage; he has not heard their words.[183]

Ajax has moved from direct address to his soldiers to inner dialogue with imagined characters and finally to virtual soliloquy. Ajax’s lyrics lengthen as he grows in self-awareness, and the series of stanzas shows sanity returning as he becomes increasingly able to define his situation. His emerging lucidity is marked by the development in his language from the metaphor of the stormy, internal sea:

See how great a wave

driven by the storm of blood

now washes around me.

(351–53)

to the colder tones of self-assessment addressed to the sea itself:

Loud roaring straits,

Caves by the sea, meadows near the shore—

For many, many long years

you have held me in Troy;

but never again, no longer a living being.

Let anyone with sense know this.

(412–17)

Long, strophically balanced stanzas accompany his returning rationality. By the time he begins to speak in iambics, the audience is prepared for the madman of the previous night to devise a carefully reasoned series of options ending with a strong statement of purpose:

What enjoyment does one day after another bring

in pushing and pulling a man—other than death?

I would pay little for a man

who warms himself with empty thoughts.

One must live well or die well

to be a noble man. That’s my belief.

(475–80)

Even the chorus, which failed to notice the increasing order in his strophic lyrics, must acknowledge that he now speaks totally from his own mind (481–82).[184]

Meter. In general terms the meters in each stanza are iambodochmiac, but there is development within this metrical pattern. In the first strophic pair Ajax’s addresses to his soldiers are dochmiac (349–50 = 357–58); but his requests that they look upon him in his trouble and help him to die are iambic and aristophanean. Thus his warm and welcoming address to his friends is sung in the meter conventionally associated with emotion. When he continues to sing of his suffering, he moves to a calmer, unresolved iambic to which they do not respond in song.

In the second strophic set this pattern is continued and enhanced. In the first part of each stanza Ajax presents the signs of his fallen situation, the slain cattle and the victory of Odysseus’ resourcefulness, in dochmiacs (364–66 = 379–81). Then, in a single iambic trimeter line in each stanza, he states the salient and pressing reality: he is being mocked (367 = 382). In each case he evokes an iambic response, once from Tecmessa and once from the chorus. Each time when Ajax answers with a cry of pain in spoken iambics, the speakers command him to be calm and to think over his situation. He then sings a five-line unit expressing his regret at having spared the Greek commanders and his wish to slaughter them now (372–76 = 387–91). There is no dochmiac in this section; iambic is the base with the addition of choriambic. The advice of the chorus and Tecmessa’s pledge to join him even in death are couched in iambic trimeter.

The third pair of strophes contains the longest stanzas of this scene, sung as Ajax gains confidence and rises from his self-pitying state. He calls on forces of nature, asking them to carry him away since he realizes that neither gods nor mortals can help him now. He sings mostly in dochmiacs but ends with a section of shortened dochmiacs and lyric iambics, in which he states his position, closing the final stanza with what he calls his great boast (406–8 = 423–25). The chorus answers in iambics expressing its helplessness. Ajax, now in control of himself and the scene, shifts from song to speech, and launches into a long, carefully reasoned consideration of his options.

This musical scene moves from lyric dochmiac to spoken iambic. Within this movement Ajax grows stronger as the chorus weakens; he enters helpless and leaves confronting his problems directly in statements that are increasingly forthright and clear. The chorus and Tecmessa try to restrain him in his grief and choke off his words, but they fail to divert either his thought or his music.[185] His gaze rises from the human beings in the scene around him to the wider forces of nature. The soldiers entered the orchestra in the parodos as a normal chorus; then they were unnerved but restrained by Tecmessa, who reduced them to speech. In this scene their role is further limited by Ajax, who threatens to desert them, and, as they realize that communication with him is futile, they confess their uselessness. He, on the other hand, is portrayed as leading himself to speech through a developing command of lyric song—its words and thoughts as well as its forms and meters.

First Stasimon (596–645)[186]

Form. In the preceding scene Ajax all but stated his intention to kill himself once free of others’ demands. After entrusting his son to Teucer’s care, bequeathing his shield to him, and caring for the disposition of the rest of his arms, he then retreats inside his tent with words of unmistakable intent:

A wise doctor does not sing incantations

over a wound which needs a knife

(581–82)

When Tecmesssa and the chorus are left alone on the stage, the soldiers quite naturally reflect on the decline in their happiness from earlier days at home.[187] They have fought at Troy for ten years, but only now do they sense the immanent presence of death; Ajax left home a brilliant warrior, but now in his madness he is undoing his good reputation. In the second strophic pair they sing of the pain to come for Ajax’s mother and the disgrace that will fall upon his father; to his soldiers Ajax is now so lost that his situation is worse than if he were dead.[188]

Yet the events of the play will prove their theorizing wrong—another reversal of expectation. In this ode, the chorus’ first opportunity to ponder the situation for itself since its parodos was interrupted by Tecmessa, it states openly that Ajax is mad and that his parents will be dishonored. Yet even as it sings, inside the tent Ajax is reasoning out a future beyond its imagining, which will reveal him as one of the most lucid of Sophoclean thinkers as well as the most poetic of speakers. His suicide is not a frenzied escape nor a cause of future disgrace, but an action that will gain him honor and protect his parents from shame. In this ode the chorus completes its lyric form for the first time in this play, reaching its own conclusion with no one interrupting or trying to steal its music; it is, however, a conclusion that must be tested against developments in the plot.

Meter. The remarkably unified metrical organization of this ode reinforces its form. The basic meters are iambic and aeolic (glyconic, pherecratean, hipponactean, telesillean, dodrans, and aristopheanean); there are single lines of choriambic enoplian, ascelpiadean, and phalacean. Yet with the exception of these individual moments the meter seems continuous throughout both strophic pairs, in contrast to the parodos, where after the first strophic pair the chorus radically shifted meters for its third stanza (192–200). Here the meter reveals the unity of the chorus’ thought throughout all four stanzas.

In addition, the two basic meters in this ode appeared in the final stanza of the parodos, where the chorus urged Ajax to come out of his tent to fight the slanders against his reputation; the subject matter, however, is in complete contrast. There the soldiers addressed Ajax as a sane hero; here the charges are no longer slanders but deeds that have smeared him with ineradicable shame. The combination of iambic and glyconic seems to appear at moments when the chorus feels secure in offering its best advice. Ironically, however, at each of these moments it has misinterpreted. In the parodos Tecmessa immediately emerged from the tent to point out its error; just after this song Ajax will emerge from the tent to correct his soldiers’ thoughts, though they are so completely misled that they do not understand his words. Appropriately this same combination of meters will accompany their next song in which they are equally convinced, yet equally deluded (693–718).

To understand this ode the audience must realize that the poet is using musical design to comment on the chorus’ reactions to events. Ajax, who remains firm in his intention to kill himself, has come to a profound understanding of his situation; his soldiers, however, are certain that he is irredeemably discredited. As they look back to life in the past—the bright island of Salamis, the earlier career of the glorious warrior, the previous joy of his parents, and the honor of his proud race—they are confident that all is destroyed; from their limited perspective, this is simply a fact. Yet those who see how easily expectations are reversed in this play will not be startled when Ajax comes from his tent to present a different and deeper understanding.[189]

Second Stasimon (693–718)

Form. The chorus has heard Ajax say that he is going to cleanse himself and seek safety; therefore it rejoices. Ajax’s “deception” speech is one of the most difficult in Sophoclean drama to understand because it operates on several levels, and the chorus hears only the surface meaning.[190] Once again the soldiers are wrong—this time irredeemably. Simple men with no special ability to probe the significance of Ajax’s words, their joy is honest and open. They respond physically: they shiver with joy and want to dance in excitement. In the first stanza they summon the gods Pan and Apollo to help them express their joy. In the antistrophe this tone continues: Ares has aided them by removing grief from their eyes, and they summon even Zeus to bring the bright light of day back to their world. They conclude with a direct statement of the cause of their happiness: Ajax has cleansed his mind of anger against the sons of Atreus. The content of their song is easy to read and direct in expression; they develop their thoughts simply in a clear, linear fashion, moving from their celebration of joy to their understanding of Ajax’s new resolution.[191]

At this pivotal moment the theme of reversed expectations dominates the play because the soldiers understand only the limited, literal meaning in his words, and as a result they misunderstand and wrongly evaluate his motivations. This song is parallel in many ways to the previous stasimon. The occasion for both songs is Ajax’s exit alone, which leaves the stage to the chorus and Tecmessa. Each time the soldiers respond in an emotional way, certain they have understood the situation of their leader, though in each case they draw the wrong conclusions. Since the songs are meant to be seen as parallel errors, it is no surprise that once again this ode is a balanced strophic structure, a form that allows the chorus to express its complete thought with no interruption.[192]

Meter. The characteristic close emotional tie between the chorus and Ajax is signaled when its first line is iambic trimeter, echoing his meter with little suggestion of a break. It continues this stanza with another iambic followed by aeolics, ending the stanza with two choriambs. The parallel stanza is the first strophic pair of the preceding song (596–607 = 608–20) composed of a tightly controlled combination of iambic and aeolic. In that song they compared their happy former days on Salamis with their present unescapable misfortune. In contrast, in this stasimon their song rapidly reverses the earlier tone, anticipating future joy as they ask the god Pan to encourage a dance to express their feeling. They do not consider the potentially ruinous consequences if Ajax has really decided to live; they simply express their joy.

For the third time in this play the poet uses the combination of iambic and aeolic (glyconic/dodrans) to characterize the erroneous judgment of the chorus. The soldiers sing the meter in which they expressed belief, first, in the good reputation of their champion, then in his imminent death, and now in his choice to live. For the chorus it is the meter of certainty; but, hearing this musical sign, the audience should by now anticipate an immediate reversal. Indeed, the soldiers are allowed to be enthusiastically, embarrassingly, openly wrong. While the form and meter of their song show them to be performing as a normal chorus, their perceptions lead them to provide inadequate responses to the episodes. Ajax moves directly and rationally along a fixed course toward a salvation that this chorus cannot even imagine.

Epiparodos and Kommos (866–78 and 879–960)

Form. After an ominous warning from the messenger, the chorus and Tecmessa leave the stage and the scene shifts to a desolate part of the beach. Ajax has entered alone, has prayed to the gods in charge of his future, and has fallen on his sword. After a silence part of the chorus enters from one side while the rest arrive a bit later from the other, all looking for Ajax. He has always been the center of the play and will continue to be so even in death: the play opened with Odysseus looking for Ajax, the chorus sought him in the parodos, and now again his soldiers enter trying to find him.[193] Significantly, all in this play feel lost if they cannot find Ajax.

In this scene the soldiers are lost in many ways: they reenter in a new setting; they cannot find their champion; half of them have lost track of their fellow soldiers, and they have even lost their ability to create balanced strophic song. Their form is unsymmetrical, the first half of the chorus filling the longer part of this entrance song with complaints about not finding Ajax, until the second group enters with a few brief iambic lines. Only then do they join for a strophic lyric. Their earlier parodos was a typical anapaestic entrance stanza sung by the unified chorus, leading to a strophic song; now at their second entrance choral performance has disintegrated: they are split into two groups, unbalanced in their roles, and disoriented.[194] Even when they are able to unite for a lyric, their words in the first stanza (879–90) show them to be physically lost from their hero, who they assume to be alive—though, once again, they are wrong.

In the next eighty lines a pattern develops. Following the chorus’ united lyric, Tecmessa, discovering the body of Ajax, calls out in brief lyric interjections followed by a series of iambic trimeters. The chorus, also in iambic trimeters, asks what is wrong and then echoes her lyric cry. Thus this section of the scene is in the meter of spoken dialogue with added outcries of pain (891–99). In lyric lines (900–903) the soldiers respond to the confirmation of their worst fears, just as they did in the first entrance song, by decrying the future danger for themselves. After the spoken dialogue in which they learn from Tecmessa that Ajax has killed himself (904–907), they close the full strophe with lyric meters, berating themselves for not being more aware of Ajax’s needs (908–914).

After a short speech during which Tecmessa covers the body, the combined form of lyric stanza with dialogue is repeated as a corresponding antistrophe (879–914 = 925–60). The strophe allows the characters to ascertain the facts about the death of Ajax; the antistrophe explores the meaning of his death. In lyric stanzas the chorus begins to see that the award of Achilles’ armor was the beginning of a track that led only to Ajax’s death (925–36). In the dialogue, however, the soldiers can only express sympathy for Tecmessa’s deprivation. For the rest of the play they become, to a greater degree than before, merely responders. Their understanding of the situation is rapidly surpassed by that of the major characters in the play; Tecmessa has moved beyond them, thinking of her child and the slavery that lies ahead for both of them (936–45). In a short lyric (946–49) the soldiers express horror at the thought that Tecmessa and Eurysaces may be enslaved by the Atreidae, but in the iambic dialogue (950–54) Tecmessa continues to outdistance their reasoning when she looks behind the action to see the hand of Athena aiding her favorite, Odysseus. The chorus concludes the antistrophe with a lyric section expressing its disgust with Odysseus and the sons of Atreus (955–60).

This kommos is a long strophic structure whose parts correspond perfectly; thus in many ways the scene is built from the normal choral strophic form, though Tecmessa again intrudes into this form:

Epiparodos

866–78

noncorresponding lyric iambic by split chorus

Strophic lyric

1. 879–90 = 925–36

lyric by unified chorus

2. 891–99 = 937–45

iambic dialogue with interjections

3. 900–903 = 946–49

lyric by chorus

4. 904–907 = 950–54

iambic dialogue

5.908–14=955–60

lyric by chorus

This intricate design, underlying a scene that reports highly emotional responses to a sudden unpleasant discovery, conveys the complexity of the moment. While the words, and especially the outcries, appear spontaneous, a process that has been seen before in this play develops from the interactions between the chorus and Tecmessa. This scene in many ways mirrors the chorus’ original entrance. There the chorus had heard a rumor so hostile to its interest that it sought a refutation from Ajax; expectations were disappointed when the soldiers encountered, not Ajax, but Tecmessa, who confirmed their worst suspicions and then helped them to a more accurate assessment of the situation. There the soldiers entered to a nonstrophic passage, moved to strophic song, and then failed in the attempt to sing symmetrical stanzas because of Tecmessa’s interjections. The same structure underlies this mirror scene. They now seek Ajax in response to an oracle; instead of Ajax they find Tecmessa and learn that the worst has happened. They are filled with blame and self-recrimination, but Tecmessa covers the body and again leads them to a broader understanding of the situation.

So far the shape of the scene is modeled on the parodos, but a complexity is added by the form. Though in the parodos the chorus came on stage singing the normal choral form, events blocked completion of the full pattern. In the present scene, discovery of the body and Tecmessa’s words again disturb the chorus’ song, but the emotional reactions of the participants are woven so tightly into the carefully designed, symmetrical structure of strophic song that they are not able to derail the direction of the developing musical design.[195]

The autonomy of this design signals the emergence of new controlling forces. Prior to the death of Ajax, the characters were enmeshed in a world of uncertainty: Ajax weighed his options and Tecmessa feared the possibility of slavery or death for herself and for her son. No one knew what Ajax, the pivotal figure, would do; every time they felt they had understood him, he acted in a different way. However, when the chorus enters in the second parodos, Sophocles—departing from normal tradition—makes the play begin again with a new scene, new characters, and new issues.[196] There must be new characters because the principal character of the first part lies dead; and the issue now is not what Ajax should do, but rather what others should do in response to his death. Ajax has given a new direction to his play by making a final and irreversible choice that confronts the remaining characters with a new situation, a fixed point. The theme of the drama remains the disappointment of expectations but now on a different level.

Where previously characters expected an action and found to their surprise that some new element in the play aborted that action, now events assert an even greater authority over the characters and begin to control them. The chorus seeks to find Ajax alive, but he is already dead, and in that death is secure; now the remaining characters need to make their choices acknowledging the fixity of Ajax’s personal solution. Instead of evaluating the man and his unexpected action, they must learn what the acceptable response is.

This part of the play is introduced by its own proper parodos in which men who have lost their hero must, for their own survival, find him and understand him. The design of the kommos (879–960) in confining the natural reactions of the chorus within a tightly structured strophic form signals this shift in theme. The only expectation that will be disappointed in the second part of this play is one’s selfish yearning for honor—and that is easily restructured; this is clear in the dialogue between Agamemnon and Oydsseus:

Agamemnon:

You’ll reveal me as a coward on this day.

Odysseus:

For all the Greeks, though, a man of justice.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Agamemnon:

This will be called your deed, and not mine.

Odysseus:

However you do it, you will be a good man.

(1362–63 and 1368–69)

With understanding, judgment, and a little pressure, men find a proper perspective on their actions. Tecmessa begins this process in the kommos when she says: “We would not be where we are without the gods’ will” (950); the chorus responds: “Yes, they have given us an excessive burden of grief.” Though these simple men accept only the most negative meaning of Tecmessa’s words, she moves rapidly to another level:

His death is as bitter to me as it is sweet to them;[197]

but for him a delight. What he yearned to find,

he has—the death he wanted.

Why would others laugh at him?

His death concerns the gods—never those men.[198]

And so, let Odysseus revel in his empty insults;

for them Ajax is no more; he is gone

leaving grief and tears to me.

(966–73)

She has seen that the problems in this new part of the play belong only to the survivors; all they can do is bury the dead and look to their own futures.

There is a rhythm and a predictability to the last part of this play that was not present in the choppier currents of the first part. The form of the second parodos reveals how men, even at their most spontaneous, have become involved in patterns and rhythms they cannot escape.

Meter. This movement to fuller understanding is also clear in the metrical pattern. First, there is the obvious contrast between sections of choral lyric and spoken iambics, a structural device that here and earlier shows the chorus trying to sing but being interrupted by Tecmessa. Second, the entrance meter for the second parodos is lyric iambic followed by an iambic dialogue between the two halves of the chorus; the soldiers do not sing customary anapaests but a large portion of iambic trimeter lines, a meter atypical for an entering chorus. Not only are they divided in numbers and unsymmetrical in form; they are having trouble singing at all. When they join for strophic lyric, they sing first to a relatively unrelieved dochmiac, showing their concern for Ajax (879–90 = 925–36), then iambo-dochmiac (a traditional meter for mourning) with enoplian for 900–93 = 946–49; they conclude the kommos with dochmiac mixed with dactylic, iambic, and reizianum (908–14 = 955–60). The development of these meters makes clear that their original disoriented agitation, expressed in dochmiacs, is being moderated through dialogue with Tecmessa.

The chorus entered this long musical scene as scarcely a chorus at all.[199] Then it learned the fate of Ajax and in the antistrophe began to acquire insight into the situation. The direction of the kommos is from ignorance to a degree of knowledge and understanding. Even though the soldiers, standing around the covered body of Ajax, finish this song filled with hatred for his opponents, they have come little further than lamenting his fall and fearing for their future. These sympathetic, practical men have a narrow vision of what has happened, yet they are only the first of the little men to gather around the corpse, all of whom demonstrate how impoverished the world is without the glorious courage and integrity of Ajax. This is the moral drawn by Tecmessa in her last words in the play:

Perhaps, if they did not want him alive,

they would lament his death when battle requires him.

Foolish men do not know the good they hold in their hands

until they have lost it.

(962–65).

Teucer now takes over as Ajax’s champion in the ugly debate to follow, a debate in which the soldiers of the chorus will continue to be practical men as they, along with other characters, learn to accept forces far stronger than mortal passions. In this complex song, what appears formless is made formal; what begins as an emotional outpouring of lost men is deepened to self-pity, then lament, and finally acceptance and understanding. The meters accompany this transformation, shifting from pure dochmiac to a richer lyric mix. The stages of choral awareness are marked by the interjected words of Tecmessa, mostly iambic as she leads the chorus to a deeper understanding of the situation. Lyric meter and form thus jointly provide a structure to this scene, which not only marks the opening of the second half of the play but also reflects the shift in attitude of all surviving characters as they find themselves unwillingly adjusting to the new situation created by Ajax.

Third Stasimon (1185–1222)[200]

Form. Tecmessa’s speech at the end of the kommos (961–73) urging all to look to the future and regard Ajax as beyond their grasp expressed a conception that surpassed the chorus’ petty personal concerns. As a result, these soldiers play a limited role in the final scenes. They are practical men, useful for advising caution and caring for details, but their minds are scarcely able to comprehend the broader developments taking place around the corpse of Ajax. When they hear Menelaus coming, they give a typical warning based on their polarized view of the world as friend or foe:

Don’t speak more. Think how to hide him in a grave

and what you will then say.

I see an enemy coming who could laugh

at our misfortunes—an evil man.

(1040–43)

After Teucer has fended off the threat of the vindictive Menelaus, the chorus accepts its increasingly subordinate role. It urges Teucer to find a tomb quickly for Ajax, in a brief anapaestic stanza (1163–67) that separates the exit of Menelaus from the entrance of Tecmessa and Eurysaces—thus permitting Teucer to establish a tableau that contains in itself many elements of burial, suppliancy, and cursing rituals.[201] In addition, this tableau begins to give power to the lifeless body, a process that will accelerate through the final scene of the play.[202] Teucer gathers Tecmessa and Eurysaces around the body, cuts a lock of hair from each of them, and hopes to protect the corpse while initiating funeral rites for Ajax. The chorus stands voiceless as Teucer, the protector of the family, attempts to look to the future rather than dwelling on the quarrels of the past, and finally addresses the chorus harshly to get their cooperation:

And you—women instead of men—

don’t just stand near him, but give your help until I return

having cared for him, even if no one gives permission.

(1182–84)

The chorus responds with an escapist song: the soldiers want an end to the Trojan War and to war in general, a return home, and gratification of their mundane desires. In the first strophe they express their exhaustion with the war and envision the end of their troubles at Troy; then they curse the man who invented war. In the second strophe they list their longings for drink, music, and love—pleasures the Trojan War has stolen from them.[203] In the final antistrophe they call Ajax the protector of their joys, and they hope now only to return to the welcome view of Sounion. This song contains two symmetrical strophes, which they are allowed to finish without interruption because Tecmessa is now involved in problems greater than their simple wishes and hopes. The strongest comment on the chorus’ escapism is the unmoving tableau of woman and child over the corpse. These who are inescapably involved and committed in this scene, while the chorus, in contrast, seeks to leave the stage, dreaming of a brighter and pleasanter life.

Meter. The chorus’ escapism is further expressed through meter. Many of this ode’s meters have appeared before only in single or double lines buried amid more basic meters, and the second strophic pair is sung to ionic, a meter unused up to this moment. Through meters seldom heard in the rest of the play, this ode portrays the chorus’ separation from the events of the play.

The Final Song (1418–20)

Teucer ends the play giving directions for the burial rites of Ajax.[204] In a play that has stressed the traditional nature of the chorus by an anapaestic entrance song, it is appropriate to signal the closing action by recalling the same meter. As the funeral procession moves off the stage following the body of Ajax, the three Greek kings have gone off in the opposite direction, the chorus remains to speak what it can discover to be the moral of the play. This final speech, only three lines, returns to the anapaestic meter customary for exit songs[205] and is an unsatisfying choral tag composed of two statements. First the soldiers state that it is possible for men to know many things once they have seen them. This may be the final disappointment of the play because no spectator in the audience or character on stage could believe that this chorus has understood the events in the second part of this play any better than it understood Ajax in the first part. Second, in a final expression of their helplessness, the soldiers add that no man will ever know the future. This play of disappointed expectations has taught them to anticipate seldom and with no certainty.

Signaling their helplessness, the anapaests of their exit song are no longer a genuine response but merely an echo of the meter of Teucer, who has already begun the final scene.[206] Teucer’s speech, moveover, has assigned the actions and set the pace, giving directions to those on the stage. The final moments of the play reinforce the playwright’s theme visually and aurally. The last to leave the stage—following Ajax as they have followed after him before—are little men singing of their confusion about the future. Though they sing the standard meter for a normal exiting chorus, the combination of words, forms, meters, the staging of their entrances and exits, and their relation to major characters has so weakened their presence that their exit is a final symbol of the level to which the normal components of tragic drama have descended without the dominating figure of Ajax.

In Antigone and Ajax, then, both lyric form and meter play major roles in shaping individual scenes as well as in defining the basic perspectives of each drama. Of course, these plays are radically different in their structure and the resulting plots. Antigone splits the focus between two strong characters; Ajax spotlights the solitary hero. The setting of Antigone is a city square in front of the palace; the mechanisms of society pervade the play. Ajax is set on a desolate shore where the supports of civilization are gone and men are exposed. The chorus in Antigone is composed of town nobles, trusted councilors to the king, experienced in the management of the state. Appropriately the councilors of Antigone are not to be set aside; they sing from start to finish—indeed, more strophic odes than any other chorus in Sophoclean drama. In contrast, Ajax’s lowly soldiers, completely dependent on their leader, slip easily into the background; they are interrupted, corrected, replaced as singers, and finally reduced to escapist songs and dubious avowals of their own understanding. The chorus of Antigone sings traditional choral forms repeatedly and firmly; the chorus of Ajax is only able to sing its full choral song when it says nothing to excite correction—and, even when it completes an ode, its statements are usually misjudgments. The councilors of Antigone deal with some of the most profound Hellenic issues—man’s acquisition of civilization and the justice of Zeus, the power of the state and the demands of divinities; in a series of impressive odes they attempt to build these thoughts through words and meters into a unified philosophy for the state’s guidance. The practical men of Ajax make little attempt to develop their thoughts through meter or form.

Probably the most striking use of music in both plays occurs at the moment when the major characters, Antigone, Creon, and Ajax replace the chorus as singers of lyric. In assigning lyric meters and forms to these characters, Sophocles makes a major statement about each, adding significantly to their full characterizations. Yet the poet is also using musical design to present the chorus—even if by deprivation. The meter and form Sophocles assigns to his choruses enhance their roles as consistent personas in the drama. In each play the chorus attempts to find explanations for the developing action, and fails; but in making the attempt it introduces into the play an interpretation of the episodes that counters other interpretations. These choral theories are never called wrong; they are only limited. Sophocles remains his own best interpreter; the wide-reaching conceptions of the councilors in Antigone and the narrow views of the sailors of Ajax provide important perspectives that must be considered along with those of the major characters, even though they will be discarded when they become inadequate. From the first entrance of each chorus, musical design points to the weaknesses in its view. The earlier quote from Edward Cone remains useful: “We must always rely on the music as our guide toward an understanding of the composer’s conception of the text. It is this conception, not the bare text itself, that is authoritative in defining the ultimate meaning of the work.” The chorus of Antigone has been interpreted as sublime; that of Ajax, trivial. A proper understanding and full staging of these songs undermines the lofty image of Creon’s councilors and restores meaning to Ajax’s timorous soldiers. Proper staging of the music and dance within the context of the fully staged drama even tarnishes the sterling image of the most anthologizable of Greek odes, the virtual hymn to Hellenism: “Many are the world’s wonders, but none is more wondrous than man. . . .”

CHAPTER 3

MUSICAL DESIGN IN TRACHINIAE, OEDIPUS TYRANNUS, ELECTRA, AND PHILOCTETES

TRACHINIAE

The feature that controls the design of Sophocles’ Trachiniae above all others is its formal division into two parts, counterbalanced through each one’s organization around a single central character.[1] Simply put, neither main character is on stage with the other, a separation marked by the emphasis on Deianeira’s exit and Heracles’ entrance (813–14 and 962–70). The linkages between the two parts have been discussed by many critics, but it is undeniable that Sophocles has labored to keep the two protagonists apart physically and separated in most other ways; this categorical division influences every other element in this difficult play.[2] The first section (1–961) revolves around the feelings, plans, and reactions of Deianeira, who finally sends Heracles the poisoned robe that will kill him; only after Deianeira has taken her own life does Heracles enter for the second section, which, though shorter, is his equally powerful response to Deianeira’s actions. The other features of the play—the imagery, the diction, the secondary characters, as well as the songs of the chorus—are focused to emphasize the contrasts between these two characters.[3] Deianeira and Heracles are united only once, in the words of the chorus (633–62), an imaginary meeting, a romanticized dream desired by these women who continually create a private world filled with wondrous characters and fictional motives.[4]

The idealized picture of marriage offered by the chorus of young unmarried women is necessary in a play that draws its force from the relationship between two spouses. Heracles is thoroughly capable of getting what he needs from a personal relationship, but Deianeira’s wishes are much more individualized and complex. While she is working out her plans and devices to preserve a marriage that seems to be dissolving before her eyes, the women of the chorus develop an image of what marriage can be. They enrich and deepen this theme by considering it from a variety of vantage points. They are sympathetic to Deianeira’s desire to have her husband home as the mark of a stable house. They know the weakness of a woman in a man’s world and acknowledge how difficult it is for Deianeira to be continually waiting for Heracles to complete his mission away from home. Yet at the same time they know that she is eager for him to be awarded the honor he deserves, and that she wants to celebrate it with him. The problem of maintaining her identity within their relationship is her constant concern. These elements in Deianeira’s character are heightened when the chorus sings of marriage from their young and ever-fresh perspective; often they seem naive, but their odes bring the full power of romantic love and trusting, stable marriage into the play.

Parodos (94–140)

The young women[5] enter praying that the Sun might announce that Heracles is missing and tell them where he is,[6] though in fact they are not as much concerned about Heracles as about Deianeira, who is despondent at her husband’s absence. Doubt about Heracles’ fate is the cause of her unhappiness, and, while these women do care how he is faring, primarily they want him to return home to his wife. The second stanza reveals their full concern for Deianeira (103–11); not only do they use a sympathetic simile of an unhappy bird to describe her but she remains on stage during the song as they seek to console her. Throughout the second strophic pair they try to encourage her with the thought that mortal pain is always followed by joy (112–31); life is a cycle and her fortunes, though at this moment low, will again be raised high.[7]

The meter in these four stanzas shifts abruptly from dactyloepitrite to choriambic: the first stanza is totally dactylo-epitrite; the second strophe then begins with this meter,[8] thus linking the two strophic pairs, but changes at 116 = 126 to a block of choriambic.[9] There is, however, no metrical linking of these strophic pairs to the final stanza, which begins with iambics and continues this meter to the end in clear, even repeated, lines as the chorus continues trying to console Deianeira with the theme of the cycle in human events (132–40). They are a hopeful and optimistic chorus throughout the play and continually counsel good cheer, even concluding with a question implying that Zeus, who has always cared for his children in the past, will continue to do so in the future (139–40).[10]

The meters of this ode offer a valuable clue to the larger role of the chorus. The first two strophic pairs are joined by dactylic meter because together they express one complete thought: Heracles and Deianeira are both suffering, but he will be saved and she should take heart because in time the cycle dominating human affairs will bring a good resolution for both. By shifting the meter sharply at the beginning of the final stanza, Sophocles suggests that the chorus is beginning anew rather than continuing its same thought. However, this new metrical start is betrayed by the words of the women as they continue to embroider their previous statements, adding little that is original.[11] They have a basic idea that they are able to present in different ways, but they do not explore its implications;[12] rather they continue extending their applications of the cycle to other areas with a deep trust in the god who has always cared for them before—and, they assume, will do so again now.[13] Thus, the poet uses the strong metrical separation of the final stanza to call attention to the chorus’ pervasive optimism as well as its lack of developing thought or originality. The persuasive device of this chorus is repetition. Furthermore, throughout the play, the chorus will drift into simple iambic meters from a variety of different beginnings, a tendency evident in the closing stanza; often it sings a simple dimeter or trimeter that is not far removed from spoken rhythm. As a result, not only in the repetition of words and thoughts, but also in the slide into an unvaried iambic meter, the women are presented as young, inexperienced, and unquestioning; they sing a confident song expressing joy in life to describe Sophocles’ rugged world. Yet to live in this world demands more flexible, profound thought and more vigorous music than this chorus can produce.

The audience, however, was probably reluctant to fault these women, who are, after all, moved by sincere compassion for Deianeira and have entered to offer consolation and advice.[14] They begin by addressing the god of the Sun and end expressing trust in Zeus. They want to see Deianeira and her household happier, and they earnestly encourage her to expect the return of her husband. Yet something is lacking; in spite of these endearing sentiments, their characterization of Deianeira is inadequate.[15] They call her a wretched bird, a woman constantly grieving and continually nourishing her own fear, and finally suggest that she has lost faith in Zeus’ good will. They suspect she has driven hope from her life—in essence, that she has lost her understanding of the world. Deianeira certainly displays such feelings in the opening scene of the play (1–8, 15–17, 24–28, 37, 43, and 46), but they do not adequately characterize her. When she recalls the oracle left by Heracles predicting that the present day will determine whether he shall live or die, she becomes nervous, but she can hardly be described as nourishing her own fear (108). Far from distrusting the universe, she is aware that this oracle could be right and that this may be the day on which her happiness begins. She grasps eagerly at the nurse’s idea of sending Hyllus to inquire about Heracles. As for her understanding of the world, Deianeira is more aware of the potential danger in the oracle than are the women of the chorus, who will eventually have to accept her reading of that oracle with all its inherent dangers. Though Deianeira is not presented as a heroic woman, strong and self-possessed, she is scarcely the inert, helpless victim of the larger world that the chorus portrays.[16] She is gentle, sensitive, and eager for a united home with her husband and children. Her anxiety arises from her fear that her expected happiness may be snatched from her at the last moment.

Her first words to the chorus after its song are a mild rebuke for its insistence that she is burdened by her troubles to an unnatural degree.[17] These friends urge her to surrender to the will of Zeus, but she has learned from experience that the world is more contentious and jealous than they believe, and she is therefore worried about finding security for herself and her family. When she responds so directly to their advice, she only wishes to explain in a gentle and understanding way that they do not speak from knowledge of the real pressures on a person in her position; as she puts it: “At the moment you are inexperienced” (143).[18] In spite of her gracious opening, her speech is an interruption of her young friends’ choral song as they urge her to tailor her life to fit their preconceptions. Deianeira, whose abilities and strengths are easily misjudged, even overlooked, in a play filled with deception, demonstrates her resilient spirit in insisting on her own rights and defining the world as she sees it, even if she is not strong enough to be one of its constant activating forces.[19] The final stanza sung by the chorus is best staged as an incipient strophic structure continuing a repetitious chain of thoughts, which is interrupted when Deianeira explains to a group of young girls that she is more aware than they of the forces operative in her world.

Choral Stanza (205–24)[20]

At 180–83 a messenger brings the good news that should free Deianeira from her uncertainty. At first she is characteristically cautious; she asks the source of the report and wants to know why Heracles’ herald Lichas has not come. These qualms are quickly laid to rest and happiness pervades the scene. The messenger, however, adds one other point of information that contains the initial seeds of his message’s ultimate reversal: the herald has made a public announcement of Heracles’ arrival to the Trachinians in the meadow outside the town. This very moment will be mentioned later as the occasion on which Lichas under oath identified Iole as Heracles’ consort (417–28). But now such concerns are far off; Deianeira rejoices and asks the women to sing.

Their song is filled with rapturous delight. They raise a joyous song for the house where husband and wife are to be rejoined and invoke Apollo, Artemis, the neighboring Nymphs, and Dionysus. Yet in spite of the excitement in their words, the meters of this song are not wildly lyrical but mostly the repetitious iambics of this chorus.[21] Once again the women seem unable to meet the demands of the present occasion. Though their words express joy and they are, as ever, eager for husband and wife to be reunited, their song is no more than an invocation of divinities whose precise contribution to the present moment is difficult to identify. While they mention several musical forms to celebrate a moment of joy and victory over opposing odds, including the ololygmos, the paean, and the dithyramb, there is little recognition of the fulfillment of the oracle, the relief of Deianeira, or the return of Heracles. In addition, they display their confidence in the good will of the pantheon of gods, a trust evident earlier in their willingness to leave affairs in Zeus’ hands (132–90). Although this chorus becomes authentically excited about good news, it ignores all the uncertainties and complexities of life, which Deianeira feels so strongly. Suitably, then, the young women sing to a flatter meter than usual in such songs of joy,[22] signaling again their inability to reflect accurately and to respond fully to the episodes being played before them. They provide only an immediate, instinctive, and largely emotional response to scenes that require thoughtful understanding.

The chorus clearly begins to dance to the lyric meter (216 and 218–20),[23] but, like the parodos, this brief song lacks an anticipated antistrophe. The procession of Lichas leading Iole and her fellow captive women begins to enter just as the chorus calls for the singing of the paean. Often in this play action interrupts the songs of the chorus, thus creating a series of unfinished choral forms. This pattern is developed fully when the women fall into such confusion at the entrance of Heracles that the rhythms of Sophocles’ universe must be reestablished with new music from new singers.

The women of the chorus include the announcement of the captives’ entrance in their lyric pointing out to Deianeira that their optimistic song of joy has come true. In response Deianeira indicates gently, through insistent repetition of their word “see,” her momentary frustration with the naiveté of this chorus: “I see, dear women, nor has it passed by the guardianship of my eye so that I did not see this group” (225–26). Of course, the chorus’ song is riddled with innocent, unconscious irony; when Deianeira actually sees with full clarity, the truth will kill her. At this joyous moment, however, she innocently supports the irony, reaffirming that she sees and sees clearly, thus repeating highly significant words as the introduction to the deception scene where words implying clarity, as well as its opposite “concealment,” emerge as thematically important.[24]

First Stasimon (497–530)

This song occurs in the middle of the long “Deception Scene” (225–632)—an apt description, for everyone in it is deceived at least once. Deianeira is supposed to be deceived by Lichas about the true position of Iole and the exploits of Heracles;[25] by the end of the scene, however, she has learned that Heracles is attempting to smuggle a rival into the house. She leads Lichas into the house promising to find apt gifts for her husband, yet Lichas is deceived about the nature of the gift—as is clear from his words in the next scene when he accepts her gift and promises to carry it faithfully to Heracles (620–23). Deianeira emerges immediately after this song to tell how she has anointed the robe with the love charm of Nessus in order to enchant Heracles, though we soon realize that she has been the object of a greater deception herself in believing that the ointment was a love potion. All on stage at the end of the deception scene believe that they understand and are in control of their situation—yet all of them are deceived in one way or another.

The chorus is no exception. At this point the women expect that Heracles will return, that Deianeira will escape unpleasant consequences arising from the existence of a second woman in the house, and that happiness will reign in the future. In their song they look back to the struggle when Heracles fought to win Deianeira from the river god, Achelous. This ode is a well-told narrative linked through all three stanzas by dactylic meter. Dactylo-epitrite appeared prominently in the parodos when the women sang about the worry and perplexity of Deianeira (94–131); appropriately this meter forms the heart of the present strophic stanzas as the chorus sings of the two strong rivals contending for the bride.[26] The familiar iambic meter that accompanies the dactylo-epitrite in the strophic section of this song emerges strongly toward the end of the ode at the point where the chorus begins to focus on Deianeira. Yet in all three stanzas the intensity of the previously heard meters is diluted by the inclusion of unfamiliar patterns—anapaests, aeolic meters, choriambs, and molossi. To this meter, which is less focused than those in the earlier two songs, the chorus presents the battle between Heracles and the river god as a struggle of mighty powers told as an epic, and it clearly envisions Aphrodite as the umpire of the contest between the two foes. Yet the ode ends with a portrait of Deianeira that once again characterizes her inadequately. In the final stanza the women turn to focus on the bride sitting alone in the background rather than on the struggle that has already determined her fate, presenting her in this ode as the solitary, lonely, tender, unassertive maiden, more victim than doer, inactive and caught between powers over which she has no control.[27] They are, of course, unaware of the actions Deianeira is performing off stage as they sing.

The chorus’ flawed characterization of Deianeira is all the more evident when she enters unannounced in mid-song at the very moment when they are singing of her weakness: “She has wandered far from her mother like a lonely heifer” (529–30). But she is secretive and conspiratorial, eager to speak with the young women before Lichas, who remains in the house, can have an inkling of her plan.[28] She wants to tell the chorus what she has been doing, in order to enlist its support in her plan to protect her marriage. Deianeira describes her activity as a technê (“an art” 534)—definitely not the action of a resourceless woman. In her hands she carries her own creation: the chest with the anointed robe.

Two simultaneous effects centered on the interruption and the interrupter shape the design of this ode. First, the ode ends in another, now the third, interrupted lyric structure. It is clear now, if it was not before, that the chorus—though it has accurately sensed the pervasive force of love operating throughout the deception scene—has continued the story to an ending so unreal that it is easily interrupted. But, in addition, in its spirited tale it sings of Aphrodite’s potent deceptions among gods (498–502) and her power among heroic beings, a tale filled with words of brutish strength, loud noises, and bloody blows while Deianeira is placed demurely in the background waiting.[29] In fact, in sending the anointed robe Deianeira begins a complex chain of actions that will cause the downfall—and yet the glorification[30]—of her husband, herself, and her house. The chorus has seriously underestimated her; she is strong enough to interrupt its song even as it sings of her weakness; during the ode she is in the house using her kind of strength. Involved in a contest of love with a powerful foe, she is described as an animal just as Achelous was (507–509 and 529–30), and she is in the process of devising another moment of loud noises and bloodshed. She is the re-arisen Achelous to Heracles even though she thinks that she is working to save him. Though the ode presents Deianeira as the chorus wants to see her, a victim as weak as a motherless heifer, she is so caught up in the world of deceptions and covered feelings that she unwittingly becomes the prime deceiver in her pursuit of love. When she bursts in on the chorus’ story, its characterization of her within the poetic tale seems trivial in comparison to Deianeira’s resolve. Intent on achieving her will, she can neither appreciate nor understand the ironic identification implicit in its story, nor can she realize that she is carrying the fatal gift with her. All is deception in this part of the play as Deianeira deceives and outwits herself.[31]

The repeated combination of meters, heard previously in the parodos, underlines the continued presence of the same choral concerns—unquestioning devotion to the interests of Deianeira and respect for the gods’ care for human life—as it sketches an increasingly rich background to the love of Deianeira and Heracles. Yet the addition of unfamiliar meters begins the movement toward a less structured musical accompaniment for its words as reality moves to interrupt and disorder its perspective.

Second Stasimon (633–62)

In this ode the thoughts of the chorus diverge most sharply from the actual events of the play. While the women are singing a song of joy celebrating the coming reunion of Heracles and Deianeira, Deianeira off stage comes to realize that the robe she has sent to her husband was poisoned.[32] This irony is exposed when Deianeira returns to the stage to share her fears with the chorus; though she expresses her thoughts tentatively and indirectly, she already understands what she has done. Once Hyllus confirms her fears, she makes no response, but silently leaves the stage to kill herself. The chorus comprehends so little of what is happening that it questions why she wants to accuse herself, and later even refuses to believe that she has committed suicide (873–95).

Given its inability to understand Deianeira, it is not surprising that the chorus continues to expand on its steady themes of marriage and the reuniting of the family. In the first two stanzas the women urge the dwellers on Mt. Oeta to prepare joyous music for the arrival of the victorious Heracles. The second strophic pair shifts the locale to Trachis; the subject remains a fictionalized Deianeira who will end her debilitating fears when Heracles returns to his home fired with desire[33] for his wife through the potent charm she has added to his gift.[34]

The illusory nature of the hopes expressed in this ode is echoed by a familiar metrical pattern. The first strophic pair is sung to a collection of different meters but refuses to settle on any one of them with regularity—thus continuing the movement from an unvaried dactylo-epitrite in the first stanza of the parodos to a mix of anapaests and iambics with dactylo-epitrite at the beginning of the first stasimon. Here there is only a single dactylo-epitrite. This strophic pair about Heracles’ return is easily distinguished from the repeated iambic meter of the second strophic set picturing the end of Deianeira’s worries. The double focus basic to the design of the play is preserved in miniature as the two main characters are kept in separate stanzas, split by meter and form even in this ode devoted to their reunion. The chorus, intent on imagining the progress toward the coming celebration, fails to bring the couple together even in the last stanza.[35]

This is the first ode the women have been allowed to complete, yet the completion of their first strophic form is no success. They are so beguiled by their romantic dream that they have lost touch with the forces driving the action of the play.[36] In this and the next strophic song they develop their private vision, uninterrupted by the main characters; but when they have completed each ode, the action moves in directions they have not suspected. In addition, the Deianeira who emerges from the house at the end of this song is a changed creature. She still hopes for the return of her husband, but now, hesitant and filled with doubts, she has no desire to interrupt anyone or even to tell her story. And she sees a future that is obscure to the chorus.

Significantly the chorus mentions the motif of music-making in its first antistrophe addressing the dwellers near Oeta and the Malian Gulf:

Soon now the lovely cries of the aulos

will not raise a harsh clamor for you;

but a song for the gods,

music like the lyre

(640–43)

Though the chorus errs in this as in its other projections, it does acknowledge that Heracles’ return will require a new type of music. Such music, however, will be generated only after the chorus has lost its ability to sing and dance; new characters will then take the stage to devise music appropriate to the rhythms of Heracles’ world.

Third Stasimon and Kommos (821–61 + 879–95)

In the preceding episode the chorus has heard of Heracles’ entrapment by Deianeira’s gift and a son’s charge of guilt against his mother, and it has seen Deianeira leave the stage in silence. The chorus admits that her silence appears an admission of guilt, and Hyllus ends the scene expressing the bitter wish that she have a full share of the happiness she has brought to Heracles.

No longer able to enjoy the optimism that has characterized them since their first entrance, the women of the chorus open the first strophe of this ode in dactylo-epitrite, the meter in which they began the parodos consoling the suffering Deianeira. The words of this ode are equally sympathetic, though the women are now the sole defenders of the queen, who has condemned herself. They almost immediately turn to their customary iambics, yet the iambic is not as clearly stated as before because of the high rate of resolution[38] and the interspersed single lines of other meters. For the first time in this play the chorus has trouble maintaining its own characteristic meter as it acknowledges that the oracle prophesying the end of pain for Heracles has been fulfilled—though not in the way these women had expected.

In the second strophic pair the chorus tries to defend Deianeira by transferring guilt to Nessus.[39] The women first state that Deianeira did not hesitate to apply the poison because she saw harm coming to her marriage and she did not realize the powers of the drug, but that she now laments.[40] They grasp for other causes: an impersonal fate uncovering hidden evils from the past in present and future deeds, the spear with which Heracles stormed the heights of Oichalia, and the goddess Aphrodite, whom they indict as the underlying power in the whole affair.[41] It is difficult to define how all of these various agents could have worked together to create a plan to destroy Heracles, but the chorus grasps at any kind of causative agent that will exculpate their friend.

The meter of this strophic pair wanders so freely among odd formations, or at least forms difficult to identify, that it is again effectively split apart from the first set by metrical structure—thus separating the women’s acceptance of Heracles’ death from their attempt to shield Deianeira.[42] This is the chorus’ second full strophic song. It does not provide a coherent defense—hence the disjunction in meters; but it is a complete statement presenting all the argumentation the women are able to muster—hence the fulfillment of the strophic choral form.

Immediately after their song is finished, they hear a cry from inside the house; they stop singing and dancing and begin to speak in iambics—probably as individuals.[43] At the same moment the nurse enters from the house, saddened and grave. The women cannot believe that Deianeira is dead—certainly not a suicide.[44] From the parodos on, the evidence has been clear that they underestimate Deianeira; even when she left the stage in silence before their choral song, they appeared to have no notion of her intentions (813–14).[45] As the nurse makes the truth clear to them, the dialogue in iambic trimeter moves to a lyric kommos. The meters of the kommos are mostly iambics with the sporadic insertion of dochmiac, aeolic, and enoplian. The nurse only once joins in the lyric iambics; the chorus sings the other choral meters.[46]

This distribution of meters suits the characterizations in this scene. The nurse is reasoned and factual in her report and seems to understand her mistress’ motivation: Deianeira killed herself on her marriage bed when she realized that she had destroyed the man she desperately loved. The chorus previously denied Deianeira’s tacit admission of guilt and now—even as it is having trouble accepting the facts of the case—struggles to find an explanation that will distance their heroine from such a desperate act as suicide. At the nurse leaves iambic speech when she insists that the deed was done in the most horrible way; but the chorus will not be so easily satisfied and in lyric presses for details. The nurse tells them directly that Deianeira has committed suicide; and they are now forced to seek extenuating causes inside their heroine—sickness or a fit of madness. Finally they ask the nurse if she herself saw this act of hybris. Hybris, however, usually describes a violent act upon another person;[47] even here the chorus at the cost of confused expression is trying to save a pure motive for Deianeira by clinging to the idea of an external attack. This painful lyric dialogue continues as they keep asking for details. But they finally seem to accept the truth and the nurse cuts off further questions with the simple words: “It is clear” (892). Now the chorus must deal with the fact of Deianeira’s suicide and can only find further defense in a traditional mythological explanation: Iole has given birth to a savage Erinys for the whole house of Heracles. In employing the concept of the Erinys the women do not free Deianeira from the implications of her suicide, but they do make her death the product of an outside force arisen from Iole, and thus they hope to avert responsibility for current or future events from their beloved Deianeira. But this device of the Erinys provides little satisfaction, and the nurse gently seeks to instruct them about Deianeira’s true character and motives by narrating the events within the house.

Throughout this kommos the chorus’ meters remain lyric as it attempts to defend the queen at the very moment when such a possibility is being rapidly closed. The move from spoken iambics to lyric meters following 862 raises the intensity of the chorus’ words as it comes to accept that Deianeira is dead by her own hand and understands that its previous vision of her has been declared a lie by the queen herself.[48] Yet the form of the scene is even more expressive. This chorus has never had a problem forming strophic songs, even though it has seldom been allowed to finish them. In this scene the women sing in their customary iambic meter, but they are unable to organize a song as they grasp for any fact, unable to comprehend the situation or to make their former conception of Deianeira correspond to her actions.[49] They ask a rapid series of questions that the nurse answers directly and tersely. They do not even know enough of the facts to form a response, and the facts they do learn further upset their earlier beliefs. Form and meter combine to show a chorus whose confidence in its judgment is shaken.[50]

Fourth Stasimon and Heracles’ Strophic Song (947–70 and 971–1043)

The kommos between the chorus and the nurse was the chorus’ first attempt to deal with harsh facts. During the fourth stasimon the women’s unhappiness becomes so great that they seek escape from their role—an escape granted as the source of music and the nature of music-making in the play change drastically. Since the chorus has always supported Deianeira’s dreams, the major shift to new music sung by new singers maintains the double focus of the play’s design.

The first strophic set, the shortest in Sophoclean tragedy, is composed of two short stanzas, yet the function of these lines is clear. The nurse has clearly told the women of the chorus how Deianeira killed herself, and Hyllus has told them about Heracles, and now they lament her death and his (expected) end in a recognizable ritual form. Initial questions, repetitions, and assonance are familiar marks of such laments.[51] Though the women attempt to sing their iambic meter, the lines are so resolved as to be unrecognizable; and the stanzas are sharply curtailed—even stunted.[52] The choral form seems to break down under the stress of events.

In the opening of the second strophic pair they express a wish to escape before they see Heracles, a hope dashed in the antistrophe. As the dying Heracles is borne on stage,[53] they realize there is no easy escape from the reality of Deianeira’s action with its fatal implications for her and for him. Again they attempt to organize a steady iambic meter, but the pattern is interrupted by single lines of other meters—and finally overwhelmed by the cries of Hyllus.

Form is equally significant. The first strophic pair is so short that it portrays the women as numb and hesitant even though it fulfills the formal expectations of a lament. The second strophe contains the only response of these young women to reality. The facts are clear: Heracles is now returning home, and their only hope is to flee; yet escape is impossible. The arrival of the cortege with the dying Heracles invades their strophic form. Neither the procession nor Hyllus receives an anapaestic announcement or interrupts the choral form, but the action from the episode intrudes on the song—as did the earlier procession with Lichas leading Iole and her fellow captives at 221. There the entrance of the secretly threatening procession was enthusiastically celebrated by the unwary young women, an appropriately complex introduction to the deception scene. Here the arrival of the dying Heracles is in itself enough to drive organized choral lyric, group singing, and dancing from the play. These women have sung their final song; ironically they were the ones who insisted that new music greet Heracles (640–43).[54]

Heracles’ Strophic Song (1004–9 + 1014–16 = 1023–30 + 1041–43)

From the moment of their entrance Heracles and his attendants so dominate the stage that there are only a few spoken lines left for the chorus; while Hyllus and the Old Man sing during the lyric section, Heracles takes the lead role. In their shared song (971–1043) the new music of Zeus’ universe is heard, a prayer for death. The ironies of this scene are pervasive. Heracles, wracked by his final torments, has been brought home as the oracle had promised; this day will bring the end of his suffering. He begs for this end, asking not for a peaceful conclusion to a heroic life, but rather for an escape from pain so severe that it threatens to surpass endurance. The earlier visions of the renewed marriage have proven an ironic curse. In this section everything changes: characters, images, meters and lyric forms, movement toward the palace vs. movement out to the countryside, props, and tone. Reversals from the first part of the play mark the new scene: women are replaced by men, the nurse by the son, gentle requests by threats, willing service to requests by the violent wrenching of one’s whole character, the house and marriage bed by the death bed, the beautiful and loving by the heroic and noble, pleasure for all by pain for all, women who care for others by a man who cares only for himself, the marriage of a happy couple by the uniting of an unsuspecting and unwilling couple, and all to serve the will of one dying man—but it is one dying superman.

Anapaests introduce this scene as Hyllus and the Old Man express their concern over the sleeping Heracles. Hyllus laments the loss of his father, whom he thinks is already dead; he is even more upset to find that after all the suffering he is still alive.[56] The Old Man wants Heracles to sleep since this is his sole release from suffering, but Hyllus will not be silenced. At the end of this short passage the pain gnaws at Heracles again and he awakens. The last scene is introduced by suffering too great to be stilled and friends’ extreme sympathy for the sufferer—emotions that distinguish this song from the earlier odes of the women because the singers now respond to powerful realities and not to their own roseate visions of an idealized action.[57]

The center of the scene is Heracles, whose song rebukes and almost curses his father, Zeus. Though Heracles has sacrificed, he receives no return; Zeus holds the remedy for his ills and yet denies help. Up to 1003 the meter is anapaestic, a meter appropriate for processions and the entrances of groups. Probably the cortege, which has entered from the side while Heracles is addressing Zeus, comes to a stop in the orchestra.[58] In lyric meters interspersed with dactylic hexameters (1004–43) Heracles immediately orders those on the stage around him to leave him alone.[59] He screams from the pain that overtakes him, and then, reminding the Greeks of his generous acts for them, in a section of dactylic hexameters he seeks the gift of a swift death. When the Old Man and Hyllus try to aid him, Heracles recognizes his son’s voice and begs him to lighten his pain—even to kill him, the only cure for the maddening illness caused by Deianeira. Finally he prays to Hades to grant him a sweet release.[60]

The words of this lyric are of major significance because they are new to the play.[61] First, pain has so disoriented Heracles that he can focus on the scene around him only gradually. He is carried on stage asleep; he calls on Zeus, then addresses the Greeks; and finally he is conscious enough to recognize those around him and to talk with his son directly. Second, he acknowledges his pain so openly that a prayer for death is not only appropriate but a call for grace.[62] Then, he asks his fellow men for aid, while realizing that there is little they can do except make him comfortable in his misery. Finally, he curses Deianeira, the one responsible for his suffering and death.

Neither the chorus nor any other character in the play has been able to analyze the situation with such clarity. Seen from Heracles’ point of view, the others are all victims of their own shortsightedness. Heracles not only wakes but is eager to know those around him, and he bluntly assesses each of them to determine the way in which they can most effectively serve him. Heracles knows that he is dying despite his service to Zeus, the only possible agent who can save him. He will not cringe or quail, but for a brief moment he allows himself to hope for a healer. From the humans nearby he asks for comfort and the final gift of a swift death. Hyllus responds that he is unable to undertake acts that lie in the hands of the gods, but Heracles knows that already; Hyllus and the other Greeks are too weak for such purposeful and independent action. Finally, he turns to the god of death and asks for release—a forthright approach to his sickness that contrasts with the unrealistically cheery songs of the women of the chorus. They entered in the parodos trusting in a romantic world of their own making and refused to awake from their dream until Heracles’ immanent presence shook them. Even then they would rather have escaped to a dream world. Deianeira, under the delusion that her house and family are crucial sources of self-protection and self-identity, is an attractive and gentle woman, but one not strong enough to endure the pressures of life. Only when reality is forced upon her does she have the courage to exact the proper penalty from herself—a death that Heracles would probably have approved because it signifies her having finally gained the courage to seize control of her destiny. Admittedly she does not gain the stature of Heracles even in this decision because she is reacting to feelings of inadequacy and guilt while Heracles positively and directly chooses death as the most acceptable action among his limited options. He has customarily chosen externally directed action: after all, when he was in love with a woman, he sacked her town and carried her off. Confident in his values, Heracles curses the person who has brought him suffering and death, while the chorus could never wish anyone ill and Deianeira wishes well even to Iole and Heracles. In this play Heracles alone achieves a clear view of the nature of the Sophoclean world. In his song, the last music heard in this play, he confronts his world, assesses his choices, and finds the proper solution, if only weaker men will do for him what he cannot himself do.

Heracles’ methods for dealing with his problems are not those of the civilized world.[63] Drama, however, may depict extreme attitudes in order that an audience can see them with full clarity and recognize their implications, ignoring momentarily the complex half-solutions that snarl and entangle situations in daily life. Heracles, Greece’s greatest hero, is an extreme character by nature. Nevertheless he recommends principles that ordinary men could apply in their lives: see the world clearly as it is; acknowledge it as a place of pain; seek such aid as your fellow man is capable of giving—even if it is only to aid you in dying; treat your enemies as enemies.

This message Heracles sings to a mixture of dochmiac and hexameter, the new music that has not only intruded on the previous music of the chorus but has now replaced it. Dochmiac, which traditionally accompanies songs of great passion or suffering, is an appropriate meter for a character to tell of pain and to indict the world for its unfairness. The hexameter, however, as the meter of epic, is associated with the great heroes of Greece who lived their lives as their own masters, dominating their enemies. This combination of meters reflects the mixture of passion and heroism with which Sophocles has endowed the intimidating figure of Heracles. This musical form, combining strophic stanzas with hexameter inserts has now replaced the repetitive iambic stanzas of the chorus.[64] No one interrupts to correct Heracles’ song because only he has grasped in its entirety the challenge of the Sophoclean world. The astrophic hexameter inserts do not cause a loss of form but rather present a new and richer form surpassing the strophic balance sought and expected by other singers and the audience. New meter, new form, and new words—all together create the music needed by those who would live as effective beings in the Sophoclean world.

The chorus’ inability to understand the situations, the actions, and the thoughts of Deianeira and Heracles is shown most directly when Heracles authoritatively appropriates choral form and bends it to his own use. The women fall silent and throughout the last scene respond only twice, characteristically with emotional reactions. Though at 1044–45 they muster no lyric, they can shudder at Heracles’ wish to die; and after he tells of his labors in cleansing the world of monsters, they lament the loss of such a hero (1112–13). At the end of the play Hyllus directs the women to leave because they are not even able to motivate themselves off stage (1275–79).[65] When he recites the closing anapaests, stating that the women have seen much death and suffering, he sounds like a typical closing chorus. The chorus would have fitted all the potential and actual ills of the characters into a conventional pattern by minimizing the pain and pronouncing the suffering temporary, a mere phase in a cycle. Hyllus, however, is able at this final moment to glimpse, or at least to assert, Zeus’ total control over the events they have witnessed. He ends the play advising all to learn that the harshness, the suffering, the deaths, and the guilt are parts of Zeus’ universe, the world in which humans must struggle to survive as well as they are able. In the separate parts of this play Sophocles has presented two opposed models for living, Deianeira and Heracles; Heracles, the hero/monster, by confronting Zeus’ universe with courage and crudeness is better able to exist in it.

In the last scene the elemental vision Heracles celebrates in new music is effected on stage. His thought is clear and his mind decisive. From 1046 to 1142 Heracles is eager to have his enemy Deianeira brought so that he can take his revenge; but when Hyllus tells him of her innocent mistake in using the love potion, he dismisses all thought of her. Realizing that the plan of Zeus underlies his present pain, he focuses on the oracle that has promised an end to his sufferings. He orders those around him to prepare his pyre because he knows that his life is over. At this point he demands that the remaining mortals carry out those parts of his plan that he himself is unable to perform. First, after pronouncing his curse on those who swear falsely and extracting a pledge of obedience from his son, he demands that Hyllus himself apply the torch to his funeral pyre and refuses to understand why his son is so repelled at this thought. He finally relents, allowing Hyllus to avoid igniting the pyre himself only if he will prepare it. In fact, Heracles acts consistently with the principles in his earlier song; he regards his death as a healing and has no tolerance for those who will not see the world as he does because they are blinded by sentiment. When he demands that his son marry Iole so that no other man will touch her, again Heracles cannot understand his son’s objections, and Hyllus is forced to accept this duty under the threat of his father’s curse.

The clear and direct view of reality, the acceptance of pain, the demand that his fellow men help him despite their own qualms, and the acts of cursing and blessing without a trace of self-doubt—these are the elements extolled in the new song of Heracles. As he appropriates the musical role of the chorus, so also he proposes and then enacts a new code of behavior that allows the hero who lives and dies as his own master to command respect.[66] Deianeira and the other characters in the play are attractive and appealing to a civilized audience because of their willingness to compromise. They exemplify customary respect for society and its codes, often sacrificing their interests to the demands of others in order to build a successful community or family. But Heracles is not concerned about the community; he is the threatening, extravagant, unrestrained individual who demands that the world work hard to accept him. Trachiniae, a play designed to rub raw the moral nerve of its audience, invites a wide variety of personal responses.

The chorus of women provides a constant romanticized, sentimental view of marriage, a perspective that Sophocles wanted to include within his play. Yet, as usual in Sophoclean drama, the chorus does not have much of an individual existence; rather its perspective is almost immediately overtaken by the real concerns and agonies of the two major characters. The meters and the musical form of both the chorus and Heracles are designed to enhance the double vision implicit in this play, the very structure that identifies and defines the choice Sophocles compels his audience to address.

The organizing principles of the play’s musical design support this interpretation. The tendency of the women to drift to an iambic meter at the end of their songs; the repeated interruptions of their music in the first three songs; the disorganization of their music in the fourth stasimon; and the appropriation of music-making by Heracles in the last scene—all are meaningful. The odes of the naive young women, filled with hopes for a pleasant world peopled by amiable wives and loving, triumphant husbands, provide the background for two sharply contrasted characters, a perspective that enriches the portrayal of those characters when they refuse to be confined by such romanticized views. Sophocles has assigned the women a standard metrical form, which they customarily use and to which they retreat as their observations turn repetitive or superficial.

Though the women try to fit each character and each moment in the developing action into their perspective, the characters and action keep eluding such definition. Hence the blunt, epodic endings to odes, relatively high in frequency for Sophoclean plays. Certainly the two main characters see the chorus’ views as inadequate. Deianeira in the first part of the play interrupts their song to explain that they have not described her situation; Heracles appropriates music-making after the women have admitted their inability to accept the world around them. The choral statements that Deianeira interrupts and those that Heracles negates both seem irrelevant to the situation, even escapist, suggesting that the chorus is presenting a weak analysis of its world. Twice the action proceeds so rapidly that it intrudes into the women’s song and they must accommodate themselves to the action in the play rather than being commentators upon it (222 ff. and 862 ff.).[67]

By the time these women reach their fourth stasimon, when Deianeira has already killed herself and Heracles is about to be borne onstage, the characters and the action have completely surpassed the chorus’ ability to comprehend either. As a visual and aural demonstration of the confusion rampant in their hearts and onstage, they pray to escape in a song that violates the normal patterns of form, meter, and character entrance. Heracles appropriately dismisses this chorus by providing all the music—new in thought, form, and meter—for the ending of the play as he brings on stage a world of heroic proportion.

Music reflects the opposed major panels that comprise this play. Deianeira’s reactions are admittedly kind and humane, but the chorus’ consistently sentimentalized images exaggerate her gentleness and graciousness—a characterization calculated to appeal to the audience. The women also describe Heracles as the polar opposite of Deianeira: the archindividual, aggressive, crude, and insensitive. Heracles does not correct these perceptions; he confirms them. He even pirates the chorus’ role, and his assertiveness thus strengthens the design.[68] To the end Heracles lives his life forcefully and refuses to cower before the knowledge of his imminent death. His myth tells of his deification, though this is not directly mentioned since such a highly positive judgment would irretrievably turn the play in his favor.[69] Rather Sophocles has balanced the scales between Deianeira—attractive and sympathetic, yet regrettably unsuited for life in Zeus’ universe—and Heracles, ugly and yet seemingly successful. The price paid by both is clear, and the audience must choose which character has been better engineered for the world in which Sophocles’ characters are compelled to live. The audience would leave the theater with the two panels impressed upon their minds—no solutions, but many questions raised by these two unsettling portraits.

OEDIPUS TYRANNUS

Oedipus Tyrannus[70] culminates in the violent explosion of forces long held in check.[71] Though both characters and audience may question whether this ending is destructive or curative, the course of events is clear. As pressures from the past build and push until they burst the fragile membrane struggling to contain them, Oedipus attempts to control them. He not only encourages questions and raises doubts about the past, but he also refuses to hear clear answers. When several characters—Teiresias, Creon, Jocasta—try to tell him the truth, he rebukes them and with increasing brashness drives them away:

I say that you are the murderer of the man—

the murderer you seek.

(362)

Alas, wretched Oedipus, alas! That alone can I call you—

never anything else.

(1071–72)

In the first scene the priest of Zeus reports to Oedipus that prayers and supplications have so far been unable to end the plague ravaging Thebes. Oedipus, having already sent to Delphi for more information, refuses to follow priestly rituals that would surrender the solution of human problems to the gods’ will.[72] He even discourages further religious activity by the priest and his flock:

But quickly now, children, rise

from your seats, taking these suppliant branches.

Let someone gather the people of Cadmus

understanding that I will do everything.

With god’s aid we will stand successful or fail.

(142–46)

In the following scenes Teiresias, accused of being a charlatan, is sent away under threat of punishment, Creon is threatened with death, and Jocasta is dismissed for her arrogant pride. Oedipus’ characteristic responses during the first half of this play are to constrain and to control.

Everything changes in the second part, when Oedipus forces the truth into the open and then blinds himself, precipitating a long final scene in which interpretations of the king’s life flow unchecked. The messenger claims that a crazed Oedipus has brought lasting shame upon the family. The chorus can see only the actions of a malignant and unpredictable divinity who has destroyed even the great King Oedipus. Creon feels that the whole affair has been an isolated event in which Oedipus sinned, god has exacted punishment, and Oedipus is now forgiven. Oedipus himself feels he has learned a profound lesson and should be sent off into the countryside to find his proper destiny. Sophocles does not correlate or rank these individual views, rather he lets them stand side by side to be weighed by the audience. The initial force of Oedipus’ resistance to the truth is thus matched by equally violent reactions when everyone’s previous beliefs are shattered: Jocasta kills herself upon learning she has married her son; the chorus is paralyzed with terror at what they have witnessed; Creon becomes king and retreats even further behind the shield of a protecting religion; only Oedipus, though blinded, looks to the future.

The compelling power of this play lies in its uncanny orchestration of events:[73] the characters in the play, as witnesses, should have been able to guess for themselves the secrets that emerge so slowly and thus spare themselves much of the suffering they undergo. Those very characters, however, are blinded by convictions that all are loathe to surrender—belief in reason, desire for man’s freedom of action, and trust in a mortal’s capacity to know the gods’ will.[74] Close examination of the design of the chorus’ songs emphasizes the incorrigible, ever-renewed ability of humans to resist understanding the careful plans of the gods even as these very plans are being unveiled before them.[75]

Parodos (151–215)

After the opening scene with Oedipus, the priest, and Creon, the stage is momentarily empty until a procession of prominent citizens enters praying for relief from the plague.[77] They anxiously inquire about the message Creon has brought from Delphi, then pray specifically to their former protectors, Athena, Artemis, and Apollo, to give them aid against destruction. In the second strophic pair they report spreading infection, children dying, women sterile, and crowds of the dead departing from them like birds who wing their way to the far west; they tell of suppliants’ prayers and of hymns for health mixed with wailing. In the third strophic set they look beneath the immediate symptoms to find the cause of their troubles in the fiery god Ares who is waging a war against Thebes—the same cause that the priest of Zeus identified in the prologue (27–30). To combat such an enemy they pray that Zeus will wield his thunderbolts to destroy Ares, and they even ask Apollo to come with arrows, Artemis with torches, and Dionysus with his pine torch to join Zeus in their defense.[78] They end their prayer revealing their full desperation: they would prefer another cosmic fire-war to the continuation of the plague (200–202 and 206–15). The constant reference to the golden quality of the healers (151, 157, 187, 203, and 209) reveals that they optimistically expect a cure if only their gods will defend them.

Because this ode is shaped as a prayer—with an initial statement of fear and profound perplexity, a definition of their need, and finally a request for aid—it is appropriate that the chorus sings a fully finished strophic form.[79] Oedipus enters only as the citizens are finishing their prayer.[80] He does not interrupt them since he is, in fact, the character he has earlier described—the ruler concerned for his people, the father figure to his children, and the king sick for his whole realm. He is now prepared to work actively and enthusiastically with them.

Given the unified thrust of the chorus’ words, it is appropriate that the ode moves from dactylic to iambic with careful modulation.[81] The first strophic pair is sung to dactyls with the exception of one iambic line (152 = 160); in the second pair the meters are the same but the numbers of dactylic and iambic lines are roughly equal.[82] In the third strophic set the dactyl disappears except for one line (196 = 209); the iambic is the dominant meter. The opening song of this play introduces the basic and continuing meters of this chorus, suggesting a group of men who have a firm base in religion and will attempt in their songs to develop a consistent response to the events in the episodes. The dactylic, which is strongly stated at the chorus’ first entrance, accompanies words of initial despair as the chorus looks to the gods for aid:

My mind is tortured, as I shake with fear and terror,

O Delian Healer,

in awe of you. What fate will you bring upon us—

either now or over the cycle of years?

(153–56)

This meter will appear again only in the third stasimon at the crucial moment when the chorus is ecstatically hopeful of identifying a divine agent in the life of Oedipus (1086–1109). Thus it supports the theme of the necessary dependence of men on the gods—the major theme of the play. The prayer then concludes with a firmly stated lyric iambic, the common meter for this chorus throughout the play.

The prologue and parodos together present an uneasy combination of Oedipus and the gods as potential helpers of a desperate people.[83] The priest has led his flock to Oedipus almost as though to a god; the chorus feels that it now needs the gods’ aid. Oedipus, however, does not turn to ritual but seeks a rational solution on his own. Both priest and chorus advocate surrender to the gods’ will, an attitude that Jocasta will protest and Oedipus will defy in his “Child of Fortune” speech (1076–85). Yet through the plague the gods will compel men to look for the secrets lying just beneath the surface of Theban daily life. Oedipus will hunt for these secrets, but he will look in the wrong places and ignore the clues revealed to him, which, in fact, are visible on him and known to him. Contrary to what those on stage believe and sing, Oedipus and the gods at the moment are not working together effectively.

First Stasimon (463–512)[84]

The preceding scene is composed of two sections: Oedipus makes his proclamation against the unknown killer, and then he is named the murderer by Teiresias. After both exit, the chorus is left to puzzle over the scene they have just witnessed. Its ode is split into two parts reflecting the two sections of the previous scene.[85] In the first strophic set the chorus pictures the fugitive being hunted—thus emphasizing the active power of god, Apollo the hunter, against his animal victim (467, 475–78).[86] Although the singers stress the word “foot” in both stanzas, they do not describe Oedipus; instinctively they already resist believing the accusation of Teiresias.[87] In the second strophic set, however, they are openly perplexed. They know of no strife between Oedipus and the house of Labdacus, and Oedipus has amply demonstrated his loyalty in his service to the city. Though discomforted at the quarrel between the king and the seer, they trust Oedipus and their gods, whom they present as collaborators in saving the state. These two strophic pairs together are a strong defense of Oedipus, based on the assumption that he is working devotedly to fulfill the divine command.[88]

The meter of the first strophic pair is a mixture of choriambs, iambics, telesilleans, reiziana, and anapaests. Since there are no more than two consecutive lines of any of these meters, the metrical structure of the ode is loose, especially in comparison to the carefully modulated transition from dactyl to iambic in the parodos. This scattered pattern, however, tightens in the second strophic pair, where the two opening lines are choriambic followed by nine lines of steady drumming ionic. The musical contrast built into this ode, one stanza composed of meters that refuse to settle on any one pattern opposing another of firmly set ionic, reflects the underlying tension between the subject of each stanza. The use of a common meter, the choriambic, relatively rare in this play, at the beginning of all four stanzas emphasizes the contrast in musical design in each strophic pair as does the change in content.[89] The first strophic pair is concerned with the god’s actions; the second turns to men—the general confusion caused by the words of Teiresias, questions or disagreements concerning the houses of Polybus or Labdacus, and troublesome charges against the most trusted man in the state.[90]

In spite of the contrast in their musical design, the two strophic pairs are not inconsistent in basic thought; both are rooted firmly in a trust in Zeus and Apollo. Though the chorus assumes that the gods are working efficiently to search out the cause of the plague, problems arise when they try to apply the reports from Apollo’s spokesman to the state as they know it. They believe there is an active divine force that directs and will resolve all this discordance, but the chances of achieving such a resolution among the present characters are not great and will grow more remote in the next scene. This conflict between the perspectives of gods and humans is reflected in Sophocles’ use of sharply different metrical patterns. And, of course, the completed strophic structure shows that the chorus is given full freedom to formulate its thoughts, to express its doubts, and to resolve inconsistencies.

Yet though the chorus expresses its trust in a consistent divine purpose, ambiguity is developed through the musical form. The chorus’ confidence in Apollo’s effectiveness is accompanied by meters that wander and refuse to settle; the citizens’ doubts are accompanied by the steady repeated meter—in each case the structure of the meters contradicts the words and attitudes expressed. Thus, the poet develops an ironic gap through the musical design. The chorus’ trust that god, far off in the hills, is hunting down the killer—a remarkable view of a divinity who easily and painlessly accepts and solves man’s problems—is an imaginative construct, its insubstantiality reflected in the unsettled pattern of the music. By contrast, the doubts about human interactions correctly represent the murky situation as it is, a situation that will deteriorate rapidly as threatening secrets from the past force their irresistible way through the loose-woven fabric of the existing community. The juxtaposition of two diverse metrical structures within the balanced traditional form of strophic song echoes the ambiguity growing as a result of the alternation of dramatic scenes and choral songs. Both episodes and odes work in tandem to enlarge the discrepancy between the irresistible plans of the gods and the convictions of a determined king. The men of the chorus suspect that something is wrong, but—like most participants in this play—they are looking in the wrong places. So far, however, it is easy for the chorus to find devices to maintain its confidence in the gods at the same time that it supports the king.

Kommos/Lyric Dialogue (649–96)

Creon returns to the stage to protect himself against Oedipus’ charges, and Oedipus returns to rebut his defense. The king’s anger reaches a dangerous climax when he threatens to kill Creon for conspiring against him, a false plot Oedipus invents on the basis of probable motivations. At this point Jocasta rushes from the palace to split them apart. The moment is critical: if Oedipus kills Creon, he will think that he has ended the plague and once again saved the city. But, of course, he would only have compounded his guilt in killing an innocent man who is, in addition, a blood relative. In fact, Oedipus kills no one; he yields to the urgent pleas of Jocasta, Creon, and the chorus. Yet, though the potentially explosive contest between the will of Oedipus and the appeals of the others on stage dissipates, the issue is not resolved.

The moment in which the participants agree to disregard the uncomfortable confrontation is designed as an unusual three-way conversation in strophic form; there are no exact parallels in existing Sophoclean drama. Suddenly in the middle of a tense scene the chorus begins to sing lyric meters, an intrusion of emotion in the midst of an episode to mark a major moment of pressure or stress. In the strophe the elders of the chorus press Oedipus to show mercy, but, using tight logic, he insists that they would thereby be asking for his own death or banishment because Teiresias’ analysis would be admitted to be correct. Only the theoretical conspiracy that he himself has identified appears to explain the accusations of the prophet. When the chorus assures him that this is not at all their intention, Oedipus grudgingly releases Creon as the meter returns to spoken iambics.

With Creon’s exit, the chorus begins the antistrophic stanza by addressing Jocasta, who takes the lines corresponding to those of Oedipus in the strophe up to 687–88. The men encourage her to take Oedipus into the palace, but she first wants to know the cause of the quarrel she has interrupted. They would rather leave the story untold—presumably because they do not want to rile the king, but Oedipus himself rebukes them for ignoring and blunting his will. Accusing them of having departed from their usual good sense, he thus casts off any responsibility for the consequences of having spared Creon. The men can only assure him that they have the best wishes and intentions for him.[91]

The contrast in both stanzas is between Oedipus, who is fully confident of his reasoning, and the chorus, which rejects any conclusion it deems threatening to the present and seemingly workable government of the state. The citizens remain eager to support their king, their royal family, and their gods; they have not yet found any reason in their daily lives to lose faith in any one of these controlling elements. With an unsatisfactory agreement to ignore the difficulties, the small lyric scene passes and Oedipus tells Jocasta of the conspiracy between Creon and Teiresias. She attempts to pacify the king by discrediting all oracles, especially those spoken about the death of Laius.

The chorus begins each stanza of the lyric kommos with iambic dimeters asking that the scene be brought to a quick close. The responses of Oedipus/Jocasta, each of whom requests more information, prolong the scene. However, the characters’ continuation of the chorus’ lyric iambics not only shows that both chorus and characters know they are discussing a matter of great moment, it also intensifies the emotional tone of the highly rational Oedipus[92] and Jocasta. This agreement in meters is short-lived, for the chorus answers in dochmiacs, insisting twice that the scene has gone too far and should be ended. In each stanza Oedipus rebukes the chorus for its irrationality, for not understanding what it is requesting.[93] The chorus closes these small lyrics with a combination of dochmiac and iambic, asserting its compassion for the suffering country and its loyalty to Oedipus.

In each stanza the meters move from iambic to dochmiac as the chorus insists more vehemently on the preservation of the state and the king. The characters are momentarily ruffled but persist in speaking iambic trimeters, attempting to gain information and to follow the type of rational inquiry for which Oedipus and his mother are famed. The chorus closes each stanza with iambics leading, as the critical moment glides by with an unsatisfying resolution, to dialogue between Oedipus and Creon/Jocasta. The meters reflect the characterizations and motivations that have been developed in the preceding parts of the play. An outburst of unjustified violence is narrowly avoided, but clues from the past are pushing the characters to extreme acts to maintain the order of their daily lives.

There is, however, a powerful counterforce present; this lyric dialogue is designed within a balanced strophic form even though the words themselves offer no hint in style or tone that such a structure controls the lines. This force, which threatens to break out when the chorus rejects Oedipus’ logical explanation of Teiresias’ charges, has a relentless rhythm of its own, evident not only in this seemingly spontaneous emotional outburst of chorus and characters, but in the careful orchestration of almost every event in the play. Meter reveals the intense emotional involvement of the characters in their fundamental beliefs while the strophic form framing these emotions shows that their disagreement occurs within some larger plan that controls seemingly random encounters in a mysterious, as yet unrecognized, way. This structuring force is gradually but uncompromisingly overtaking the characters, who continue trying to live by their personal rhythms.

Second Stasimon (863–910)[94]

This ode ranks with the second stasimon of Antigone, “The Ode to Zeus” (582–625), as a celebration of the loftiest religious ideas in Sophoclean drama.[95] The intensely complex interweaving of religious, political, and metaphorical language creates an ode that is difficult to interpret, but leaves no doubt as to the singers’ earnestness, the breadth of their ethical view, and the urgency of their doubt. Jocasta ends the previous scene expressing disbelief in the oracles that have proclaimed that Laius would be killed by his son, and disbelief of Teiresias, who identified Oedipus as the killer of the former king.[96] In this ode the chorus insists on the necessity for divine punishment of impiety and impurity, but finds little convincing evidence in the preceding scenes or in its general experience of human behavior. Though the play will ultimately reveal that the piety and faith expressed in this ode are essential for living successfully in the Sophoclean world, in the present song the chorus questions whether it is possible to maintain that faith when humans cynically ignore the laws of Zeus.[97]

This song displays an impressive unity of thought even though commentators have struggled to determine the logic connecting the four stanzas. In the first stanza the chorus asserts the necessity for mortals to pursue purity in word and deed, honoring the laws on high, which are not man-made but fathered by Zeus—and therefore can never be forgotten and will never grow old. In the antistrophe the Thebans seek to describe the nature of hybris, the insolent behavior that violates those everlasting laws of Zeus and will be restrained by them.[98] Accordingly in the second strophe they curse the greedy sinner who seeks what is irreverent and grasps at what is untouchable; but they close this stanza with a troubling concern: “If such actions are honored, why should I dance?” (895–96). This doubt motivates the final antistrophe, in which they threaten to abandon other religious observances if oracles are proved untrue and violations of Zeus’ laws are ignored—yet even they can see that men are questioning the validity of the oracles about Laius and they end on a despairing note:

Already do men ignore

the dying oracles about Laius,

and nowhere does Apollo stand in honor;

the gods’ worship ebbs.

(906–10)

This ode proceeds logically from the initial general statement of the chorus’ trust in Zeus: the singers apply his rules to human behavior through their analysis of the result of insolence and arrogance, the man who tends toward monarchy,[99] and they insist on the fall of those who carry their monarchical tendencies to an extreme both in their personal lives and in their governance of the state. Then they list typical examples of arrogant behavior, calling upon Zeus to enforce his own laws if he is to continue deserving worship and respect from future choruses.[100]

Appropriately the meters of this highly organized ode are tightly structured.[101] The first strophic set is built on an iambic framework to which choriambs and telesilleans are added. The second strophic pair opens with trochees and trochaic lecythia mixed with choriambic enoplia followed by a closing series of iambs + trochees. Thus the organizing meter for the ode is iambic with choriambs in the middle and other meters added for variation—in the first stanzas, telesilleans; in the second, trochaics. The repetition and interlocking of meters presents both strophic sets as parts of the same longer song, metrically varied so as to provide interest.[102] Further, the chorus structures its statement of faith symmetrically in a completed strophic form. Even though these singers have witnessed irreverent actions in the episodes, neither external agent nor internal hesitation impedes them from organizing their thoughts into a formally balanced expression of loyalty to Zeus and his laws.

Metrical unity and formal balance, however, do not conceal the chorus’ difficulty in maintaining its belief in the face of events on stage, especially Jocasta’s skeptical comments. In addition, there are unintended references to Oedipus throughout the ode, especially in the “tyrant” stanzas (873–96),[103] and clearly expressed doubts in regard to continuing the dance.[104] When the chorus asks about the appropriateness of religious dancing while sinful behavior is being rewarded, it parallels this question with a list of arrogant actions and religious observances that are unrelated to the events and characters of the play, making this song simultaneously general and specific—the product of human reason seeking guidance for the present from both belief and experience.

Irony continues to build throughout this play in the songs of the chorus as well as in the episodes. As the chorus fails to assess correctly the implications of events, its observations become more abstract and it retreats to the basis of its beliefs. But statements and events on stage—embracing varied views of the nature of gods’ justice, the punishment of the lawbreaker, and the power of religion and god in determining the behavior of men—increasingly challenge their belief in the pure foundations of the laws. Even as they sing this perfectly ordered ode, ironic references reveal, at least to the audience, that in the present situation their beliefs tend to place Oedipus and Jocasta in the role of the prideful sinners, both potentially impious and impure—not a view this loyal chorus would state openly or even consider consciously.

The combination of iambic, choriambic, and telesillean that serves as the metrical base of this ode reflects the consistent belief the chorus is struggling to maintain. This same combination of meters formed the beginning of the first stasimon, where these Thebans sang of their confidence in the gods’ ability to find the murderer (463–72). Though the repeated credal assertions of the chorus may contain problems, they are developed consistently and sung to a similar meter, signifying that they arise from a strong religious foundation.

Third Stasimon (1086–1109)[105]

In this short ode the chorus speculates that its king will be revealed as a divine child. The previous episode has been a scene of reversals: Jocasta entered vaunting her skepticism but has run off stage shattered; Oedipus, summoned from the palace fretful and worried, has risen to boldness—even arrogance—in his “Child of Fortune” speech (1076–85). His conversation with the messenger appears to have removed him from the threat of the oracles spoken against him and at the same time to have strengthened his position by establishing him as a native-born Theban. The chorus, who ended the last song lamenting the disappearance of the gods’ authority, now revels in the possibility that a god may have given Thebes his own son as king.[106]

The meter of this ode, predominantly dactylo-epitrite, is related to the dactyls of the first stanza of the parodos, where the chorus also expressed its dependency on and its hope in the gods.[107] The symmetrical form allows the group of elders to assert fully its belief in the guiding force of these gods.

However the metrical reference to the parodos contributes to the developing irony. There the chorus was invoking its gods, perceived to be distant, to aid Thebes in fending off the plague. Now the elders can feel the closeness of those gods; they have forgotten the plague in their exhilaration at the possibility that their king might have divine parentage.[108] Their opening prayer called on the gods to come as warriors against the plague, which they viewed as an assault of Ares—a satisfying explanation because it externalized the enemy and allowed them to see their problem as a battle in which the stronger gods would win. Yet the play has shown this view to be too easy; the threat lies somewhere within the state. Similarly in this ode they hope for a revelation that will clarify their king’s origin: that Oedipus is the son of a god and can bring honor to Cithaeron as his birthplace. But this mythological explanation is once again too simple, for the play will show Oedipus to have been born from the heart of the state. The men of the chorus consistently seek external foundations for their religious views: they worship at the altars of traditional gods, they trust in heavenly laws that descend from Zeus himself, they envision Apollo pursuing the murderer of Laius through the mountains at a safe distance outside the city, and now they hope that a god has fathered Oedipus. The scene of reversals, which led the king to arrogance, has brought the chorus to a serious misunderstanding.[109] By the end of the play these men will realize that there are fundamental problems with their religion; their descriptions of Zeus’ world are only their own wishful constructs. All their god-fearing, state-supporting, carefully constructed, symmetrical odes led them to demand a solution that suited their religious beliefs. This short ode is the last chance the chorus is given to express its enthusiastic optimism. In the final scenes of the play these singers must adjust their religious views as well as their music in order to remain even minimally active as contributing characters in this play.

Fourth Stasimon (1186–1222)

The chorus has just watched Oedipus rush off stage into the palace after claiming metaphorical ancestry from the goddess Tyche herself in his arrogant “Child of Fortune” speech:

From this mother was I sprung. The months,

my brothers, have declared me both weak and then great.

Born such a person, I would not ever wish

to fail myself and not learn of my birth.

(1082–85)

Now he has learned the truth; he has had an incestuous relationship with his mother and is thereby required to isolate himself from society as unclean, and he has killed his father and is thus subject to the punishment of exile that he himself earlier proclaimed. Leaving the stage he acknowledges that the ancestry that has determined his previous life and will define his future is his biological parentage, not the boldly stated metaphorical one:

I who was born from a cursed match,

cursed in my living, cursed in my killing.

(1184–85)

The chorus, steadfast champions of Oedipus, undergoes a similar reevaluation between the third and fourth stasima. The earlier ode was based on the belief that the events witnessed by the elders concerned the unique, divine-born Oedipus and would strengthen his claim to leadership in the state. The singers, having named a series of divinities, suspected one of them to be the parent of their king and a powerful and beneficent patron god of Thebes. But the revelations in the intervening scene compel a different attitude for their fourth stasimon. They now realize that the story of Oedipus is that of all humans; the events of the play reconfigure as they are seen to be but the record of the day on which Oedipus learns that he is only another ephemeral, afflicted mortal. Appropriately, the chorus begins with a stanza addressed to all men, equating them to those living a life that is no life;[110] if men do find some happiness, it is only transient. Oedipus is not unique; he is a paradigm for all humans—and, drawing on its understanding of his life, the chorus finds no reason to call the race blessed. Then it turns to Oedipus’ story: in the corresponding antistrophe, the moments of glory; in the second strophe, the disastrous discoveries of the last scene. In the final stanza the men of Thebes pass their judgment: they wish they had never seen Oedipus, and they mourn for him. Though Oedipus was the person who gave them life, he now has caused them to fall into the sleep of death.[111]

The contrast between the two odes is stunning. The third stasimon sings of birth and new beginnings; the fourth admits final ruin. The previous ode gave men a reason to hope for a new injection of support for their state while this ode announces the citizens’ death. The third stasimon focused on one individual and his particular situation while the fourth defines the general human condition. Earlier odes have expressed a ready dependence on the gods; the fourth stasimon presents men as the victims of an unconcerned universe.

The design of the meters in each ode mirrors the contrast in content. In the third stasimon the elders sang a single organized strophic pair to a dactylic meter referring metrically to the parodos, where they eagerly entrusted themselves to their gods. The dactylo-epitrite meter was a firmly repeated base throughout this song, modified by iambics and a telesillean at the end as a coda. In the fourth stasimon there is a sharp contrast between the two strophic pairs. The first stanza is sung to a series of aeolic meters, predominantly the glyconic with its customary variations, the pherecratean, the telesillean, and the reizianum. The second strophic pair is constructed differently, beginning with iambic, moving to hypodochmiac, and ending with choriambic; each of these meters receives a clear three- or four-line statement with no interruptions so that the stanza seems composed of three different metrical sections. The contrast is between two pairs of stanzas, one of which is designed as a metrical unit while the other is sharply split into sections.

Though the first strophic pair has parallel sense pauses and sentence breaks, the language moves easily from one thought to the next as both strophe and antistrophe join to form a unified picture of Oedipus’ unenviable rise. While both strophe and antistrophe are split into three sense units by the repeated unit of glyconic(s) + pherecratean/reizianum (closing at 1188 = 1197; 1192 = 1201; and 1196 = 1203), the continuity of thought is clearest in the antistrophe, where the first three lines present the degree of Oedipus’ achievement, the second four lines tell his victory over the Sphinx and the saving of the city, and the final section recalls his selection as king. In the strophe there is a similar series of thoughts arranged in corresponding units: men are said to be nothing; any happiness they may have is seen as ephemeral; and finally the chorus decides to call nothing in mortal life blessed. Though composed of three separate metrical sections, each stanza builds to a climax: the strophe develops two observations of the chorus to a general conclusion about mortal blessedness; the antistrophe traces the rise of Oedipus from the statement of his ambition to his crowning.

In contrast, both meter and content become disjointed in the second strophic pair. The most emphatic interruption is the invocation to Oedipus in the corresponding lines 1207 = 1216. The chorus’ despair is marked by repeated unanswered questions in the strophe.[112] In addition, the content of the second strophic pair falls into sections defined by different meters:[113]

Both content and meter delineate the division of the corresponding stanzas in the second strophic pair. Significantly, for the first time in this play the chorus has a problem developing a single idea. The truth, which has been hidden—partly through the ignorance and self-deception of the characters—has now burst the covering surface. Throughout the play the citizens of the chorus have simultaneously wished for concerned gods willing to help men solve their problems, for a brilliantly successful, strong, and virtuous king, for the avoidance of bloodshed, and for the discovery of the truth. Now these goals have come into conflict and their conception of the world is unable to accommodate the facts that thrust themselves violently into the action of the play. As a result, the odes of this chorus, which have until now been organized and complete, begin to show signs of strain. For the first time the chorus does not sing a tightly structured musical form stretching over all four stanzas. In the first strophic pair the elders speak of the problems of all men, as illustrated by the paradigmatic figure of the fallen Oedipus, and then they move easily to the tale of his previous good fortune.[114] But when they reach the point where facts show their previous judgment to be wrong, their ability to organize their thoughts begins to disintegrate, and they sing a stanza that breaks apart into small sections.[115] Sophocles uses a weakened musical structure, for the first time in this play, to characterize the chorus’ inability to reconcile its earlier views with present events. This weakness will continue into the final scene, where Oedipus appropriates its strophic form as the chorus is reduced to a merely responding role.

It is significant, however, that the framework of strophic song is preserved in this final choral ode. Every character attempts to construct false theories—with the exception of Teiresias, who sees the truth and would rather not speak: Oedipus has fabricated plots to defend himself based on his version of the facts, Jocasta has employed an elaborate skepticism to discredit threatening oracles, and Creon will invest his faith in the uncertain beneficence of gods whom he assumes to be just. All on stage except Teiresias have fabricated an understanding of reality that allows them to live contentedly, articulating a comfortable view of a neatly functioning world that favors their presumption of Oedipus’ innocence and their trust in the concern of the gods for human prosperity. Yet both hopes are proven vain. The confidence that the chorus maintains in these self-deceptions is reflected in the balanced form and artful construction, in both words and meters, of its remarkable strophic odes. At times the compromises the citizens make in their constructions are clear even to them, especially at the moment when they question the propriety of singing their odes in a world where evil seems to flourish unchecked (883–910). In the fourth stasimon, while they maintain a shell of outward order as they attempt to accommodate the truths that have been forced upon them, their musical form decomposes and their metaphorical consistency fails as they jump between images of harbors and furrows and funeral dirges to express their new realizations.

Kommos (1297–1368)

After the messenger has described the horrors within the house, he announces Oedipus’ entrance. The chorus, ever sympathetic toward the royal family, sings an anapaestic stanza expressing sorrow, but also fear (1297–1306). The singers feel unable to look upon Oedipus even though they want to ask him many questions about the forces in their world that are able to destroy their king.[116] The blinded Oedipus, not realizing anyone is present,[117] addresses an unspecified god in anapaests, asking where he is and where he is going, both physically and spiritually (1307–11). The chorus answers in a single spoken iambic line that he is going to a fearful place, not to be heard of, not to be seen. Though in these anapaests Oedipus responds in the chorus’ meter, the men break the pattern by answering in iambics.[118] Already meter reveals a problem in communication. In this final musical scene the chorus is concerned for Oedipus but does not explore his situation in a formal extended lyric. Instead these citizens sing only anapaests, speak iambics, and deliver clipped responses to Oedipus’ questions, while the king is eager to use musical meters and longer stanzas to lament his condition and speculate on appropriate future actions.

Stunned by the impact of his self-blinding and his former deeds, Oedipus begins to sing strophic lyric.[119] Again, in a spoken iambic couplet, the chorus responds that it is not amazed that he is suffering since his misfortune is so great. In the antistrophe Oedipus recognizes the loyalty and the friendship in the Thebans’ voices though he cannot see them. In a matching spoken couplet they ask him what daemon has goaded him to tear out his eyes, to which he delivers his famous answer:

These things were all Apollo, friends, Apollo,

who was completing my sorrows and evils.

No murderer’s hand struck me—

only I myself in my wretchedness.

(1329–32)

This lyric stanza states in highly concentrated form the mystical, almost oracular, understanding of his life that he has achieved: Apollo has completed his plans through Oedipus’ own hand, even his self-blinding.[120] The chorus utters one lyric line within the strophic form, coolly acknowledging the truth of what he has said. Continuing, Oedipus presses his last statement, commanding them to send him out of the city, to which they answer in an iambic couplet that they wish never to have known him.[121] In the antistrophe (1349–66), when he curses the man who freed him from his bonds only to cause them all much grief, they assure the king that they too wish that he had died on Cithaeron. He continues in lyrics listing his sins—and the chorus assures him in iambic trimeters that indeed he would be better off dead than living blind. But Oedipus does not agree; he commands them not to stigmatize deeds that have been well done, and in a long speech he offers his rationale for blinding himself. The chorus hears in his words and meter signs of despair and traditional modes of lamentation, but a larger perspective underlies the lyrics of Oedipus. Though he is unhappy with his current state, he asserts that the whole experience and especially his blinding was no miscalculation or act of wild, unreasoning passion; rather he has let his hand strike a blow that was really the work of the divine Apollo in bringing to completion god’s own pattern. He knows that he has not been personally responsible for the pollution of the city or the suffering of men; he has been a victim. Events have exacted retribution for wrongs he unknowingly committed and, through his act of self-blinding, he has chosen to live alone, a life like that of the “seer” Teiresias. Thus he rebukes the men of the chorus, telling them that they should not seek to instruct him that his actions were not done “the best” (1369); still they feel that he has done something horrible and want to know what kind of force could bring him to this.[122] They do not respond to his profoundly oracular thoughts as he accepts the divine plan and looks forward to a larger life that, though unknown at the moment, will be lived on a basis he has determined to be healthier.[123]

Significantly Oedipus sings while the chorus speaks. The elders of the chorus, who have suffered a great shock to their earlier religious beliefs, have no alternative theology to substitute; deprived of their strongly held convictions, they are filled with fear. Oedipus, by contrast, has a mixture of responses; he acknowledges his pain but also the powerful insight he has gained into Apollo’s pattern for his life. The intermingling of choral iambic trimeters with Oedipus’ animated music sharply separates the mood and the perceptions of the king from those of the chorus.

Yet the musical design is more complex than this simple contrast, for the opposition between song and speech also marks a breakdown in communication as the Thebans fail to understand Oedipus. Even though the king succeeds twice in leading the chorus to echo his iambics (1319–20 and 1327–28), the singers seem unable to reply. In spite of its easy agreement at 1336 and 1356, the chorus shows unwillingness to respond to his request to be led from the city at 1347–48 and earns his rebuke at 1369–70. In this kommos the reversal in singers and the mixing of speech and lyric reveal how impossible it is for Oedipus to communicate his stern and stoical vision. In his long speech the king presses the citizens so hard to send him from the city that they welcome the arrival of Creon, who comes, as they say, “at the necessary moment” (1416).

From that point, the chorus has no words until the final seven trochaic lines of the play, the authenticity of which has been so effectively challenged on the basis of appropriateness and grammar that I will omit them from this discussion.[124] They are cold and analytical. They do not suit the characterization of the chorus, which has already reviewed the career of Oedipus in the powerful fourth stasimon (1186–1222) and appropriately thereafter has found increasingly less to say; nor do they suit the design of the drama, which has transferred music-making to the main character. One must consider the possibility that these lines may have displaced the genuine Sophoclean conclusion, thus removing all hope of regaining the original reading. Other critics have imagined what the original lines chanted by the chorus would have been; but perhaps it is not out of place to propose a coup de théâtre by speculating that the illegitimate choral tag was added later by an actor or an editor who felt the need to complete a text that originally ended with Creon’s final words.[125] The resurgent Oedipus would speak his last words as a desperate command: “Don’t take my daughters from me!”; Creon answers with an equally strong command: “Don’t seek to rule in all things; for what you ruled has not followed you throughout your life” (1521–22). At this point the chorus is so subdued that it says nothing as guards lead the daughters back into the palace. Creon waits for Oedipus to follow, but the king turns silently, ignores Creon, and—step by painful step—gropes his lonely way off stage having resisted and finally rejected all commands from the new king.[126] The chorus exits one by one, in silence.

This would be a stunning ending and probably not beyond the stagecraft of Sophocles. Some in the audience would think that the simple piety of Creon provided an adequate resolution to this play; others would accept the messenger’s interpretation, that Oedipus was insane and crazed and thus has shamed the family for all time; still others would entertain the fears of the chorus that there is a divinity that acts so capriciously and randomly that he can with ease bring even kings low. The problem with all these interpreters, however, is that they impose their interpretations on Oedipus’ life. More than all other men, Oedipus realizes that he is better off with no throne, no crown, no queen, no entourage or court, and no contact with the outside world through the senses of sight, touch, or hearing. He seeks voluntary exile on Cithaeron to consider the workings of the world that he has seen and whose implications he has consistently missed. In the final scene he powerfully asserts his control over his life—even if he must struggle, suffer, and even die to insure that this play will remain his play.[127] Whether the play ends with the extant seven trochaic lines, stops at the end of Creon’s warning to Oedipus, or ends with other lines remains unclear. This discussion of the musical design of the play supports a diminished role for the chorus at the end of the play—only a few closing lines, if any, expressing their uncertainty about the future.

The basic principles of musical design in Oedipus Tyrannus are orderly structure and symmetry. Odes tend to modulate from one meter to another, to refer to each other by meter, or to create different metrical patterns to reinforce changes in subject. In addition, nowhere in this play is there an astrophic lyric passage. The carefully patterned quality of both meters and forms reflects the ordering forces that become visible only at the end of the play, and this structure supports the words of the chorus in establishing a background of strong religious belief through its first four odes. These Thebans repeatedly proclaim the potential of god and man to work harmoniously for the benefit of the state; yet even in the first stasimon they are compelled to choose between Teiresias and Oedipus, a difficult choice that introduces a tension into their religious outlook. In the fourth stasimon the Theban citizens must confront the rejection of their earlier trust in the gods’ concern for men; at this point their previous ability to organize tightly constructed stanzas gives way and they become responders. In designing the music for this play Sophocles has brought onto the stage in the form of the chorus a persona that attempts to preserve its beliefs against events that make these beliefs increasingly untenable. The failure of the chorus’ faith contrasts with Oedipus’ strength and resiliency in confronting openly the challenges of the Sophoclean world. In the final scene the chorus joins the messenger and Creon to present its own individual perspective for interpreting the Sophoclean world, a view the audience must measure against others to determine a satisfactory basis for living. The design of the music allows this chorus of Theban elders to present its powerful and persuasive perspective as a constant background that enriches the decisions and actions of all the characters, especially Oedipus, who defines himself at the play’s end as a passionate believer in the rugged and stern religion of Apollo, fully accepting all its gory, painful wounds.

Several times in this play Sophocles acknowledges that musical performance is a means of celebrating god. The chorus, confronted with Jocasta’s skepticism, asks: “Why should I dance?” (896); and then it renews its dance heartily in the next song, the third stasimon (1086–1109), when it appears that its king may be the child of a god. When the chorus’ belief in a god who seeks to favor just men is shattered, it loses its ability to maintain strophic song at the level of its previous performance, but Oedipus, still celebrating the harsher Sophoclean god, now takes up lyric song as this god’s new chorus. And, of course, throughout the play strophic balance is maintained unconsciously, even in the lyric dialogue at 649–96, as a reflection of the ordering hand of Apollo, who is bringing his plan to completion even though it is invisible to those on stage for most of the play. The music of Oedipus Tyrannus is designed to be a hymn to Apollo.

ELECTRA

Aeschylus’ Oresteia influenced all later fifth-century versions of this myth.[128] Possibly the expansiveness of Aeschylus’ vision, the intricate workmanship of language and structure, and the power of characterization fixed the trilogy in the Athenians’ minds, and it was probably performed often enough in the years following Aeschylus’ death that it did not fade from their memories.[129] His Oresteia presented Justice as such an active force in the myth that both Sophocles and Euripides were compelled to confront it despite the modifications they introduced in plot and character.[130]

Sophocles made many adaptations in the basic forms of earlier theater. Aristotle testifies that he added the third actor, expanded the chorus, and introduced scene painting.[131] Other changes that he brought to the dynamics of drama are evident from the texts; most striking is the degree to which he narrowed the wide scope of earlier drama. Aeschylus wrote trilogies showing the growth and development of major forces over a series of generations—forces such as moderation or balance, love, and justice. Such massively conceived plays strove to display the joint movement of gods and men toward more advanced levels of civilization. Sophocles, however, wrote plays about individual men and women who find their own personal standards to be in conflict with the values of their society. As events in the aftermath of the Persian Wars began to teach the Athenians the difficulties of administering an empire and the problems of governing a complex state, the optimism of the Aeschylean vision grew more and more remote; self-assertion became a prominent mode of social expression. In response Sophocles’ plays offered studies of individuals who continually reaffirmed their personal values in order to survive in a hostile environment. To present a subtler analysis of the moral and emotional state of the single character than Aeschylus did, Sophocles focused the varied elements of theater closely on these individuals and their problems.

This narrowing of focus caused a corresponding shift in the definition of justice. In Aeschylus’ version Orestes’ story embodies the theme of Justice; Orestes, who performs the “just” act of murdering Clytemnestra, is acquitted of the charge of injustice. Since he is acting on the direct command of Apollo rather than making his own decision, he cites the necessity of obeying the Olympians in his defense. This unchallengeable external command makes him less interesting psychologically than a character who takes his or her own decision and lives with the results. Sophocles, however, always sought the opportunity to probe a thinking, serious, contemplative, and honest individual; therefore, he concentrated on Electra as the character offering more insight into human nature, particularly in her responses to deep moral concerns.[132]

He made Electra dominate his play. She has the second largest role in Greek drama, entering at line 77 and exiting only at the end of the final scene; she is on stage and the center of attention continually for some 1400 lines. In addition, she has the most dramatically powerful scene in the play when she learns that the urn she holds, supposedly containing the ashes of her brother, is a fake and that the man who brought this urn and now stands before her is her brother, the answer to her prayers.[133] Further, Sophocles changed the order of events at the end of his play to privilege Electra. While Aeschylus has Clytemnestra killed last in order to precipitate the problems with the Furies that lead to the issues at the core of Eumenides, Sophocles’ Aegisthus views the corpse of Clytemnestra and leaves the stage still alive. Since Orestes carries the mother-killer theme, Sophocles’ Electra is not upstaged by the madness of her brother, the appearance of the Furies, or Orestes’ departure for Delphi. Yet, even though most dramatic elements converge on the suffering and vindication of Electra, the broader conception of Justice as the active interest of involved gods is brought into the play by the chorus.

A major theme that Sophocles borrowed from Aeschylus and yet so emphasized that he made it his own is the contrast between word and deed.[134] Throughout Sophocles’ play all the characters know or suspect the necessity of killing two people—but no one has quite brought him/herself to commit murder. The conspirators separately have prepared themselves for this crucial moment: Electra continues to keep Agamemnon’s case alive by her words; Orestes’ teacher has instructed him from childhood concerning the necessity of murdering his mother; and the chorus formulates a mythological/religious framework of justice that encompasses the killing of Clytemnestra. As a result, this play is a complex tapestry woven from the words of those who are trying to create the right vantage point from which to view the crucial deed. The chorus presents one broad perspective forcefully and consistently. The Argive women, Electra’s concerned friends, are attentive to each exchange on the stage and finally become part of the conspiracy. Thus they have numerous opportunities to describe the actions demanded by justice, principally through songs designed to be integral parts of the developing drama in both their meter and form.

The play would be very different without this choral role. In Electra Sophocles created a character whose whole being is devoted to asserting her presence and making sure that she is never forgotten. She has many features in common with Antigone, but she will never kill herself because life would then become too easy for the survivors. Rather she chooses to live in order to make the lives of others different by her presence. Her reward is difficult to define. She does serve the memory of her father, but the personal cost to her youth and spirit is immense. Critics are torn between finding Electra an inspirational heroine sacrificing her life to serve Justice, or an obsessed and twisted personality who has denied herself all human needs. As usual, Sophocles refuses to offer any such clearly defined characterization. Electra is fully who she is: loyal and determined, yet forever marriageless and childless, angry and bitter, without forgiveness, and vindictive. No doubt there is a sense of victory at the end of the play, but the victory is hers alone—in her terms, at her initiative, and at her cost. It seems clear that the vengeance on Clytemnestra and Aegisthus would have been accomplished without her continuing efforts—in which case the chorus’ view of Justice being fulfilled without her continuous sacrifice is true. The play was not written to demonstrate the necessity of her unrelenting dedication, but rather to show how remarkable and frightening her personal crusade is. Electra earns every bit of the future she has prepared for herself.

In spite of the fact that most dramatic elements are focused on Electra, the conception of Justice as the active interest of involved gods is continually present as the result of a series of powerful odes. The conspirators continually underrate the words of the chorus and often dismiss them with scant hearing; but without the larger perspective of Justice active in the world, there is little redemption for any of them. While the chorus may find itself ignored, interrupted, and corrected at virtually every turn, its words finally humanize the actions of Electra to the extent that it is possible and permit a degree of cheerfulness to exist in the final scene.

Parodos (86–250)135, 136

Electra enters first at line 77, beginning an anapaestic monody that concludes with a prayer for aid in obtaining vengeance.[137] Though she is the first singer on stage, probably the women of the chorus appear in the orchestra (from the parodos[138]) while she sings, since there are no separate entrance lines for them and they seem to have heard at least some of her words (121–27).[139] Beginning at line 121 they sing lyrics to which Electra responds in the second half of each stanza, thus joining with them in the construction of a strophic ode by echoing their meters:[140]

Chorus

Electra

a—choriambic, dactylic, iambic

choriambic, dactylic, iambic

b—iambic, dactylic, iambic

iambic, dactylic, iambic

g—anapaests, iambics

anapaests, iambics

final stanza—anapaests

dactyls, anapaests, dochmiac, iambic

This agreement in meters, close except in the final stanza, reflects the basic agreement between Electra and her friends on the need to see justice done, yet the form of the final stanza reveals a difference in attitude.[141] The chorus continually questions why she has surrendered herself to a life of perpetual sorrow; she, however, can see no progress toward revenge and cannot understand how these women can trust that justice will spontaneously appear. Although the chorus wishes an evil end for the killer, it offers no evidence that it is happening or how it will occur. Electra, who regards the women as good-hearted, acknowledges their love and their attempts to console her, but she demands freedom to act as she will. The dialogue develops a disputing tone that becomes increasingly sharp:[142]

First strophic pair

a     Ch: Why not rest from your grief?

El: Leave me to my woes.

a'    Ch: Why not rest from futile grief?

El: I have an obligation to mourn forever.

Second strophic pair

b     Ch: There are others of your family to grieve and Orestes will be home soon.

El: But Orestes does not come.

b'    Ch: Zeus is a responsible god who will seek vengeance for you.

El: But I await despairing.

Third strophic pair

g     Ch: The crime was terrible whether committed by god or man.

El: In all fairness Zeus should send suffering upon the criminals.

g'     Ch: You are making yourself miserable.

El: Never will I stop sorrowing.

Up to this point they exchange lyric strophes with matched meters and speeches of roughly equivalent length. Now, however, there is a differently designed lyric stanza lacking a corresponding antistrophe. The chorus speaks only three lines before Electra breaks in with a series of passionate questions followed by firm pledges—thus unbalancing the parts for the first time in this ode.[143] Further, while the chorus sings only anapaests, Electra’s meters, clearly stated, depart from the women’s as she now sings her own song rather than echoing theirs.[144] Earlier she received these friendly women as kindly and concerned; now in a strong personal statement she insists that she must actively pursue the obligation of keeping the case open against Clytemnestra. Were she to wait patiently on the good will of Zeus, she feels that she would be allowing such basic values as reverence and piety to perish.

The repeated balancing of roughly equal parts in the parodos is unusual and dramatically effective. Electra’s passages join easily with the chorus’ to create a series of long strophic pairs; thus their disagreement is presented decorously in words and form until she upsets the balance in her long outburst rejecting the chorus’ advice. The women’s music is stilled by her forceful tone; they are unable to continue the musical dialogue and reply in spoken iambics, apologizing and assuring Electra that they have come with the sole intention of aiding her. They concede victory to her (nika, 253) and promise to follow her lead.

In this parodos Electra and the chorus are debating the role of humans in maintaining justice within their universe. Representing a more Aeschylean view, the chorus asserts that Zeus and the other gods take an active interest in enforcing Justice in the world of men.[145] Electra, however, has no trust in religious hopes or myth; the combination of the distasteful situation in the palace and her intense devotion to vengeance places personal demands on her that she cannot ignore. While both meter and form reflect a natural, sympathetic relationship between Electra and her concerned friends, the change in pattern in the last stanza arises from Electra’s dedication and intensity as she departs from the chorus in thought and form.[146]

First Stasimon (472–515)

Chrysothemis enters to report further threats to Electra and discloses her mother’s frightening dream. Though sent by Clytemnestra to offer sacrifice at Agamemnon’s tomb, Chrysothemis leaves the stage armed by Electra with the treacherous intent of praying for her father’s avenger. Appropriately the chorus sings an ode reasserting its belief in divine enforcers of Justice.[147] In the strophe the women visualize Justice appearing at any moment personified as a goddess bearing victory in her hands, speaking through dreams, and refusing to leave Agamemnon’s death unavenged. In the antistrophe, with equal intensity, they predict the coming of an Erinys to punish those who have entered into a polluted marriage.[148] They insist that Justice and the Erinys will visit Argos as linked forces, fully confident that there will be no useful prophecies for men in dreams and divine pronouncements if Clytemnestra’s dreams do not portend such vengeance. In the last stanza they probe the history of the House of Atreus to define the original cause for the cycle of vengeance in the family, tracing the unfortunate events back as far as Pelops’ murder of Myrtilus. In this ode the chorus places complete trust in a religious interpretation of the family’s mythological history, identifying the primal crime, insisting that recent events only confirm their sense of continuing wickedness, and asserting that Clytemnestra’s night vision heralds the coming of vengeance.[149] The metrical regularity of the ode throughout the three stanzas marks the consistency of the chorus’ religious/mythological presuppositions as it both states its beliefs and interprets the history of the house. The meter of the strophic pair and of the following final stanza is predominantly iambic. The iambic was one of the principal meters in the parodos; in fact, the odd form of an iambic metron with a spondee , repeated nine times in this ode, is directly echoed from the second strophic set in the parodos and found nowhere else in this play (160–61). Since the words of the women express the confident belief that the situation is under the watchful control of divine powers, thus continuing the advice given to Electra in the parodos, the forceful reassertion of their iambic meter is appropriate.[150]

At their final words—“Never yet has ruinous destruction left this house”—Clytemnestra enters brusquely from the house, rebuking Electra for being outdoors in violation of the iron-fisted command of Aegisthus. Her entrance interrupts and yet actually reinforces the chorus’ song; as it searches for the crimes in the house, the poet brings on stage—out of the house—the living embodiment of present guilt. Clytemnestra has killed her husband, taken an adulterous lover, and has supported Aegisthus in his plan to isolate Electra. She is thus the perfect “antistrophe” to the Myrtilus stanza; with her every word she indicts herself more deeply. When she asserts that she was the one who killed justly, Electra rejects her argument—and the two rapidly begin to rail at each other.[151] Had Electra accepted the advice of the chorus, she would not so earnestly have taken up the challenge Clytemnestra flung in her face but would have awaited the inevitable working of Zeus, Justice, and the Erinys. Thus Electra’s strongly spoken words to her mother are both a dismissal of Clytemnestra’s rationalizations and a continuing insistence that she cannot accept the pious trust of the chorus.

Kommos (823–70)

In the preceding long scene the tutor has told a false tale of Orestes’ death that Electra has no reason to doubt, and Clytemnestra has declared herself freed from the fear of her children. Electra despairs, thinking that she is now alone, a slave among her father’s murderers. She sinks to the ground promising to waste away unless someone does her the favor of killing her first. The chorus offers words of encouragement, but she rejects the women’s consolation.[152] In this musical dialogue both parties sing almost equal numbers of lyric lines within a strophic form. The chorus first sings a unit of three lines in each stanza; Electra’s only response is to cry out her pain in partial lines[153] as the chorus attempts to prod her into rational dialogue.[154] In three-line units Electra closes each stanza with an assertive quashing of the chorus’ religious pieties. Thus the form suggests that the women’s attempts to communicate with Electra only increase her pain until she firmly rejects them, repeating the pattern of the parodos.

The second strophic set has a different configuration. The chorus sings only single or partial lines. Each time, Electra rejects her friends’ attempted aid and asks them not to try to control her life, becoming openly sarcastic when she responds to their assurance that death comes to all men: “Is it also fated that men become entangled with reins amid the strife of flashing hooves, as that wretched man did?” (861–63). As Electra repulses ever more firmly the chorus’ characteristic attempts to soften her sorrow, its responsiveness diminishes noticeably.

The design of the meters suits this reading of the interchange. The first strophic set opens with ionic for the chorus and ends in choriambic for Electra; the brief dialogue section bridging the two longer speeches is composed of aeolic (reizianum/pherecratean) with two ionics. Though Electra and the chorus are discussing the same topic, the disagreement in language and meter is sufficiently strong to show characters talking at cross-purposes. In contrast, the second strophic set is sung to more varied meters. While Electra has a series of three anapaests, the other meters are not organized in sections, but rather display a disintegrating structure reflecting both the deteriorating power of the chorus to communicate a consistent message and Electra’s loss of hope. Her despair is complete as she envisions a grim future life. Yet the meters in this kommos are not used extensively in other odes in this play, a fact suggesting that this conversation is not closely related to the development of the plot. In fact, Electra will not remain downcast once she learns that Orestes is still alive. With the entrance of Chrysothemis, true information supplants the false report and, though Electra is momentarily misled, her spirit begins to revive. The consolation offered by the chorus and rejected by Electra is soon unnecessary and forgotten in any case; hence the meters do characterize the singers but have little relation to other lyrics in the play.

Second Stasimon (1058–97)[155]

Electra has now boldly pledged to seek vengeance herself; Chrysothemis has been equally resolute in her refusal to join in such activity. The scene ends with sharp words spoken on both sides:

Chrysothemis:

You do not seem to agree with any of my words.

Electra:

This is no new thought. My mind has been settled

for a long time.

Chrysothemis:

I will go away then. You do not dare

to accept my words, nor I your behavior.

Electra:

Go then. Never will I send after you

even if you come to wish it; since it is foolishness

to hunt where nothing is to be found.[156]

Chrysothemis:

If you feel that you are right,

continue in your thinking. When you find yourself

in trouble, then you will find my words correct.

(1048–57)

The women of the chorus, who have always been friendly and concerned about Electra, cannot help but be deeply moved by her firm determination; yet they are stunned by the abnormal sacrifices she will make to serve her father.[157] They begin their ode noting that there are normal cycles that can be seen in nature: birds feed and care for their parents. A child, however, has now vowed to murder her parent, and report of this unnatural inversion in the family should be carried even to the ears of Atreus’ sons in Hades.[158] In the antistrophe they give the substance of this report: the house is sick, the two daughters no longer live in harmony, and Electra—betrayed and alone—feels she is drowning and chooses to die once she has killed the two murderers in her house.[159] Seemingly all the chorus’ hopes of divine vengeance have been shattered, yet it concludes the first strophic pair with praise for the nobility of Electra: “Who was ever born so worthy of a noble house?” (1081). In the second strophic pair the women raise their praise for Electra to ever higher levels: she is so devoted to reputation and noble deeds that she will win honor for her wisdom and filial devotion. In the antistrophe they acknowledge that she is not living well now, though soon she will win the highest award for her service of Zeus by obeying the greatest of nature’s laws. They are amazed at Electra’s pledge and find a reward for her in future reputation.[160]

The first strophic pair is sung to a repeated anacreontic base with a middle section of glyconic/pherecratean. The chorus has sung no anacreontics before. The women, who have consistently favored a patient and passive attitude, now must bring themselves to approve the active role Electra has chosen, and they literally change their tune. In contrast, for the second strophic pair they shift to the familiar iambic, a meter they sang before in the parodos (153–92) and throughout the first stasimon in passages where they insisted that divine powers would take responsibility for proper vengeance. Here the reappearance of this meter reveals that they have not totally changed their opinion; they still cannot believe that Electra is responding solely to the pressures of her individual conscience. They justify her actions by bringing them into conformity with their previous religious/mythological structure: Electra herself has become the agent of Zeus and will win renown through her reverence for Zeus’ Justice and her service of the eternal laws. The appeal to such religious agencies has never been the foundation of Electra’s claims in this play. In her debate with Chrysothemis, Electra stressed the honor the two of them should expect to earn from the dead, the offers of marriage they will win from suitors, and the fine reputation to be gained from their countrymen. She even used a defensive argument: the two sisters must now kill the king and queen because Aegisthus would never allow them to bear children who might become potential avengers. There is no word of Zeus-religion or chthonic spirits in her speech nor in Chrysothemis’ reply; they each argue their case on the basis of practical realities that will affect their individual lives. In spite of Chrysothemis’ refusal and the chorus’ warnings, a simple fact must be acknowledged: Electra is now so committed that she will not be dissuaded. The complicated verbal response of the chorus in this ode is further supported in the musical design: its amazement at Electra’s determination is sung to a new meter while its praise of her sacrifice, incorporating her new initiative into their theology, recalls a meter heard before.

This is the first lyric ode in the play that the chorus has been allowed to complete. Earlier it has been interrupted by Electra, who is impatient with its words, and by Clytemnestra, who comes on stage as the embodiment of its words. Electra can find little to criticize in this ode and has no motivation to interrupt the chorus when it is coming around to her point of view. In addition, the ode is based on a faulty premise, as shown by the entrance of Orestes in disguise as the ode is finished. With his appearance, a new action is begun that leaves the chorus’ praise for Electra untouched, but renders her pledge irrelevant.

In effect, the women of the chorus are allowed to finish this ode because they are not worth interrupting; they have become unimportant in the developing action. These friends of Electra attempt once again to maintain their religious theorizing against her powerful words, and even at this last moment try to incorporate her into their perspective—but Electra ignores them and Orestes enters without having heard them. Though their iambic meter will dominate the musical design all the way to the end of the play, these women have sung their last long ode. Their role as music-makers shrinks as they are reduced to singing their old familiar claims about the gods bringing vengeance into the House (1384–97).

Kommos (1232–87)

Only at line 1221 does it begin to dawn on Electra that the man standing before her is Orestes, alive and present in Argos. First she questions her own perceptions in half-lines; but then with support from the chorus she begins to sing out her joy in lyric.[161] Not wanting her to reveal his presence, Orestes tries to restrain her; she sings in the traditionally excited iambo-dochmiac meter while he speaks in iambic trimeters urging caution. In the antistrophe her joy is so overwhelming that she releases her emotions for the first time in years; she even takes on the language of the chorus, seeing the hand of god in the return of Orestes (1265–70). Vainly he tries to restrain her, fearing that her outburst may cost them their revenge. Then in the final stanza she addresses him directly, asking that he not leave her or betray her, and he assures her that he will fight anyone who tries to separate them now. Her happiness is complete; she has heard from his lips the pledge to carry out vengeance against their common enemies, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.

The moment is charged. For years Electra has been waging her lonely campaign for vengeance—deprived of support, insulted by the excesses of her mother, denied a normal life, and threatened with punishment. In one moment all of these pressures are uplifted and her long campaign is victorious. Her iambo-dochmiac meter embodies her excitement as she pours forth the ecstatic, overconfident words that Orestes tries to check; with one exception his words are spoken iambic trimeters. In the closing stanza she extracts his promise not to desert her in a new meter, the trochaic, a meter not heard in this play before, here employed for a song of triumph: new music for a new moment.

In the strophic pair Electra has more lines because she has more cause to sing; Orestes merely counsels restraint. Yet all is contained within a strict strophic design; even the corresponding lines assigned to each are the same in both stanzas. The matching emotions prefigure the ability of brother and sister to cooperate harmoniously in planning their next action. His words encourage her to sing a new song of triumph. The chorus never sang so harmoniously with Electra in its earlier songs; her meter usually dominated the musical pattern or else she cut the women short. Even when they sang together, their orderly form disintegrated, reflecting a basic conflict; the chorus’ absolute trust in Zeus’ Justice always impeded easy communication. Brother and sister, however, are now reunited and show every sign in word and music of being able to work together. Their song of triumph is interrupted by the necessity of events—against the will of the singers; Orestes stills Electra’s song, insisting that they prepare for the present moment and not waste time reliving the old stories of the horrors she has endured.

The most important musical effect in this emotional scene is the emergence of the actors as singers.[162] Up to this point the chorus has either shared songs with others as equal partners or has itself sung complete odes. In the second stasimon, when the women attempted to bring Electra’s actions within their mythological structure, the characters on stage did not notice their words, which were in any case based on a false report. Now events on stage have overtaken their theories, as the characters devise their own plan independent of the chorus’ religious vision. Even when Electra describes Orestes’ coming as an act of god, she does not seem to be converted to the chorus’ theological view, but rather, reaching for a phrase to describe an amazing event (1267–70). The characters have learned to reject the words and music of the chorus so successfully that now they sing music and speak words without acknowledging the earlier odes.[163]

Third Stasimon and Kommos (1384–97+1398–1441)

As Orestes and Pylades enter the palace to kill Clytemnestra, Electra prays to Apollo to fulfill their mutual hope;[164] the chorus now takes up Electra’s earlier iambo-dochmiacs. Its words cast the event in the intensely religious, visionary terms typical of these women. Excitement has risen because they virtually see divine vengeance performing an execution; their dream is realized as Ares stalks the guilty ones and Hermes follows the deed to its end. Yet this highly poetic strophic pair, a short independent song, is largely ignored by the main characters, who are involved in carrying out their plan; Electra puts it bluntly: “Dearest women, the men will now finish their work. Wait in silence!” (1398). As a result the chorus once again completes another uninterrupted strophic structure because no one seems to care much about its words or visions. Deeds, not words, now drive this play.

The following strophic interchange is mostly iambic trimeter with lyric interjections. The first stanza is the dialogue of Electra and the chorus as they await the murder and then hear the cries of Clytemnestra being killed off stage.[165] The only lyric lines in this exchange belong to Clytemnestra, who cries out on discovering the killers (1404), and to the chorus, which three times tries to begin lyric stanzas. The first time these women sing two lines of syncopated iambic, interrupted by a cry from Clytemnestra in iambic trimeter (1407–9). At 1413–14, in dactylo-epitrite, they call on city and family to witness the end of the fate that has been with them for so long a time, but another cry from Clytemnestra prevents any development of this theme. A few lines later (1417–21) they start to sing lyric iambics, envisioning the dead alive and draining blood from their killers as the curse is brought to its proper conclusion. The entrance of Orestes and Pylades stops this lyric.

Corresponsion, the basic element of strophic structure, now becomes a powerful tool in the scene’s design.[166] First, in the antistrophe, corresponsion is incomplete because four lines are missing from the pattern established by the strophe.[167] The lines that would correspond to the cries of Clytemnestra at 1404–6 and 1409 disappear—thus bringing the impact of her death vividly on stage. The speakers even signal her disappearance:

Electra:

Is the wretch dead?[168]

Orestes:

No longer fear

that your mother’s arrogance will dishonor you.

(1426–27)

Electra’s statement pointing out the offstage cry at 1406 also appropriately disappears in the antistrophe.

In addition, there is an exchange of roles in the antistrophe. At 1426 Orestes appears at the door to speak with the conspirators outside and takes Electra’s lines, since he is now the director of events—just as Electra reported the events inside to those outside in the first six iambic lines of the strophe.[169] She, as an assistant to this new director, now takes the lines of the chorus, which earlier questioned what was happening (1424 and 1426). Thus the shift in the assignment of lines matches the shift in the functions of each party: Orestes becomes the leader, Electra becomes second in command, and the chorus becomes a responder. Of course, the efficient Orestes is concerned with the operational details of the plan;[170] Electra has always been more passionately involved in the significance of the deed. Further, when the lines for Clytemnestra’s screams disappear, the only singers remaining are the conspirators, whose remarks focus on the project at hand. In the strophe the chorus sang words appropriate to lyric as it told of its fright on hearing the queen’s shouts (1407–8), but in the corresponding lines the chorus is totally involved in the mechanics of the plot. In the lyrics at 1428–29 and at 1433–34 the women first warn Electra and Orestes that they can see Aegisthus approaching, and then order them back into the house. For the rest of the stanza Electra retains her lines, but Orestes takes the lines earlier assigned to Clytemnestra, substituting comments on the positioning of the actors in place of Clytemnestra’s passionate outbursts.[171] Even the final lyric iambics of the chorus are concerned with methods for duping Aegisthus; gone are the lofty religious thoughts that concluded the strophe:

The curses are working to an end.

Those lying beneath the earth are alive.

Those long dead now draw back

their killers’ flowing blood.

(1417–21)

versus:

A few soft words

spoken in his ear

would be good—so that he may rush

to the hidden confrontation with justice.

(1437–41)

In Aeschylus’ Oresteia the murder of Clytemnestra is the major event introducing the theme of the mother-killer’s guilt, thus driving the action into the third play set in Delphi and Athens. Sophocles is so interested in directing attention toward events in Argos that he has even designed the music to shift weight to the execution of Aegisthus, the less interesting character with fewer claims for either concern or pity. The strophe presents the murder of Clytemnestra with cries, hostile responses to her claims for respect from Electra, and inchoate choral songs offering justification for the slaying. In the antistrophe Clytemnestra’s voice, her words, and her lines disappear, and the atmosphere clears as attention now turns to the slaying of Aegisthus. As Orestes assumes direction of the conspiracy, the lines of all the characters no longer relate to the significant event off stage but to the tricking of Aegisthus in front of the palace. Previously the main characters insisted they were performing an act of justice based either on the historical and religious grounds of the chorus or on more personal motives. Now such abstract concerns disappear as each participant concentrates on the details of murdering an unsuspecting man. The characters who fill the stage at the end of this drama have become hard-hearted killers, no longer diverted by thoughts of eternal Justice or the laws of Zeus, thoughts more appropriate to the Oresteia. The elimination of mythological/religious theories began in the parodos when Electra rejected the philosophizing of the chorus; interest in tolerating such thoughts has diminished throughout the play until the characters simply ignore the words and theories of the chorus.

Final Choral Lines (1508–10)

In the short final scene Electra glories in her skill at devising clever, ironic statements, toying with the unwitting Aegisthus and finally denying him even one final word in a speech of ugly vindictiveness (1448–65 and 1483–90); Orestes takes charge of the killing. But the chorus closes the play with a brief anapaestic stanza that shows at least one sign that it has modified its faith in the gods’ interest in accomplishing Justice. The women begin by addressing the house of Atreus, which has finally been freed from a series of major generational crises by the vengeance completed in this play.[172] The main characters have steadfastly refused to acknowledge the effectiveness of religious forces but have drawn on Orestes’ sense of obligation and the emotions that have been building within the soul of Electra. The previous scene has shown how eagerly and efficiently the main characters have performed their tasks based on their own definitions of practical and individual justice—although they scarcely seem edified or ennobled by their actions. The women of the chorus conclude the play by singing triumphantly the victory of the house of Atreus, which has finally been achieved in the murders of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. They retain their belief that current events have their causes in remote family history—thus reflecting the final stanza of their First Stasimon (503–15); but they have tempered their insistence on divine Justice—a victory for Electra, who has always asserted the need for individual initiative in bringing justice to the world.[173]

Yet there is the possible allusion to the continuing troubles of Orestes and his family at 1497–98. The chorus, which claims that the House of Atreus has finally won its way to freedom in completion of a pattern, may show its innocence; the women have been so devoted to their pattern of Justice that they cannot envision any evil yet remaining for the family. Against their words there is the action: Orestes has killed Clytemnestra, and all in the audience would have known that there remains a price to pay for that. Electra remains unmarried and childless—in the views of some, inhumane and even psychotic; the burden of keeping open the case for Justice has been too much for her through the long years and she departs into the house of death to live out the rest of her life, a broken woman with no future. If this reading is true, the words of the chorus may be tempered to honor the achievement of Electra as a servant of Justice and a cleanser of the house, but the cost has been great for her and there are still many trials to come for the members of the family. The final stanza reveals the continuing and pervasive trust of the chorus in the gods’ beneficient gift of Justice to humans. In this statement they reinforce the faith that has been the basis for the previous songs—an earnest faith, but one that ignores the price others have paid to activate the powers of Justice.

Throughout Electra, music is associated with the motivations for vengeance. The chorus continually takes the broader view that will justify the killing by making it a reflection of a divine plan. Early in the play it attempts to repeat the same metrical patterns to accompany its insistence on the gods’ justice from ode to ode. Yet it finds that its ability to maintain a similar meter disintegrates, and its meters begin to drift and finally shift to a new rhythm as the women are driven to acknowledge their admiration for Electra. As the murders are being performed, the chorus does sing one ode of iambo-dochmiac—an appropriate meter to accompany the crucial act. At the end of the play, however, the anapaestic reassertion of religious belief is too short, too traditional in its choice of meter, and too late in the process to represent any independent, effective, creative thought sufficient to challenge the dreary exit of Electra, Orestes, and Aegisthus into the palace.

The form of the songs makes the same point even more clearly. The chorus completes only two strophic structures, the lowest level of completion for any Sophoclean chorus. The women run the risk of being excluded from the play even though the characters require the chorus’ justification if they are not going to seem simple murderers. As a result these characters begin the play by tolerating the words and thoughts of the chorus; in the first choral ode Electra’s disagreement with the women of the chorus is mitigated by her tactful matching of their meters and her cooperation with them in forming a strophic structure. Soon, however, Clytemnestra interrupts them and other characters ignore them. If they finish a complete ode, it is only because no one cares to listen. Finally Electra and Orestes appropriate the musical role as they carry out the murder, and the chorus retreats to the background. The play is throughout Electra’s, and the musical design in every way supports her dominant role.

PHILOCTETES

The hero of Sophocles’ Philoctetes is a man alone,[174] exiled on an island, cast away by his own countrymen without support or cure for his pain, and lacking aid from natives.[175] He lives in a cave without the normal refinements and utensils of civilized living, washing in a cold stream, gathering his food from the ground or shooting it with his bow. This cave, a continuing reminder of the rugged and painful simplicity of his life, is the setting for the play: leaves for a couch, some kindling, and a rough-hewn wooden cup—Odysseus ironically calls these the “treasures” of this household.[176] Yet this lonely exile is the only person who can assure the Greek victory at Troy; to rejoin human society he need only journey there with his famed bow[177] to give aid to his countrymen. Troy offers him healing, a return home, and the chance to restore his honor.[178] Sickness vs. healing, exile vs. home, solitary existence vs. community, shame vs. honor—these are the poles between which the future of Philoctetes is suspended on this day when he must make his choice.

The play focuses relentlessly on that choice. The first characters to enter, Odysseus[179] and Neoptolemos,[180] try to persuade Philoctetes to make a choice favorable to them; a false merchant sent by Odysseus in the middle of the play brings additional pressure on Philoctetes to return to Troy; Heracles appears in the last scene to report Zeus’ plan for Philoctetes, and the members of the chorus are continually urging him to join them. Further, every element of this play directs attention to the choice, which is made only in the final few lines. The bow is stolen, fought over, and returned to Philoctetes—all in the service of making him join the Greek army. Various versions of the oracle of Helenos are cited in the hope of persuading Philoctetes to accompany Odysseus and Neoptolemos back to Troy.[181] Lies are told, truths distorted, and even the moral fiber of the characters is tortured in the attempt to bend the will of the lonely hero. The play is in every respect Philoctetes’ play despite the numerous extraordinary stories that are enacted around him.

The chorus of Greek warriors[182] probably enters the stage slowly behind Odysseus and Neoptolemos. It is clear that they have been allowed to hear at least some of the dialogue between the two main actors and are somewhat acquainted with Philoctetes’ suspicions of Greeks.[183] From their entrance they are willing contributors to the effort to entice Philoctetes to Troy; but though their best interests are naturally involved with ending the Trojan War and returning swiftly home, they too are drawn into the circle of power that emanates from the will of Philoctetes.

The first and last words of these soldiers stress their community orientation. When first alone on stage with Neoptolemos, they immediately inquire how they can aid the Greek cause; in their final words they are eager to leave the stage together as a united group (pantes aolleis, 1469–71). They will approve and actively support the deceptions of the Greek chieftains because they believe these deceptions will save lives and serve the community;[184] at the same time these warriors do not want to cause further suffering for the magnificent human whose sacrifice and suffering they come to understand in the course of the play. As a result they easily represent the larger human community in their every utterance, especially at those moments when they are pulled by these two conflicting intentions—adherence to the community of Greeks and concern for Philoctetes.[185]

The metrical patterns and the musical forms of the odes show that these two themes continually weigh on the chorus’ mind. Although the soldiers of the chorus are not the ones who must unite these two thoughts into a single significant action, they call attention to both themes so effectively that they set the decisions of others against a complex background and finally make it easier for Philoctetes to accept the urging of Heracles to go to Troy. In fact, the chorus’ continuing humanity makes it a powerful vehicle for the eventual accomplishment of both goals, the saving of Philoctetes and the taking of Troy.

Parodos (135–218)[186]

The potential division in the chorus’ will is evident even prior to its first view of Philoctetes. The first and third strophic pairs of the parodos are built around iambic and choriambic; the middle stanzas are sung to a repeated glyconic/pherecratean. Appropriately there is a different content in the metrically opposed sections, with the outer stanzas encompassing the aims of the inner.[187] In the first strophic pair the chorus is concerned with receiving clear instructions from Neoptolemos in order to play its role in the scene correctly. The soldiers reveal their desire to aid their master, and they respect his power, which they feel comes from Zeus (138–42).[188] They openly seek instructions (phraze, 137, ennepe, 142, and lege, 153), and, fearing that Philoctetes may come upon them un-expectedly, they end the pair by inquiring about his daily habits. In the final strophic pair (201–18) they warn Neoptolemos of the arrival of the crippled hero, advising him to be prepared for whatever may come on stage. In both these sections they willingly obey Neoptolemos, support Odysseus’ plot, and protect Greek interests. In the middle stanzas, however, their mood is different.[189] They express pity for the forgotten man—for his loneliness, his pain, the drabness of his daily existence, and his despair of finding a cure. It will be the task of Philoctetes to amplify this humane reaction into such sympathy that his pitiable situation will bring them to question Neoptolemos’ plan.[190] The contrasting meters of the two parts of the parodos show the potential for developing this inherent disagreement.[191] In addition, the iambic meter, the first meter used by the chorus, is established as one of the principle meters for the soldiers as they support the actions of their young commander.[192]

The form of the strophes also reflects the split motives of the chorus. In the first strophic pair the chorus sings lyrics, to each of which Neoptolemos responds in unsymmetrical anapaestic stanzas; in the second of these responses the chorus interjects a question in anapaests (161). The second strophic pair is sung without interruption, and Neoptolemos responds in anapaests only after these two stanzas are completed.[193] In the third pair he has one part of a lyric line in a corresponding position within each stanza; in other words, in the last strophic pair he joins the chorus in its song just as it joined him in his anapaests in the first pair of stanzas. In each case the interjected statement is not of great significance, but the easy accomodation of each character to the meter and form of the other shows how close the ties between them are.[194]

The parodos is introduced not by the entrance of the chorus, which was already on stage, but by the departure of Odysseus.[195] Once Neoptolemos is left alone, he is expected to accomplish the deception devised by Odysseus, even though we know from the opening dialogue that he finds this plot distasteful (79–95). His resources at this moment are his own wits and the presence of soldiers who are willing to aid him in every way. At the moment he thinks that the project of taking Philoctetes to Troy involves no more than a minor deception lasting only a few moments. Therefore the chorus’ brief expression of sympathy for the sufferings of Philoctetes can appear an insignificant reaction.

The opening choral song shows a community of Greeks united in pursuit of the exiled hero, with few misgivings about a deception that appears neither massive nor unforgivable. This unity between chorus and leader is supported in the musical design. Each party has a distinct role and thus sings different meters and forms; but in the course of this shared song they easily participate in each other’s meter and form. There is only a hint of potential difficulty in the metrical separation of the chorus’ middle stanzas, which express sympathy, from the surrounding stanzas, which involve the chorus directly in the deception. Yet significantly the middle strophic pair are the only two stanzas in which Neoptolemos does not interfere.

Split Strophic Pair (391–402 and 507–18)

The deception scene begins almost immediately with Philoctetes’ entrance at line 219. Probably there was never a character so easy to dupe.[196] Philoctetes, eager for companionship and for news of the expedition to Troy, believes anything that the Greeks tell him, offering enough information on his own to guide them in misleading him. Neoptolemos quickly engages his emotions by telling him stories of the Greeks who have died and by portraying the sons of Atreus and Odysseus as Philoctetes remembers them.[197] When Neoptolemos tells his false tale of the award of Achilles’ arms including his hatred for the swindler Odysseus, the chorus energetically augments the deception by responding with a lyric stanza sung in iambo-dochmiacs (391–402),[198] the meter traditionally used in Greek tragedy for scenes of high emotion. The chorus, to match the exuberant meter, devises a lofty invocation to Mother Earth/Cybele,[199] describing the goddess’ cult site, her attributes, the past occasions of invocation, her iconography, and her powers. In fact, this invocation provides elaborate emotional support for Neoptolemos’ account with little detail; there is only slight mention of the awarding of Achilles’ arms. If the stated disapproval of the Atreidai were applied to the insult to Ajax, the emotion of the chorus might even be true; instead it leads the gullible Philoctetes to assume incorrectly that the soldiers resentment is caused by the insult to Neoptolemos.

No antistrophe immediately follows;[200] rather there is ample motivation for Philoctetes to break in upon their song as he hears such words from men who appear to nourish a grudge against the Greek leaders that is similar to his own. He now can openly rejoice that these strangers have brought him a clear sign (symbolon saphes, 403) of their grief, one that permits him to recognize (gignôskein, 405) the typical deeds of the sons of Atreus and Odysseus. He addresses the whole group, certain that he has found an ally both in the chorus and in its leader.

The scene continues with stories about other Greeks whom Philoctetes recalls, and he is obviously delighted to learn that the Greek leaders continue to act as they have in the past. The deception reaches a crucial test at line 453 as Neoptolemos prepares to leave. Philoctetes asks for transportation home, playing cleverly on the sense of honor appropriate to the son of Achilles, and concludes begging for pity. In an antistrophic stanza formally answering to the earlier strophe at 391–402, the chorus again breaks into the conversation to support Philoctetes’ plea (507–18). The soldiers, who formerly endorsed the false stories of Neoptolemos, here advance the cause of Philoctetes, asking the young commander to accept him on both humanitarian and moral grounds. Yet in this stanza they do not develop their case with tight logic; rather they build additively, piling one reason on another. Though their rhetoric is not as charged as it was in the first stanza, their emotion is still sufficient to suit the iambo-dochmiac meter. When Neoptolemos interrupts, urging caution before they become too deeply committed to Philoctetes, they immediately assure him of their good faith. Of course, all these words by leader and chorus are merely part of the larger deception. Philoctetes’ interruptions after each stanza confirm the growing success of the deception contrived by Neoptolemos, promoted by the chorus, and aided by the unwitting connivance of Philoctetes himself.

Up to this point the deception is perhaps tolerable because the misstatements have been limited, are spoken by a noble, inexperienced youth, and appear to spring from real concern about the well-being of Philoctetes. In addition, the musical stanzas of the chorus offer an encouraging stimulus to the hopes of the hero. The buoyant happiness of Philoctetes as he turns to lead Neoptolemos into his cave prepares the way for the entrance of the agent of Odysseus, the fake merchant whom Odysseus promised to send if results were too slow in coming (125ff). His story, pure deception from start to finish, has been diabolically designed to strip the unwitting Philoctetes of all defense, driving him to such a rush of activity that he will not have time to use his better judgment until he is in the clutches of his enemy. The first part of the deception scene (240–538), directed by Neoptolemos, is filled with a youthful innocence and a freshness that enlivens the conversation; there is good will and generosity expressed both by the commander and the members of the chorus, leading to a joyous discovery of new friends. Thus far the deception is child’s play compared to the second part of the scene (539–675), in which the open scheming and plotting of the commanders—Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Odysseus—evoke sufficient fear to stiffen the hero’s resolve to avoid Troy.

The merchant darkens the atmosphere by revealing more of the harsh truth that will eventually disillusion Philoctetes and have an even more serious effect on Neoptolemos. No sooner does the merchant leave the stage than Neoptolemos begins to look for excuses to avoid his unpleasant task. Suddenly he finds a need to wait for good winds, the lack of which he had not noticed earlier (630f.).[201] Before the entrance of the merchant, Philoctetes, eager to accept Neoptolemos as a true friend and sharer of his life, has invited Neoptolemos into his cave. Yet once the merchant exits and Neoptolemos notices the bow, they talk about the rightness of his touching it and the need to return it, a sign of the protectiveness that has entered the scene with the harshness and cynicism of the merchant’s report (654–70). To Philoctetes’ statement of friendship Neoptolemos replies with a guarded, negatively phrased statement: “I am not burdened having seen you and having taken you as a friend” (671), which he then supports by a gnomic statement about reciprocity between friends. Though the intention to depart for the beach and the ship is still alive, the merchant’s presence has chilled the air, altering especially the relationship between the two main characters.[202]

The deception scene extends from line 219 to line 675. The first half is more innocent and animated—and appropriately contains two excited, intense musical stanzas. Yet there is a strong element of design to these stanzas, which are formally related as strophe/antistrophe though divided by a hundred lines of dialogue; they do not seem to share in the customary dynamics of organized choral song and dance. In each of these stanzas the chorus, fellow conspirator with its leader, is fully aware of the devices and dimensions of the deception and the probable implications for Philoctetes. The use of organized strophic song is an open sign both to the audience and between the conspirators that the plot is continuing to build even as the scene appears to develop naturally and spontaneously. The words and reactions of the chorus to Neoptolemos are orchestrated, but the natural responses of Philoctetes betray how unsuspecting he is—indeed, he accepts their carefully constructed performance as sincere.[203]

First Stasimon (676–729)[204]

As Philoctetes and Neoptolemos enter the cave to prepare to depart, the chorus is left on stage alone.[205] Sophocles fills the interval with a choral song, creating the impression of action continuing from one scene to the next in order to unite the deception scene with the following scene in which Neoptolemos admits that he has been deceiving the exiled hero.[206] The two scenes, though formally split by the intervening stasimon, are in fact joined by the presence of the same characters developing the same action as that action moves to a decisive moment. Not surprisingly, the choral ode continues the themes of the previous scene and produces few new ideas.

The first strophic pair contains several textual problems so severe that the scansion pattern is not certain; even so, several features of the musical design are clear. The first line is iambic trimeter, thus echoing the opening of the parodos (135 = 150). In addition iambic, choriambic, dactylic, and phalacean all appeared in the parodos’ first strophic pair, where the chorus entered pledging cooperation with the Greek plan. Here the soldiers express sympathy for Philoctetes, the sentiment they sang to a repeated glyconic/pherecratean meter in the parodos (169–90). Such an exchange of meters and content brings a meaningful reversal into these stanzas; the words convey sympathy, but the meter, echoing the parodos, reveals their continuing loyalty to their commander. They cite a parallel from myth, Ixion, as one of the archetypal sufferers. Then they list particular features of Philoctetes’ existence on the island as signs of his greater suffering and the greater injustice of his affliction; he has neither robbed nor killed anyone, yet he is abandoned, able to hear only the sounds of the breakers on the beach, deprived of neighbors, crippled, resourceless, and helpless.

In the second strophic pair, sung mainly to asclepiadeans, a new meter used seldom in this play,[207] the soldiers embellish their thoughts on Philoctetes’ helpless existence, concluding joyously that he has found Neoptolemos to take him home to Malia; they add, almost gratuitously, that this is the area where Heracles was cremated and taken to Olympos. The new meter is a sign that the words are not to be trusted; the chorus is providing reassuring background music to keep the mood and motives of the previous scene intact. Both principal metrical patterns in this ode—one a mixture in conflict with its previous associations and the other unfamiliar—indicate that the deception continues in spite of the chorus’ words and sympathy for Philoctetes. The soldiers support the plan in the belief that—or on the chance that—the two principal characters, who are just inside the cave entrance and may even be seen moving about, will hear them.[208] In effect, the scene is not broken but continued by the chorus’ ode, the first and only balanced strophic lyric in the play with no intervening lines by characters.[209]

The whole scene is colored with irony for those who know the outcome of the story. The chorus is totally unaware, of course, that Philoctetes will eventually return home as a hero in obedience to the command of his friend Heracles. Furthermore their words of sympathy spring from an honest concern that will soon bring immense pressure to bear on Neoptolemos.

Second Stasimon (827–64)

The intervening scene between the two stasima is short yet crucial to the plot. Neoptolemos and Philoctetes are ready to leave for the coast when suddenly Philoctetes is attacked by his disease. Though he attempts to disguise the symptoms, the pain is too great. As the report of the merchant interjected a note of reality into the deception scene, now the onset of the disease brings the forces that have been building within the characters openly onto the stage and into the action. Philoctetes, who has been depending on friendship and shared values to guarantee his voyage home, now must beg for understanding and patience from his new friends. Instead of offering to allow Neoptolemos to touch the bow at some future time, he is compelled to surrender it; the good faith sown in the previous scene is now tested. Philoctetes surrenders himself to the care of Neoptolemos—indeed, he has little choice, but Neoptolemos plays the scene through in accordance with Odysseus’ plot. He even prevents Philoctetes from committing suicide, and the scene ends as he watches over the suffering man, observing his symptoms. It would have been easier if he could have secured Philoctetes on his ship before the deception is unmasked; but now that he has possession of the bow, the truth must come out without the strength and convenience of Odysseus’ presence.

At this point the chorus, which has been silent during the intimate conversation between the two men, sings an ode to Sleep. The first strophic pair is split by its meters into a section of dochmiac 829–31 = 844–46 and one basically of iambic (832–38 = 847–53), a division reflecting the difference in content in both stanzas:

Strophe[210]

1. (827–32): the soldiers pray for Sleep to come to the aid of Philoctetes

2. (833–38): they ask why Neoptolemos does not take the bow and leave.

Interjection of Neoptolemos’ hexameters (839–42)

Antistrophe

1a. (843–48): they warn Neoptolemos to take care in speaking to them because Philoctetes may overhear them

2a. (849–54): they remind him that his plan can cause Philoctetes much pain.

The corresponding meters unite the two stanzas into a strophic structure, but in addition the two parts in each stanza are linked by having the first unit of content end with an iambic line and the second with a dochmiac.[211] Though the topics are united in a ring composition—concern for Philoctetes: advice to Neoptolemos / advice to Neoptolemos: concern for Philoctetes—the chorus switches from topic to topic, holding its thoughts together only with difficulty at this point.

Surprisingly this carefully articulated structure evaporates in the next stanza, which is composed of glyconic/pherecratean/telesillean, phalacean, dochmiac, dactylic, and iambic—all within ten lines. The chorus loses control and begins a song that is less contrived[212] and more reflective of its thoughts. At the end of the antistrophe the soldiers ask Neoptolemos to take the action that will cause the least amount of distress to Philoctetes, and they continue to develop this theme in their final stanza, stressing the vulnerability of the hero.[213] The shift in the structure of the meters and the chorus’ words of pity mark the first open disagreement between soldiers and leader—though the root of this disagreement, concern for the plight of Philoctetes, has been growing since the parodos.

The shaping of the full scene reinforces the sense of conflict. Neoptolemos adds crucial hexameters at the end of the strophe, in which he acknowledges for the first time that the command of the god was to bring Philoctetes himself to Troy along with the bow. Neoptolemos’ apparent ignorance of the precise terms of the oracle has always been a crucial problem in interpreting his character and in assessing the care with which Sophocles has constructed the play.[214] I judge this to be a moment of internal realization, an epiphany, rather than the playwright’s clumsiness in motivating the action. At the moment when Neoptolemos can take the bow and run, he realizes that the oracle, which has been badly understood or at least imprecise in its phrasing, requires the presence of Philoctetes at Troy with the bow. This epiphany occurs for a combination of reasons; Neoptolemos realizes that no other man can effectively wield the bow,[215] but also—and of equal importance—he is aware that desertion of the helpless hero is shameful. The hexameter provides an easy reference to oracular language, appearing appropriately at the moment when Neoptolemos achieves understanding of the full demands of the oracle.[216]

Immediately the soldiers warn him not to speak loudly because the deception will be ruined if the sleeping hero hears him, yet they are worried about the implications of action for Philoctetes.[217] In fact, this concern for Philoctetes so dominates their thoughts that they give Neoptolemos no chance to interject a comment corresponding to his hexameters; rather they continue to dwell on their sympathy for Philoctetes. Clearly they are trying to spark the conscience of Neoptolemos, who for the first time appreciates the awful problem confronting him, and to limit his freedom. The chorus’ words continue to spill out until he orders the soldiers to be silent (865). Their expressions of concern for the hero, however, do begin to cloud his vision. When Neoptolemos is forced to interrupt their stanza, creating a strophe without an antistrophe, the issues of the play begin to interfere with the music of the chorus.

This first part of this ode takes the form of a conversation, recalling the parodos where Neoptolemos and the chorus sang easily together within a strophic structure. But the conversational form deteriorates as the chorus plunges ahead into its own thoughts at the end of the antistrophe, awakening Philoctetes and saying what Neoptolemos does not want to hear. The words of the final stanza are personal, honest, and humane as the chorus’ regard for Philoctetes overcomes its commitment to the calculated strategy that has brought the Greek plan to the crucial moment. The humane concerns of the chorus and the evident frustration of Neoptolemos are reflected in the break from symmetrical structure: the chorus gives Neoptolemos no chance to speak balancing hexameters at the end of the antistrophe, and he disrupts its strophic structure.

Amoebaeon (1081–1217)218, 219, 220

When Neoptolemos cannot conceal the need for choice further, he falls into such a state of perplexity that he finally reveals his intentions to Philoctetes (895–916). Though he continues to hold the bow, he confesses disgust at his actions, remaining bewildered until line 963 where the chorus, which has remained loyal to his plan despite their sympathy for Philoctetes, finally presses him for a decision. Neoptolemos admits he is confused by his pity for the hero: “What shall I do? I wish I had never left Scyros, so tormented am I by my situation” (969–70).[221] His pained question is answered by the immediate, unexpected appearance of Odysseus, who takes command of the situation so completely that there is no line for Neoptolemos from 974 until 1074, where he is forced to respond to his soldiers who seek permission to remain with Philoctetes.

The appearance of Odysseus fully exposes the plot and makes Philoctetes’ situation clear. Neoptolemos is swallowed up by the plan of Odysseus, who does not, like the merchant, have the time to tell interesting stories to cover his activities; he will deprive Philoctetes of his bow with no regret—even bluntly informing him that there was never any need of his presence at Troy. When Odysseus tells Philoctetes the Greeks do not need him to defeat Troy, all pretext of gentle deception is abandoned and the action of the play shifts to the employment of pure power; the game is over and there remains only the cold-blooded task of bringing Philoctetes to Troy using any effective device.[222] While the original plot assumed that the Greeks could induce some momentary feelings of good will in Philoctetes, the action has now moved beyond this possibility. This sacrifice of Philoctetes’ feelings to compulsion is far more brutal than Neoptolemos had bargained for. Odysseus’ artless application of force violates integrity and honesty, the outstanding characteristics of his father, Achilles, and Neoptolemos departs defeated and disenchanted.

At this point Philoctetes and the chorus are left on stage to make a final response to the issues developed in the course of the play. The emotions of Philoctetes that have been building since he first sighted the Greeks now move him to sing his one song. Since the chorus has no authority, it serves only as a sounding board for the sentiments of the hero.[223] In this long song the participants do not want to part from one another, yet cannot see how they can stay together. Each stanza of the first strophic pair is split in corresponding sections between Philoctetes and the chorus. The words of each repeat the same ideas: Philoctetes tells how helpless and dishonored he is; the chorus suggests that he has the power to help himself with no loss of honor. While they disagree on the right course of action, both character and chorus understand the costs to the hero. Thus they appropriately sing separate parts of the same lyric stanza; not even Neoptolemos has participated so closely in the music of the chorus. In fact, Philoctetes leads the song, to which the chorus is the responder. The chorus’ meters in the final section of the first strophic pair (1095–1100 = 1116–22) which seem random and wandering, are in fact composed of meters that were sung by Philoctetes,[224] and with the exception of the two phalaceans the same is true of its song in the second strophic pair.[225]

The second strophic set is metrically organized into three sections corresponding approximately with the divisions in Philoctetes’ speech.[226] The first part (1123–29=1145–52), built around a section of glyconic/pherecratean, describes Odysseus’ laughter and invites the birds to devour him. The second section (1130–35 = 1153–58), centered on the dactylic meter, is about the weakness of Philoctetes without his bow. The third section (1136–39 = 1159–62), sung to the choriambic dimeter, describes the disgrace to Philoctetes’ bow in aiding the Greeks and the necessity that he perish. Each time, the chorus as concerned responder echoes his meters and begs him to show common sense; but he remains focused on his own thoughts.[227]

In the final stanza this relationship shifts. Philoctetes attempts to take charge of his own fate even as he is losing his last chance to escape the island, and finally threatens suicide. The comments of the chorus become shorter as those of Philoctetes become more emotional and unstructured. The basic meters of both are iambic, choriambic, aeolic, and dactylic—meters that appeared in the earlier two strophic pairs—but now the singers do not coordinate their words to form strophic stanzas, a change that reflects the growing separation of Philoctetes from the chorus. In addition, a subtle shift in roles develops; close analysis of this musical dialogue shows that Philoctetes now becomes the responder to the chorus as he seeks to establish a strophic song:[228]

1169–72: Philoctetes begins with iambic lyric, a meter used by both sides in the preceding strophic stanzas. The soldiers respond in 1173 in iambics.

1174–75: He moves to ionic to tell them that they should not hope that he will accompany them.

1176: The soldiers vary his ionic to tell Philoctetes that he should go to Troy and, though he dismisses them, he repeats their anacreontic.

1178: The soldiers sing ionic but end with choriambic as they announce their intention to depart. Echoing their choriambic rhythm, he immediately begs them to stay (1181). Up to 1185 they argue in shared choriambs.

1186: Philoctetes turns to new meters (aeolic, dactylic) as he despairs of his fate, thus seeking the soldiers’ sympathy before calling them back. They return with their familiar choriambs at 1191, then echo his aeolic as they ask if he has changed his intention.

1193: Philoctetes seeks forgiveness using his preceding lyric aeolics, but now with the addition of a choriamb. Both are using the other’s meter.

1196: In dactylic the soldiers strongly urge him to leave with them. At 1197–1203 he states his refusal with powerful emotion but continues their dactylic for seven lines. He finishes by asking a favor of them.

1204: The dactyls continue between them as he asks for an instrument of suicide. He concludes his request in the aeolic, which the chorus began at 1179 and which accompanied his earlier plea for understanding.

1210: Disagreement is clear when the chorus responds in iambics and Philoctetes immediately switches to iambics to accommodate himself to its meter, but the soldiers are determined to depart for the ship.

This final stanza shows one man struggling to preserve his individuality before a group that is attempting to win him over to the community by promises of salvation. He needs the soldiers, but there is clear disagreement; he works to adopt their meters, but they shift and he becomes the echo.[229] The earlier mutual creation of strophic symmetry and repeated harmonious metrical design are lost; musical design supports the growing separation between the men that is so clear in the words. Philoctetes exits threatening suicide as the soldiers move to depart, but the play does not end. Rather the exit of the chorus is interrupted by the reentrance of Odysseus and Neoptolemos quarreling.[230] Thus the form of this musical scene disintegrates from the organized harmony of the preceding two strophic pairs to a long and drifting lyric dialogue portraying in words, meters, and form the growing separation of the two sides—and continues into an open quarrel.[231]

The chorus has been the representative of community throughout this play. The soldiers share unwaveringly the desire of the Greeks to end the war at Troy. They agree with Neoptolemos in the parodos and show their allegiance to his plot by combining musical forms and sharing lyric meters. But in their final two songs there are signs of disorder in the long final stanzas, which are stopped each time by Neoptolemos. The first disorder within the musical design of this play occurred in the previous ode when the chorus doubted the propriety of Neoptolemos’ plan (849–64). There Neoptolemos sought to check such words, and the men were easily controlled. In the final amoebean there is a strong movement to disorder in meter, in form, in content, and in stage action, as positions harden and significant actions are required. The chorus cannot persuade Philoctetes and he is at the point of despair. At this point the soldiers have completed their role in developing fully the dilemma of Philoctetes. When he decides on suicide, they can do little else but return to the ship; throughout the final stanza they insist on rejoining the community while Philoctetes can only mimic their meters in the vain hope of retaining their friendship and some hope of release.

The Final Scene

The chorus has no words in the final scene except for the three final lines. As subordinate characters who support the plan of Odysseus, they have said all they can say. But the combination of the oracle, the Greek mission to Lemnos, Odysseus’ machinations, Neoptolemos’ persuasion, and the chorus’ humane common sense has not been effective in compelling Philoctetes to join the war effort at Troy.

The authoritative encouragement of Heracles and the friendship of Neoptolemos and the Greek soldiers finally do persuade Philoctetes to accept the voyage to Troy. Early in the play he discovered likable and admirable characteristics in Neoptolemos. Although the two sons of Atreus and Odysseus abandoned him on Lemnos, young Neoptolemos, the true son of Achilles, actively embodies values in the Greek army that Philoctetes enthusiastically supports: conviction, commitment, honesty, and respect for the hero. No-where does Neoptolemos succumb totally to the will of Odysseus; his generous service to Philoctetes finally allows the hero to return to Troy in service of his own goals and demonstrating his friendship for Achilles and Neoptolemos, his respect for the Greek values they represent, and his deference to the will of the gods. These values are also characteristic of the soldiers of the chorus, whose humanity is first aroused by the sight of Philoctetes’ empty cave and has grown until Philoctetes is now able to share in their words and their music more fully than does any other character in the play. Ultimately it is his respect for such Greeks as well as their concern for him that forge the chain linking Philoctetes to the cause of the Greeks at Troy. The Greek soldiers are catalysts, though not the cause, of healing in the play. Through their words and their music they portray the communal Greek ethos so persuasively that Philoctetes is finally unable to resist. Heracles does not find much resistance to overcome when he appears to urge Philoctetes to join this community and to be honored by it as one of its heroes.[232]

The chorus’ closing anapaests appropriately celebrate the community as it moves forward together toward a common goal. For the moment all purely individual desires have been suppressed.[233]

The combination of the metrical patterns and the forms in the songs of both chorus and characters suggests a fuller role for the chorus in this play than has usually been thought. All interpretations of the musical design must explain the deterioration of communal singing between actors and chorus: first between Neoptolemos and the chorus, second between Philoctetes and the chorus. In the parodos Neoptolemos and the chorus sing together within a strophic structure. The careful metrical division within the ode provides some indication of a mix of concerns that the chorus will not be able to maintain as the time for action draws near. In the deception scene all is artifice including the split structure of the strophes and the employment of the wrong meter for the chorus’ words in the first stasimon; though the chorus sings harmoniously in the service of the communal plan, Sophocles uses both structure and metrical pattern to show its lack of sincerity. But when action is required, major dislocations appear in the musical design. In the second stasimon the chorus breaks through the traditional strophic structure, pouring out its feelings in a long nonstrophic stanza and losing the tight metrical patterning that has dominated the preceding parts of the play. As the different goals of Philoctetes and the soldiers become clear in the long kommos, the singers also fail to continue a strophic structure and cease to echo each other’s meters. Once the chorus has exhausted its means of persuasion, it retreats from the play as Sophocles seeks another mode to draw Philoctetes back to the Greek cause. At this point the chorus’ role is over, and it has only the briefest of choral tags at the end of the play, where it sings of the importance of the community—appropriately, since this has been the principle behind the design of its music from its first appearance.

CHAPTER 4

THE IMPORTANCE OF MUSICAL DESIGN IN SOPHOCLEAN DRAMA: OEDIPUS AT COLONUS

Oedipus at Colonus is the only surviving Greek tragedy that the playwright seems to have created totally from his own mind, by extending the mythological tradition beyond the king’s exit in Oedipus Tyrannus. From this point the traditional story focused on his sons, who attempted to rule Thebes, fell into conflict, and finally killed each other in the battle of the Seven against Thebes.[1] For years Sophocles must have brooded over Oedipus, the innocent man whom the universe handled in such a cruel and unfeeling way, the best of men pushed to the lowest state. There was no compensation or reward for Oedipus’ suffering, no new beginning. Such a universe was too hostile and aggressive, too cruel for Sophocles to accept as his final statement on Oedipus. The playwright did have a lasting belief that there was not only a mysterious and effective divine power that could somehow be justified but also a divine spark in humans; though his universe was tough and unfair, it was not actively malignant. Thus twenty or so years after the production of Oedipus Tyrannus he completed the story in Oedipus at Colonus, the last moments of Oedipus’ life. It was his last play, produced by his son Iophon in 401 B.C., five years after the poet’s death. As a result this play is the final testament of an extremely old and wise playwright who extended to his last audience a lifeline of hope in their world.

Oedipus at Colonus is an unusual play; in many ways it is almost unresponsive to or unknowing of features of the tragic stage that are operative in other fifth-century plays. Neither Oedipus nor anyone else ever makes a fundamental decision in the play.[2] There is no action; characters talk over and come to know about events that happened years ago in another play. The main force guiding the development of the play never appears on stage, those mysterious gods of Sophocles who are not really mentioned until they finally cause a climatic event—yet that event is largely a surprise and does not emerge clearly from the preceding scenes. In addition, there is no tightly structured plot, a strange omission for a playwright who was always precise in arranging the actions within his plays; there is no cause and effect relationship that makes one scene prime the active forces in the next.

These unusual features raise questions about the nature of this play. It is clearly a performance by actors that takes place in a theater before spectators, but it is not recognizable in many other ways as a fifth-century Greek tragedy. Oedipus at Colonus is something new—or at least it presents a new function for theater: a highly personal statement by a poet who is at the peak of his expressive powers and has a message of such ultimate significance that he creates a text filled with innovative departures from the tradition.

One sign of Sophocles’ mature virtuosity is the design of the music. Sophocles as usual brought a powerfully focused, clearly defined theme into performance by modifying and extending the forms and traditions of the Greek theater until they accurately reflected his personal vision. As a result it is important to review the features of Sophoclean musical design in the earlier plays because only with an appreciation of the chorus as he had developed it can the full expressive power of the musical design in his final play be defined.

MUSICAL DESIGN IN SOPHOCLEAN THEATER

The Choral Perspective

Sophocles directed all theatrical elements toward the major theme, carried principally by the protagonist, thus creating a dramatic center powerful enough to energize the play. His choice of the choral persona was a major element in framing this theme, as is clear from the plays where precise comparisons are available. In the Oresteia, for instance, in which one theme, among others, is political, Aeschylus uses the chorus to establish a powerful role for the citizen in determining justice in his society. The chorus in the Choephoroi is composed of slave women who provide a contrast to the thoughtful elders of Argos in the Agamemnon; as Clytemnestra and Aegisthus reduce the state to tyranny, so also Aeschylus’ chorus shifts its persona, lowering the level of its interpretive analysis to mirror the change in political environment. When Sophocles writes his Electra, however, he changes this chorus to neighbor women, who, by assuring Electra that religious forces will be adequate to avenge the murder of her father, seek to spare her further days of deprivation and dishonor. Since Sophocles is attempting to present the dilemma of the individual who maintains the case for justice at huge individual cost, a chorus of sympathetic women who directly challenge the need for such continuing sacrifice sharpens the focus on this theme. Euripides includes a chorus of Argive women who underline the deprived status of the princess and attempt to present the mythological and religious background to the murders. In the Philoctetes plays of Aeschylus and Euripides, the chorus consists of friendly Lemnians whose presence undercuts the theme of isolation, the very theme that is basic to the exile’s final choice in Sophocles’ play; characteristically Sophocles chooses warriors from the Greek army at Troy. Similarly Ajax’s dishonor costs him dearly in his heroic status and thereby threatens the existence of his soldiers, who are the appropriate choral group both to support their general and to pressure him to regain his position. Deianeira, in trying to live successfully in a world that has little tolerance for her values, needs the strength of a supportive group of women to maintain her existence; the values and contributions of Creon (in Antigone) and Oedipus (in Oedipus Tyrannus) to political order are best supported by male choruses who are either councilors or else have a strong interest in the welfare of their state. If Oedipus (in Oedipus at Colonus), as polluted outcast and outsider, is to be brought into the community, then the chorus quite naturally should be representatives of that community. In each drama the persona of the chorus is intimately related to the major theme, and the design of its music underlines this persona’s response to the theme as it develops in the episodes.

While Sophoclean odes can be as long as sixty-four lines, the average number of lines is forty-one; similar figures for Aeschylus are one hundred seventy-eight and seventy-five, for Euripides one hundred thirty-eight and forty-eight.[3] Shorter stanzas tend to place more meaning on individual words and require more careful attention to shifting scansion patterns to perceive subtle gradations of effect. This subtlety is found in numerous examples from the existing plays, the clearest being the fourth stasimon in Oedipus Tyrannus (1186–1222).[4] Within thirty-six lines the two strophic pairs reveal a stunning degree of expressiveness through musical design. The first strophic pair is uniformly aeolic meter with some variation and a sign of internal structure in the repeated configuration of:

telesillean

glyconic

pherecratean

telesillean

2 glyconics

pherecratean

3 glyconics

reizianum

This structure is reinforced by the organization of the words into three sections in each stanza, two statements + conclusion; all of which develop a single idea, the depth of Oedipus’ fall, and are thus appropriately sung to similar aeolic meters.

The immediately following strophic pair is also organized into three parts, but the meters are contrasting: iambic, dochmiac, and choriambic. Correspondingly the words of the chorus, though still focused on Oedipus, wander in varying directions. The contrast between the two strophic pairs in the structure of the meters and the words brings oral and visual support to the developing inability of the chorus to organize its thoughts as it responds to the preceding scene’s disastrous revelations about Oedipus’ life. This ode leaves the audience with an empty feeling as the citizens, who have been loyal in supporting the king, now suddenly can find no words to order their thoughts, lose consistency in meter, and can only wish not to have witnessed the events of the play. This final statement by the chorus, which has provided firm backing for Oedipus on the basis of its political and religious beliefs, is the equivalent of a declaration of bankruptcy. As this chorus self-destructs, its music loses the careful balance and structure that have marked its previous odes, and after this ode the citizens are unable to sing another strophic structure. Thus in this song there are two stanzas built on simple variations of a single metrical pattern and two that have three metrically different sections. Such a contrast between the strophic pairs reflects the chorus’ inability to reaffirm its beliefs and thus provides a proper conclusion to its role in the drama; Sophocles is unique in his ability to focus so intently on the combination of words, music, and form to express this contrast in a brief thirty-six lines.

Although Sophocles has designed choruses that are closely related to the central dramatic conception in characteristics, words, and musical forms, the members of these choruses are not characters in the play.[5] They do not enter as active agents into the plots nor do they make the crucial decisions. The Sophoclean chorus is better described as a persona, a group displaying consistent responses and reactions suited to the type of person it represents. The Sophoclean hero has been described as a self-exile or loner, driven by an intuitive moral code, and possessed of an iron will;[6] the chorus is a less involved, yet intensely interested participant in and observer of the situation. Choral members are not alone and do not seek self-exile, but rather represent a community, through their number and usually in their collective statements. In place of an intuitive inner code, choral responses are based on an understanding of traditional Greek/Athenian values. The members of the chorus are involved in the situation of the characters but could not be described as driven by an iron will; rather they are intensely moved, because of their humane concern for others, to assert community understanding of the situation. Thus the chorus is composed of figures marginal to the action but deeply interested in the characters on stage and the choices they make; it is a group that provides a response—generally traditional—to the developments in the play because of its desire to help those characters through the difficult situations that surround them.

A Sophoclean play (seen in the development of the episodes) can be defined as: character + situation = play;[7] the Sophoclean choral persona (contained in the series of odes) might be expressed in a parallel formulation: the sympathy and understanding of a consistent group + the need to witness a painful situation = a consistent choral persona. The reason for this easy parallel between the role of the chorus and the role of the heroes arises from the one basic similarity in their contribution to the drama: chorus, hero, and secondary characters all offer various perspectives on the action. No one is the mouthpiece of the poet in bringing an opinion directly onto the stage; in a Sophoclean play characters and chorus all have a limited understanding of the situation. Only the audience in the theater with its knowledge of the myth is privileged to know the outcome. In fact, the performance of a Sophoclean play can be defined as the audience watching as the characters and the chorus, both from their idiosyncratic perspectives, attempt to find an adequate response to a situation. The heroes must figure how to salvage what is important, knowing that each will have to sacrifice in order to defend the choice; the chorus portrays a wider response and so provides the background for the characters’ actions. Though the full and consistent choral perspective always aids the audience to understand the theme of the play, ultimately the chorus will fade when the major characters carry the drama in an individual direction rather than following the broader views naturally represented by a community.

Choral Consistency

There are numerous signs in the odes of each play that Sophocles planned his choruses to be consistent in their presentation of a perspective. Generally they support a cause; seldom do they simply stand in opposition—except in the case of an obvious evil like the threat to kill Creon in Oedipus Tyrannus or Creon’s crude hostility to Oedipus and his daughters in Oedipus at Colonus. Choral consistency is also clear in the use of repeated or related meters as it moves from the parodos to the first and second stasima of the drama; such repetition is most prominent in the first three songs of the Antigone, but is also evident in Trachiniae and Philoctetes. After such initial consistency in metrical pattern the chorus tends to drift with the developments of the play—moving to a confused joy and then disintegrating into a depressed confusion as its expectations are not met, as in Ajax, Trachiniae, and Oedipus Tyrannus. Such choruses respond to events in the surrounding scenes by disrupting previously established metrical patterns to express emotion in words and meter; these meters tend to be dochmiac and iambo-dochmiac. And, of course, it is notable that the choruses that are usually allowed to complete their full strophic form seem to make more carefully reasoned, weightier statements, thus offering perspectives that are more difficult to reject or are rejected with more sorrow and pain than those whose songs have been so repeatedly interrupted that even the characters have declared them somewhat inconsequential. Especially powerful, weighty perspectives are developed by the choruses of Antigone and Oedipus Tyrannus; the weakest choruses—thus the ones most commonly interrupted—are those of Ajax, Trachiniae, and Electra.

Maintaining consistency in the rugged world of Sophocles is the major challenge for characters who often must suffer and even die to preserve their resolve. Consequently it is no surprise that the less committed community represented by a chorus learns how difficult it is to respond to each scene from a constant perspective; in fact, most of them fail and end the play being reduced to silence while characters appropriate the musical role. This diminishment of the chorus’ role, often emphasized by the virtually silent presence of the fifteen members of the chorus during the final scenes, complements each play’s focus on a purposeful character. The design of the music at the point where the chorus realizes that it must surrender its perspective varies according to the situation in the play and the persona of the individual chorus: sage elders tend not to panic in their retreat while weaker groups, lower-class men or women, can become disorganized, frightened, or dejected. The advisors of Creon in Antigone change less than any other chorus because they maintain their allegiance to the defense of the state even at the cost of abandoning their king. In fact, they sing five full strophic odes and betray only a minor concession to discouragement when they fail to structure their meters with customary tautness in the final stasimon (1115–54). Yet even in Antigone the chorus is threatened by strong main characters with losing its role as singer. Antigone is able to lead the elders to sing her meter even though they are sufficiently strong to reassert themselves until the final scene when Creon fully appropriates lyric song. The citizens of Thebes in Oedipus Tyrannus, having learned the truth, sing one ode to reflect on the fall of their king, but the decline in their ability to structure a tightly organized strophic song disintegrates and they become responders in the long final scene. The soldiers in Philoctetes continue to sing even when it is clear that they will have to abandon the lame hero, but they no longer structure strophic songs; they share with him a lyric dialogue that becomes astrophic—therefore unpredictable. The soldiers of Ajax lose their hero, their previous meters, their strophic form, and even their way as they frantically search for his body; the women in the choruses of Trachiniae and Electra have their musical role preempted. In other words, there are always evident signs in the lyric meters and forms when choruses are unable to maintain a perspective and must grope for new answers. When they sink into insignificance in their words, there is usually a strong shift in the design of their music.

In Philoctetes this transitional moment occurs in a lyric dialogue: even in the parodos Neoptolemos joins directly with the chorus to form the opening ode, and throughout the next few scenes he and the soldiers cooperate in making strophic lyric support their plot to ensnare Philoctetes. The first moment when such cooperative singing fails is at 855 where the chorus continues to sing without waiting for Neoptolemos to add the balancing lines to his hexameters at 839–42; the soldiers are so assertive that he must order them to stop singing. At 1081–1217 they and Philoctetes form a lyric dialogue in which he attempts to follow their meters, but he is unable to form a strophic ode with them, as Neoptolemos did earlier. All four steps in lyric gradation are used in this play: the high formalism of strophic song (the first stasimon, 676–729), the weakening in strophic form by the introduction of nonstrophic elements—which is usually marked in our texts by the name epode (the second stasimon, 827–64), lyric dialogues in strophic form (the parodos, 135–218, and the first part of the kommos, 1081–1168), and astrophic lyric dialogue (the second part of the kommos, 1169–1217). Sophocles in this play and elsewhere makes a variety of adaptations to traditional forms in designing appropriate musical responses to tense scenes—especially when the chorus is compelled to abandon its purpose and even to surrender its role.

The Hand of the Poet: Hyperforms

In addition to the poet’s efforts to create and maintain a consistent persona in his choruses, there are moments when Sophocles uses musical design to present powerful forces which, though escaping the notice of the characters, reveal themselves in the development of the action. The fullest development of this form appears in five, perhaps six, examples in the extant plays.

First, the poet can use a repeated musical motif that gains meaning during the play even though the characters and chorus seem unaware of its importance. The anapaestic passages in Antigone are clear examples. Not only does the poet create a unique form in the parodos by interjecting pseudo-strophic anapaestic stanzas into the normal lyric structure, but he concludes each formal ode in the long first part of the play with an anapaestic entrance stanza.[8] Consistently in each of these stanzas the chorus says something about the entering character that challenges the delicate balance of values in its preceding ode, yet the singers seem completely unaware of the contradictions and complications implied. The audience, however, will quickly learn to hear each anapaestic stanza as the next footstep on the stair that brings an increasing threat to the characters.

In addition, Sophocles is a master of what I will call the “hyperform,” an enhanced form that reveals its existence only in retrospect. Participants in a scene can use musical forms that seem to be astrophic lyrics, yet once the scene is finished, it is clear that the actors have contributed to the formation of a balanced strophic structure even though they did not realize it. The clearest hyperform is the deception scene in Philoctetes, where the chorus sings a single lyric stanza supporting Neoptolemos’ tale of the award of Achilles’ armor (391–402); in the moment this stanza seems astrophic because there is no immediate balancing antistrophe. But later, after three hundred lines of dialogue between Neoptolemos and Philoctetes, the chorus pleads with Neoptolemos in a second lyric stanza that is the missing antistrophe (507–18). Only at this point can the audience recognize a clear sign of a greater ordering force that unites this long scene into one movement. The consistent aim of Neoptolemos and the chorus is to deceive Philoctetes, and the artificial introduction of a delayed strophic corresponsion joins the many other devices being used.[9]

Yet far greater ordering forces, though invisible, are brought on stage by the use of hyperforms. At the beginning of the last scene of Antigone the chorus, using its characteristic anapaests, announces Creon as he enters carrying the lifeless body of Haemon.[10] Now there is an inversion in the musical form: throughout the final scene Creon takes over the singing of lyric song; the chorus responds in spoken iambic trimeters. In a strophic lyric Creon learns that the guilt for the deaths of Haemon, Megareus, and Eurydice is fully his. No longer is there talk of being victimized by hostile gods.

In the second strophe (1306–11) he asks someone to kill him. In the following lyric stanza (1317–25), which is not the expected antistrophe, Creon admits that he was the only cause of these deaths. When he acknowledges that he is a nonbeing, the disorder in the structure of stanzas (the lack of a corresponding antistrophe, creating the impression of a free-flowing lyric form) reflects the disturbance in Creon’s soul: self-annihilation of soul = self annihilation of musical form. So far the form is a a’ b c.

Yet the play is not over. After the chorus urges him to go inside, Creon invites death in yet another stanza, which provides the missing second antistrophe (1328–32), and after lines in which the chorus tells him to care for burying his family and then worry about his own death, he sings the third antistrophe (1339–46); thus the full form of the scene is a a' b c b' c'. The disorder presented by the two earlier, apparently free-floating stanzas was a false perception. Creon’s song proves to be complete and balanced when the two late-occurring stanzas return order to the scene by providing the expected antistrophes.

Some editors have noted that the last scene is a large strophic construction; it is—but only in hindsight. After line 1300 the audience would have heard a series of single lyrics. Such nonstrophic laments are appropriate in a scene that began with the singer completing an initial strophic pair but then suffering a further shock on realizing that he alone has been responsible for a series of deaths. Only when the song has been completed does the audience realize that there is not less order in the structure of the scene, but more. The poet has set Creon’s words into a complex strophic structure that, though delayed in presentation, emerges the more forcefully when it is fulfilled. In this case the chorus explains the organizing force:

Chorus:

Those who must care will now take care.

Creon:

But I have prayed for all that I desire.

Chorus:

Pray no more. Once a man’s fate is set there is no escape.

(1335–38)

Even though two displaced antistrophes are a minor element in the full text, this scene offers insight into Sophocles’ methods of designing music to support his dramatic concept. The laws of Zeus provide a powerful ordering force that drives Antigone from start to finish. Teiresias lists the unhealthy results of their violation, but Antigone herself is their most eloquent spokesperson in her signature speech:

Not at all did Zeus proclaim these orders to me

nor did Justice, who lives among the Gods below,

set such laws for men; nor did I think

your mere mortal pronouncements

were so strong that they could surpass

the unwritten and unfailing laws of the gods.

Not only for this moment nor for yesterday

do they live—but forever, and no one knows their source.

(450–57)

The outcome of the play is predictable: Creon violates these laws and he will lose; Antigone respects them and becomes a heroine. As Creon is brought to admit that the guilt for the disastrous series of deaths in this play was not brought on him as victim or innocent bystander, but rather that he himself was the corrupt source from which ruinous decisions flowed, there is an admission by implication in his words that the laws of Zeus have brought him to justice. Further, even though the living existence of that powerful ordering force of Zeus’ law is not mentioned specifically in his words, it is powerfully present on stage in the design of the music. There are six full strophic odes sung by the chorus in Antigone, plus a long lyric by Antigone and this final song by Creon; each is a completed strophic structure with no intrusions on the basic and predictable form. There are no epodes, no mesodes, and no nonstrophic monodies by characters—including even the final song of Creon. In fact, the orderliness of his song is intensified once the audience realizes that the form is not less than expected, but greater. Sophocles has used the musical expectations of his audience, which must hear musical form develop progressively, to delay and then to enhance the presence of that huge ordering force which will finally break with such stunning effect on the characters.

The process I am describing is one familiar from basic intelligence tests, which ask: What is the next number in the sequence two, six, ten? The answer is fourteen—because four is added each time. But that result is unclear from the numbers two and six—which could be simply random choices, or show the results of multiplying by three, or of adding four. Only when 10 is put into the series, is the pattern, which was there all along, established. At this point it is possible to carry on the series indefinitely since the pattern or the theory has become clear. Sophocles, in delaying the completion of the full choral form in Creon’s song, relies on a like process in the minds of the audience to generate an awareness of the full ordering power that controls meter, form, and meaning in the final scene of Antigone.

In a similar way the careful structure of the storm scene at the end of Oedipus at Colonus is also a hyperform (1447–99). Never have the unseen forces of the world been portrayed more directly as powerful actors on the stage. As thunder and lightning create strophic pairs by their ordered interruption of the chorus’ terrified cries for aid, Oedipus and Antigone exchange balancing (almost corresponding) iambic trimeter speeches. This form is broken only by the entrance of Theseus. What appears initially to the audience as a scene of shock and terror is held strictly within an ordered structure by the sounds of nature and the responses of Oedipus, who clearly recognizes the final summons. Further examples in Ajax (866–960) and Oedipus Tyrannus (649–96) have been discussed earlier.[11]

It is possible that there is at least one hyperform created solely by visual effect: a character who does not appear to interrupt the song of the chorus consciously but rather enters at the end of a strophe as the chorus is speaking highly appropriate words. At line 516 in Electra, Clytemnestra enters just as the chorus says:

Ever since Myrtilus sank into the sea

and fell into perpetual sleep,

hurled from his golden chariot

in a tragic wreck,

never yet has ruinous disaster left this house.

(508–15)

At this moment the chorus fails to provide a balancing antistrophe, but Clytemnestra is the best antistrophe their words could find in that she is the embodiment of the “ruinous disaster” that lives on in the house. Just as the tutor later will enter to announce Orestes’ death at the moment Clytemnestra finishes praying to Apollo—thus providing the instant fulfillment of her prayer and at the same time underlining ironically the god’s power in enforcing justice on the house of Atreus—so here also Clytemnestra enters as the embodiment of continuing misfortune and the future recipient of the justice the chorus predicts in its ode. This visual hyperform, which seems to have no cause on stage or in the motivations of the characters, says far more than words could to evoke the presence of unseen powers.[12]

In each of these five examples (plus possibly the scene in Electra) the hand of the poet is evident as he adapts traditional forms of musical design to express his meaning. The motivation for such musical design can arise from within the characters (Philoctetes), but there is no adequate explanation for lyrical hyperforms in Ajax, Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannus, and Oedipus at Colonus other than the need to introduce an unseen force on stage. That such a force is an active element in Sophoclean thought and dramaturgy is clear from the fate of Oedipus; in fact, most Sophoclean characters find themselves fulfilling a plan they do not know through choices they feel are free. Musical design is a highly effective means to bring the living presence of invisible forces onto the stage and into the orchestra.

The Development of Lyric Dialogue

Of the major Greek tragedians, Sophocles’ career was the longest. He was writing as early as 468 B.C.[13] His first datable surviving play is Antigone from ca. 441 B.C., and Oedipus at Colonus was produced after his death in 401 B.C.; thus full plays exist from a career spanning forty years.[14] The surviving plays represent such a long creative period that it would be surprising if there were not perceptible signs of growth in the playwrights’ handling of the chorus.[15] Such signs might reveal responses to innovations introduced by others, but Sophocles himself seems to have taken the lead in bringing at least one form to a high state of art, the lyric dialogue.[16]

Of course, the combining of chorus and character into one conversation where at least one of them sings lyric meters is well precedented in the earliest surviving play of the fifth century, Aeschylus’ Persians (256–89 and 908–1077); in fact, few extant Greek plays lack such a passage. Yet the development of the lyric dialogue into a fully integrated and powerful contributor to the drama may be the most revealing sign of growth in Sophocles’ musical technique; one critic has speculated that his mastery of this form is so effective and individual that other late fifth-century tragedians could not compete.[17]

In the most traditional form of lyric dialogue the chorus sings strophic lyric to balance a character’s iambic lines or anapaestic stanzas; this dialogue form is found throughout the plays of Aeschylus, at greatest length in the choral debate with Clytemnestra (Ag. 1401–1576). In Sophoclean drama this form occurs only in the parodos to Ajax (chorus and Tecmessa) and is then mirrored in the second parodos between the same participants (879–960).

In the plays usually regarded as early, Sophocles begins to modify this form for more flexibility. Even in Ajax the hero takes the major lyric role in the first kommos while the chorus and Tecmessa respond in iambics (348–429). Similar is the form of the two kommoi in Antigone, where Antigone in long lyric stanzas leads the chorus to song while Creon later encourages only iambic replies (806–82 and 1261–1346); in addition, there is the further example of Oedipus, who tries to explain his blinding to a chorus that responds in short iambic statements (OT 1313–68).

In Ajax there is also an initial sign of more conversational lyric dialogues between character and chorus. The chorus first hears Tecmessa cry out as she finds the body of Ajax, then they question her, and finally attempt to console her (891–914 = 937–60). This dialogue begins with the two participants apart physically and mentally, but eventually they share feelings easily and move quite close to one another. A similar open exchange occurs when the chorus attempts to dissuade Jocasta from probing the causes of Oedipus’ dispute with Creon:

Chorus:

Lady, why do you delay

taking this man into the house?

Jocasta:

I will once I have learned what has happened.

Chorus:

A suspicion without facts arose—

yet, the lack of justice stung.

Jocasta:

From both men?

Chorus:

Yes.

Jocasta:

And what was the story?

Chorus:

I’m concerned for the land;

it’s enough that the matter remain as it is.

(OT 678–86)

However, while there is a closeness between the characters in these exchanges, they remain only exchanges; there is little in the nature of a debate between the participants’ beliefs and values or a shifting of opinions in an attempt to reach a deeper understanding. As a result these mini-conversations only raise the level of emotion and excitement, but they do not use lyric to enrich a characterization or argue a point any more fully than is done with equal effect in the surrounding iambic trimeter lines. For example, the chorus in Oedipus Tyrannus expresses at greater length and with greater feeling the request just made by Jocasta at 646–48 and in the antistrophic lyric it introduces the crucial question asked in Jocasta’s iambics at 697–98. Similarly the lyric interjections of the chorus for the most part lend excitement to the iambic words of Tecmessa as she copes with her feelings on finding the body of Ajax; and at Trachiniae 871–95 the emotion of the chorus is presented in lyrics but the event itself is reported by the nurse.[18]

In the later plays, however, major lyric dialogues offer complex dramatic responses to pivotal moments in the characters’ lives. In Electra there are three longer lyric dialogues: (1) between Electra and the chorus when she is left on stage alone after hearing the report of Orestes’ death (823–70); (2) between Electra and Orestes as she realizes that her brother stands before her alive (1232–87); and (3) between Electra, the chorus, and Orestes with interjections by Clytemnestra as she is being killed inside the palace (1398–1441).[19] These dialogues use musical form to display the full significance of each event—and in each case in a way that could not be handled equally well in an iambic trimeter dialogue. When Electra, on hearing of her brother’s death, despairs of living, the problem between her determination and the chorus’ trust in divine justice must be resolved: will Zeus and his ministers of justice take vengeance for Agamemnon or is Electra’s defiance necessary? First the women of the chorus threaten to give up their faith as they realize that the proper avenger is gone (823–25); then they attempt a consolation by recalling that King Amphiaraus retains his kingship among the dead (837–39)—the type of traditional encouragement the women of the chorus have been offering since the parodos. Electra, however, has lost her spirit to fight: instead of standing, she slumps by the entrance to the palace. Many of her statements are the reverse of statements she has made earlier, and the music underlines the contrast; the combination of anapaest, iambic, and dochmiac appeared only in the parodos accompanying Electra’s bold assertions (201–12 = 221–32). She now feels that the chorus is destroying her; she has never given it such credit before. She says she is growing weaker (têkô, 835, and auanô, 819); earlier the chorus so described her (213–20), but she rejected any thought of vulnerability throughout the parodos. Electra laments the terrors which she has suffered over the years (850–52); earlier she proclaimed her defiance in the midst of such terrors as long as she would live (221–25). Now she professes that there is no hope from kin or nobles since the last supporting relative has died; earlier she insisted on the living cause of those who were dead:

For if a dead man being earth and nothing

lies wretched

and others shall not pay

a just price for his killing,

then would shame vanish

and all men’s reverence.

(245–50)

This musical interchange allows the positions of chorus and character to be presented in a taut summary The chorus attempts to remain supportive through traditional statements; Electra can no longer make the proud claims from her only earlier song. The musical design of the shared song not only juxtaposes her thoughts with those of the chorus, thus reminding the audience of the earlier disagreement in the parodos; it also enhances the effectiveness of her words to express her dilemma. The true measure of Electra’s despair is most clearly evident if the production can bring out the contrast in attitude between her two songs.

The next lyric dialogue begins when Electra realizes that her brother stands alive before her (1232–87). The design of the three stanzas is clear: Electra has almost all the lyric, which moves from iambo-dochmiac to repeated trochaics; Orestes has almost all iambic trimeter interjections (only one lyric response at 1280, a bacchiac, thus only a mild variation on his basic iambic). The lyric meters convey effectively the massive joy of Electra at finding her brother before her, a joy so great that the dialogue can only end when Orestes orders her to check her emotion in order to help him plan the deaths of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra (1288). The musical design of this small scene allows Electra to communicate her ecstasy not only in words but also with appropriately heightened delivery. Yet the tension of the moment is not lost; rather, throughout the lyric dialogue Orestes warns Electra to contain her excitement and finally brings her to iambic speech so that they can plan their next move without being overheard by their victim within. The mixture of explosive joy with caution and suspense underlies the contrasting music in this passage. And, of course, it is highly appropriate that Orestes cuts off the song at the end of the third lyric stanza, leaving the audience unsatisfied in its expectation of a balancing antistrophe—an abrupt break underlining the realities of a dangerous situation.

The third—and most complex—lyric dialogue of Electra follows almost immediately (1398–1441). The poet wants to make Clytemnestra’s death palpable in order to emphasize the vengeance being fulfilled and simultaneously to portray the responses of Electra and Orestes. The stage is left empty once Orestes, Pylades, the Tutor, and Electra enter the palace; as expected the chorus sings a strophic pair echoing their earlier thoughts about the gods bringing vengeance on Agamemnon’s killers. Then Electra reappears to watch for Aegisthus’ approach; suiting the factual questions of the chorus, the meter is iambic trimeter. Suddenly Clytemnestra cries out from inside the palace; her first line is dochmiac but the second is iambic, as are the responses of the chorus and Electra; so far the meter seems remarkably unemotional for an act of murder. As soon as the chorus begins to talk about the wider concerns of the city and the earlier generations in the house, true lyric meter briefly appears, but immediately iambics return. Thus the strophe is not exuberantly lyric, especially in comparison to earlier odes; most of the lines are iambic trimeter or some closely related meter—even when a woman cries out that she is being killed. The effect of the antistrophe is even flatter since the few lyric lines contain unemotional orders to Electra to return inside the palace because the chorus has seen Aegisthus approaching. The whole content of the stanza becomes mechanical planning for the conspiracy Yet this entire strophic lyric dialogue is highly effective in conveying the complexity of the moment. Clytemnestra’s sudden voicelessness within the musical form is a uniquely chilling method for impressing her murder on the audience; without such a device a messenger would have reported the event. The rapid pace of events is maintained as Aegisthus approaches without having to wait for such a messenger to finish. Moreover, the chorus is allowed to continue insisting that the dead are gaining their revenge (1417–21), while at the same time the dehumanized behavior of the conspirators Electra and Orestes displays the tone in which such work is being done. If it is the gods’ work, it is a joyless pursuit. The incorporation within a lyric form of so many iambic trimeter lines dealing with fact rather than thought or emotion demonstrates vividly the degree to which the conspirators have destroyed the joy of their cause in spite of the eloquent presentations by Electra and the chorus in their earlier odes.

In each passage from Electra, Sophocles has used the form of lyric dialogue to raise the emotional level of the exchange, but he has also forced the audience to respond actively to each passage by exploiting its expectations both of customary corresponding lines and roles within a strophic structure and of the usual balance of strophe by antistrophe. All three scenes could have been handled in iambic trimeter, as is clear from the parallel design of the drama in the other Electra plays; but Sophocles has now developed the form of lyric dialogue to the point where he compels his audience to share the emotions of Electra—her despair at the death report, her elation at her brother’s appearance, and her rather dull, mechanical participation in one of Greek tragedy’s most problematic and troubling murders. Musical allusion to Electra’s earlier song of different attitude brings on stage the actual change in emotion rather than requiring the audience to indulge in the intellectual act of drawing a comparison to her earlier statements. Similarly the heightened joy Electra must display before her brother, at the same time that she understands the need for caution, can best be presented through the interaction of the two characters’ different modes of delivery. Possibly the most creative musical idea in Sophoclean drama is the omission of corresponding lines for a character who has died; the emptiness is not just expressed in words but actually enacted on stage. When these feelings are simultaneously juxtaposed with the mundane detail expressed by the two killers, the full richness of the scene is conveyed directly.

It should be no surprise that the artistry of lyric dialogue is further developed in Philoctetes, a play with several unusual musical effects. The final long song (1081–1217) consists of two strophic pairs shared by Philoctetes and the chorus, each of whom attempts to find a position that will persuade the other.[20] The real lyric dialogue begins in the final long stanza, where the statements are much shorter, often one-line or half-line comments and responses. At this point there appears to be little chance of either party persuading the other. Philoctetes even tells the soldiers that they should leave, and they immediately agree (1177–80); but then he blocks them, they want to know what his meaning is, he asks their help in killing himself, and they finally decide to abandon him. The dialogue is jagged and indecisive; although the words lead to final separation, there is profound regret on both sides, which delays and complicates the final moment of departure. While no strophic balance is achieved, there is the hope on both sides that by continuing their song they will establish a verbal and musical agreement. Philoctetes tries to maintain his position as the strong individual but he keeps echoing the soldiers’ meters. As they introduce new meters, the stanza keeps developing with no appropriate moment of closure. In fact, the participants, though fast approaching the point where there is no more to say, end the song only when Odysseus and Neoptolemos enter. Through the gradual development of this dialogue from long statement to shorter exchanges, the emotional debate between the chorus as representative of the community and the isolated, desperate individual is presented directly. Philoctetes could speak out his thoughts to answer the chorus in a longer, more formal stanza,[21] but Sophocles creates a scene of extreme delicacy and expressiveness by having both cooperate to produce a musical passage in which form disintegrates even though both participants are reluctant to acknowledge the inescapable conclusion to which they are being driven. In the strophic pairs they speak gently and earnestly against one another, describing the life they foresee for Philoctetes. They echo each other’s meters and speak corresponding roles within the strophic structure—but this sense of cooperation is created only to deteriorate when Philoctetes, continuing the iambic meter he has used in the strophic stanzas, signals the end of unity:

Over and over

you bring up my old pain,

though you are the best of those who have come here.

Why have you destroyed me? What have you done to me?

(1169–72)

At this point the chorus takes the musical lead in introducing new meters, which Philoctetes tries to echo even as his words indicate increasing difficulty in finding agreement. Still it is possible for the audience to hear in this exchange of lyric meters the components of a potential hyperform, a second strophe that will lead to a corresponding antistrophe with the sense of order and accommodation that implies. The two previous strophic pairs were about twenty lines long; about twenty lines into the final stanza there is a suggestion of a new beginning in the words:

Philoctetes:

My friends, come back to me.

Chorus:

For what purpose? Would you show

an intent different from before?

(1190–92)

But this promise of a new beginning is illusory; it is only a final delaying tactic. There is no sense of easy agreement and no antistrophe. The music moves to a different structure, continuing the already long song for another twenty-seven lines. Once again the poet has used musical design to indicate the heightened emotions of the participants, but he has also employed the audience’s expectations to convey fully the strains in the difficult struggle being waged before them.

Sophocles was a master at adapting the musical forms of Greek theatrical tradition to express his meaning with subtlety and power, but the creation of the long lyric dialogues preserved in Electra and Philoctetes brings Sophoclean lyric to a highly expressive peak. The poet draws on his audience’s sense of metrical structure and lyrical form to create songs in place of spoken episodes or more normal kommoi. The flexibility and fluidity this form allows not only in displaying the basic characterizations on stage but also in communicating the tension between the participants is unequaled in Greek theater.

Musical design is basic to the being and appearance of the Sophoclean chorus. This chorus was intended to provide a relatively consistent perspective on the developing action that would enrich the audience’s understanding. Such a perspective did not solve problems, nor could it even survive the full play, and yet it was built on traditional, popular attitudes and modes of thought. The perspective offered by the chorus is that of a group that seeks to make the compromises and reach the understandings that will allow the community to function; an individual is free to operate in a more independent way and to make decisions that call for painful sacrifice and self-deprivation. As the perspective of the chorus fades when the main characters commit themselves to action, the plays either lose much of their normal musical quality or else the characters take over the role of singer. The diminishment of choral importance is also apparent in the failure of several choruses to maintain the highly structured forms, and often the repeated meters, characteristic of the early parts of the plays they are in. Often in the course of the play characters and chorus sing together to form strophic music; but as the hero distances him/herself from the opinions of the chorus, these singers are unable to cooperate in structuring lyric strophes. Given the significant number of musical lines in ancient plays, it is no surprise that Sophocles incorporated musical design into the closely woven fabric of each play. The traditional perspective offered by the chorus could have been provided without music, but the play would lose the subtle additions that the presence of fifteen singers supporting their opinions with song and dance could provide. Careful musical design could show how confidently they held those opinions and how effective they were in pressing their beliefs on others. In addition, the poet was able to show invisible forces at work in the plays—forces that the characters themselves may not recognize as active.

The poet composed his final play, Oedipus at Colonus, at the height of his creative power. This is Sophocles’ most musical drama, a work that fully reveals the mastery of musical design he had achieved in his long career, especially the expressive power of lyric dialogue.[22]

OEDIPUS AT COLONUS

Sophocles’ final play remains a mystery in so many essential features that critics have yet to define even its most basic organizing elements: the nature of the action and the force that moves that action from scene to scene. No character makes a decision significant enough to build a full play upon—and yet the action is unarguably of high significance. But for his entrance and exit the main character does not move, most secondary characters arrive only to meet him and pass on, and yet somehow—almost hidden within this series of scenes—there is movement and development. Though the play defies categorization or criticism in the usual terms applied to Greek tragedy, it is so striking a text that it seems to most critics a triumphant conclusion to Sophocles’ long career.[23]

An assessment of the play’s musical design suggests that the subject, the main topic that is explored and developed, is not a character or situation; rather it is an abstract theme, the status of Oedipus. This abstraction, the principal element that is developed through the play, remains on stage intact and enriched at the end. Oedipus enters weak, ancient, defenseless, stateless and unroyal, polluted and blind. He leaves the stage with restored vigor and spirit, with a stunning access of inner strength, a community member protected by the army of Athens, a holy man, and one who has glimpsed an inner light with which he leads others to a place, numinous in quality, known to him alone. And the power of Oedipus pervades the last moments of the play even though he is no longer physically on stage.

This play enacts the heroization of Oedipus, his growth as a restored man, a new citizen, and a being worthy of a cult—all this in spite of his manifold physical weaknesses and his initial inability to act. The stages in his growth are marked clearly by pivotal actions in the play. As an acknowledgment of his restoration as a man among fellow men, an acceptable member of a community, he is allowed to perform local religious rites even though he has admitted being a lawbreaker, ill-fortuned, and afraid even to pronounce his own name. Once he is granted the full rights of a citizen, he commands the service of the king and his army to correct an injustice.[24] Finally, guided by a light unseen by others, he transcends the mortal world. The final scene gathers the survivors, who must chart their own course now that they have witnessed the fate of Oedipus and he has settled his blessing on the land of Athens.

Given this outline of the action, Oedipus at Colonus emerges as a highly unified portrayal of the growth in the stature or reputation of Oedipus through three carefully constructed movements, and the musical design supports this structure. The first stage (1–548) presents Oedipus’ acculturation to the norms of Athenian society as he accepts the prohibitions of the local cult but also learns from the chorus of Athenian citizens to atone for his violation of the Eumenides’ grove. The entrance of Theseus, the king of Athens, who pronounces Oedipus a resident and offers him the active protection of the Athenian army, develops the political theme. This second section (549–1096) begins with the acceptance of Oedipus as a citizen, includes the capture of Ismene and Antigone, and ends when the girls are returned as a result of the battle in which Oedipus’ cause is strongly supported by Athens’ gods. During this scene the chorus hymns the region of Colonus and Attica, then resists Creon as he snatches Antigone and threatens to take Oedipus, and finally envisions the actions of their gods defending their newly proclaimed citizen. The final section of the play (1097 to the end) enacts the heroization of Oedipus. Though he opens the scene feeling unworthy to touch the hand of Theseus, he becomes the spokesman of the gods in uttering a powerful curse against Polyneices; he understands the meaning of the unexpected thunder claps; and, guided by an inner light, he leads Theseus off stage. His power so exceeds that of normal humans that the members of the chorus cannot grasp this three-part process of transformation, and as a result they sing a series of odes that show them increasingly unable to comprehend the events before their eyes. The chorus’ first song within each of these three larger movements expresses an elementary understanding of the organizing theme for that section. By the end of each movement its song reveals a deepening perception of the complex forces emanating from Oedipus, arising from the growth in his stature. Even though no gods appear on the stage, their guidance is palpable; the major action developed through the sequence of scenes effects the promises the gods have made through oracles.[25]

First Movement26, 27

A nervous Athenian, on encountering Antigone and Oedipus, rushes off stage seeking aid to protect the grove of the local divinities.[28] While he is gone, Oedipus prays to the goddesses of the grove, asking mercy for a weakened wanderer. Immediately the chorus, the elder nobles of Colonus, hurries on stage in a scattered formation looking for the stranger.[29] In fact, most characters in this play enter assuming Oedipus is where they think that he should not be. Yet he is where he knows he should be with a higher authorization from the gods—and other characters must work hard to permit him his proper, assigned place. Oedipus is never wrong in this play; others, however, have trouble seeing him as right.

This parodos contains an unusual amount of lyric dialogue: indeed, Sophocles wrote more lyric dialogue for this play than for any other. Though seemingly unorganized in content and movement, this ode is the product of careful design in which form, content, stage action, and meter bring the chorus and the hero together on many levels. It is composed of two strophic pairs and a final stanza, but anapaestic interchanges between Oedipus, Antigone, and the chorus break up the normal strophic order.[30] The song thus appears as a strophic form struggling to contain a conversation. The chorus alone sings the first strophe; then there is an anapaestic exchange with Oedipus. A second anapaestic dialogue between Oedipus and Antigone separates the strophic pairs. In the second strophe the three characters share a complicated conversation in which the lines assigned to each participant match in each stanza. The final stanza continues this interchange, closing with the chorus’ eight-line rejection of Oedipus countered by Antigone’s eighteen-line plea for compassion.

The unusual form of the ode strongly supports its content. In the first strophic pair, as the choral members search for the violator of their sacred grove and speculate on his identity, they seem to scatter throughout the orchestra looking for him; thus individual members of the chorus may sing the lines of this stanza separately as they pursue their search in different directions.[31] Once Oedipus, who has hidden himself in the grove, calls to them and asks for their understanding, the chorus unites for the antistrophe, in which it outlines the boundaries of the grove and orders him to come forward to a rocky ledge.[32] In anapaests he confers with Antigone and they jointly decide to obey, but in exchange for his cooperation he asks the men of the chorus to promise him protection.

At the opening of the second strophe, after assuring Oedipus that they will never let anyone drive him from Athens, they urge him forward. The stanza closes with the chorus’ encouragement to accept the ways of Athens:

You poor man, a stranger

in a strange land, take heart;

Hate what the state has long held hostile,

and revere what it loves.

(184–87)

Oedipus promises to respect the people of Athens and to accept their demands. Then in the antistrophe the members of the chorus guide him to a seat on the ledge, closing the stanza by asking him courteously who he is.

Though compliant up to this point, he requests that they not press him for his name; but when he mentions the family of Laius, they rapidly guess his identity and order him out of their country immediately. When Oedipus questions the worth of their previous pledge, they reply that he has injured and deceived them. Antigone then begs them for understanding and kindness. This final stanza opens with a stormy, swift-moving dialogue marked by half-line exchanges, and ends with the confrontation between the chorus and Antigone.

The stage movement is clear: a scattered chorus moves ever closer to and unifies around Oedipus, first to defend their sacred grove and then to prohibit his pollution of it. The Athenians show a consistent concern for their communal values: they appear willing to accept a stranger who will protect their holy places and share their attitudes toward friends and enemies. The strophic form of this entrance hints at the chorus’ essential unity even though it is scattered in its search. The meters, which appear unstructured at the start, soon settle on a strong statement of aeolic (glyconic and dodrans) with anapaests at the end. In the second strophic pair the basic meter is again aeolic (glyconic with its alternate forms telesillean and pherecratean), and Oedipus and Antigone easily participate in the chorus’ meter and maintain precise corresponsion in their roles. The orderliness of this shared strophic form reveals the immediate intention of Antigone and Oedipus to align themselves with the customs, the forms, and even the music of the Atheniansan initial characterizing use of lyric dialogue to show a courteous good will from both Athenian and Theban participants.

This formalism, however, breaks down in the last long lyric when the chorus asks pointed questions, and both parties utter uncomfortable cries as the truth emerges. The metrical structure grows complicated, though there are attempts by Oedipus and Antigone to echo choral meters.[33] The initial four lines are in four different meters. Then from 212 to 215 Oedipus and the chorus share ionics. Beginning with 216 the speeches are structured in a series of doublets composed of dactylic + iambic followed by a paroemiac;[34] at 220 this structure is even maintained as Oedipus and the chorus share half-lines.[35] At 222, however, Oedipus speaks his name and continues the pattern in 223 and 225, but the structure is lost when the chorus shifts to lyric anapaests, refusing to continue dactylic + iambic. Though Oedipus vainly echoes the earlier meter as he asks them to honor their promises in 227, the chorus replies in a string of dactylics at 228, insisting that he depart from the state (228–36).[36] Antigone begins her attempt to recapture the citizens’ good will and understanding in varied meters, all of which have appeared before in this ode, but she finally settles on a repetition of their dactylic line.[37]

The design of the parodos powerfully supports the words of the characters but also presents through music the developing attitudes of the participants. The chorus establishes its own metrical patterns as its members unite in curiosity around Oedipus. All join in a harmonious and balanced ode, with the strangers easily singing the same music as the Athenians until the moment when they ask the stranger’s identity. At this point the structure of the strophic lyric with corresponding statements fails and the chorus introduces an assertive new meter, which the outsiders try to imitate. The strangers’ willingness to adjust to the demands as well as the meter of the Athenians wins Oedipus the chance to plead successfully on his own behalf. From the moment when the chorus relents, Oedipus, Antigone, and the Athenians begin a process of growth; the chorus begins to champion Oedipus, and he seeks greater closeness to the Athenians.

Amoibaion (510–48)

Ismene’s report of the new oracle concerning Oedipus’ burial and the story of Eteocles’ and Polyneices’ treatment of their father arouse feelings of friendship and pity in the chorus. The men of Colonus, now wishing to help Oedipus make expiation to the goddesses of the grove, teach him the proper procedures and offer advice to Ismene as she exits to perform this rite. While she is making the offering, the chorus inquires further about Oedipus’ crimes.[38] Even though he resists telling his uncomfortable story, the Athenians press him to relive these events and, as he does, he begins to interpret his deeds for them.

This shared song, a virtual duet between Oedipus and the chorus, is filled with words of discord, anxiety, and pain; yet the musical design hints at a developing friendship and closeness. The lyric dialogue corrects the earlier breakdown in the cooperative creation of strophic form—and then achieves even greater harmonies between the participants. In the parodos the harmony of meters in the second strophic set (176–87 = 192–206) ended when the chorus discovered who the stranger was; this break was further echoed in the failure in strophic corresponsion, the introduction of a new meter in the second part of the final stanza, and a move from lyric dialogue to a pair of opposed speeches. Here in the first strophic set the meters begin in a wandering fashion but then settle on repeated enoplion and choriambic. The second strophic set is radically different in meter as the chorus and Oedipus easily join to form two increasingly organized strophic pairs and move to a repeated lyric iambic with a single line of dactylic, perhaps a reminder of the unpleasant exchange in the parodos. Although the high rate of resolution throughout the dialogue reflects the passionate outpouring on both sides, the meter becomes unified, marking a relaxation of tension and the appearance of a new tone in the relationship between Oedipus and the chorus.

It is the incorporation of two modes of line-sharing within the strophic structure, however, that fully portrays their closeness. In the first antistrophe Oedipus takes the lines corresponding to those of the chorus in the strophe, and the chorus those of Oedipus, an unusual exchange of musical lines, which occurs as the chorus attempts to persuade Oedipus to reveal highly sensitive information about his past; Oedipus, pained at the memory, nevertheless admits the most horrible features of his life. In the second strophic set, when the conversation directly addresses the issues of incest and guilt, each participant keeps the corresponding lines in the antistrophe and begins to share half-lines as a complex strophic structure emerges. In the first strophic set, furthermore, the meters are mostly unresolved, clear statements of the basic textbook form of the meter. In the second strophic pair, as both the chorus and Oedipus become more emotional, most of their meters are resolved. The emergence of the highest kind of musical cooperation even at a moment of exceptional emotion is a significant aural symbol, reversing the breakdown of constructive line-sharing with which the parodos concluded.

While this dialogue is being sung, Ismene is off stage performing a rite intended to associate Oedipus with the cultural traditions of the Athenians. Her sacrifice, accomplished with the wholehearted cooperation of the chorus, signifies the community’s approval of him as a cleansed, unpolluted man. While Ismene enacts the ritual off stage, Oedipus and the chorus portray the cooperation expected of community members by freely sharing their deepest fears and sorrows—and the old king begins to act like a member of this community by attempting to explain the nature of his deeds to his new friends.[39] The communication between Oedipus and the chorus both in content and in musical form is a sign of their developing relationship, a closeness solemnized by Ismene’s concomitant offstage performance of the ritual—both choral ode and stage action together embodying the theme of the play’s first movement, the acceptance of Oedipus into Athenian society. It is now the moment for Theseus to share in this acceptance and to begin the movement toward further enhancement of Oedipus’ status.

Second Movement

First Stasimon (668–719)

With Theseus’ entrance, Oedipus’ progress toward political acceptance in Athens begins.[40] In the first movement he found citizens whose customs and rites he could share; now he accepts the duties of a responsible citizen and soon will claim civic rights. He promises Theseus that he will reveal his burial place to him but adds that the gift is not a simple one since the king and his people will be required to defend him. The king accepts Oedipus as a member of the state and pledges to defend him against all attack, quite properly involving the whole state in his protection by entrusting him to the chorus of Athenians.

Once Theseus has left the stage, the chorus welcomes its new resident by singing a hymn to Colonus, his new home. In the first strophic pair they praise the beauty of Colonus with its singing birds, dark ivy, the berry-laden trees through which Dionysus leads his revelers, and the narcissus and the crocus that flourish by the wide-spreading streams of the Kephisos River.[41] The Muses and Aphrodite walk in this land. In the second strophic pair the Athenians list the divine blessings bestowed on the region: the olive from Athena[42] and the horse and control of the sea from Poseidon.[43] The hymn highlights the trees and plants that burgeon forth to enrich and beautify the land, as well as the gods who choose to dwell there and grant their favors to men.[44]

Although the meters of the two strophic pairs differ, this difference does not reflect a change in tone or mood. The first set, which describes the physical appearance of Colonus, is organized around the glyconic and its companion meters, the pherecratean and hipponacteon, all heard before in the parodos, with the addition of phalacean, dactylic, and iambic lines. In the second pair, which recounts the special advantages of the land—the olive, horsemen, and sailors—the meter changes to ionic and iambic with a closing telesillean, glyconic, and pherecratean. The whole ode is a coordinated musical composition in which each section is built around a basic meter, aeolic and iambic, both sufficiently flexible to permit variety. In the first strophic set one iambic refers to the coming meter of the second set, while the second set closes with a reference back to the organizing meter of the first.

The ability of this chorus to make music increases as it becomes a greater champion of Oedipus. This is the first complete ode the members of the chorus sing, and both its words and design reflect the Athenians’ strong welcome and support for Oedipus as their newest citizen. In the parodos they were curious about the stranger but sought to drive him from the land when they discovered his identity. In the amoebean (510–48) they were able to accommodate Oedipus within their society and willingly heard his defense. Now they extol the new country they share with Oedipus as the dwelling place of gods, a land that favors all its citizens, including the old and stateless wanderer who has now finally found his permanent home.

The play has thus opened with a large musical scene leading to this perfect ode, the initial ode in the second movement, appropriately echoing the parodos in its strong statement of a glyconic meter. Though the growth in Oedipus’ stature has been presented as a seamless development from the moment when the chorus allowed him to remain, this ode, in its musical balance and unity, introduces a new musical scene with a more jagged pattern of movement. Against the will of the Athenians, Creon will snatch Oedipus’ two daughters, abruptly shattering the mood established by the ordered beauty of this stasimon; but Theseus, in protecting the man he has just proclaimed an honored resident, will firmly reestablish the order promised in the ode.[45]

The first stasimon should be heard as the beginning of the second movement rather than the culmination of the first for two reasons—the role of Theseus and the customary rhythm of the three movements in this play. Most important is the entrance of Theseus at 549 at the end of the dialogue between Oedipus and the chorus. Because the chorus questions Oedipus about his previous misfortunes so intensely, Theseus is freed from the need to inquire himself; he says as much when he moves quickly to determine what the city can offer Oedipus (555–58). He also cites his own experience as an exile and offers the protection of the state, acting as though religious problems have been solved in the preceding scene.

In addition, each movement’s first choral song is based on a perception of the situation or status of Oedipus. In the parodos he is thought to be just another stranger until he tells the citizens his name; at this point they change their minds about their promised protection. Similarly at the beginning of the third movement they sing of Oedipus as though he were just another unfortunate human who is pounded by the problems of old age (1211–48), but the rest of the scene will reveal his special power in his curse on his son and finally his remarkable translation to heroic status. The second movement begins with an ode celebratory of Colonus and Attica as lands of fertility and divinity, nurturing and permanence, strength and control over land and sea. This ode, however, expresses the gifts to inhabitants as a potential to be fulfilled. Yet everyone in the play is aware that there is a difference between words and deeds: the chorus first promised protection but then almost refused to honor their promise (176 and 226), Oedipus assures Theseus that the promise of burial he offers will not be easy to fulfill (587), and Theseus asks to be known for his deeds rather than his words (1143–44). Similarly the Colonus Ode is an elegant expression of the beliefs of the people, an appropriate introduction to the movement in which these beliefs will be tested. Under challenge from Creon the state will be required to show in actions its will to create the society that is only hymned in the ode. The patterning of the meters, the achievement of strophic balance from the unified chorus, and the beauty of the lyric conception are appropriate to this ode’s promise of a pervasive order that is to be found in Attica. Through form and meaning this ode expresses the high ideal that is threatened by Creon’s entrance—an ideal to which the Athenian army will return the state under Theseus’ leadership.

Kommos (833–43 + 876–86)

When Creon enters at 728, he suppresses a violent rage that soon bursts forth, first in words, then in deeds. Though Creon initially speaks words of sugary persuasion, Oedipus easily pierces through his hypocrisy by reviewing Creon’s earlier deeds to reveal the selfish motives behind his plan. Creon admits that his men have already captured Ismene; now he attempts to snatch Antigone. But Oedipus calls on the Athenians in the chorus, the “lords of the land” (831), asking for aid in expelling Creon from “this land” (823); thus making the moment a test of the city’s will to protect its newly proclaimed resident—a moment foretold when Oedipus promised blessings to Athens (652–57). The chorus exchanges charges of injustice with Creon as his threats to the authority of the state create disorder on the stage in action, words, and music.

A series of increasingly clipped interchanges among Creon, Oedipus, Antigone, and the chorus introduce the lyric strophe. From 800 to 810 there is a progresssion from doublets to single lines exchanged between Oedipus and Creon; from 811 to 821 there is a similar progression from doublets to shared lines (antilabe); after 822 the chorus joins the exchange and speeches move from doublets to lines broken into two or even three segments.[46] The strophe begins with Oedipus’ iambic cry, “Oh city!”—followed by a shouting match in dochmiacs between the chorus and Creon. Then there is a four-line iambic trimeter section of threats—mostly in half-lines—spoken by Oedipus, the chorus, and Creon. The stanza closes in dochmiacs as the chorus calls for aid from its fellow citizens.

In the following iambic trimeter section (844–75) Creon, often in half-lines, orders his guards to take Antigone off stage, boasting that Oedipus will regret his angry betrayal of his own people. Although Creon is threatened by the chorus (also in half-lines, thus accentuating the fast pace of this scene) and Oedipus pronounces a curse on him, Creon himself attempts to drag Oedipus off stage.

After thirty-two lines of spoken iambic threat and counter-threat Oedipus’ second cry of pain introduces the corresponding antistrophe. The chorus resists Creon’s threats and calls for aid. At this point Theseus enters,[47] discovers what has happened through a series of crisp questions, dispatches his officers to bring back the two girls, and arrests Creon.[48] In longer speeches Creon and Oedipus—as though in a court—state their opposed cases before the king. Theseus then takes Creon with him to confront the soldiers of Thebes, thus involving Athens directly in the defense of its new citizen against a foreign state.

The structure of this scene reflects the deteriorating tone through ever shorter exchanges, which move to an excited lyric stanza followed by iambics and then an answering balanced antistrophe—all delivered by four participants. With the entrance of Theseus, short iambic speeches return to longer, reasoned presentations of the opposed cases and a judgment pronounced by Theseus—a progression from fragile and threatened order, through disorder, to real order.[49]

The lyric stanzas, the high points of disorder, are composed of short lines delivered by three participants (Oedipus, Creon, and the chorus), iambic spoken half-lines in the midst of lyric meters, and corresponding stanzas separated by some thirty lines of rushed dialogue. The chaos evident in the rapid movement and brusque action of this scene is threatening; yet the completed lyric forms hint at the existence of a latent pattern, a potential order even in the midst of chaos. The stanzas correspond precisely, even in the addition of the four spoken lines; each of the speakers takes the corresponding section in the antistrophe even in the half-lines—a carefully orchestrated presentation of disorder under control. In fact, throughout this play Oedipus is protected by invisible forces whose power becomes increasingly evident as they gather around him. Though he came on stage with few resources, he gained the support of the people of Athens and honored their gods; now the oracles have spoken of a power inhering in him, and the king of Athens has promised the protection due a citizen. With the entrance of Theseus and his attendants, the control felt in the design of the scene is brought directly on stage.[50] In fact, the protection of Athens was always present, asserted in the first stasimon, the Colonus Ode; the second stasimon celebrating the victory of Theseus over Creon and his troops will further testify to the unseen force ordering this violent moment.

Second Stasimon (1044–95)

This ode recalls the kommos at 510–48, since it is sung as the accompaniment to significant offstage action and also restores musical balance at the ending of a major dramatic movement. While Theseus and his men pursue those who captured Antigone and Ismene, the chorus envisions the gods of Athens defending the integrity of the land.[51] At the end of this song the chorus prophesies success, assuring Oedipus: “You will not say that your guardian (skopos) was a false prophet” (1096–97).[52]

The metrical structure in each strophic pair, while similar, is sufficiently different to divide the ode into two sections. The first pair consists of telesillean followed by a combination of iambic and choriambic; the second begins with iambic but moves to a section of dactylo-epitrite. In the first strophic pair there are individual lines of reizianum and adonean, closely related to the opening telesillean. These aeolic meters in several alternative forms frame the first two stanzas; the iambic, which is strongly stated through-out the ode, is recalled in the final two lines. Thus the meters both unite the four stanzas of the ode into a single song expressing a connected vision and also respond to the different points of view developed in each strophic pair. In the first set the chorus visualizes the actual fighting in various locations; in the second set it confidently predicts that victory will be accomplished with the help of Zeus, Athena, Apollo, and Artemis.

A series of lyric iambics appeared in the earlier kommos when the chorus and Oedipus both expressed horror at his life while Ismene offered sacrifices to the Eumenides (534–48)—the conclusion of the first movement when Oedipus was accepted as a member of the community. This meter now reappears as Oedipus is extended the full rights of a citizen by the actions of the Athenian army in defending its new fellow-citizen in the service of the gods. The second movement of the play is completed as Oedipus receives his daughters back.[53]

The second stasimon is composed of a balanced set of strophic pairs ending a scene of confusion. This musical scene began with the ode to Colonus, continued with the kommos sung during the kidnapping scene, and is appropriately concluded with this celebration of god and man working together to protect the city and its citizens. In the course of the scene the gods, whose immanence was hymned during the Colonus Ode, were sensed in the inexplicably ordered form of the kommos and here become an active presence when the girls are returned to Oedipus, fulfilling the vision of the chorus.[54]

Third Movement

Third Stasimon (1211–48)

This ode initiates the final transcendent movement of the play, the transformation of Oedipus into a hero. This movement, like the others, opens with a commonsense underestimation of his power; the chorus, fully aware of Oedipus’ extraordinary trials and pains, sings of his mortal, fragile, and perishable nature, an inadequate beginning for a scene in which Oedipus will rise above normal mortal weakness to the level of hero and cult figure. Yet the chorus has found this theme in the words of Oedipus, who, begging Theseus to spare him an interview with Polyneices because it was going to be so painful, asked protection for his life (1173–78 and 1206–7).

Once again, though the strophic pair differs in its meters from the following single stanza, the three stanzas form a unified construction through their words and metrical echoing. The strophic stanzas open with seven lines of glyconic and close with four lines of trochaic meters; interspersed are single lines of alcaic decasyllable and iambic. The last stanza opens with iambic and closes with telesillean, closely related to the glyconics of the strophe; in its middle section are two pherecrateans, common alternatives for glyconics, and two enoplians, which echo the alcaic decasyllable.[55] Thus this stanza is much more loosely structured than the strophic pairs, but tightly related to the metrical patterns of the ode. And once again the change in perspective in this stanza justifies the shift in metrical pattern. In the strophic stanzas the chorus sings of the troubles that attack all in their old age:

Murders, quarrels, strife, battles,

And envy; and then finally old age comes,

Hated by all, feeble, cheerless,

Friendless where he lives with every bitter thing.

(1234–38)

In the final stanza the chorus lists specific troubles that apply to Oedipus. Although it should be clear that not all the lines in this ode describe the situation of Oedipus, a man no longer hated by all, the chorus assumes that he will suffer the pain and anguish typical for his years.[56]

In the musical design, however, several signs indicate the chorus’ misjudgment. First, two similar forceful repetitions of glyconic have earlier accompanied the major choral underestimations that open the first two movements of the play. The sections of repeated glyconic in the parodos (124–32 = 156–64, 182–85 = 197–204) stressed the weakness of Oedipus and his isolation from his fellow men—conditions already become impermanent once Oedipus realized where he was. Glyconics opened the strophe at the beginning of the first stasimon (668–75 = 681–88), the Colonus Ode, which expressed the confident and hopeful assertion of the mingling of gods and men that was to be substantiated only when Theseus actualized the gods’ presence. Similarly in this song beginning the third movement, Oedipus is far from being a normal old man, and glyconics once again accompany the limited evaluation of the chorus.

Furthermore the final stanza, which is not balanced by a corresponding antistrophe, appears to be interrupted by the entrance of Polyneices. The only other interrupted strophic structure in this play has occurred in the parodos, where dialogue almost broke down when the chorus learned that the man before it was not just a strange intruder but the cursed Oedipus—a realization sufficiently strong to be equivalent to the arrival of a new character on stage (207–53). Here the chorus’ forceful song is interrupted by the entrance of the character who seems to prove its statements about the troubles of old age.

In fact, in this scene there are signs that Oedipus claims a position beyond that of a normal person. He does not speak to his son until the chorus urges him to, nor does he find himself overcome by the waves of trouble foreseen by the chorus at the close of its ode (1242–48); rather he summons the power to curse his son with a vigor that would be the envy of Old Testament prophets.[57] Sophocles has two reasons for interrupting the Athenians before they can balance their song with the expected antistrophe. First, in regarding Oedipus as only a typical old man, they are judging his situation from the vantage point of normal men; it is therefore appropriate that the concluding movement of the play, the refutation of this underestimation, intrudes itself strongly on the order of their musical form. Second, Polyneices, who hopes that his father will be a broken and feeble elder easily moved by the pleas of a son, enters the stage as an embodiment of the words of the chorus; he is a wave of trouble, and thus a proper replacement for the antistrophe to the ode.[58] Oedipus’ silence, however, indicates that Polyneices has misjudged his father—and when Oedipus finally does speak, the power of his words inaugurates the movement toward heroization.[59] He rises above the concerns of his son as a spokesman of the gods and in this action rejects the chorus’ perceptions of his normal mortal nature—though he remains fully human.[60]

Epirrhematic Scene (1447–99)

After Polyneices leaves the stage under Oedipus’ bitter curse, the chorus ponders the strong words of the blind old man; the Athenian citizens anticipate some new action in line with Oedipus’ prophecies but they do not know what.[61] Because their thoughts dwell on Polyneices, they remain unaware of the truly important feature of the scene—that influx of power which endows Oedipus with the ability to curse and to speak the will of the gods.

The chorus sings two strophic pairs, in which the meters are iambo-dochmiac, a meter that customarily expresses heightened emotion, but as the thunder continues in the second strophic pair, the citizens’ anxiety rises abruptly, accompanied by an increased number of dochmiacs. Lyric iambic, which has been firmly associated with the growth of Oedipus’ status in this play,[62] appears in six of the first seven lines in the first strophic pair as the chorus sings words that are ironically more applicable to Oedipus than to Polyneices:

I can call no decree of the gods

vain. Time watches all things,

it watches steadily. Day by day

it topples some, some it raises high

(1451–54)

And at the same place in the antistrophe:

My heart stops.

The lightning fills the sky again!

What is it? Is it Zeus’s arrow?

I am afraid, for it never strikes

without disaster . . .

(1466–70)

In both cases the words express the chorus members’ fear that a major event of unknown significance is happening. But from the previous use of iambic meter in the play, the audience should appreciate the musical signal that Oedipus’ stature is once again reaching a crucial moment of growth.

The form of this scene, however, carries musical design to a new expressiveness. There are several claps of thunder, at least at 1456, 1462, and 1477—but it is probable that they also occur at 1471[63] and 1485, providing motivation for a pause in the strophic form into which Oedipus and Antigone interject their iambic dialogue.

When the first stanza is interrupted by thunder, the chorus cries out in fear to Zeus. Oedipus, immediately recognizing this sign of blessing, is shaken from his silence and asks that Theseus be summoned because he knows that death is near. At the end of the antistrophe, after the chorus repeats its shocked words, reacting to more thunder, Oedipus assures Antigone that there is no avoiding this critical moment. In the second strophe the chorus calls on Zeus for help (1485). Although there is no overt indication of thunder at this point, Oedipus provides adequate cause for interrupting the chorus when he asks Antigone impatiently whether Theseus has yet come. Now the chorus in its antistrophe joins in calling out for Theseus, who enters immediately.

The form of this strophic song is partly structured by the chorus, which twice repeats the same metrical pattern, but is also determined by the thunder that halts the singing at the right place. Even though the chorus is terrified at the events happening around it, there is an ordering force present—the same that has dominated the play from the first scene. In addition, each of the three spoken iambic dialogues between Oedipus and Antigone takes the same form: two lines for Oedipus, one line for a question from Antigone, and two lines for Oedipus’ response. The musical design highlights the different perspectives. The scene appears to the chorus to be shattered by thunder, while in the intervals Oedipus and Antigone join to create their own spoken “strophic” structure in which Oedipus acknowledges the sign of a wonderful event involving them all. This whole scene seems to be built from responses to an unexpected series of thunderclaps, in which the chorus sees only nature in chaos; but in reality nature is here firmly controlled by divinities whose ordering hand is clear in the symmetrical design of lyric and dialogue.[64] Oedipus manages to calm the chorus sufficiently for it to hear his pleas, to look forward to the gift he can give to Athens, and to join in his call for the king.

The entrance of Theseus breaks the ordered form and brings on stage the first character who trusts Oedipus’ understanding of the thunder. The events here mirror the kommos at 833–86, Theseus’ entrance after Creon has taken Oedipus’ daughters. In both scenes the arrival of Theseus brings the order to which the preceding musical structure has been the prelude, even though the characters are themselves unaware of the powers and pressures that have been developing. Theseus’ first words mark the parallel moment. At 1500 he asks “What is this sound?” reinforced by “What is it?” (1507); at 887 he entered asking “What is this cry? What is happening?” This mirroring of the earlier scene underlines the reversal between the two moments. Previously Theseus gave aid to Oedipus; now Oedipus has become Theseus’ benefactor.[65] Though the chorus’ members understood Oedipus’ need for help earlier, his status now has so surpassed their ability to grasp the current situation that they are ignorant of the storm’s significance.

The onset of the thunder and lightning is actually the most welcome and blessed moment of Oedipus’ life. He will be released from suffering, and the powers of heaven will recognize him as a special man, a cult hero. The unseen forces that have been controlling events are now brought actively on stage in Oedipus’ movements when he rises, for the first time in a thousand lines, and, guided by an inner light not available to other men, leads Theseus and his two daughters back into the grove of the Eumenides as he gives his blessing:

O sunlight with no light—once you were mine!

But now for the last time my body feels you,

For already I go to hide my final day

In the underworld. Dearest of friends!

May you, your land, and your people be fortunate:

And in all prosperity remember me dead, men blessed forever!

(1549–55)

The unseen forces have also been brought on stage by the musical design of the play. The writer who organized the songs, imposed ordered musical form on the confused responses of uncomprehending men, bound strophes and antistrophes into close unity with echoing meters, and introduced repeated iambics for those moments when Oedipus is raised in stature, has also designed his play so that the simple exit of a blind old man is charged with implications so vast that the hidden hand of the gods becomes visible and is felt as it works through their designated agent.

Fourth Stasimon (1556–78)

As Oedipus leads Antigone, Ismene, and Theseus off stage, the chorus prays to Persephone, Aidoneus, the gods under the earth, and the god of Death that he may die easily. The meter of this ode is largely dochmiac with the addition of other meters for the first eight lines, but then turns to a clear three-line iambic close. In both sets of corresponding iambic lines the chorus mentions its final wish for Oedipus:

May a just god raise him

from many undeserved[66] sufferings!

. . . I pray

that our friend’s path be easy

as he descends to the fields of the dead.

I ask you for his eternal sleep.

(1565–67 + 1574–78)

The citizens of the chorus, avowed champions of Oedipus, who have seen him admitted to their rites and declared a citizen, now accept his insistence that his final moment has come. Yet though their words seem reasonable for a prayer about a normal man, the design of the music again suggests the chorus’ limitations;[67] only the final three-line section of iambic meter, the meter associated in this play with changes in Oedipus’ status, hints at the truth even though the chorus is unable to appreciate the unique honor being awarded to Oedipus as they sing.[68]

This short ode with its two corresponding stanzas concludes the larger scene that began when the chorus sang of Oedipus’ dismal old age in the third stasimon (1211–48). The epirrhematic thunder scene with its interjected iambics provided the prelude to the transformation of Oedipus, and now the chorus sings the final iambics of this stasimon as his heroization is completed off stage. Thus this song is a parallel to the earlier amoebean (510–48), which the chorus sang while Ismene performed rites for Oedipus off stage, and to the second stasimon (1044–95), which it sang while Theseus rescued Antigone and Ismene from Creon’s soldiers.

Yet there is a difference; the chorus does not hymn the final heroization of Oedipus as it is happening because it is a mysterious passing that no normal person would expect or understand; rather the chorus continues to pray for the kind of death that a mortal would wish. The form of the ode is complete because no one is on the stage to point out its misjudgment.[69] The remainder of the play tells the amazing story of Oedipus’ death and portrays the attempts of Theseus, Antigone, and Ismene to accept that death as a significant part of their future existence; they all realize that they must live out their lives knowing that remembrance of Oedipus’ exemplary life will exercise profound influence over them.

Kommos (1670–175)[70]

After the messenger has told the chorus about Oedipus’ final moment, Antigone and Ismene return lamenting. In the characteristically Sophoclean pattern Antigone and Ismene, rather than the chorus, dominate the music at the end of this play. The first strophic pair opens with Antigone singing a combination of iambic and dactylic. lambic, as usual, suggests the transition of Oedipus to yet another stage, but a long series of dactyls has appeared before only in the parodos, where the chorus rejected all Oedipus’ claims because of his previous deeds (228–35). Here the two subjects and their associated meters are appropriately joined; Antigone wavers in judgment between crying out against the horrendous fate that controls her life and tentatively welcoming the release granted to her father. After a brief iambic interruption by the chorus, she sings another section of iambic/cretic mixed with trochaic. Thus her song is divided into two parts by the questions from the chorus and a shift in metrical pattern. In the first part of her stanzas she expresses her emotions on being deprived of her father: confusion and sorrow, then love. Each of the second parts contains a brief interpretation of the event as Antigone considers her future without Oedipus: in the strophe she admits that something beyond human expectation and reason has occurred since her father has been mysteriously taken to some unseen place (1675 and 1679–82); in the antistrophe she directly confronts the miraculous quality of his translation by telling the chorus that, though lonely, he has died in the place he wished (1705–14).

Then in each stanza Ismene has a set of five lines expressing her despair, and the chorus in a short response easily agrees with her, offering customary statements of condolence. Ismene’s lines are trochaic, iambic, and aristophanean; the chorus has a four-line unit of choriambs and aristophanean.

In the second strophic pair the dialogue among Antigone, Ismene and the chorus makes explicit their failing confidence in the future now that Oedipus is gone. Antigone seeks to find reassurance in visiting the place of Oedipus’ death, but Ismene reminds her that it is not allowed and there is no tomb anyway. Ismene, feeling friendless and destitute, can imagine no place to live out her life (1734–36). When the chorus tries to persuade Antigone to remain in Athens, she finally asks in despair:

. . . Where are we to go?

O Zeus, to what further hope does

god now urge me?

(1748–50)

This is a fitting statement of confusion for this kommos, which began with Antigone’s attempt to understand the mystery of her father’s passing. The pattern of the meters, moving from initial iambics to repeated trochaics, supports this reading. The trochees, which have not been an organizing meter in the play, are at first resolved, but they end in largely clear, unresolved forms. As a result the hint of heroization in the use of the iambic meter fades in this final song.

In the first strophic pair the lines sung by the three participants correspond as they insistently repeat their differing responses. But in the second strophic set the lines of Antigone in the antistrophe correspond to those of Ismene in the strophe, and the chorus takes the lines that were those of Antigone.[71] This interchange of lines within a tight strophic structure reflects the failure of the singers to find agreement among themselves; they all begin to dwell upon their sorrow and finally envision only a bleak future for the two girls. Yet the tenuous drifting of Antigone, Ismene, and the chorus to an ambiguous view of the future is a false and impermanent conclusion to this play; the miracle of Oedipus’ translation to another place is real and leaves significant blessings for the Athenians. In a play where divine force has consistently been demonstrated through the imposition of musical order it is appropriate that the final lyric is structured into strophic stanzas even though different voices take corresponding lines.[72] The emergence of strophic form in this kommos is perhaps the most expressive usage of lyric dialogue in Sophoclean drama.[73]

Theseus enters and attempts to turn the thoughts of all to the true significance of Oedipus’ final moments.[74] The dead king’s promised benediction will bring strength to his new fellow citizens in Athens and avenge Oedipus’ expulsion from Thebes. Promising to aid Antigone in whatever way he can, Theseus honors her wish to undertake a peacemaker’s role in Thebes. He begins this scene with anapaestic meter, and Antigone responds in the same meter. Now even the chorus follows them, singing the final anapaestic lines that urge all to stop their lament and to accept the power that controls this play and has been controlling events as well as the musical design from the beginning. Yet there is no grand musical conclusion—a mark of troubles still ahead for Antigone and Ismene, who are unable to comprehend the full lesson of Oedipus’ life.

Oedipus at Colonus develops the elements of Sophoclean composition to a high degree of sophistication. The use of music to shape and enhance the meaning of individual scenes, of course, had been important to Sophocles throughout his career. Formal odes through words, metrical patterns, and form respond creatively to episodes and often develop a larger view that brings a separate choral perspective into the play. There are several lyric dialogues in which the musical design supports the statements of each participant; and the complexities in perspective from one strophic pair to another are often reflected in a change in metrical structure. The major contribution of music in Oedipus at Colonus, however, is its continuing projection on stage of an ineffable power that can only be felt and sensed, not seen. The full play is orchestrated as a three-part composition, with the music designed to relate and enrich the successive scenes. Glyconic opens each movement as the chorus sings words that are only vaguely applicable to the situation and thereby fails to describe the growth of Oedipus’ status. At the end of each movement the iambic emerges as the meter marking this increase. The orchestrated series of three movements follows Oedipus’ career as he progresses from community member to citizen to hero. Accompanying this orchestration is the general assertion of the strophic form even in heated conversations and moments of apparent confusion. The poet imposes strophic order on characters whose quick, passionate, and blunt statements seem incapable of maintaining precise strophic balance; and this order binds these scenes into a harmonious unity that supports the evolving tripartite structure of the play by revealing the controlling hand of a force greater than the characters.

Sophocles has not written a play that uses specific meters to support the dramatic themes, with the exception of the lyric iambic that marks the changes in Oedipus’ status; rather he has orchestrated this last day of old Oedipus’ life through an ascending series of musical movements that compels a greater faith in the ultimate existence and power of the gods than any individual scene could. When one is unaware of the musical design, this drama loses much of its meaning and most of its theatrical power. Oedipus at Colonus, as the final product of a long career of composing dramatic music, sets new standards for playwrights who would develop the role of music and seek increased richness and resonances for their version of the old myth. Perhaps Sophocles’ final musical achievement caused later poets to question their ability to advance this form and contributed to the introduction of independently composed odes into plays in the fourth century. No other poet wrote musical passages in which the language blended so naturally with the surrounding episodes that readers in translation are often unaware they are reading a lyric scene. Such odes do not divide the scenes; rather they continue the action. Any stiff formality in the ode has disappeared; even traditional forms are so adapted to the moment that they become important components of an ongoing drama. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles’ last play, is the most complex, carefully structured, and expressive example of musical design from surviving fifth-century theater.

The identifying characteristic of musical design in Sophoclean playwriting is its creation of a consistent, subtle, and expressive persona in the choral odes. Choruses offer valuable clues to critics by failing to accept or even share the understanding of the major characters; not everyone must enjoy being a citizen of the Sophoclean universe. Each figure on stage—including the chorus—is embarked on a journey that will require time.

An analogy will make the nature of this journey clear. If a builder were to construct a complex covered maze with exposed wires running down the walls and carrying sufficient current to harm and possibly to kill any individual who touched them, but also with overhead lights clearly illuminating each turn and shift of direction, almost no one would have difficulty emerging unscathed. But if this builder now turned out the lights, problems mount rapidly for the wanderers in the maze. Most would be killed by bumping into the walls. Some few would finally escape, but they would be so maimed and in such pain that we would almost wish they had perished within.

Most Sophoclean characters would approach this challenge in such an individually characteristic spirit that it is possible to predict their responses. If Ismene, Chrysothemis, or Creon (of Oedipus Tyrannus), for instance, were placed inside the maze, they would freeze, incapable of making any move that would put them in danger. They would collapse, crippled by their fear, and finally die intact and without pain—but also without moving. Others like Deianeira, Jocasta, Creon (of Antigone), Clytemmnestra, and Polyneices (of Oedipus at Colonus) would attempt small steps in order to advance safely, but in their tentativeness, confusion, or fear would find themselves brushing against one of the walls and be severely hurt. Those regarded as heroes, however, would completely refuse to be paralyzed by their fear of the unknown and would strike out boldly; probably they would walk directly into the wires, where they would be disfigured or even killed instantly by the current. Most would die in the maze—surely Heracles, Ajax, and Antigone; some, such as Oedipus, Philoctetes, and Electra, would emerge crippled and suffering—but they would have mastered the challenge and that would be sufficient recompense for their sacrifice. They would have asserted their freedom from fear and demonstrated their ability to move even through dangerous and uncharted spaces at their own speed, relying on their own wits.

Old Oedipus in his final moments presents the most amazing statement of one character’s dearly bought independence:

But one thought, one single thought

frees all these pains—to be a lover.

For there is no man from whom

you have had more love than from me;

now—without me—you will live the rest of your lives.

(OC 1615–19)

To be sure, the love Oedipus bears his daughters is accepted by them as worthy recompense for their constant concern and care. Yet this is too narrow a view to account for the phrase to philein—“the act of loving”; a fuller interpretation of his words rises from a broader translation: “to be a lover.” Such love must be capable of ridding the world of pain, must be of such a quality that no other man can have offered his daughters a greater amount of such love, and must be so meaningful that their father’s absence will be a problem for the rest of their lives. Further, one must not only love one’s fellow man but must also love life and its challenges. No one has greater reason to repudiate the world and its gods than Oedipus—and no one is less capable of such resentment. Life on the basis of the fullest possible knowledge, in spite of necessary suffering, has been Oedipus’ goal in both his plays. In Oedipus Tyrannus he might have committed suicide, but he blinded himself and sought to live out his days in isolation on Mount Cithaeron. In Oedipus at Colonus he discovered that the gods so approved his actions that he was given special status and exceptional powers. Because he loved the world and the gods that even at birth created him as a cursed man, smeared him with pollution, and deprived him of normal comforts, that world and those gods finally celebrated him as a uniquely successful mortal.

Returning now to the analogy of the maze, humans must not only understand it with its immense power for damaging them, but they must accept—and even learn to love—both the maze and its builder. Through the experience of making the journey, all mortals gain the chance to discover more about living, to understand themselves and the emotions that drive them, and to gain the respect of the maze-builder by ignoring pain and contemning death in order to seek a formula for living well. At the end, Oedipus is honored as the model Sophoclean lover.

The chorus is one separate voice, one persona that can offer its opinion on the side—and that opinion is often a negative judgment and a limited view of the actions of a major character. By expressing such a consistent opinion visually and aurally throughout the play, the chorus allows Sophocles to maintain distrust of simplistic explanations in a complex and ill-understood world. The chorus and the other characters keep open a window to varied perspectives on that world, each of which is an acceptable mode of living if one properly assesses the price and is willing to pay. Choruses, in their finely designed odes, combine words, meters, and forms to present an easier, more humane way of living; the major characters are made of sterner stuff. The customary fading of choruses at the ends of Sophocles’ plays is a sure indication that the playwright judged the cost of asserting principled behavior to be very high.

Sophocles was a man of the theater; his plays were not just written texts, but were composed to be seen and heard in performance. An actor himself, he seems to have had a reputation as a singer and may even have written a treatise on the chorus. He created characters powerful enough to define the themes of his plays and make painful, yet responsible, choices in asserting their values. Though his choruses do not aspire to such lofty roles, any critic or producer who ignores the lyric design or diminishes the role of the chorus will fail to discover the full dimensions of Sophocles’ dramatic conception.

NOTES

Sources listed in the Select Bibliography (pp. 319–20) are identified throughout the notes section by author and date. References to the familiar editions of individual plays by R. C. Jebb and J. D. Kamerbeek, which were produced over a series of years, will be cited only by the author’s name.

ABBREVIATIONS OF JOURNALS

A&A

Antike und Abendland

AC

L’Antiquité classique

AJP

American Journal of Philology

BICS

Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London

C&M

Classica and Mediaevalia

CJ

The Classical Journal

CQ

Classical Quarterly

CP

Classical Philology

CR

Classical Review

G&R

Greece and Rome

GRBS

Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies

HSCPh

Harvard Studies in Classical Philology

JHS

Journal of Hellenic Studies

LCM

Liverpool Classical Monthly

PCPhS

Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society

Phil

Philologus

REG

Revue des études grecques

RhM

Rheinisches Museum

TAPhA

Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association

UCPCPh

University of California Publications in Classical Philology

YCS

Yale Classical Studies

WS

Wiener Studien

BASIC TEXT OF SOPHOCLES’ PLAYS

H. Lloyd-Jones and N. G. Wilson, Sophoclis Fabulae (Oxford 1990), supported by: ———, Sophoclea: Studies on the Text of Sophocles (Oxford 1990).

PREFACE

1. G. H. Gellie, Sophocles; A Reading (Melbourne 1972) 224.

2. M. Bayles in The Wall Street Journal, 19 September 1988, reviewing the PBS presentation of “The Theban Trilogy.”

3. The text of the Ichneutai (The Searchers) is too fragmentary to draw any useful conclusions. The fact that design features evident in the surviving tragedies do not seem to appear there suggests that the satyr play was a genre with its own musical traditions.

4. Lines in which unsolved text problems remain are marked with an asterisk.

INTRODUCTION FOR READERS IN TRANSLATION

1. “Rhythm, Metre, and Black Magic,” CR 56 (1942) 99–108.

2. The most recent translations are by E. Wyckoff (1954) and D. Grene (1991), both in D. Grene and R. Lattimore, eds., The Complete Greek Tragedies (Chicago and London); R. E. Braun (Oxford 1973); and R. Fagles (Penguin Books 1982). Recent studies of the chorus in English: T. B. L. Webster, The Greek Chorus (London 1970); Burton, Gardiner, and other books given in the footnotes to the individual plays.

3. Throughout this book an asterisk marks lines where scansion problems still remain. I have given the most reasonable scansion to be derived.

4. In the interest of presenting the metrical pattern of each line as clearly as possible I will scan most instances of brevis in longo with a long mark; see Chapter 2, note 15.

CHAPTER 1. MUSIC IN SOPHOCLEAN DRAMA

1. The following books and articles are basic to a study of the production of Sophocles’ plays: E. Bodensteiner, “Szenische Fragen über den Ort des Auftretens und Abgehens von Schauspielern und Chor im grieschischen Drama,” Jahrbücher für dassische Philologie, Suppbd. 19 (1893) 637–808; W. Dörpfeld and E. Reisch, Das grieschische Theater (Athens 1896); M. Bieber, Die Denkmäler zum Theaterwesen im Altertum (Berlin and Leipzig 1920) and The History of the Greek and Roman Theater (2nd ed., Princeton 1961); A. W. Pickard-Cambridge, The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens (Oxford 1946) and The Dramatic Festivals of Athens (rev. by J. Gould and D. M. Lewis, Oxford 1968); P. Arnott, Greek Scenic Conventions in the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford 1962) and Public and Performance in the Greek Theatre (London and New York 1989); L. B. Lawler, The Dance in Ancient Greece (London 1964) and The Dance of the Ancient Greek Theatre (Iowa City 1964); A. D. Trendall and T. B. L. Webster, Illustrations in Greek Drama (London 1971); T. B. L. Webster, Greek Theater Production (2nd ed., London 1970) and The Greek Chorus (London 1970); E. Simon, Dasantike Theater (Heidelberg 1972); J. W. Fitton, “Greek Dance,” CQ 23 (1973) 254–74; S. Melchinger, Das Theater der Tragödie (Munich 1974); O. Taplin, Greek Tragedy in Action (Berkeley 1978); and E. Csapo and W. J. Slater, The Context of Ancient Drama (Ann Arbor 1995).

2. For a listing of sources with evaluation see J. Fairweather, “Fiction in Biographies of Ancient Writers,” Ancient Society 5 (1974) 231–75; M. Lefkowitz, The Lives of the Greek Poets (Baltimore 1981) 75–87 (reviewed by Fairweather in CR 32 [1982] 183–84) and R. G. A. Buxton, Sophocles (Oxford 1984) 3–5.

3. B. M. W. Knox, “Sophocles and the Polis.” in Sophocle: Entretiens sur l’Antiquité Classique 29 (Genève 1982) 7, describes Sophocles as a poet “who . . . poses the heroic figures of the ancient saga against the background of a half-mythical, half-contemporary polis.”

4. See discussions of the endings of Sophoclean plays by D. H. Roberts, “Sophoclean Endings: Another Story,” Arethusa 21 (1988) 177–96.

5. See the analyses of decisions in tragedy by M. C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge 1986) 1–83; Blundell (1989), esp. 1–7, where she reviews earlier discussions of tragedy and ethics; and B. Williams, Shame and Necessity (Sather Classical Lectures 57; Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford 1993).

6. Blundell (1989) 272–73.

7. Although the enforcement of these limits and purposes—whether divine or human—is difficult to ascertain; see H. D. F. Kitto, Sophocles: Dramatist as Philosopher (London 1958) 44–46 and Form and Meaning in Drama (2nd ed., London 1964) 72–76; K. J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1974) 246–61; and Buxton (note 2) 16: “when the divine will does become an issue it is normally available only through fallible human intermediaries.”

8. These characters are often called “Sophoclean heroes”; see discussions by C. H. Whitman, Sophocles: A Study of Heroic Humanism (Cambridge, Mass., 1951) passim; J. C. Opstelten, Sophocles and Greek Pessimism, trans. J. A. Ross, (Amsterdam 1952) chap. 4; Kirkwood (1958) 169–80; Knox (1964) passim. For critiques of the term “hero” see J. Hutton’s review of E. Bignone’s Poeti Apollinei in AJP 60 (1939) 243–45; Winnington-Ingram (1980) 15–19; and P. E. Easterling in her discussion of Sophocles in P. E. Easterling and B. M. W. Knox, eds., The Cambridge History of Classical Literature (Cambridge 1985) 310–12.

9. A. W. Schlegel, A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, trans. J. Black (Philadelphia 1833) 44–45. For criticism of this position see Errandonea (1958b) 353–58; Kirkwood (1958) 182–86; G. Müller, “Chor und Handlung bei den grieschischen Tragikern,” in H. Diller, ed., Sophokles, “Wege der Forschung” 95 (Darmstadt 1967) 212–38; and B. Vickers, Towards Greek Tragedy: Drama, Myth, Society (London 1973) 10–17.

10. For discussions that attempt to integrate the chorus as characters within the play see Errandonea (1922, 1942, 1958b, 1970); Kirkwood (1954) and (1958) 181–214; also Burton (1980), Scott (1984), Gardiner (1986).

11. Cf. C. M. Bowra, Sophoclean Tragedy (Oxford 1944) 7: “His Chorus is not his own voice, except at rare intervals and in doubtful cases. It is usually an actor like the other actors, subject to error and to partial or limited understanding. . . . Most of its conclusions are no more valid for a final view of the play than are those of any other character.”

12. Reinhardt 82.

13. Whitman (note 8) 17: “somewhere in the inconsistency between what the hero does and what the chorus says may lie the secret of Sophocles’ own moral judgment”; S. Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1986) 271: “meaning in tragedy is produced in the relation between actor and chorus, scene and stasimon. . . . It is this dialectic, this play of difference, that is in part the reason why tragedy is a genre apparently most given to generalization and didacticism, and yet so difficult to tie down to a consistent, finalized ‘message’.”

14. Buxton (note 2) 22: “Unlike the heroes, the chorus neither experiences tragic dilemmas nor takes tragic decisions. Its business is not to choose (cf. Ajax 165–6, Oed. Col. 294–5, Phil. 1072–3), rather to react and to reflect.”

15. For recent discussion of the social and political context for dramatic performances see J. J. Winkler, “The Ephebes’ Song: Tragôdia and Polis,” Representations 11 (1985–86) 26–63, revised in J. J. Winkler and F. I. Zeitlin, eds., Nothing to Do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in its Social Context (Princeton 1990) 20–62; S. Goldhill, “The Great City Dionysia and Civic Ideology,” JHS 107 (1987) 58–76, expanded in Winkler and Zeitlin (see previous reference) 97–129; A. Bierl, “Was hat die Tragödie mit Dionysos zu tun? Rolle und Funktion des Dionysos am Beispiel der Antigone des Sophokles,” Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumswissenschaft 15 (1989) 43–58; W. R. Connor, “City Dionysia and Athenian Democracy,” C&M 40 (1989) 7–32; D. C. Pozzi, “The Polis in Crisis,” in D. C. Pozzi and J. M. Wickersham, eds., Myth and the Polis (Ithaca and London 1991) 126–63; and A. Henrichs, “‘Why Should I Dance?’: Ritual Self-Referentiality in the Choral Odes of Greek Tragedy,” Arion 3 (1994–95) 56–111.

16. In support of this construction of the chorus’ role, see the discussion below in Chapter 3.

17. C. Rosen, The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (New York 1971) 52–53.

18. W. Kranz (1933) 220–23 provides the classic statement of the varied voices within the choral odes.

19. Kirkwood (1958) 213–14.

20. Nussbaum (note 5) 68.

21. In general in Sophocles’ plays we should take the words of the chorus as statements of true feelings, leaving obvious irony or veiled speech to the characters, unless there is a clue, such as in several scenes in the Phil. where the chorus is clearly playing a preassigned role (391–402, 507–18, and 676–729).

22. R. P. Winnington-Ingram, “The Second Stasimon of the Oedipus Tyrannus,” JHS 91 (1971) 132–33: “The choral odes of Sophocles express, like all parts of the plays but often in a special degree, his own interpretation of the action, but it is conveyed, obliquely, through a Chorus which is (more or less) involved in that action and limited in its view by the dramatic situation. He uses the Chorus; but he does not use it, undramatically, as his own mouthpiece. We must always seek—and will always find—a meaning and a coherence of thought which belongs to the Chorus in its own dramatic entity. But, like other speakers, they will say more than they know; their words may carry a significance beyond—and even contrary to—their conscious thought. This is the familiar, and characteristically Sophoclean, device of dramatic irony, pervasive in all his plays, above all in the Oedipus Tyrannus!”

23. Ajax 693–718, Ant. 1115–52, OT 1086–1109, Trach. 633–62. See the recent discussion by K. Heikkilä, “‘Now I Have the Mind to Dance’: The References of the Chorus to their own Dancing in Sophocles’ Tragedies,” Arctos 25 (1991) 51–68.

24. Segal (1981) 15: “It is characteristic of the poetry of Greek tragedy that it consciously interweaves all the codes and thus calls attention to the fundamental value system which underlies them all”; and Nussbaum (note 5) 68: “An image in a lyric must be read not only against the background both of dialogue and of lyric that has preceded, but, ultimately, in the light of events and lyrics yet to come. . . . Thus the fullest and most complete reading would require the most attentive following-out of connections, as each image and each lyric acquires additional density from its resonances across to other passages, and as the internal density of each lyric contributes to the finding and mapping of these resonances.”

25. For an analysis of the effective nature of Sophocles’ understated imagery as well as the difficulties in defining precisely an “image” in his language, see R. F. Goheen, The Imagery of Sophocles’ Antigone (Princeton 1951) 108–15.

26. Henrichs (note 15) discusses the self-referentiality of this passage.

27. Also Ajax 693–701.

28. The same equation of joy with choral dancing occurs at Ajax 701 and OT 1093.

29. Cf. Ajax 1202.

30. Sounds are often mentioned in this play: 206, 213, 216–18, 225, 229, 233–34, and 936–39.

31. See Scott (1984) 5–21.

32. A. Machin, Cohérence et continuité dans le théâtre de Sophocle (Quebec 1981) 166: “Il est clair que Sophocle, dans son théâtre, a voulu rompre avec la progression lente et continue de la tragéie eschylénne, qu’il a voulu animer et varier l’action de ses pièces en ménageant des ‘surprises’ qui tiennent en haleine le spectateur et renouvellent l’interêt en de nombreux points de la tragédie.”

CHAPTER 2. CHORAL METER AND MUSICAL FORM IN ANTIGONE AND AJAX

1. E. T. Cone, “The Old Man’s Toys: Verdi’s Last Operas,” Perspectives USA 6 (1954) 130, also quoted as a keynote by J. Kerman, Opera as Drama (New York 1952) 21–22.

2. For an equivalent discussion of meter and music in Aeschylean drama see Scott (1984) 22–30.

3. A. Wartelle, Histoire du texte d’Eschyle dans l’antiquité (Paris 1971) 46–48 and 152–57.

4. Wartelle (note 3) 152–57 discusses Aristophanes’ service in having presented the colometry of lyric passages for readers whose innate sense of metric was disappearing. Papyrus fragments show that his colometry has been largely preserved in Byzantine manuscripts: see T. J. Fleming 1975) 141–48 and the references cited therein.

5. W. B. Stanford, The Sound of Greek (Sather Classical Lectures 38; Berkeley and Los Angeles 1967) and S. G. Daitz, The Pronunciation and Reading of Ancient Greek: A Practical Guide (2nd ed., New York, Guilford, and London 1984).

6. The only extant music that may have come from the fifth century is the notation on the papyrus fragments of Euripides’ Orestes 339–44 and L. A. 784–92; E. Martin, Trois documents de musique grecque (Paris 1953), attempts to reconstruct the music to accompany the passage in Orestes on the basis of the papyrus fragment first published by K. Wesseley, Mitteilungen aus der Sammlung der Papyrus Erzherzog V (Vienna 1892) 65–73, but much must be assumed about the notation on the papyrus to arrive at such a precise scoring. See also the discussion by E. Pöhlmann, Griechische Musikfragmente (Nuremberg 1960), esp. 12–24, and Denkmäler altgriechischer Musik (Nuremberg 1970) 78–82. Less informative is the small fragment published provisionally by D. Jourdan-Hemmerdinger, “Un nouveau papyrus musical d’Euripide,” Comptes rendus de l’Academie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (1973) 292–302.

7. G. Comotti reviews ancient writers on Greek music in Music in Greek and Roman Culture, trans. R. V. Munson (Baltimore and London 1989) chap. 5. The best recent discussion of the available evidence on the ethical and paideutic aspects of Greek music is W. D. Anderson, Ethos and Education in Greek Music (Cambridge, Mass., 1966). See further the reviews of scholarship by R. P. Winnington-Ingram, “Ancient Greek Music 1932–1957,” Lustrum 3 (1958) 6–57, and A. J. Neubecker, “Altgriechische Musik 1958–1986,” Lustrum 32 (1990) 99–176 and 293–96.

8. For an especially clearheaded discussion of the importance of rhythm in Greek poetry see J. W. Fitton, “Greek Dance,” CQ 23 (1973) 254–74. The most perceptive critic of the obstacles to understanding Greek meters for those whose ears and minds have been trained in a tradition of stress accent is A. M. Dale; especially relevant are her comments in “The Metrical Units of Greek Lyric Verse, I,” CQ 44 (1950) 138–48; and in “Words, Music, and Dance,” “Speech-Rhythm, Verse -Rhythm, and Song,” and “Expressive Rhythm in the Lyrics of Greek Drama,” all in her Collected Papers (London 1969) 41–60, 159–69, 230–47, and 248–58.

9. Not to mention the further complications in the possible relative values of short syllables produced by resolution; see the study by M. L. West, “A New Approach to Greek Prosody,” Glotta 48 (1970) 185–94, and West (1982) 18–25; and the discussion on rhythm by W. S. Allen, Accent and Rhythm (Cambridge 1973) 96–102. For precise figures on the frequency of such resolved forms in the three tragedians see Korzeniewski (1968) 55.

10. See Dale (1968) 3–4; Korzeniewski (1968) 100; and D. S. Raven, Greek Metre (2nd ed., London 1968) sec. 46.

11. T. B. L. Webster, “Tradition in Greek Dramatic Lyric,” Broadhead Classical Lecture I (Christchurch, N.Z., 1969), has calculated that sixty-one basic metrical cola account for ninety percent of the lyric lines in tragedy.

12. De comp. verb. 19 expressly states that the melody of the strophe was repeated for the antistrophe, but our only direct evidence is the fragment from Euripides’ Orestes (note 6), which at first glance seems to show that the music was similar; see the comparison of melody and accent by D. Feaver, “The Musical Setting of Euripides’ Orestes,” AJP 81 (1960) 1–15. But Dale (1968) 204 denies the relevance of the accent markings: “Since strophe and antistrophe pay no attention to correspondence of word-accent, either the melody here must also have ignored word-accent or the melody of the strophe was not repeated in the antistrophe.” She continues by describing our uncertainty on this point as “one of the most curious and deplorable gaps in our understanding of classical lyric” and inclines strongly to the view that melody did not take word-accent into account and that the music of the strophe was repeated. This would certainly be the case if, as Wartelle (note 3) 47 states, the musical notation accompanied only the strophe, and the antistrophe was fitted to that melody; see also Pohlmann, Musikfragmente 17–29 and Denkmäler 82 (note 6). Discussions of the applicability of the statements by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De comp. verb 11, to fifth-century music seem futile because we do not know the nature of the musical text he was using, but he certainly offers no reason for us to trust the reliability of accents as a guide to music; cf. W. B. Sedgwick, “A Note on the Performance of Greek Vocal Music,” C&M 11 (1950) 222–26. For strong statements against the repetition of the same music—unfortunately based heavily on a consideration of accents—see R. Giani and C. del Grande, “Relazione melodica di strofe e antistrofe nel coro greco,” Rivista di Filosofia 59 (1931) 185–206, and W. J. W. Koster, “De Studiis Recentibus ad Rem Metricam Pertinentibus,” Mnemosyne 3 (1950) 27–29.

I should also include in this discussion Dale’s brief comment on the probability of repeated dance patterns ([1968] 213): “There is no direct evidence, but the probability of such general correspondence is very strong.” Yet one must allow sufficient leeway in any such assertion for the significance of differences of content and tone between strophe and antistrophe in the passages she cites.

13. In determining scansion patterns throughout this book I have been aided by W. Kraus (1957), H. A. Pohlsander (1964), and R. D. Dawe’s edition of the tragedies (Leipzig 1984–85).

14. The full ode contains unifying meters, but the point here is to illustrate the strong contrast available through metrical patterns; see the full discussion of this ode in Chapter 4.

15. The idea of structure within the stanza suggests studies of the periods within the ode; for example, Dale (1968) 200–203; T. C. W. Stinton, “Pause and Period in the Lyrics of Greek Tragedy,” CQ 17 (1971) 27–66; J. Sanchez Lasso de la Vega, “Notas de periodología métrica en Sófocles,” Cuadernos de Filología Clásica 17 (1981–82) 9–20; and West (1982) 4–6. For the purposes of this book I have found that the determination of the periodic structure is only marginally useful. Periodic structure aids in determining the phrasing within the individual stanza; only a few studies successfully contrast stanzas that are juxtaposed or are recalled at other places in the play (as an example, Korzeniewski [1961] 193–201). Because I am seeking patterns of construction that go beyond the limits of the individual strophic pair, extending even to the other odes throughout the drama, phrasing of individual stanzas is less important than repeated meters. Therefore I have usually ignored the accurate recording of brevis in longo in the last position in a period—hoping to make the basic metrical pattern clearer to readers.

16. Eur. Electra 503–46 vs. Aesch. Ch. 164–234; Eur. Hipp. 612 vs. Aristophanes Th. 275, Frogs 101 and 1471 (this was obviously a famous line; cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric 1416a28 ff.). There are also the close metrical parodies in the Frogs cited in Dale (1968) 44 and 152–53 and the numerous lines that are quoted therein.

17. The following studies will be referred to by the author’s last name in this section: R. F. Goheen, The Imagery of Sophocles’ Antigone: A Study of Poetic Language and Structure (Princeton 1951); I. M. Linforth, “Antigone and Creon,” UCPCPh 15 (1961) 183–260; Gerhard Müller, Sophokles Antigone (Heidelberg 1967) (referred to hereafter as Commentary) and “Chor und Handlung bei den griechischen Tragikern,” in H. Diller, ed., Sophokles,“Wege der Forschung” 95 (Darmstadt 1967) 212–38.; D. A. Hester, “Sophocles the Unphilosophical: A Study in the Antigone,” Mnemosyne 24 (1971) 11–59; R. Coleman, “The Role of the Chorus in Sophocles’ Antigone,” PCPhS 198 (1972) 4–27; S. Benardete, “A Reading of Sophocles’ Antigone,” Interpretation 4 (1975) 148–96, and 5 (1975) 1–55 and 148–84; G. F. Else, The Madness of Antigone (Heidelberg 1976); P. E. Easterling, “The Second Stasimon of Antigone,” in R. D. Dawe et al., eds., Dionysiaca (Cambridge 1978) 141–58; H. Rohdich, Antigone: Beitrag zu einer Theorie des Sophokleischen Helden (Heidelberg 1980); W. Rösier, “Der Chor als Mitspieler: Beobachtungen zur Antigone,” A&A 29 (1983) 107–23; A. Brown, Sophocles: Antigone (Warminster 1987); and E. Van Nes Ditmars, Sophocles’ Antigone: Lyric Shapes and Meaning (Pisa 1992).

18. For discussion of opposition between the two sisters in the prologue see W. Jäkel, “Die Exposition in der Antigone des Sophokles,” Gymnasium 68 (1961), esp. 37–44.

19. W. Jens, “Antigone-Interpretationen” in Sature. Früchte der antiken Welt. Otto Weinreich zum 13. März 1951 dargebracht (Baden-Baden 1952) 43–58, reprinted in Diller (note 17) 295–310, identifies the breaking of personal ties as a major theme of the work: “In der Antigone aber—frühere Beispiele kennen wir nicht—messen zwei Menschen in einem einzigen Gespräch den Weg aus, der von der verbindenden Nahe zur trennenden Ferne führt” (295) and “Auch Kreon und Teiresias beginnen in Gemeinsamkeit, und zum drittenmal wiederholt sich das Gleiche: die Harmonie endet in unwiderruflichem Streit” (308–309). Müller, Commentary (note 17) 21–24, in reviewing the sources of this play, presents strong arguments that Sophocles is the first to make Antigone the defiant, lonely heroine, thus sharpening the issues of conflict in many different ways. Reinhardt (1947) 64–67, Goheen (note 17), esp. 14–51 and 75–100, Winnington-Ingram (1980) 146–49, Segal (1981) 152–206, esp. chart on 186, and Blundell (1989) 127–28 in a variety of ways point out the deep-seated oppositions in the basic terms of the drama.

20. For the most recent discussions with listings of relevant bibliography see Hester (note 17), especially Appendixes A and B, and H. Patzer, Hauptperson und tragischer Held in Sophokles’ Antigone (Wiesbaden 1978). To this list add B. Vickers, Towards Greek Tragedy: Drama, Myth, Society (London 1973) 526–46; J. Shelton, “Human Knowledge and Self-Deception: Creon as the Central Character of Sophocles’ Antigone,” Ramus 13 (1984) 102–23; A. Machin, “A propos d’Antigone: vers line Hierarchie des Valeurs,” Cahiers du GITA 1 (1985) 67–73; D. Hester, “The Central Character(s) of the Antigone and their Relationship to the Chorus,” Ramus 15 (1986) 74–81; J. M. Lucas, “La Antigona de Sófocles. Análisis de su Problematica desde la Perspectiva de su Composición,” in Athlon. Satura Grammatica in honorem Francisci R. Adrados II (Madrid 1987) 533–73; Th. C. W. Oudemans and A. P. M. H. Lardinois, Tragic Ambiguity: Anthropology, Philosophy and Sophocles’ Antigone (Leiden 1987) 107–17; and A. Schmitt, “Bemerkungen zu Charakter und Schicksal der tragischen Hauptperson in der Antigone,” A&A 34 (1988) 1–16.

21. See discussions by H. Fraenkel, Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums (New York 1951), translated by M. Hadas and J. Willis as Early Greek Poetry and Philosophy (New York and London 1973) 217–37; D. J. Conacher, Aeschylus’ Oresteia: A Literary Commentary (Toronto 1987); and R. P. Winnington-Ingram, Studies in Aeschylus (Cambridge 1983) 73–175.

22. The breadth of this chorus’ concerns is striking; see Goheen (note 17) chap. 4; Segal (1981) 197–206; Burton (1980) 85–90; Winnington-Ingram (1980) chap. 5; Gardiner (1986) 85–88. G. Müller, “Überlegungen zum Chor der Antigone,” Hermes 89 (1961) 398–422, argues that most of the points the chorus makes are traditional, but their application in this play is new.

23. There is strong opposition to such a straightforward description of this chorus, largely because of its attitude toward Creon after 1091. The strongest opponents regard the chorus as unchanging in its critical attitude toward Creon and its approval of Antigone throughout the play, although it has suppressed any statement of these positions. The most forceful presentation of such veiled choral utterance is offered by E.-R. Schwinge, “Die Rolle des Chors in der Sophokleischen Antigone” Gymnasium 78 (1971) 294–321, who argues that from the earliest moment of the play fear restrains free choral speech. Defense of such a position, however, requires subtle orchestration of key lines from a knowledge of future scenes. For example, Schwinge reads the dialogue 211–22 as revealing the chorus’ fear even in its first encounter with Creon. There is, in fact, an environment of fear around Creon (223–36, 268–77, cf. 280–303, 330–31, 504–507, 690–91); see also J. Dalfen, “Gesetz ist nicht Gesetz und fromm ist nicht fromm. Die Sprache der Personen in der Sophokleischem Antigone,” WS N.F. 11 (1977) 5–26. Yet the chorus nowhere expresses fear for its own life or any other cause for hesitancy; rather in 216 the old men immediately ask that the duty be performed, but by a younger man (either in view of their advanced years or of their social position). Their high poetry, especially in the first and second stasima, does not seem cleverly veiled or tensely phrased. Even when Creon is off stage they refuse the opportunity to reveal their supposedly suppressed attitude; during the third stasimon they remain critical of Haemon (Müller, Commentary [note 17] 171). At this point Schwinge must retreat to special pleading: “in der überall herrschenden Atmosphäre, ist der Tyrann immer präsent” (314). Schwinge also asserts that the chorus must represent the people of Thebes; yet this is self-serving and not necessary. If my characterization of the chorus is correct, they are men who are capable of developing broader theories and for this reason are called the worthy lords of Thebes (842–43, 940, 988); they are the natural constituency a new ruler would choose for support; see Winnington-Ingram (1980) 137–38.

24. Although Aristotle claims that the Sophoclean chorus should be regarded as an actor (Poetics 1456a25), the question whether the chorus in Antigone can be regarded as consistent and/or a character is complex; is it consistent? is it a character? or can it be both? The most rigid judgment of the chorus as neither consistent nor a character is found in B. Alexanderson, “Die Stellung des Chors in der Antigone,” Eranos 64 (1966) 85–105; cf. A. J. A. Waldock, Sophocles the Dramatist (Cambridge 1951) 121, who terms these odes “poetical arabesques.”

A view identifying more consistency of function than of character is developed by: A. Lesky, in “Zur Deutung der Chorlieder des Sophokles,” in Das Altertum und jedes neue Gute. Festschrift Schadewaldt (Stuttgart 1970) 79–97; Else (note 17) 45 and 76; and Easterling (note 17) 158.

Among those who identify a unified character or at least a consistent persona are: L. Bieler, Antigone’s Schuld in Urteil der neueren Sophoklesforschung (Wien 1937) 10–12; Schwinge (note 23); G. M. Kirkwood (1958) 205–209 and (1954); G. Ronnet, Sophocle Poète Tragique (Paris 1969) chap. 3; R. Coleman (note 17) 4–27; Müller, “Überlegungen” (note 22) and Commentary (note 17), esp. 15–18 and 266 (a puzzling limitation by reference to dramatic convention); Errandonea (1958b) chap. 3; Kamerbeek 14–15; Burton (1980), esp. 86–90; Gardiner (1986) 82–97.

25. Else (note 17) 47 and 58 notes the relative equality in cola of the odes in this play and the repeated structure of two strophic pairs in each ode, but neglects the epode at 876–82.

26. 159, 281, 1092–93; 940, 988, and 843; 155–61.

27. See A. Maddalena, Sofocle 2nd ed., Torino 1963) 55–57, and Benardete (note 17) 169, who observes: “What . . . somewhat accounts for their silence about Eteocles’ aristeia, if not for the silence about his rule, is that they ascribe the triumph of Thebes entirely to the gods. Human excellence has no place where Zeus and Ares directly participate in battle.”

28. Esp. 152, 278–79, 368–70, and 1349–50.

29. 127–33, 853–56, 138–40, 781–800, 153–54, and 1115–54.

30. I agree with Burton (1980) 89–90, who characterizes them as decent men, respectful of authority and established religion, more loyal to their basic values than to Creon—“mature and responsible citizens of Thebes” (85). But there is opposition: Gardiner (1986) 85–97 wishes rather to make them self-serving, survival-oriented adherents to the whims of Creon, and thus political “hand-picked loyalists”; Gardiner’s discussion, however, does not deal well with the points at which others have found the chorus departing from its support of Creon or at least held to such support only by force (211–20, 278–81, 766–72, and especially 1091 through the ending of the play, where it becomes increasingly critical of Creon’s actions). A. S. McDevitt, “Sophocles’ Praise of Man in the Antigone” Ramus 1 (1972) 152–64 and “The First Kommos of Sophocles’ Antigone (806–882),” Ramus 11 (1982) 134–44, sees the men of the chorus as shallow thinkers and simple-minded yielders to authority; Ronnet (note 24) 147–57 finds them representatives of a moral mediocrity arising from a general lack of courage.

31. The clustering of such words in the first stasimon suggests that the choral image of humans is largely a projection of its own persona. Words meaning thought and thoughtlessness, however, come to the lips of both chorus and characters easily: chorus: 342, 347, 354–55, 365, 374, 383, 472, 617–18, 875, 1347, and 1353; Creon: 176, 207, 473, 479, 492, 561–62, 648, 727, 768, 1051, 1059, 1095, and 1261; Antigone: 459 and 557; Haemon: 707, 710, and 755; Teiresias: 996, 1031, 1050, and 1090; Ismene: 49 and 563–64. For discussion of this motif see C. Knapp, “A Point in the Interpretation of the Antigone of Sophocles,” AJP 37 (1916) 300–16; Kirkwood (1958) 233–36; Goheen (note 17) 75–100; Knox (1964) 21–22; A. A. Long, Language and Thought in Sophocles (London 1968) 149–50; R. D. Dawe, “Some Reflections on Ate and Hamartia.” HSCPh 72 (1968) 111–12; M. C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge 1986) 436 n.6; and Blundell (1989) 136–45.

32. Lines 574 and 576 will not be included in the following list of characterizing choral passages because of disagreement in assigning a speaker: see discussion by Lloyd-Jones/Wilson (1990) on 574. For a list of attributions see Hester (note 17) 30 n.1; add to this Müller, Commentary (note 17) p. 111; Kamerbeek ad loc.; R. D. Dawe, Studies on the Text of Sophocles III (Leiden 1973) 106–107; Winnington-Ingram (1980) 93 n.7; J. K. MacKinnon, “Sophocles, Antigone 572–81,” RhM 127 (1984) 23–32; R. Scodel, Sophocles (Boston 1984) 139 n.11; and M. Davies, “Who Speaks at Sophocles Antigone 572?” Prometheus 12 (1986) 19–24.

I would retain Ismene as the speaker of 572; my only grounds are the sense of the scene; commentators have not found formal or grammatical problems that are insoluble for any of the suggested assignments. I do not feel that Antigone should speak 572, as she nowhere else mentions her love for Haemon; Ismene can add this statement to 568 and 570, which concern the absent Haemon although addressed to Creon. She would then appropriately attempt to soften Creon by referring to the harm he does to his own son, though not repeating the more direct personal question of 568. There is no reason why Ismene cannot draw the final conclusion in 576. In support see W. M. Calder III, “Sophokles’ Political Tragedy, Antigone,” GRBS 9 (1968) 398 n.43 and the bibliography listed there.

33. So Müller, Commentary (note 17) 68; Burton (1980) 86–87; Hester (1986; note 20) 76; and Gardiner (1986) 86; serious choral misgivings are found by Jebb; Campbell (1879) on 213; Linforth (note 17) 190; H. Funke, “Kreon Apolis,” A&A 12 (1966) 32–33; Kamerbeek; McDevitt, “Praise of Man” and “The First Kommos” (note 30).

34. Again, opinions vary widely on the attitude expressed in 770 and 772, which critics shape to suit their more general characterizations of the chorus. For example Burton (1980) 89 sees these lines as the chorus’ first feeling of confidence in its ability to offer Creon good suggestions; Müller, Commentary (note 17) 161, however, finds both lines spoken in Ismene’s defense; Schwinge 312–13 finds a chorus that consciously seeks to draw Creon away from his earlier verdict.

35. I will print a brevis in longo as a long syllable in order to make the repetition of meters as clear as possible. Defining the periods in each stanza is not that important in studying musical design throughout the full play; see note 15.

36. Throughout this study * marks lines where text problems remain unsolved.

37. The shift in mood from prologue is well characterized by H. D. F. Kitto, Sophocles: Dramatist and Philosopher (London 1958) 3, and Ronnet (note 24) 151.

38. A choral ode that alternates so precisely between strophic lyric and anapaestic stanzas is unique in the corpus of Greek tragedy. This mixture of forms does occur in kommoi where roles are split by meter; in addition to Ant. 806–38 there are Ag. 1448–1576, Ch. 306–478, PV 127–92, Ajax 221–62, Phil. 135–218, and Medea 131–213. Alc. 77–140 seems to use such anapaestic sections to indicate a division in the choral song. Many critics comment on the uniqueness of the lyric + anapaest structure of Antigone’s parodos, but few attempt to find a reason for this structure; e.g., Müller, Commentary (note 17) 43, feels that the anapaestic stanzas bring into the traditional form the spirited, active interchange appropriate to the joy of victory.

39. For a discussion of the occasions and functions of anapaests in Greek tragedy see S. G. Brown, “A Contextual Analysis of Tragic Meter: The Anapest,” in J. H. D’Arms and J. W. Eadie, eds., Ancient and Modern: Essays in Honor of Gerald F. Else (Ann Arbor 1977) 45–77.

40. I have followed Lloyd-Jones/Wilson (1990), whose text permits a proximate corresponsion; see Sophoclea ad 110. In any case, there are textual problems that make it difficult to determine the text of the anapaestic stanzas with full confidence. The presumption of a missing monometer at the beginning of line 112 is not required by the grammar. Further, in the following line Hermann deleted the conjunction that establishes the eagle comparison as a simile, but he has not been followed by other editors (see below, note 44). In addition, there is a crux at line 130 where most editors try to restore a full dimeter rather than a paroemiac, and it does seem that Vauvilliers’ fine reading of hyperopliais settles that line; see, however, the defense of hyperopteias (Musgrave) by Lloyd-Jones/Wilson (1990). Erfurdt also indicated a lacuna at 156.

41. Müller, Commentary (note 17) 43, insists on a strong and exceptionless corresponsion in the anapaests. In general, stanzas of anapaestic recitative are not part of a corresponding structure; for earlier examples of anapaestic stanzas that approximate corresponsion, see Aeschylus Ag, 1462–67 and 1475–80, Ch. 340–44 and 400–404, and Eum. 948–55, 968–75, and 988–95; these passages are discussed in Scott (1984) 68–73, 89–90, 132–33.

42. Reinforced by the repeated phan-words: phanen, phaos, ephanthes. Müller, Commentary (note 17) 47, points out that Sophocles has given these words emphasis through meter; for full discussion see D. Seale, Vision and Stagecraft in Sophocles (Chicago 1982) chap. 4. For broader discussion of individual words in the parodos, see J. F. Davidson, “The Parodos of the Antigone: A Poetic Study,” BICS 30 (1983) 41–51.

43. The name of Capaneus is not given in the text, but it is clear from the details of Aeschylus’ Seven 422–36 that this is the character Sophocles had in mind: the boast (425–31 and 436), the agency of Zeus (428–31), the torch (433), and the gold lettering (434). The greater question is why Sophocles does not directly name him. It seems that the chorus is using general descriptions as much as it can in characterizing the battle because problems arise when it draws closer to specific facts: the questionable origin of the quarrel, the mutual slaying of the two brothers, and the definition of “enemy/friend.” The chorus therefore seeks, especially in its lyric stanzas, to invoke generic, thereby safe, images of victory, the hostile, and the hybristic.

44. The late placement of hos has raised questions about its authenticity and the phrasing of the image as simile or metaphor. Hermann was the first to excise the word, thus producing a paroemiac rather than a full dimeter. A paroemiac in this position is normal, yet the “corresponding” lines are dimeters (130, 144, and 159). Burton (1980) 92–93 agrees with Hermann, citing as similar passages Alcman, Parth. 85–87, Theognis 347, Pindar Pyth. 4.289, Aeschylus PV 857, and OT 478; the metaphorical expression suits the excited tone of the victory ode. Jebb, Kamerbeek, Dawe (note 32) 102–103, A. Brown (note 17), and Lloyd-Jones/Wilson (1990) print hos.

45. This chorus easily identifies limits and readily judges excessive behavior; cf. 371, 605, 615–25, 853–56, 873–75, 944–87, 1257–60, and 1270.

46. J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles (2nd ed. [with corrections], Oxford 1959) 98–99; on 244 he cites parallel usages of alla . . . gar de at Ajax 167, Eur. Med. 1067 and frs. 573, 773.59, and Thuc. 6.77.1. In each case there is a shift in the topic as well as a continuation of the same speaker, who positions himself differently within his speech.

47. Such introductions of a following lyric occur: in 110–16, where the eagle is introduced at 112; in 127–33, where the threat of Zeus against the boaster is made concrete by the indirect introduction of Capaneus, who then is further described in the following lyric; and in 141–47, where the troublesome mutual slaughter mentioned at 144 appears to cause the chorus to seek to forget the previous battle.

48. The poet may have added subtle hints of an ambiguity even in this cheerful opening stanza by echoing the opening phrase from Pindar’s Paian 9 = fr. 44, where an eclipse has caused thought of war, famine, flood, or evil weather.

49. Phota (107) is meant as a collective noun for the expedition, but it does suggest that there is one man who is more important than the others; phugada prodromon is a way to typologize the defeat of the enemy, but the battle around Thebes did not end in such a simple repulse. Argothen banta only indicates the direction from which a “foreign” attack came and avoids the obvious family problem causing it. Leukaspin and pansagiai, as phrases descriptive of the warrior, describe externals rather than the all-important relationship. Chalinoi stresses the use of force to control a lesser being rather than words to deal with a brother. In addition, phugada carries the implication of “exile,” thus possibly identifying the attacker as a civic problem rather than a family member (which is exactly what Creon will do); E. M. Craik, “Sophocles’ Antigone 100–109,” Eranos 84 (1986) 101–105, in discussing the ambiguous mixing of army and leaders characteristic of this passage, translates phugada prodromon as the exile who returns in the forefront. See also Rohdich (note 17) 45.

50. The text contains several problems, but I have based my version on Lloyd-Jones/Wilson; see discussion in their Sophoclea, H. Lloyd-Jones, “Notes on Sophocles’ Antigone” CQ 7 (1957) 12–15, and M. F. Smith, “Textual Notes on Sophocles’ Antigone” CR 15 (1965) 5. In response, see A. McDevitt, “Sophocles, Antigone 108,” Hermes 117 (1989) 351–53, and A. Brown (note 17).

51. Amphilogon: “dubious” (Wycoff), “warring” (Fagles), “in angry dispute” (Watling). This word is neutralized by Müller, Commentary (note 17) on 110–16, to “Zwist in Auseinandersetzungen mit einem zweiten.”

52. The majority of Homeric passages present the eagle dominant over a small animal (in the Iliad, 8.247, a fawn; 15.690, little birds; 17.674 and 22.308, rabbits; 22.308, a lamb; in the Odyssey, 15.161 and 19.538–50, a goose; 20.242, a dove). But the image to which the chorus most directly refers is Il. 12.201 ff., where the snake caught by the eagle attacks its captor and flees; Polydamas immediately interprets this omen to mean that the besieging Greeks, though momentarily hard pressed, will be victorious. Such an interpretation would suit this chorus’ emphasis on the strength of the attacking army.

53. Compare the scene in Aeschylus’ Seven 375–677, where the poet’s design is based on equal weapons for the two sides.

54. This difference in tone between the lyrics and anapaests has been noted in a variety of ways; e.g., Coleman (note 17) 6: “The mood of joyful relief and thanksgiving for the deliverance of Thebes, addressed to the sun, Zeus, Ares, Nike, and Bacchus, is counterpointed by the darker tones of the three interposed anapaestic systemata, depicting the treachery of Polyneices, the punishment of hybris and the death of the two brothers in personal combat. . . . The metrical differentiation does polarize the antithesis between the family tragedy and the civic victory of which it formed part, between the hybris of treachery and the strict piety that underlines all the words of thanksgiving”; Burton (1980) 91–92 regards the strophes as following the anapaests, separate but related as maxim followed by example; Gardiner (1986) 9: “There seems to be a tendency in Sophocles for both actors and chorus to deliver facts in anapests rather than lyrics. . .”

55. The discrepancy is stressed when the chorus reports the good news first, an approach that emphasizes the discrepant item; Jebb, translating 144 as “save those two of cruel fate,” has found little support for this sense of stugeroin; the word denotes the very kind of death that raises profound problems in terms of family and state, the mutual slaying of brothers who are princes. Müller, Commentary (note 17) on 141–47 insists on a strong meaning like “hateful, abominable”; Kamerbeek on 141–43 combines “wretched” with the abhorrence felt at fratricide; Else (note 17) 40 translates “loathsome.”

56. The chorus wishes Dionysus to rule over Thebes here just as it does in a radically changed sense in the fourth stasimon. In both cases it seeks escape: here, escape from the troublesome features of the victory, especially the mutual slaying; there, from pollution.

57. Probably he enters from the central doors of the palace, an entrance that immediately invests him with the responsibilities and authority of kingship (Jebb); Kamerbeek argues that he enters through the parodos from the battlefield, but this requires a heavily nuanced reading of lines 8 and 33.

58. There is an unanswerable question posed by the series of anapaestic entrance stanzas in Ant. Generally it is assumed that the choregos alone speaks anapaestic recitative (e.g., Jebb on 100–61 is quite insistent that the choregos delivers each of the anapaestic Systems in the parodos); however in this ode it is important that this final stanza be seen ambiguously as part of the design of the full song as well as the start of the next scene. If the choregos sings only the final entrance stanza, then there will be a marker in the staging that this stanza is not the equivalent of the preceding anapaestic stanzas. My assumption is that Jebb is correct and that the choregos sings all the anapaestic stanzas in the parodos in a smoothly alternating arrangement with the rest of the chorus—further emphasizing the differences between lyric and anapaest. See Kraus (1957) 122.

59. Kamerbeek’s comment in his introduction to the parodos (p. 53) reveals the confusion Sophocles has created: “Parodos 100–62 (or 154, if we prefer to include 155–62 with the first epeisodion; from the standpoint of metrical structure this is not the case.)”

60. In the other plays of Sophocles there are no anapaestic passages in which the chorus introduces an entering character after its lyric. See the comment by S. G. Brown (note 39) 69: “the Antigone stands alone as a metrical experiment which, as far as can be determined from the contents of his other plays, Sophocles abandoned.” The preponderance of anapaestic stanzas in Antigone is evident in the chart printed by Brown on p. 47, where it is clear that all the plays of Sophocles together contain only 21 percent of the total anapaestic passages in all three tragedians; of the total anapaestic lines, only 15 percent. (OT 1297–1315 does not follow a lyric and is more than an introductory stanza in content.)

61. Since the audience has already seen Ismene in the prologue, there is no need for a formal introduction when she enters at 526–30; but these anapaestic passages have more the function of revealing the chorus’ observations and feelings about the entering character than of identifying each one. Similarly there is no need for the announcement of Antigone’s entrance at 376–83 or at 801–805.

62. In ignoring any possible concern for justice, these lines reveal an underestimation similar to their later assessment of Haemon’s motive as love-sickness (626–30). On the values inherent in this scene, which are directly related to the sister-loving quality of Ismene, see H. D. F. Kitto, Form and Meaning in Drama (2nd ed., London 1964) 158–61.

63. As a further reminiscence of the parodos, Antigone echoes the meters of the first strophic set in her first pair of stanzas; see discussion below.

64. This statement is not in serious disagreement with Kitto (note 62) 166: “The short fourth ode is, or should be, the beginning of a long musical movement which continues, with an intermission for Creon’s speech and Antigone’s (883–928), until the end of the fifth ode and the entrance of Teiresias. If Antigone’s lament is spoken and not sung, the play is perceptibly thrown out of balance: for the time being, we have finished with speech and argument, and move into a different region.”

65. For the relationship of these meters see Dale (1968) 131–41.

66. E.g., Aeschylus, Supp. 1018–73.

67. See Dale (1968) 136 and 216. There is a choriambic double-short element in this line that recalls the initial choriamb.

68. The focus in this ode is the human mind. There are two Greek theories of progress: (1) progress is due to the discovery of an individual, or (2) progress is due to a collective human response to challenges and needs. The marks of the second are the dependence on human wisdom (sophia) and the response of men to physical needs through successive stages. The Ode on Man contains several words for human wisdom (periphrades, sumphrazo, sophos, techne, and phroneo), and there is at least an implied response to need in the first two stanzas, which is clearly stated by lines 361–62. Thus this stasimon draws upon the early stages of a rationalistic theory of men’s progress, in all likelihood a theory increasingly popular in Athens (E. Havelock, The Liberal Temper in Greek Politics [New Haven 1957] 52–73, and D. J. Conacher, Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound: A Literary Commentary (Toronto 1980) 82–97). The various celebrations of men’s progress are well discussed by T. Cole, Democritus and the Sources of Greek Anthropology (APA Monograph no. 25, 1967); E. R. Dodds, The Ancient Concept of Progress and Other Essays on Greek Literature and Belief (Oxford 1973) 1–25. Mark Griffith, Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound (Cambridge 1983), on 11. 450–506, provides a useful list of sources; see also W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, III (Cambridge 1969) 60–84.

69. Many critics have commented on and analyzed the stages through which Sophocles’ humans pass in response to need (e.g., J. Pinsent, “Sophocles, Antigone 332–375,” LCM 8 [1983] 2–4), and there is also indication that they on their own initiative expand fields of endeavor and competence. The human begins his progress as a neuter (334) and only at 341 becomes masculine (Müller, Commentary [note 17] 90, wrongly takes touto as inner accusative with chorei; but see P. Friedländer, Hermes 69 [1934] 59); humans are called intelligent at 347 and begin to use their minds to control other devices and animals immediately thereafter. At 354 they first employ language to work together as a community and at 360 they expand their thoughts to confront the dominating powers of the gods. As the ode progresses, humans lose no previously gained competence—all is cumulative and thus all are present in the final antistrophe for the master accomplishment of maintaining the community.

70. The verbal echoes and balances (335/345, 354/365, 360/370) are a clear sign that this ode has been carefully constructed; see Burton (1980) 103: “The impression it gives is one of lucidity of thought matched by clarity of language.” Therefore the following statements with their inherent problems reflect the chorus’ precisely stated beliefs:

1. When the chorus states that the humans work to “wear down earth, the highest of gods, the indestructible, the inexhaustible,” the thought arises that they are attempting the impossible, possibly even the sacrilegious; see Else (note 17) 43 and A. Brown (note 17) on 337–42.

2. The birds they catch are described only as “light-witted” (kouphonoôn, 342; cf. Theognis 580, Aesch. PV 383, Ant. 617), thus at least suggesting questions of the necessity and worth of the achievement and the aim in dominating them (cf. Creon’s similar empty conception of domination at 473–79 vs. Haemon’s insistence on wise governance at 710–17). The same questions about control occur in the claim that humans subdue whole “races” of wild beasts and the “total nature-full of fish in the sea (ethnê, 344, and physin, 345). In all three cases the claim is grandiose, and there is no goal envisioned other than the achievement of superiority.

3. In the second strophe there are hints of unmanageable dark forces surrounding humans: they have learned the “angers” (orgas, 356) that regulate cities; LSJ lists “temperament, disposition, mood” as definitions and Jebb cites Ajax 640 (an intentionally ambiguous usage). There is, however, the other connotation of unreasoning passion (opposed to the colder intellectual tone of the ode), which is used by the chorus at Ant. 875. At the very least the phrase astynomous orgas has the quality of a potential oxymoron. The same suggested inherent hostility to human efforts is found in the word “weapons” (belê, 359) used of threatening weather. Perhaps even anemoen implies thought that is unproductive for the community; cf. 137 and 929–30.

4. At 356 the chorus shifts from words of domination and control, which have pervaded the first antistrophe (agei, speiraisi, kratei, mechanais, zugon); now they say that humans have taught themselves (edidaxato, 356) the passions and the assaults of the weather; in other words, the human escapes these forces but does not dominate them, since they remain a constant threat.

For further discussion of ambiguities in this ode see Goheen (note 17) 53–56; Müller “Überlegungen” (note 22) and Commentary (note 17) 83–89 (opposed by Havelock, Liberal Temper 66–70, and directly criticized in B. M. W. Knox’s review in Gnomon 40 [1968] 751–54, reprinted in Word and Action: Essays on the Ancient Theater [Baltimore 1979] 169–71); Linforth (note 17) 199: “The song of man’s triumph is, in effect, a long concessive clause”; G. Ronnet, “Sur le Premier Stasimon d’Antigone,” REG 80 (1967) 100–105; E. G. Schmidt, “Der Begriff des Klassischen in der Sophokles-Interpretation,” in Das Problem des Klassischen als historisches, archäologisches, und philologisches Problem (Berlin 1969) 63–66; Lesky (note 24) 85–91; C. Segal, “Sophocles’ Praise of Men and the Conflicts of the Antigone,” Arion 3 (1964) 46–66 (reprinted in Interpreting Greek Tragedy [Ithaca and London 1986] 137–61) and (1981) 152–70; P. Barié, “Vieles Gewaltige lebt . . . ,” AU 14 (1971) 5–40; Coleman (note 17) 9–10; Oudemans and Lardinois (note 20) 128–31; Pinsent (note 69); and G. R. Bonadeo, “Il Primo Stasimo dell’ Antigone,” Dioniso 53 (1982) 33–46.

71. P. Friedländer, “Polla ta deina,” Hermes 69 (1934) 56–63, and E. Schlesinger, “Deinotês,” Hermes 91 (1936) 59–66, define this choice as the element of deinotês in life; the whole ode presents Sophocles’ tragic conception of human life. The ode at Aeschylus Ch. 585–651 has been cited as a parallel, but the differences between the two odes are significant: first, Sophocles praises deinotes and then he lets the ambiguous qualities emerge—never is deinotes simply a source of evil; second, the danger in Sophocles’ ode is the autonomous intellect (which is simultaneously the potential cause of good); for Aeschylus, unrestrained human passion is the deinon.

72. Nomos chthonos normally refers to the civil law represented in this play by the edict of Creon, as is implied by 11.187, 354, and 382. Yet the suspicion remains that the phrase implies the full laws of the earth in which the dead should be buried; for discussion see U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Der Glaube de Hellenen I (Berlin 1931) 210–11; Victor Ehrenberg, Sophocles und Pericles (Oxford 1954) 61–66; T. F. Hoey, “Inversion in the Antigone, A Note,” Arion 9 (1970) 341–44; G. Bona, “Hypsipolis e Apolis nel Primo Stasimo dell’ Antigone” RFIC 99 (1971) 144 n.4; Benardete (1975; note 17) 191; Else (note 17) 44–45; Segal (1981) 170–72.

73. The chorus has claimed this role for its community in the parodos, where they envision Zeus punishing hybris, and Ares and Dionysus working easily with men (127–33, 138–40, and 155–61). For discussion of the varying views of Justice in this play see Segal (note 70) 47–48 and (1981) 168–70; M. S. Santirocco, “Justice in Sophocles’ Antigone,” Phil and Lit 4 (1980) 180–98; and Nussbaum (note 31) 54–58.

74. The problem of closely joining potential incompatibles is discussed by Goheen 54–55 and D. A. Hester, “‘Either . . . or’ vs. ‘both . . . and’: A Dramatic Device in Sophocles,” Antichthon 13 (1979) 12–18, esp. 14: “It is not just that the chorus’ application of its antithesis of the upright man and the sinner was wrong, but the antithesis itself.” The chorus will similarly link kopis/konis, madness, and Erinys at 602–603 and Eros with the Thesmoi at 798–99.

75. Müller, Commentary (note 17) 84–86, emphasizes the chorus’ unproductive usage of traditional categories.

76. In line 370 the opposition hypsipolis/apolis makes this criterion explicit. In view of this general basis for judgment, it is clear that this ode is not intended to refer consciously to any specific person, and the opposed words should be taken initially as “having a prosperous city” and “having no city at all” (Coleman [note 17] 9 n.1). As the play develops, an ironie meaning to these words will emerge; see M. Pohlenz, Diegriechische Tragödie (2nd ed., Gottingen 1954) 196–97; Ehrenberg (note 72) 64 n.1; Knox (1964) 185 n.47; Bona (note 72) 144 n.2; Segal (1981) 168.

77. The larger dimensions of the conflict are analyzed by Segal (note 70) and (1981) 152–55.

78. Antilogêsô is regarded by Jebb as future indicative, but, given the startled state of the chorus in this passage, it is probably better to regard it as deliberative subjunctive.

79. D. J. Mastronarde, Contact and Discontinuity (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1979) 94, identifies a likely bit of staging in this scene that reinforces the impression of conflict: “there is a natural pause after 375, during which visual contact is made, and 376–78 (or 376–380) may cover the time during which Antigone is led along the parodos into range of dialogue-contact. If this view is correct, both the guard’s readiness to answer and Antigone’s silence are important characterizing details.”

80. The enoplian has relationship to several basic meters, but is heard as a dactylic meter when following dactyls; see Dale (1968) 157–77 and West (1982) 195.

81. Capital letters used in formulae for scansion patterns indicate a large section of the same meter.

82. 376 is the only example in Ant. of an anapaestic entrance stanza beginning with asyndeton—probably a sign of the chorus’ surprise; cf. 155, 526, 626, 801, and 1257.

83. At least this much is clear in this complex and beautiful ode. The major problems in achieving a precise interpretation lie in: (1) the determination of the correct text, especially at 602 and 613–14; (2) the integration of the various elements of Zeus/god, ate, and the transgressor to produce an effective analysis of law-breaking and its consequences; and (3) the meaningful combination of imagery and religious forces. Good discussions of these problems are provided by Goheen (note 17) 56–64 and 142–43 nn.11 and 13; Lloyd-Jones (1957; note 50) 17–23 and The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London 1971) 113–15; N. B. Booth, “Sophocles’ Antigone 599–603: A Positive Argument for konis,” CQ (1959) 76–77; Linforth (note 17) 212–15; Else (note 17) 11–18 and 74–76; Oudemans and Lardinois (note 20) 132–39; Winnington-Ingram (1980) 164–72 and 211 with n.21; Easterling (note 17) 146–49; and A. Brown, ad loc. (note 17).

84. The chorus has alluded to this force earlier by referring to Antigone’s genetic inheritance from Oedipus at 471–72 (see also 1–6, 379–81, and 856–66), but nowhere does it state specifically the origin of the chain of ill-fortune. It can presume general knowledge of Laios’ disobedience of Apollo’s oracles as told in Aeschylus’ Seven, but Winnington-Ingram (1980) is right when he says: “Sept. 720–91 has so much the character of a resumé that one hesitates to assume any antecedent that is not stated or implied in the course of that ode. One must, I fear, confess ignorance” (166 n.43). Others have overextended the genetic argument: for example, Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus (note 83) 113–17; E. B. Bongie, “The Daughter of Oedipus,” Serta Tiryniana (Urbana 1974) 237–67; Else (note 17) 18, on the basis of evidence from Aeschylus’ Seven, argues an inheritance of madness running through generations of the family.

85. Scholars must work to find unity underlying the mixture of religious beliefs, psychological insights, and poetic metaphors in this ode; e.g., Else (note 17) 11–14 points out the special effects tying the first strophe and antistrophe together and concludes that “the storm in the strophe is a paradigm of what is presently happening to Antigone, as it has happened to other Labdacids before her”; Easterling (note 17) 155: “The notion developed in the second strophic pair, that the gods unfailingly punish transgression and use human nature as their medium of punishment, is closely related to the idea of the first, that trouble persists in families from one generation to the next, and to some extent provides an explanation for such troubles.”

86. For comments on the traditional Aeschylean qualities of this ode, see E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1963) 49: “It was above all Sophocles, the last great exponent of the archaic world-view, who expressed the full tragic significance of the old religious themes in their unsoftened, unmoralised forms—the overwhelming sense of human helplessness in face of the divine mystery, and of the ate that waits on all human achievement . . .”; and H. Diller, “Über das Selbstbewusstsein der sophokleischen Personen,” WS 69 (1956) 73–74.

87. I see the continuation of thought into the antistrophe to be as follows: the life of fullness always contains the potential for punishment; to some men such a life can be a benefit, but to others it is an unescapable trap. Lloyd-Jones (1957; note 50) 19–20 argues effectively for reading biotos pampolus at 613 f., which stresses the need for transgression or excess prior to punishment; I would add the refinement of ouden’ (earlier rejected by Lloyd-Jones but now accepted in the Lloyd-Jones/Wilson text and discussed in Sophoclea on lines 613–14). He then, however, replaces Bergk’s generally accepted oligiston chronon in 625 with oligos ton chronon, which depends on a meaning unusual for these words (see objections by Easterling [note 17] 154), and also stresses the danger of wealth and power over the relentless immediacy of just punishment. Yet such relentlessness is consonant with the sea storm of destruction in 582–92 and also allows even noble men—like this highly self-interested chorus—to enjoy the blessings of a harm-free life. Lloyd-Jones’ reading is rooted in a long series of commonplaces stating that wealth is dangerous; Winnington-Ingram (1980) 169–70 and nn.52, 53, and 55 lists a series of such passages. If pampolus means “wealth” purely and simply, then this last emendation is acceptable; but Easterling 151 notes that “it is not as though pampolus were one of the words normally associated with the topos of excessive wealth.” I read the ode as referring more to man’s choice/action and divine reaction, and thus see Bergk’s reading as a suitable conclusion. See Denniston-Page on Ag. 757–62.

88. In determining the relationship of this ode to the surrounding narrative and in assessing the worth of the old men’s theory, it is important to note that they do not expressly assign guilt in this ode; they only observe a series of misfortunes in the family (see note 84). Inherited guilt is well precedented in archaic Greek thought as a solution to the problem of unpunished sin or suffering innocence: Hesiod, Erga 270 ff.; Theognis 203–208, and 731–42; Solon 1.25–32; Pindar fr. 201 B; Herodotus 1.91 and 7.137.2; and Euripides, Hipp. 830–31. Dodds (note 86) 30–34 comments on the expediency of the doctrine of inherited guilt in justifying a moral religion, such as that of the chorus. Yet this chorus’ refusal to identify an original crime causes guilt to remain vague, undetermined, or unavailable as the driving force of the curse within the family.

89. The phrasing of 601–603 is troublesome because of the disputed reading of 602, the meaning of “phrenôn Erinys,” and the relationship between the three nouns in 602–603. The somewhat abstract nature of the Erinys in this passage is unusual but may be the creation of a chorus that is trying to combine the traditional agents of vengeance with its desire to condemn Antigone as a transgressor; R. Dawe (note 31) 108–109, however, points out the close link between Erinys, Atê, and blabê, which would fit well with the tenor of the ode. The most recent discussions are by Lloyd-Jones (1957; note 50) 17 ff., but cf. comments of T. Long, “te kai and kopis in Sophocles’ Antigone 602,” RhM 117 (1974) 213–14; Fraenkel on Ag. 1535; Linforth (note 17) 212–14; Booth (note 83) 76; Else (note 17) 18 and 74 ff.; Winnington-Ingram, “Sophoclea,” BICS 26 (1979) 7–8 and (1980) 166–68; and Easterling (note 17) 148–49.

90. The inclusion of the nerteroi as fellow workers with Zeus and the Erinyes is troubling; Easterling (note 17) 147–48 comments: “There is no reason why the gods of the Underworld as such should be causing the death of Antigone, the one person who has tried to ensure that they are given their due,” but she points out that the addition of the nerteroi in 602 may be another example of imprecise usage or wishful thinking by the chorus, which assumes that all gods who administer justice are on their side.

91. The chorus will momentarily glimpse such a possibility in its grudging admission at 872.

92. Creon is on stage. There is no exit line for him as he orders the two women to be led inside (577–81), and he is present at 631 to respond to the question of the chorus. His continuing visual presence during this song may suggest that he is more appropriately the transgressor which the ode condemns; see Kitto (note 62) 163–65 and Müller, Commentary (note 17) 112.

93. Oudemans and Lardinois (note 20) 133: if the first and second stasima are “taken together the second stasimon confirms the ominous undertones which we have detected in the first.” Also Else (note 17) 46–49 and Rohdich (note 17) 107–22.

94. The reconciliation between the two odes is most neatly accomplished by Müller, Commentary (note 17) 88: “Es ist nicht unwichtig, auch noch zu bemerken, dass die Überschreitung gottgesetzter Grenzen in diesem Liede (the first stasimon) als freie Tat des Menschen erscheint. Dagegen beurteilt derselbe Chor dieselbe Tat im zweiten Stasimon mit der Kategorie der Verblendung, die Auswirkung eines vererbten Unheils, nicht freigewählt ist. . . . Ein wirklich theologischer Unterschied liegt nicht vor, sondern nur ein dramaturgischer.” This difference in perspective is revealed clearly in words echoed between the two odes. In regard to the repeated word herpei, at 367 man is the subject who has the opportunity to move in either direction he chooses, but at 613 (also 585 and 618) he is the victim. At 367 kakon and esthlon are sharply distinguished; at 622 they become difficult to tell apart. Müller 138–39 further points out that elpis (615) is, in fact, not different from deinotês and is based on human inability to think things through, although this is not acknowledged by the chorus; see also J. C. Opstelten, Sophocles and Greek Pessimism, trans. J. A. Ross (Amsterdam 1952) 144–45 and Winnington-Ingram (1980) 171–73.

If the two stasima are not so coordinated, extreme characterizations of the chorus result; e.g., Benardete (1975; note 17) 166: “Each [topic of an individual ode] is in turn the whole truth; none is put within a horizon larger than itself While the Chorus are thus as extreme in each case as Antigone or Creon consistently is, their continual shift in perspective makes them far more moderate than either can be. . . . Adaptability, in which moderation to a large extent consists, has never perhaps been so brilliantly parodied”; or Burton (1980) 111–14, who feels that the two odes diverge sharply in content and mood.

95. The application of this ode to the play has aroused much dispute because there are at least two levels of consciousness evident in its composition. Following the trial scene it is immediately evident that the chorus is speaking of Antigone (594–603); and yet, using the same criteria it develops for defining the lawbreaker, it is speaking more appropriately of Creon (see, e.g., Müller, Commentary [note 17] 135–40, Burton [1980] 110–111, and Easterling [note 17] 157).

96. Denniston (note 46) 331 notes that this line provides the only example in tragedy where mên alone introduces a character, in place of the usual kai mên (cf. 526). He suggests that the implication is adversative, indicating a break from their former words. This suits the function of the anapaestic stanzas in this play and shows the chorus attempting to keep lyrics apart from anapaests.

97. This son is named Megareus at Aeschylus, Sept. 473–79, but Menoeceus at Euripides, Phoin. 841. There are possible allusions to his death at Ant. 993, 1058, and 1191.

98. West (1982) 132: “The division between dactylic and dactylo-epitrite is not absolute; all the cola that occur in the latter may be found in the former. But it is justified to treat D/e as a separate category1 . . .”

99. D. Korzeniewski (1961) 198–200 identified a corresponding structure of words and meters in the second strophic pair. Even with his pattern the ode lacks the unity and clarity of structure found in the parodos, the first stasimon, and the previous strophic pair; he has analyzed the structure of thought well in 604–25, but must strain to make the metrical pattern conform to his description of the content.

100. This scattering of former metrical unity occurs in spite of signs that the chorus is trying to unify its ode: Easterling (note 17) 141–42 points out the ring composition organizing the ode. One should also note: the closing refrain 614 = 625; the opening of the second antistrophe with gar (615), thus defining it as the explanation for the assertions in the preceding stanza; the verbal repetition of ouden herpei (613 and 618); and the repetition of the word ate as the theme (584, 614, 624, and 625). See also the careful imagistic organization outlined by Goheen (note 17) 57–64.

101. The assessment of the chorus’ beliefs in this ode is not to deny the poet’s use of the ode to develop valid principles that can and will be applied more properly to Creon.

102. See L. P. E. Parker, “Split Resolution in Greek Dramatic Lyric,” CQ 18 (1968) 242–43, and Sophoclea ad 797.

103. Indeed Haemon is deeply enough in love to break into the cave, weep for his dead bride, and commit suicide; but his arguments to his father show that love is not his only passion. For the strongest case against the presence of his love as a motive force, see K. von Fritz, Antike und Moderne Tragödie (Berlin 1962) 227–40 or Philol 89 (1934) 19–34; he is opposed by H. Lloyd-Jones in Gnomon 34 (1962) 739–40; Müller, Commentary (note 17) 171–76; Coleman (note 17) 15–16; Kamerbeek p. 21; Burton (1980) 112–13; Winnington-Ingram (1980) 92–94; and H. Erbse, “Haemon’s Liebe zu Antigone,” RhM 134 (1991) 253–61.

104. Winnington-Ingram (1980) 94–95 effectively points out the confused nature of a chorus that places sexual desire beside the great laws in 796. Knox, in his review of Müller (note 70), claims that paredros should be obelized.

105. The repetition of the word thesmôn (799 and 802) in differing senses has caused commentators discomfort; e.g., Kamerbeek on 801–805: “although in 799 tôn megalôn thesmôn refers to divine laws, the same word thesmoi is here used some-what vaguely referring to Creon’s decree in such a way that for practical purposes thesmôn amounts to the restrictions of the Chorus’ conduct imposed on them by the decree of the ruler”; or A. Brown (note 17) on 801: “It is undeniably awkward if the word is used in two such contrary senses so close together.” Yet this repetition is a direct illustration of the departure in anapaests from the stated beliefs, and even the definitions, employed in the lyrics.

106. Creon is not on stage either hearing this defense or forcing it upon an unwilling chorus. Most scholars (not Kitto [note 62] 146–47, 167–70, nor A. Brown [note 17] ad 760) assume that Creon is off stage for the third stasimon and kommos, entering only for his speech at 883. First, his speech closing the preceding scene at 773–80 can be read as motivating his exit. In other places he orders aides to do things for him, e.g., 578, 760, 885–87, 1108–10; here, however, since no one is ordered to prepare Antigone for her conveyance to the cave, Creon can be presumed to go into the palace to oversee this project himself. The comment at 760 is another plan that is dropped when Haemon abruptly exits. Creon does not need to enter much prior to 883 in order to see that the journey to the cave has been stalled by a dialogue between Antigone and the chorus. In addition, he does not refer to the words of the chorus 872–75; he refers only to Antigone’s lines. Thus I assume that he becomes visible somewhere between 876 and 880. In support, see Jebb; Kamerbeek; Müller, Commentary (note 17) 176, 193, and “Überlegungen” note 22) 416–17; for other timings of Creon’s entrance see Gardiner (1986) 91 n.15; W. J. Ziobro, “Where was Antigone,” Antigone, 766–883,” AJP 92 (1971) 81–85; Calder (note 32) 399 n.44; Kirkwood (1958) 95–96; and Winnington-Ingram (1980) 136 n.58.

107. See Sophocles frg. 941 Radt. For oldest mentions of Aphrodite’s power see Iliad 3.389–420 and 14.193–223, Od. 8.266–366, Hes. Theog. 194–206, and Hom. Hymn 5.1–44. For discussion see W. Burkert, Greek Religion, trans. J. Raffan (Cambridge, Mass., 1985) 152–56.

108. Ditmars (note 17) 90 cites the meter of this ode for its “lack of character in relation to the other odes.”

109. The explicit entrance of such a divine force into human affairs is most obvious in the Ajax, but it accords so well with Sophoclean treatment of character that even there Athena does not blunt the thrust of individual will. There are several similar impressionistic choral attempts to make seeming irrationality and violence intelligible by the supposition of divine action; see Ajax 172–81, Trach. 515–16 and 860–61, El. 1384–97. OC 1044–73 is more complex; see discussion of OC in Chapter 4.

110. There is no implication that Antigone is thereby cleared of all deficiencies; her decision may be correct but her rigid insistence on her rights is no guarantee of its correctness. See Nussbaum (note 31) 436 n.7.

111. The connection between marriage and death is developed as a theme in this play: 73, 524, 654, 804–805, 810–16, 832–33, 891, 1205, and 1240–41. For the “bride of death” theme in Greek culture see J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge 1910) 553–61; Goheen (note 17) 37–41, 137 n.5; R. Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Illini Books 1962) 192 par. 50 and 193 f.; B. H. Fowler, “Thought and Underthought in Three Sophoclean Plays,” Eranos 179 (1981) 9–16; J. Redfield, “Notes on the Greek Wedding,” Arethusa 15 (1982) 188–91; R. Garland, The Greek Way of Death (Ithaca 1985) 72–74; A. Brown (note 17) on 804; R. Seaford, “The Tragic Wedding,” JHS 107 (1987) 107–108 and “The Imprisonment of Women in Greek Tragedy,” JHS 110 (1990) 76–79.

112. Most critics read oukoûn (817) as a mark of a positive statement; Denniston (note 46) 436, Kamerbeek, A. Brown (note 17), and Lloyd-Jones/Wilson, Sophoclea ad loc.; make it a negative question, thus still showing tact. Knox (1964) 176–77 n.8 reads oukoun as a mark of a negative statement, thus more hostile in tone (see the objection by Winnington-Ingram [1980] 139 n.63 with Knox’s revision in his review in CR 32 [1982] 12).

113. For discussions of the complex interactions between Antigone and the chorus in this kommos see Goheen (note 17) 37–38, 73–74; Knox (1964) 66–67 and n.8 (criticized by A. D. Fitton Brown in CR 16 [1966] 287); Else (note 17) 58–64, 76–78; Winnington-Ingram (1980) 138–44; Rohdich (note 17) 144–86; Nussbaum (note 31) 66–67; Gardiner (1986) 91–92; Blundell (1989) 147–48.

114. Throughout this discussion I am following closely the analysis of McDevitt 1982 (note 30) 134–44.

115. For the contemporary meaning of autonomos see M. Ostwald, Autonomia: Its Genesis and Early History, ACS 11 (1982) 10–11; for exploration of its significance in this context see S. F. Wiltshire, “Antigone’s Disobedience,” Arethusa 9 (1976) 29–35. Probably more is implied here than Jebb’s “of your own free will” (on 821 f.); Müller, Commentary (note 17) 185 hears authades behind the phrasing of the chorus’ comment.

116. This is a figure that might be a Sophoclean favorite; see Electra 150f.; Sophocles Niobe Frgs. 442–45 (see W. S. Barrett in R. Carden, ed., The Papyrus Fragments of Sophocles [Berlin and N.Y. 1974]). For a discussion of the device of citing a mythological comparison see Linforth (note 17) 232–33; Else (note 17) 60–61; and Malcolm Davies, “Sophocles’ Antigone 823 ff. as a Specimen of ‘Mythological Hyperbole’,” Hermes 113 (1985) 247–49.

117. There is obvious choral exaggeration here (see Kamerbeek and A. Brown [note 17] on 834 and 839–52), which partially motivates Antigone’s response at 839: “io gelomai.”

118. Sophocles, Electra 121–250, offers a comparison. Both choruses charge Electra and Antigone with pursuing impossible goals even though they sympathize with these goals; they feel that both heroines are destroying themselves; and they feel that Zeus’ justice is an overriding force that should dominate both plots. Against them both Electra and Antigone are driven by the service each feels is due to a slain family member. Both find Niobe useful as a model: Electra accepts her perpetual weeping as godlike while Antigone focuses on her cold death. With little change the speeches of each heroine could easily be adapted to the other: “If he [read ‘Polyneices’] that is dead is earth and nothing, poorly lying . . . then shall all shame be dead and all men’s piety” and “Unwept, no wedding-song, un-friended, now I go [to the entombment planned by ‘Aegisthus’]. No longer shall I see this holy light of the sun. No friend to bewail my fate” (El. 245–50 and Ant. 876–82). Yet there is an air of courteous receptivity in the words of Electra, who confronts women who have come to give her advice and who seem to be her sole support in the city; Antigone faces men who are philosophically opposed to her actions and attitudes. This difference is revealed in the form and meters of each scene. In Electra the heroine shares the lyrics with the chorus and finally must cut off the chorus by dominating within the strophic form. In Antigone the chorus sings in opposed meters and forms, and Creon must end the song because the exchange is not developing. On the similarity between Antigone and Electra see Kirkwood (1958) 139–40.

119. Such addresses are discussed by W. Schadewaldt, Monolog und Selbstgespräch (Berlin 1926) esp. chap. 2 in which he asserts that for Sophocles a hero’s invocation of a variety of natural forces and objects makes public the power of that character’s ethos.

120. “Collide” seems to me the only reading that suits the developing unsympathetic attitude of the chorus; in support see: Jebb; Linforth (note 17) 223 n.32; Knox (1964) 178 n.12; H. Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus (note 83) 115; McDevitt, (note 30) 134–44; Müller, Commentary (note 17) 190–91; Kamerbeek; Burton (1980) 120–23; Winnington-Ingram (1980) 141 n.68; Blundell (1989) 146 n.158. In opposition, thus favoring an act of suppliancy showing approval or at least acceptance by the Theban elders of her just act, see: Goheen (note 17) 73–74; A. Lesky, “Zwei Sophokles Interpretationen” Hermes 80 (1952) 92–95 and Die tragische Dichtung der Hellenen (3rd ed., Gottingen 1972) 115 n.3; Else (note 17) 62 and 77–78; H. Petersman, “Die Haltung des Chores in der Sophokleischen Antigone,” WS 16 (1982) 59–63; and D. Pozzi, “The Metaphor of Sacrifice in Sophocles’ Antigone 853–56,” Hermes 117 (1989) 500–505. The interpretation based on self-sacrifice does not deal with the consistent attitude of the chorus in this scene nor the reception of its words by Antigone.

121. This is well analyzed by L. Bieler, Antigones Schuld im Urteil der neueren Sophoklesforschung (Wien 1937) 13–15, even though he equates the earlier prosepeses (855) with “supplicating,” thus judging Antigone to go beyond Creon to the highest authority of Justice. When he then translates parabaton to mean “not able to be passed by,” he finds her temperament, inherited from Oedipus, to be the cause of her death.

122. See note 70; also Rohdich (note 17) 65–66.

123. Precise verbal connections are listed by Kamerbeek p. 156.

124. For earlier parallels see W. C. Scott “Non-Strophic Elements in the Oresteia,” TAPhA 112 (1982) 179–96.

125. Schadewaldt (note 119) 68–69.

126. In ripai anemon the chorus repeats a phrase from the parodos where they described Capaneus as the typical case of hybris (137).

127. Muller, Commentary (note 17) 195–96 points out that the scene between Creon and Antigone is not a dialogue; Creon speaks only to the chorus, and Antigone uses only the third person in talking about those on stage.

128. Müller, Commentary (note 17) on 930 again seeks corresponsion in the anapaestic exchange between the chorus and Creon by the excision of autai psychês at 929–30 (originally omitted by Dindorf), which requires him to assign 933–34 to chorus. Yet he offers no compelling reasons. Jebb and Pearson find the repeated autôn/hautai acceptable and are able to assign the parts on other grounds without the excision. The manuscripts assign 933–34 to Antigone; Lehrs gave them to the chorus and has been followed by Pearson and Müller, Commentary. But counterarguments are available to award the lines to Antigone: Kamerbeek p. 163; B. M. W. Knox, Gnomon (note 70) 760; and Burton (1980) 126.

129. Kamerbeek on 929–42: “The anapaests are suggestive of the inner as well as the outer finality of the scene’s conclusion.”

130. It is almost inevitable that Antigone’s exit be down the parodos to the cave, and probably it should be slow. Schadewaldt has her exit during the stasimon in his translation and this is very effective. Why Jebb (on 944–87) feels that Antigone cannot be present when apostrophized at 949 is unclear. Creon stays on stage during the whole ode, which is sung to bolster his action by mythological examples. Thus the audience hears the chorus’ attempted justification against the tableau of Creon apparently victorious and Antigone constrained; Kitto (note 62) 172–73 describes the dramatic effect of this staging well, but see the objections by Seale (note 42) 101.

131. What about Ismene? Kamerbeek feels that there is deep corruption here, but possibly this is another sign of the overstatements to which Antigone is driven in these final moments; see Jebb ad 942.

132. G. Wolff resorts to the expedient of adding a line at 837b in order to make the anapaests come closer to strophic corresponsion; Müller Commentary (note 17), Dawe (note 13), and A. Brown (note 17) also indicate a lacuna. However, if the chorus’ ability at music-making is disintegrating, then its failure to create corresponsion in a strophic setting, and in a metrical pattern in which approximate corresponsion was relatively easy for it to obtain (cf. the anapaestic stanzas in the parodos), would complement its decreased understanding of the events of the play.

133. Ditmars (note 17) 118–20 extends the similarities but on the basis of colometry different from the Lloyd-Jones/Wilson text.

134. See Lloyd-Jones 1957 (note 50) 23–24.

135. For a different colometry tied closely to the subject of the stanzas see Korzeniewski (1961).

136. This applies especially to Eurydice, who is introduced at 1180 in iambics. She brings no new information, but her death will be the device for bringing the weight of Megareus’ death to bear on Creon as he realizes that he has caused his family’s annihilation.

137. Burton (1980) 127–32, Winnington-Ingram (1980) 98–109, and C. Sourvinou-Inwood, “The Fourth Stasimon of Sophocles’ Antigone,” BICS 36 (1989) 141–65 (with bibliography) are the best recent discussions. To the bibliography provided by Friis-Johansen and Sourvinou-Inwood I would add: Kirkwood (1954) 18–19; Linforth (note 17) 231–33; Coleman (note 17) 20–22; C. Segal, “The House and the Cave,” RCCM 20 (1978) 1171–88; and Nussbaum (note 31) 75–79.

138. This is the only ode in Sophoclean drama to consist wholly of myths.

139. Eurydice is announced at 1180 but in iambic trimeters. Teiresias and the messenger are the sole examples of an unannounced new character in Ant. (with the obvious exceptions of Antigone and Ismene in the prologue). There is an element of surprise in both entrances since the chorus is looking in the direction of Antigone’s exit to the country while the seer enters from the city and the messenger is unexpected.

140. See Sophoclea ad 1124.

141. Reading pneiontôn (Brunck) against Lloyd-Jones/Wilson for corresponsion.

142. The hopes arising from the Eleusinian references in this ode are stressed by A. Henrichs, “Between Country and City: Cultic Dimensions of Dionysus in Athens and Attica,” in M. Griffith and D. J. Mastronarde, eds., Cabinet of the Muses (Atlanta 1990) 257–77.

143. This turn away from confidence in the ability of humans to manage their own lives well is marked by the nighttime setting of this ode as opposed to the sunlight shining on the day of victory in the chorus’ first words in the play; see the structural study of themes by V. J. Rosivach, “The Two Worlds of the Antigone,” ICS 4 (1979) 25, and Segal (1981) 199–200.

144. But there are unconscious overtones that are well discussed by Coleman (note 17) 24; Winnington-Ingram (1980) 110–16; Segal (1981) 200–202; and A. Bierl, “Was hat die Tragodie mit Dionysos zu tun? Rolle und Funktion des Dionysos am Beispiel der ‘Antigone’ des Sophokles,” WJA 15 (1989) 43–58.

145. The chorus has already used baccheuo as a negative word to describe Capaneus (136). There is thus a side of Dionysus that they have not been willing to accept. In fact, the god may show his power in the actions that are being enacted in the play, especially off stage as they speak; cf. discussion of 510–48, 1044–95, and 1556–78 in the OC (see Chapter 4) in which the actions off stage are not only reflected but brought to full validity through the song of the chorus. Mùller, Commentary (note 17) 244–49, Winnington-Ingram (1980) 115–16, and C. Segal (note 137) and (1981) 200–206 discuss the ironic fulfillment of their prayer.

146. Jebb specifies that Haemon’s body is borne on stage by attendants; he is quite reasonably opposed by Kamerbeek on 1258. The fullness, economy, and clarity of Sophoclean visual signs is well discussed by C. Segal, “Visual Symbolism and Visual Effects in Sophocles,” CW 74 (1980/81) 124–42, reprinted in Interpreting Greek Tragedy (Ithaca and London 1986) 113–36. See also Müller, Commentary (note 17) 264–66.

147. Jebb prints 1261–69 as a strophe separate from 1271–76; with their corresponding stanzas, the form of 1261–1300 is a b a b, thus an interlocked set parallel to 1306–46. But the interjection of one choral line (1270/1293) should not disrupt the audience’s awareness of continuing strophic structure as opposed to the dialogue of five lines inserted at 1312–16 (and balanced at 1334–38). For parallels to an interjected spoken line within a strophic unit see OT 655 = 684 and Ajax 879–960. Pearson is thus correct to print 1261–76 = 1284–1300 as the first strophic pair. The effect of this unusual form on the audience should determine such labels.

I feel that Pearson’s (1955), Pohlsander’s (1964), and Dawe’s (note 13) arrangement of two interlocked strophic pairs at 1306–46 is clearer in terms of representing the stage effect than Lloyd-Jones/Wilson’s single strophic pair.

148. Dale (1968) 110–11.

149. See the discussion of hyperforms, Chapter 4.

150. For a discussion of ending lines with a summary of previous opinion see D. H. Roberts, “Parting Words: Final Lines in Sophocles and Euripides,” CQ 37 (1987) 51–64. These lines, as so many other elements of Antigone, have often been treated as free-standing lines that lead an existence independent of the speaker and the moment in the play; see Goheen (note 17) 84 and 94–95; also Kamerbeek ad 1348–53: “a striking summing up of Creon’s fate and its meaning in relation to religion and human thought.”

151. While the view to the future is not so directly stated, there is a growing body of commentary that sees the discouragement lying beneath these superficially cheery lines: C. H. Whitman, Sophocles, A Study of Heroic Humanism (Cambridge, Mass., 1951) 91: “The chorus . . . ordinarily chooses safety. . . . Theirs is . . . a moral receptivity without moral will”; Coleman (note 17) 26–27 echoes this statement: “With the final stanza of that first stasimon in mind, reinforced by the burden of the succeeding odes, we cannot but find the closing eulogy of to phronein hollow and meaningless”; Benardete (1975; note 17) 166: “The last words of the play, that moderation is the major component in happiness, are as true as they are empty in the mouth of the Chorus”; and S. Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1986) 175–80.

152. K. Reinhardt in his 1956 radio interview, which is printed as the introduction to his translation of Antigone in the 3rd ed. (1961), notes that Creon’s extreme positions are based on rigid definitions of categories: friend vs. foe, good vs. bad, sickness vs. health. The chorus, in supporting the king in its early odes, makes similar extreme statements. It might be expected that this chorus would adjust its rhetoric to fit reality as it develops within the play. Its service of these extremes, however, continues unabated even in the very last lines of the play, where it still insists on the undiminished ability of the human mind to find correct action.

153. The following books will be referred to by the author’s last name in this section: I. M. Linforth, “Three Scenes in Sophocles’ Ajax,” UCPCP 15.1 (1954) 1–28; W. B. Stanford, Sophocles’ Ajax (London 1963); J. P. Poe, Genre and Meaning in Sophocles’ Ajax (Frankfurt am Main 1987); and M. Heath, The Poetics of Greek Tragedy (Stanford 1987), esp. chap. 5.

154. A radical change of scene is rare in Greek tragedy. There are changes like that at Aeschylus, Ch. 652, which seem to be virtually unnoticed by the playwright; but the only radical change of scene earlier than Ajax occurs at Eum. 235. The late position of the scene change in Ajax, however, has led critics to regard the remainder of the play as a second, largely independent action (T. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Die dramatische Technik des Sophokles [Berlin 1917] 65–68, and T. B. L. Webster, An Introduction to Sophocles [Oxford 1936] 102–103). Yet it is significant that the scene changes in Eum. and Ajax are both marked by a second parodos, the addition of new characters, and a meaningful new tone to events (see note 199). See O. Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977) 384–87; Heath 195–97 and 204–208.

155. For the most exhaustive list of Homeric phrasing and influence on this play see the references in Stanford’s index sv. “Homeric epithets, phrases, parallels and influences”; see also Burton (1980) 12 and S. Goldhill (note 151) 155–61.

156. For the pre-Homeric tradition concerning Ajax see W. Kullmann, Die Quellen der Ilas (Wiesbaden 1960) 79–85; Stanford (note 153) xii-xxiv; and P. Holt, “Ajax’s Burial in Early Greek Epic,” AJP 113 (1992) 319–31.

157. But see the statements of the differences between the Sophoclean Ajax and the Homeric hero by G. M. Kirkwood, “Homer and Sophocles’ Ajax“ 51–70, in M. J. Anderson, ed., Classical Drama and Its Influence (New York and London 1956); Winnington-Ingram (1980) 17–19; P. E. Easterling, “The Tragic Homer,” BICS 31 (1984) 1–8; F. Jouan, “Ajax, d’Homère à Sophocle,” IL 39 (1987) 67–73; and Poe (note 153) 35–36 and 45–49.

158. G. Gellie, Sophocles: A Reading (Melbourne 1972) 20–21 tried to mitigate this view of the play by noting that the murders of the Greek generals were never carried out, that the word hybris is applied to Ajax’s enemies more than to Ajax, and that Ajax attracts general admiration. Other critics are harsher: Gardiner (1986) 74–78 stresses the “old Homeric” norms that are violated by Ajax as the theme of her list of his unadmirable qualities. See also Linforth (note 153) 26; Whitman (note 151) 73–78; Stanford (note 153) xxiv-xliii; V. J. Rosivach, “Sophocles’ Ajax,” CJ 72 (1976–77) 47–61.

159. As one sign of the constant shifts and changes that characterize this play Gardiner (1986) 73 and n.38 counts twenty-six entrances and exits in Ajax, “more than in any other Sophoclean or Aeschylean play.”

160. Disappointed expectations have been noted randomly by commentators, but only Poe (note 153) comments on their repeated appearance. He argues plausibly that even the prologue is a parody of tragedy because of its exaggeration of the bloodiness of the attack and the minimizing of causes; this comment is valuable in identifying a strange tone to the prologue caused by the dominating presence of Athena and the resulting banter and exaggerated statements by Ajax. But this is a tool that must be used with care; I feel that Poe goes too far in finding similar parody of the Hector-Andromache scene in the first episode.

161. Gardiner (1986) 72–73 characterizes them well: “Sophocles has made them a group of direct, uncomplicated soldiers, men of deeds more than of words. . . . The general lines of the chorus’ character are underscored by the consistent simplicity and directness of their language. Their lyrics tend to be brief, with a simple progressive structure and a noticeably plain style”; Burton (1980) 6–7 agrees: “they have little insight into his motives, and to a large extent they find him incomprehensible, a burden to be borne rather than understood. . . . We shall accordingly find no help from the chorus in understanding the moral issues raised by the play.” See also Errandonea (1958a) 38 and (1970) 41–42.

162. Gardiner (1986) 52: “They function as a second actor until Ajax’s appearance, and as a very much involved third actor when he is present.” Yet once Ajax is dead they recede almost completely from the play and can only express their desire to be elsewhere (1185–1221).

163. S. M. Adams, “The Ajax of Sophocles,” Phoenix 9 (1955) 93–110, discusses how the words of the chorus provide different elements of background that deepen an audience’s understanding of Ajax; and J. F. Davidson, “The Parodos of Sophocles’ Ajax”, BICS 22 (1975) 163–77, further demonstrates the humanity and common values brought into the play by the soldiers.

164. W. Nestle, Die Struktur des Eingangs in der Attischen Tragodie (Stuttgart 1930) 52–58.

165. Note the chorus’ use of megas five times in 154–71.

166. Gardiner (1986) 57 n.16 deals well with the minor inconsistency surrounding the chorus’ awareness of Odysseus’ report to the Greeks and its ignorance of Ajax’s intent.

167. This is only the first of several unexpected entrances in this play, the most famous of which is Ajax’s entrance for the “deception” speech; cf. the unexpected appearance of the messenger at 719, Ajax at 815, and Teucer at 1223.

168. For earlier appearances of this structure see my “Non-Strophic Elements” (note 124).

169. S. G. Brown (note 39) 63, identifies the mixture of lyric and anapaest as lament for the virtually dead Ajax. Such a tone enriches this introductory scene but is unconsciously employed, since Tecmessa seems to be in the process of attempting to reassure the soldiers.

170. Note the corresponding position of these two ideas in their stanzas (229–32 = 253–56).

171. Tecmessa’s language on her entrance and throughout the play offers evidence of her solid, thoughtful character; 200–201, a formal address to the soldiers; 203 and 216, usage of a comprehensive “we” vs. the chorus’ personalized “I” at 229 and 252; she makes no threat to escape or flee vs. 245–50; she shows an understanding of others, e.g., 260–62 vs. the more self-directed comments of the chorus. Further, her use of a simile at 257–58 indicates the control she maintains over her words; for the interpretation of these lines see Sophoclea ad 257.

172. Tecmessa should be understood to have a fuller role than is usually recognized. It is striking that there are no studies of her character and position in the play and only a few penetrating comments about her. I am arguing that she plays an important role in rallying such strength as is possible around Ajax at a moment of weakness in each of the two parts of the play. When major characters (Ajax, Teucer, Menelaus, or Agamemnon) are on stage, she is appropriately pushed into the background—probably because of her social position. But when she is on stage alone with the soldiers (201–330 and 891–960), she tries to lead them to see matters in a broader context and at least restrains them from fleeing. The real proof of her forcefulness is her bold speech at 485, in which she tries to persuade Ajax to live; she receives a modicum of approval in Ajax’s response at 527–28, but her persuasiveness is powerfully felt at 650–52. See Kirkwood (1958) 103–107; Kitto (note 62) 186–87; R. M. Torrance, “Sophocles: Some Bearings,” HSCPh 69 (1965) 276–78; and K. Synodinou, “Tecmessa in the Ajax of Sophocles,” A&A 32 (1987) 99–107.

173. Lines 265–81 are the triumphant conclusion of the lyric and the mark of Tecmessa’s victory. Heath (note 153) 126 shows an awareness of this kind of shift in verbal texture: “the reprise does not advance the thought or plot, so much as cover the same ground in a different register, the iambics generally being of a calmer, more reflective character than the lyrics.”

174. This chorus enters as Greek spectators would think a traditional chorus should. Such anapaestic entrances are found in Aeschylus’ Pers., Supp., and Ag.; nowhere else in Sophoclean drama do we have a parodos composed of an anapaestic entrance stanza followed by lyric. Few critics comment directly on the intention of this seemingly unique form; Burton (1980) 8–10 finds it a natural marching song for a group of military men. Heath (note 153) 175 feels that the anapaests add necessary exposition needed after the prologue; this may be, but I feel that there is also strong coding through the form.

175. S. G. Brown (note 39) 55–57 identifies preparodos anapaests as a possible prayer form and finds traditional elements of a prayer in the chorus’ words; thus meter provides an ironic overtone: “Metrical means reinforce the plot, so that Ajax’s mythical equipment, his almost superhuman dimensions as a hero, is painfully juxtaposed to his debasement through the form of the chorus’ address.”

176. Poe (note 153) 71: at 412–27 Ajax “begins to establish a certain distance between himself and the embarrassment of his immediate circumstances. Although he does not make us forget the bloody tent whose doorway stands open, his cry to nature implies that he no longer belongs to the world of men.”

177. I think that Gardiner (1986) 61 n.22 is correct in finding an argument for the use of eccyclema in the drastic change of judgment by the chorus between 344 and 353; see also Taplin (note 154) 442–43.

178. There is an interesting prelude to this scene in the offstage cries of Ajax before his exposure/entrance at 346. At 333 and 336 his cries arise from his generally desperate situation and are so interpreted by the chorus. Then at 339 he calls for his son, followed by an iambic summoning of Teucer. The chorus concludes in 344 that he is sane, but rapidly reverses this judgment when once it has seen him and has been asked to kill him. In fact, the early cries show that, once Ajax grasps his situation, he moves rapidly to understand it. The chorus, however, cannot appreciate his quickness and rationality in dealing with his future; it will make a similar misjudgment after the “deception” speech.

179. Their first lines after seeing Ajax are addressed to Tecmessa (354–55) even though Ajax has addressed them in the preceeding stanza.

180. The pervasive quality of the heroic code is revealed in many characters’ concerns about being shamed; note especially the repeated appearances of gelos: 79, 367, 382–83, 957–58, 961, 969, ion, and 1043.

181. At 368 = 383 and 371 = 386 Tecmessa’s lines in the strophe are taken over by the chorus in the antistrophe. She has been told to leave at 369; thus it is appropriate that she speak a pained prayer in 371. When her corresponding lines at 383 and 386 are given to the chorus, she is emphatically silenced, although she has not left the stage and will gather herself to speak at 392–93; see A. S. McDevitt, “Antilabe in Sophoclean Kommoi,” RhM 124 (1981) 22–23. The avoidance of corresponding roles in a strophic structure is a powerful device that may have been invented by Sophocles in order to emphasize the omission of a person from the scene; the clearest example is at El. 1398–1441, where the lines assigned to Clytemnestra are taken over by her killer at 1435–36 (see discussion in Chapter 3).

182. The antithesis in 428–29 shows the utter helplessness to which the chorus has been reduced; see Stanford’s (note 153) note.

183. There may be a tone of projected death in prokeimai as his last word at 427; cf. 1059 and Ant. 1101.

184. This direction to the second episode is well developed by Linforth (note 153) 10–20 and M. Simpson, “Sophocles’ Ajax: His Madness and Transformation,” Arethusa 2 (1969) 88–103.

185. See the comments of Gardiner (1986) 70 n.35 on the “brusque” imperatives and prohibitions at 362–63, 371, 386, 483–84, which suit the characterization of the chorus; 371, however, should probably be assigned to Tecmessa (see note 181).

186. For discussion of the colometry see Parker (note 102) 242–43.

187. This stage direction is much debated; I do not believe that Tecmessa goes into the tent with Ajax. This staging is supported by Gellie (note 158) 281 n.9; M. Sicherl, “The Tragic Issue in Sophocles’ Ajax,” YCS 25 (1977) 91 n.101; Winnington-Ingram (1980) 32 n.65; and Gardiner (1986) 63 n.26.

The case for her exit into the tent is presented by the scholiast at 646; T. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (note 154) 55–63; K. von Fritz, “Zur Interpretation des Aias,” RhM 83 (1934) 120; E. Fraenkel, “Zwei Aias-Scenen hinter der Bühne,” MH 24 (1967) 113; Kamerbeek pp. 133–34 and ad 593; Jebb and Stanford (note 153) ad 595 support Ajax’s solitary brooding in having Tecmessa exit into the women’s quarters; Heath (note 153) 183–84 and n.38 suggests that she collapses.

188. The most penetrating discussion of the first stasimon is by Winnington-Ingram (1980) 32–38 in which he sees the chorus indulging in a lyric analysis structuring the life of Ajax around two themes, disease and time; but he makes no distinction between the mentality of the chorus and that of the hero. In general he seems to feel that the chorus—which he admits in other sections of his chapter is naive and simplistic—always speaks the truth in describing intimate details of the life of Ajax. Burton (1980) 23–26 similarly notes the dark mood created by the chorus because it comments on the general direction of the earlier scene rather than focusing on the immediate context. See also Kamerbeek 127, Stanford (note 153) 596 ff., Gardiner (1986) 65–66 and n.28, and Heath (note 153) 185 n.30.

189. Errandonea (1958a) 21–40, feels that Ajax comes to a more strategic understanding in refusing to continue to seek the death of the Atreidai; however, in this reading he makes Ajax too rational and decisive in the kommos (348–429); the movement from the despair of 348–53 and 356–61 to the resignation of 412–27 represents an incipient understanding that is then solidified within the tent. Errandonea puts too much weight on 387–92 as a statement of intent; it is a question phrased only as a potential sentence. Deliberation among many alternatives occurs in the kommos; final decision is announced in the “deception” speech.

190. The bibliography on this topic is vast; Friis Johansen reviews opinions between 1939 and 1959 in Lustrum 7 (1962) 177–78. See the discussion of the interpretations of this speech by D. A. Hester, “The Heroic Distemper,” Prometheus 5 (1979) 217, n.9, and Segal (1981) 432 n.9; add F. Ferrari, “La Composizione del Terzo Monologo di Aiace,” Maia 33 (1981) 199–205; Winnington-Ingram (1980) 46–56; P. T. Stevens, “Ajax in the Trugrede,” CQ 36 (1986) 327–36.

191. The chorus reveals its understanding by echoing the words of Ajax’s previous speech, but such echoes only build up the approaching disappointment (see Gardiner [1986] 67 n.31).

192. The chorus also sings a fully formed ode at 1185–1222 (the third stasimon) but this ode occurs in the more formal debate format of the second part of the play when Ajax is dead, and the chorus identifies no broader issue to be interrupted—it only wants to escape from Troy.

193. Several critics identify significant marks of a new beginning for the second part of the play: Kamerbeek p. 178 argues that this scene consciously reverses the initial scene in regard to the audience’s knowledge; O. Taplin, Greek Tragedy in Action (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1978) 148, feels that there is not only a second parodos but that Ajax’s speech at 815–65 is almost a second prologue; Heath, on the other hand (note 153) 195–98, stresses the strong coherence that ties the play into a unity.

194. See Sophoclea for a list of those who have tried to find a strophic structure in 866–78.

195. This symmetry is so great that some critics have even insisted that 961–73 must be trimmed to equal 915–24 (see Jebb’s Appendix pp. 233–34, Dawe [note 32] 158–61, and Heath [note 153] 198 n.68). Yet, while the grammar of 966 is puzzling, there is no incoherence in Tecmessa’s speech; see Jebb on 966–73 and Stanford (note 153) on 966–67 for discussion of the train of her thought.

196. T. G. Rosenmeyer, “Ajax: Tragedy and Time,” in The Masks of Tragedy (Austin, Texas, 1963) 153–98: “Before the death of Ajax the quality of the drama is largely musical. . . . The dominant characteristic of the second half is speech . . . rather than the music of madness, or the music of reflection, or of mourning or of hate. . . . The rhetoric of the soul gives way to the rhetoric of the form” (190). Indeed, many critics find a major role for Odysseus in the theme and structure of the play; because he is not involved in any of the musical scenes, he is largely invisible in my discussion.

197. The meaning is problematic. I read here hei, the relative pronoun, with Schneidewin; A. C. Pearson, “Sophocles, Ajax, 961–973,” CQ 16 (1922) 124–28 (also defended in CQ 13 [1919] 122–23), and Lloyd-Jones/Wilson vs. Jebb, Kamerbeek, and Stanford (note 153). For doubts on the inclusion of 969 see Sophoclea ad loc.

198. Pearson (note 197) devotes much of his article to discussing the grammar of this line; see esp. 126–27.

199. This scene is similar in so many ways to the second entrance of the Furies for their epiparodos at Eum. 244–53 that there must be conscious imitation: both choruses enter with iambic trimeter lines; the whole chorus does not enter as a unit in either place; it seems unstructured in its blocking and probably comes on stage rapidly, several members at a time, who seem to scatter around the orchestra seeking someone and moving freely, since there is no antistrophe that would require repeated movements; the speeches are not spoken by the full chorus, which sings unstrophic music and then must organize itself around the victim. On the scene in the Eum. see Scott (1984) 112–18, “Non-Strophic Elements” (note 124), and “The Splitting of Choral Lyric in Aeschylus’ Oresteia,” AJP 105 (1984) 150–65.

200. For discussion of text problems and scansion see Sophoclea on 1190.

201. F. G. Welcker, “Über den Aias des Sophokles,” RhM 3 (1829) 248–52; P. Burian, “Supplication and Hero Cults in Sophocles’ Ajax,” GRBS 13 (1972) 151–56 (criticized by Winnington-Ingram [1980] 58 n.2) and Segal (1981) 143.

202. The nature of this process has been disputed. Sicherl (note 187) stresses “rehabilitation” and “consecration”; for criticism of this characterization see H. D. F. Kitto, “The Rhesis and Related Matters,” YCS 25 (1977) 322, and Winnington-Ingram (1980) chap. 2.

203. Note the emphasis on the word terpsis, which falls in the same position at 1204 = 1215.

204. Dawe (note 32) 173–75 suggests that the full section 1402–20 is spurious.

205. The ending stanzas of extant Sophoclean plays are all from 3 to 6 anapaestic lines by the chorus, except for Trach., for which the assignment of speaker is disputed, and OT, which is probably counterfeit; see discussions in Chapter 3.

206. This is not a point to be pressed vigorously. In fact, in Trach., Phil., and OC the characters have also already been using anapaests, which the chorus then echoes.

CHAPTER 3. MUSICAL DESIGN IN TRACHINIAE, OEDIPUS TYRANNUS, ELECTRA, AND PHILOCTETES

1. The following studies will be referred to by the author’s last name in this section: C. Segal, “Sophocles’ Trachiniae: Myth, Poetry, Heroic Values” YCS 25 (1977) 99–158 (= YCS); P. E. Easterling, Sophocles’ Trachiniae (Cambridge 1982) = Commentary; M. Davies, Sophocles: Trachiniae (Oxford 1991).

The precise dating of this play has resisted most analyses, and I am sorry to say that this study of choral design does not contribute meaningful new evidence to this debate. For a survey of recent studies see T. F. Hoey, “The Date of the Trachiniae,” Phoenix 33 (1979) 210–32; add discussions by Easterling, Commentary 19–23, and Davies xviii n.4 and 270–72.

2. Of course, my insistence on the dyadic structure of the play must be balanced by the constant awareness that Sophocles wrote one unified drama; Reinhardt (1947) 36 balanced the issue of unity vs. formal division correctly: “The true content of this drama is the isolation of two characters, the repetition of the alienation which separates and divides two figures from the protective unity of existence—two figures who, though they correspond with each other and are linked, are nevertheless independent by reason of their immanent daimons and who remain separate in their fates. If you want a formula, the drama portrays not two characters with one fate, but the fate of two in one whole”; see also the discussions by Kirkwood (1958) 42–54; T. F. Hoey, “The Trachiniae and Unity of Hero,” Arethusa 3 (1970) 1–22, esp. the chart on p. 15; P. E. Easterling, “The End of the Trachiniae,” ICS 6 (1981) 58: “the absence of contact between Deianeira and Heracles . . . is better interpreted as a significant part of this overall design, since Sophocles seems to go out of his way to bring on stage people and things through which these characters are linked.” In a series of studies C. Segal provides a full discussion of the close linkages between the two sections through language: “Mariage et sacrifice dans les Trachiniennes de Sophocle,” AC 44 (1975) 30–53; “The Hydra’s Nurseling: Image and Action in the Trachiniae,” AC 44 (1975) 612–17; “Sophocles’ Trachiniae” (note 1) and (1981) 60–108; also A. Machin, Cohérence et Continuité dans le théâtre de Sophocle (Haute-Ville, Québec 1981) 353–76. The unity is further enhanced by the fact that the same actor played both Deianeira and Heracles.

3. Recent critics show a lively awareness of the contrasting values and responses between these two characters: G. M. Kirkwood, “The Dramatic Unity of Sophocles’ Trachiniae,” TAPhA 72 (1941) 203–11; C. M. Bowra, Sophoclean Tragedy (Oxford 1944) 116–18; G. H. Gellie, Sophocles: A Reading (Melbourne 1972) 78; Kamerbeek pp. 24–27; T. F. Hoey (note 2) 1–22; M. McCall, The Trachiniae: Structure, Focus, and Heracles,” AJP 93 (1972) 142–63; Winnington-Ingram (1980) 73–90; Segal (1981) chap. 4; Easterling, Commentary 1–12.

4. See Burton (1980) chap. 2 passim, but best stated by D. Wender, “The Will of the Beast: Sexual Imagery in the Trachiniae,” Ramus 3 (1974) 6: “They are appealing, sympathetic, inexperienced, foolish virgins . . . and in a sense the whole drama is a lesson for them in what to expect from marriage and life. For they are full of hope and good ideas and trust in the gods; they think life is cyclical and Deianeira’s fortunes will improve; they think Zeus takes care of his own; they think there’s no harm in trying a bit of positive action (the philtre) to improve your situation. And they are dead wrong on every count. No other Sophoclean chorus is so consistently incorrect.”

5. Gardiner (1986) 120–21 notes that it is possible for this characterization to be indicated visually by ungirded peploi and unbound hair; see M. Bieber, Griechische Kleidung (Berlin and Leipzig 1928) 18 and 24; and M. M. Evans, Chapters on Greek Dress (London 1893) 65–66.

6. See Sophoclea ad 96–97 vs. T. C. W. Stinton, “Sophocles, Trachiniae 84–102,” CQ 36 (1986) 337–40, and Davies (note 1).

7. The problem is to make sure that the words of the chorus, especially those of the second strophe, are consoling. Given this need I follow R. D. Dawe, Sophoclis Tragoediae (Leipzig 1985), and Easterling (note 1) in reading strephei (Reiske supported well by A. S. McDevitt, “Sophocles’ Trachiniae, 112–21,” Eranos 81 [1983] 7–11 against A. Macro, “Sophocles, Trachiniae, 112–21,” AJP 94 [1973] 1–3 and J. T. Hooker, “Sophocles, Trachiniae, 112–21,” Eranos 75 [1977] 70–72). Lines 112–19 then present through a simile the life of Heracles; alla introduces the consoling thought that should help Deianeira cope with Heracles’ temporary difficulties. Gar (112) joins the simile that admits the reality of Deianeira’s concern. Hôn epimemphomenas (122) describes Deianeira’s complaints about the unhappy situation for both marriage partners presented in the previous two stanzas. The outline of their consoling thought is given in Easterling’s Commentary (note 1) on pp. 84–85.

8. Burton (1980) 46–49 notes the epic echoes in meters, words, and the extended simile (112–15).

9. This shift in meters occurs at the moment the simile ends in 116; such a sharp break at the point of juncture between simile and real world may offer further testimony to this chorus’ tendency to move in series of separate thoughts rather than major structures.

10. They use the “Wheel of Fortune” motif common in Sophocles’ plays; see Ajax 669–83; OC 609–15; and J. Jones, On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1962) 174–77, with the fragments therein cited along with Soph frg. 871 Radt. Easterling, Commentary (note 1) 85 notes the use of contrasting pairs of words that embody the sense of mutability within the content of ode. See further H. Musurillo, “Fortune’s Wheel: The Symbolism of Sophocles’ Women of Trachis,” TAPhA 92 (1961) 372–83 and The Light and the Darkness: Studies in the Dramatic Poetry of Sophocles (Leiden 1967) 64–68; T. F. Hoey, “Sun Symbolism in the Parodos of the Trachiniae,” Arethusa 5 (1972) 140–43; A. S. McDevitt, “Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus 155–57,” Eranos 70 (1972) 82–86. For an analysis of the negative tones in this pattern see Segal (1981) 82–83.

11. Characteristic of the repetitive quality of this chorus’ thought are: (1) both the first strophe and the final stanza begin with the image of aiola nux; (2) other items, misfortune and money, are added in a simple list (133–34); (3) the contrasts are simplistic (“ow menei, alla bebake”; and (4) 129–31 is restated in 132–36. Many critics have attempted to identify the chorus’ fixed focus on mutability as a mark of high poetry (e.g., Easterling Commentary [note 1] ad 132–40: “The echo of 94 reinforces the sense of unity conveyed by the imagery of this ode; the heavenly bodies, the sea, the fortunes of men are all part of the same pattern of unending mutability.”) This list of items, however, does not develop into a significant thought; for comparison, note the powerful underlying sense of progress that can be presented through a listing of individual items in the Ode on Man (Ant. 332–75).

12. Extensive implications concerning change vs. permanence had been worked out by the Presocratics—among the most contemporary, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras. For “time” see J. de Romilly, Time in Greek Tragedy (Ithaca 1968) 89–93, and Segal YCS (note 1) 106–108.

13. Easterling Commentary (note 1) identifies 122–26 and 136–40 as circular consolatio forms, which is undoubtedly true but does also have the effect of stressing the repetition within their advice.

14. But this is all; Gardiner puts it right (128): “they are not on an intimate footing with her. . . . Their songs are at most only partially concerned with Deianeira, and the tone is distant and impersonal.”

15. Gardiner (1986) 128: “It is a natural result of these differences that the chorus cannot and do not understand Deianeira.” P. E. Easterling, “Sophocles, Trachiniae,” BICS 15 (1968) 60, and Winnington-Ingram (1980) App. A, 331 stress the chorus’ lack of effective contact with Deianeira’s concerns.

16. And which critics like Gellie (note 3) 55 and Winnington-Ingram (1980) 75–81 have found; see corrective comments by P. E. Easterling, “Character in Sophocles,” G&R 24 (1977) 123.

17. She has been on stage to hear their full ode. T. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Die Dramatische Technik des Sophokles (Berlin 1917) 125, and Burton (1980) 44 assume that Deianeira reenters during the second antistrophe; but see Gardiner (1986) 122 n.7, who rebuts this observation easily. Deianeira’s opening words at 141 begin the tone of correction by echoing 103.

18. Deianeira at other places in the first part of the play shows that she is well aware of the pressures that arise in a marriage: 441–42, 459–62, and 545–53. The chorus learns the complicating power of Eros only gradually and too late: 860–61 and 893–95.

19. Well argued by G. Ronnet, Sophocle: Poète Tragique (Paris 1969) 99–104, and M. Ryzman, “Deianeira’s Moral Behaviour in the Context of the Natural Laws in Sophocles’ Trachiniae,” Hermes 119 (1991) 385–98.

20. Burton (1980) 50 calls this song a hyporchema, but this name has been rejected by Dale, Collected Papers, 34–40. Even without such a name the scholiast to 216 probably has the tone right: “This little song is not a stasimon, but they dance in their joy.”

This stanza is divided by content and tone into three sections but it was probably sung by united chorus; see U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Griechische Verskunst (Berlin 1921) 526–28, an Burton (1980) 51.

21. Indeed, a high 65 percent: 205 and 222 = cr and ia; 207 and 217 = ia trim; 210, 211, 220, 223–24 = ia and ba; 212 and 219 = 2 ia; 218 and 221 = ia and sp.

22. Cf. Ajax 693–718, Ant. 1115–52, OT 1086–1109.

23. See Euripides TW342 and Ba. 748 and 943. Burton (1980) 52–53 also reads hypostrephein in 220 as a technical dance term; see R. D. Dawe, Studies on the Text of Sophocles III (Leiden 1978) 81–82.

24. There are many of these words, but to cite only those that are repeated: horao, omma, leusso, phroneo, phaino, manthano, blepo, historeo, klepto, krupto, pseudo. Appropriately Lichas speaks the words most typical of this scene (425–26): “They said that they heard me. But to report an impression is not the same as telling an accurate story.”

25. The nuances of Lichas’ rhetoric are discussed by B. Heiden, “Lichas’ Rhetoric of Justice in Sophocles’ Trachiniae,” Hermes 116 (1988) 13–23, and Tragic Rhetoric: An Interpretation of Sophocles’ Trachiniae (New York, Bern, Frankfurt, and Paris 1989) 51–64.

26. Kamerbeek (p. 117) is reminded of the parodos by the meters, the form, and the content.

27. Burton (1980) 58 sees the ode ending with “the return of the pathos inherent in her situation”; but Gardiner (1986) 125 describes the chorus’ approach better: “One . . . perceives that the chorus’ personal involvement here is minimal. They do not name Deianeria, they tell the story in a completely impersonal manner, they add no opinion or sympathetic expression of their own.” A. A. Long, Language and Thought in Sophocles (London 1986) 101–102, notes that the chorus uses periphrases concentrating on particular qualities of Achelous, Heracles, and Deianeira rather than developing a realistic description of the battle; see also 76.

28. This is the first entrance or exit in this play not carefully integrated into the graceful movement and gracious words of Deianeira’s courtly world, which is marked by the easy melding of new characters with the groups on the stage and a solicitous care in arranging their future actions. Note the careful introductions of new characters at 61–63, 178–79, 227–28 and 307–13, 391–92, and the carefully motivated exits at 92–93, 329–34, and 492–96. In the prologue even the nurse is brought on stage in conversation with Deianeira.

29. Rhetorical devices in this ode also stress the physical nature of the combat: alliteration, 505 and anaphora, 517 and 520; see Easterling Commentary (note 1) p. 134 on the elevated style of this ode.

30. See note 69.

31. D. A. Hester, “Deianeira’s Deception Speech,” Antichthon 14 (1980) 1–8, nicely defines the paradoxical gentility of Deianeira, which both exposes her to deception and deprives her of a means to deal with it.

32. T. C. W. Stinton, “Heracles’ Homecoming and Related Topics: The Second Stasimon of Sophocles’ Trachiniae,” Liverpool Latin Sem. 5 (1985) 403–13, analyzes the constant irony in this ode.

33. Mudge’s emendation panimeros (“all-desiring”) at 660 fits the passage well; this reading is printed by Jebb, Easterling, Commentary (note 1), Dawe (note 7), and supported by Burton (1980) 61–62 and Stinton (note 32) 424–26. A. C. Pearson, “Notes on the Trachiniae,” CR 39 (1925) 4, keeps the text on the basis of a derivation from hêmera (“day”) as does Kamerbeek, ad loc., who understands the word as a derivative of -hê;meros (“subdued,” “softened”).

34. The ironic distance between the words of the chorus and the language of the play in this ode is well discussed by Segal (1981) 69–70.

35. The difficult last two lines of the final stanza (661–62) do allude to the love charm that will fire Heracles’ desire for his wife; see Segal (1981) 70 and discussions by Easterling Commentary (note 1) on 661–62 and Stinton (note 32) 424–26.

36. Typical is 653, where Ares is cited for the only time in this play as a cause. Commentators struggle to justify the line, e.g., Campbell (1879): “a lyrical condensation of 359–65” or Kamerbeek: “here Ares = Heracles’ bellicose fury.” How much easier to assume that this is another of the chorus’ judgments in which they identify a divine force to explain complex human motivations; similar are 515–16, 860–61, and 893–95.

37. See discussion of this line and 888 in Lloyd-Jones/Wilson’s Sophoclea. I am accepting the reading of Easterling Commentary (note 1) in 893–95.

38. For example, 827 = 837 and 828 = 838 are difficult to analyze metrically; I have treated them as resolved iambic + spondee. Dale (1968) 102 calls each a variety of cretic-paeonic; Easterling Commentary (note 1), a colarion; Dawe (note 7), trochee + spondee.

39. Burton (1980) 67–70 discusses the powerful rhetoric of the first antistrophe, which focuses attention on Nessus: the structure of the stanza, the accumulation of key words, the concreteness of the description, the complex images, and the special impression of horror.

40. Burton (1980) 71–72 and Lloyd-Jones/Wilson follow Blaydes/Nauck in reading auta in 843, thus insisting on a strong antithesis. Burton relates the phrasing in this passage to earlier passages stressing the blame to be placed on Nessus’ duplicity (580–81 and 680–88).

41. Easterling Commentary (note 1) on 860–61 stresses the significance of the chorus’ insight for the understanding of the play. I am uncertain where this insight rises to the level of more than choral guess.

42. The only grammatical connection is the relative pronoun referring broadly to the preceding stanza.

43. Jebb assigns lines to half-choruses; Kamerbeek p. 189 and Burton (1980) 74 to individual speakers. For the division of roles, see Pearson’s text (1955) and Kamerbeek p. 189.

44. They finally express her deed openly at 898, but they come to admit it with difficulty; R. H. Allison, “A Note on Sophocles’ Trachiniae, 876–77,” Eranos 181 (1983) 59–64, is sufficiently bothered with their slowness that she seeks to delete 876–77. Compare the much more accepting nature of the chorus’ response to news of Jocasta’s death at OT 1236.

45. They have had every clue to her intention since line 719; cf. the more perceptive choruses at Ant. 1251–52 and OT 1073–75.

46. P. Maas, Greek Metre, trans. H. Lloyd-Jones (Oxford 1962) §76, and “Singt die Amme in den Trachinierinnen?” Zeitschr. f. das Gymnasialwesen 65 (1911) 253 has shown that characters like the nurse do not sing lyric meters; and he is independently supported by L. D. J. Henderson, “Sophocles’ Trachiniae 878–92 and a Principle of Paul Mass,” Maia 28 (1976) 19–24. Lloyd-Jones/Wilson on 879 and 881 have improved his reading in such a way that there is no need to retain the manuscripts’ assignment of 887 to the Nurse (comment in Sophoclea on 881); see also A. M. Dale, “Metrical Analyses of Tragic Choruses,” BICS, Suppl. 21.1 (1971) 32–33.

47. Campbell (note 36) translates hybris in this passage as “violent deed”—a usage he calls “catachrestic.” N. Loraux, Tragic Ways of Killing a Woman (Cambridge, Mass., and London 1987) 54–55, singles out this suicide especially as a “male” mode of death.

48. This intensity is further heightened by the introduction of antilabe at 876–77. This scaling was denied by Th. Zielinski, “Excurse zu den Trachinierinnen des Sophokles,” Philologus 55 (1896) 593 n.16, who deletes 871–79 as an interpolated replacement for the lyrics at 882; but see D. J. Mastronarde, “Are Euripides’ Phoinissae 1104–40 Interpolated?” Phoenix 32 (1978) 127 n.95.

49. M. Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge 1974) 137, suggests that the chorus may actually be signaling a lament for the dead Deianeira.

50. Previously, in the parodos, in the astrophic choral song at 205 ff., and in the first stasimon, the chorus had been interrupted by other characters; here for the first time its own thoughts seem to stop its lyric. Burton (1980) 82 notes the oddity of this lyric exchange, which does not conclude a strophic ode.

51. Alexiou (note 49) 161–62.

52. Critics are bothered by the style and the shortness of this strophic pair: “The first strophic pair gives the impression of an anxious stammering, a muttering litany” (Kamerbeek); “The main function of this brief ode is to maintain tension at a high pitch” (Easterling Commentary [note 1] 193).

53. An entrance marked by ara at 962; another sign of the careful orchestration of stage action during this ode. See the stage directions for Heracles’ progress into the orchestra given by Jebb on 964 and Burton (1980) 78.

54. As if to prepare the shift to a new music, the chorus comments on the musicless entrance of the procession at 967–68. In addition, the members of the procession are described as strangers, thus appropriate to a new scene with its own music.

55. See discussion of strophic structure in Sophoclea ad 1004–43.

56. Hyllus enters from the palace, an entrance convincingly argued by R. P. Winnington-Ingram, “Tragica,” BICS 16 (1969) 44–47; see further discussion of slightly delayed but separate entrances in O. Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977) 177 with note 1.

57. The naturalness of these responses is marked by the untraditional occurrence of antilabe in anapaests at 977, 981, and 991 (otherwise only at Euripides’ IA 2, 3, and 149, but see W. Ritchie, The Authenticity of the Rhesus [Cambridge 1964] 290–92 on IA and Rhesus).

58. In 1004–7 Heracles asks to be allowed to rest and to be left alone; then he asks how they are arranging him, as though the procession has stopped (the addressee is probably the Old Man, and not Hyllus as the scholiast suggests; see Winnington-Ingram “Tragica” [note 56] 45–46).

59. For a survey of earlier arrangements of these lines see Davies (note 1) 230.

60. For the style of this speech see W. Schadewaldt, Monolog und Selbstgespräch (Berlin 1926) 164–70; E.-R. Schwinge, Die Stellung der Trachinierinnen im Werk des Sophokles (Gottingen 1962) 21–24; and T. C. W. Stinton, “Notes on Greek Tragedy I,” JHS 96 (1976) 142–44.

61. Well argued by C. E. Sorum, “Monsters and the Family: the Exodos of Sophocles’ Trachiniae,” GRBS 19 (1978) 59–73.

62. Note anepiphthonon (“blameless,” 1034), akou (“heal,” 1035), glykus (“sweet,” 1040), eunason (“put to sleep,” 1043).

63. Thus the judgments of scholars are widely split, and appropriately so since Sophocles does not impose a final judgment but rather suggests perspectives. Winnington-Ingram (1980) 215: “The final ironical truth is that a ruthless Heracles, administering retaliatory justice, is more like the gods than such human-beings as Deianira and Hyllus, who are capable of pity.”

64. For the meaningful insertion of nonstrophic metrical units into strophic lyric see the discussions of the anapaests in the parodos to Ant. in Chapter 2 and of Neoptolemos’ hexameters at Phil. 838–42 in this chapter. While perhaps utterly coincidental, hexameters also mark a moment of insight in Phil.

65. For recent discussion of the questions about the final lines see Easterling, “The End of the Trachiniae” (note 2) 56–74 and Sophoclea ad loc. Given that the choral role has been drastically curtailed in a number of lines, in the interruption of its form, and in the increasingly irrelevant content and escapist tone of its songs, it is at least unexpected that this chorus will abruptly enunciate a visionary statement in the play’s last four lines. Of the other Sophoclean choruses only that of the Ant. even approaches this tone in its final words, but it has been a significantly participating chorus throughout the final part of the play. Hyllus, moreover, has been promoted to a position of responsibility through the final scene and has been exposed to suffcient dilemmas to pass some sort of judgment. At the very least he has been put in charge of movements ending the final scene and appropriately directs the chorus off stage. In regard to the addressee of parthene: “You now, maiden, do not be left at the house . . .” (1275), see M. Kaimio, The Chorus of Greek Drama within the Light of the Person and Number Used (Helsinki 1970) 190–91, answered by Gardiner (1986) 133 n.25. Burton (1980) 81 follows others in suggesting that Iole is resurrected for this purpose, but they are opposed effectively by P. Mazon, “Notes sur Sophocle,” RPh 25 (1951) 11. Friis Johansen gives a bibliography on the problem of assigning the speaker up to 1959: add to it Ronnet (note 19) 141; P. Webb, “Sophocles, Trachiniae 1264–78,” Mnemosyne 36 (1983) 368–70, opposed by W. J. Verdenius, “Sophocles, Trachiniae 1270–8,” Mnemosyne 36 (1983) 370; and W. Kraus, “Bemerkungen zum Text und Sinn in den Trachinierrinen” WS 20 (1986) 102–108.

66. Well discussed by R. L. Kane, “The Structure of Sophocles’ Trachiniae: ‘Diptych’ or Trilogy?” Phoenix 42 (1988) 198–211.

67. See discussion of these scenes by Taplin (note 56).

68. The inclusion of two iambic doublets for the chorus at 1044–45 and 1112–13 further emphasizes the disappearance of its singing role: both are spoken iambic statements reporting how overwhelming the events occurring around them are. Thus the content remains characteristic of the chorus while its form is reduced.

69. Heracles’ apotheosis would undoubtedly be in the minds of the audience since it was so well established in earlier literary references; see Easterling (note 2) 56–74 and Commentary 17–18 and note 29. If his apotheosis is mentioned in the play it is only through allusion. The most recent critics who claim to find such allusion are: S. M. Adams, Sophocles the Playwright, Phoenix, Suppl. III (Toronto 1957) 109–10 and 132–33; Segal YCS (note 1) 138–41; Gardiner (1986) 135–38; and P. Holt, “The End of the Trachiniae and the Fate of Heracles,” JHS 109 (1989) 69–80 with a selected bibliography in n. 1.

But stern critics deny such allusion; e.g., T. C. W. Stinton, “The Apotheosis of Heracles from the Pyre,” JHS, Suppl. 15 (1987) 1–16 and “The Scope and Limits of Allusion in Greek Tragedy,” in Greek Tragedy and Its Legacy (1986) 485–91 and n. 118: “a tragedy cannot admit a confused or uncertain response without forfeiting its tragic impact.” This seems too tight a limitation; Easterling, Commentary (note 1) provides a subtle correction in insisting that, “at the very end of the play Sophocles often introduces a glancing reference outside the action, suggesting, as it were, that there is a future.” To this small extent I would accept that Sophocles does blur—or put slightly out of focus—the ending to gain effect.

70. Two books have been especially helpful in studying the chorus in OT: R. D. Dawe, Sophocles: Oedipus Rex (Cambridge 1982) = Commentary, and B. M. W. Knox, Oedipus at Thebes (New Haven 1957).

71. It is clear that there is an unusual complexity and intensity to Sophocles’ version of the story of Oedipus. For reconstructions of earlier versions see H. C. Baldry, “The Dramatisation of the Theban Legend,” G&R 3 (1956) 24–37; E. L. de Kock, “The Sophoklean Oedipus and its Antecedents,” Acta Classica 4 (1961) 7–28; L. Edmunds, Oedipus: The Ancient Legend and Its Later Analogues (Baltimore and London 1985); and E. Cingano, “The Death of Oedipus,” CP 46 (1992) 1–11. Edmunds provides a full bibliography on pp. 225–28.

72. See my “Oedipus Rex versus the Priest of Zeus,” in K. Hartigan, ed., To Hold Mirror to Nature, Univ. of Florida Comparative Drama Conference Papers I (Lanham, Md., 1982) 105–13.

73. For the fullest analysis of this orchestration see B. Vickers, Towards Greek Tragedy: Drama, Myth, Society (London 1973) 502–13.

74. Teiresias is marked in many ways as a privileged exception. See the discussion of his special position by R. G. A. Buxton, “Blindness and Limits: Sophokles and the Logic of Myth,” JHS 100 (1980) 22–37.

75. The nature of statements by both characters and chorus is well discussed by A. S. McDevitt, “The Dramatic Integration of the Chorus in Oedipus Tyrannus,” C&M 30 (1969) 78–101, and R. L. Kane, “Prophecy and Perception in the Oedipus Rex,” TAPhA 105 (1975) 189–208.

76. I am avoiding the usual identification of this line as lecythion (Pohlsander [1964] and Dawe Commentary [note 70]) because the framework in which this line occurs is iambic; similar possible trochaic meters here called iambic are 195 = 208, 197 = 210, 199 = 212, and 201 = 214. Dale (1968) 70 notes the similarity of these meters: “the ancient commentators were justified in their idea of an infinite series in epiploke . . . u-x-u-x-u . . . as a sort of matrix from which you could hack out iambic or trochaic segments.” For the most recent exploration of epiploke and its application to this problem of naming meters see T. Cole, Epiploke: Rhythmical Continuity and Poetic Structure in Greek Lyric (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), but for problems in this presentation see the review by M. Haslam in CP 86 (1991) 229–39.

77. Gardiner (1986) 97–100 characterizes them as prominent, wealthy, and independent of mind, good councilors to the king, and defenders of the city. They continually represent the interests of the state (see esp. 406–407, 665–67, 685–86, 879–81, and 1416–18). See also M. Castello, “Algunes Consideraciones sobre el Estásimo Segundo del Edipo Rey,” Anales de Historia Antigua y Medieval 21–22 (1980–81) 118–34.

78. Though the attributes named are traditional for each of the gods, they focus on the destructive potential (e.g., Apollo is not asked to bring his lyre).

79. W. Ax, “Die Parodos des Oidipous Tyrannos,” Hermes 67 (1932) 413–37, identifies the elements proper to a full cultic hymn in content and meter. In addition, this ode is a structure unified by repeated words and recurring motifs; see J. T. Sheppard, The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles (Cambridge 1920) 113–15, and T. B. L. Webster, An Introduction to Sophocles (Oxford 1936) 126–31.

80. Oedipus’ entrance requires that he leave the stage prior to the beginning of the parodos in order to send for Teiresias during the ode (see 287–89). He need return only to hear the final words of their song, probably at some point following 209. Gardiner (1986) 99 n.27 speculates on the increased irony if he were to enter at 203 when the chorus invokes Apollo, but this is not required by the dramatic action.

81. Kraus 141 notes that the resolved iambic in 168–69 = 178–80 provides an easy transition from dactyls in the antistrophe to the coming iambics.

82. Variety is provided by the structure of the sentences: strophe a is filled with two longer questioning statements and an imperative; antistrophe a is one long sentence and an added condition; and strophe/antistrophe b contain a more or less paratactic listing of conditions in the city.

83. A point made well by Ax (note 79) 424–27. See also the discussions by A. S. McDevitt, “Dramatic Imagery in the Parodos of Oedipus Tyrannus,” WS 83 (1970) 28–38, who cites verbal echoes from the prologue in the parodos, and Burton (1980) 141–43: “The parodos derives the whole of its content and much of its form from the prologue.”

84. In the four lines 484 = 499 and 486 = 501, I depart from the Lloyd-Jones/Wilson colometry; see note 89.

85. Kranz (1933) 201; Burton (1980) 148–52 also defines this ode as “two songs” and shows the reasonableness of the chorus in taking up the hunt for the murderer as an immediate reaction to the final speech of Teiresias and then questioning Teiresias’ charges against Oedipus.

86. An image analyzed by Knox (1964) chap. 3.

87. Burton (1980) 150: “They mask the seer’s explicit charges at 362 and 366 ff. beneath” a vague phrase at 465–66.

88. McDevitt (note 75) 91 calls the inconsistency with the chorus’ usual piety the chief crux in integrating the chorus into this play; he describes the chorus’ religious attitude as “a strictly conditional piety deriving its validity solely from the continuity of society” (99). Kane (note 75) accurately defines the chorus’ vulnerability in expressing an intuitive faith in Apollo’s hunt for the killer and at the same time drawing deductions from ambiguous facts. Gardiner (1986) 100–101 adds that the chorus makes “the false assumption that the killer must have acted knowingly and deliberately.” See Dawe, Commentary (note 70) on 484 (reading men oun) and 499, who assigns meaning to the particles and shows the confusion of the chorus as it tries to hold different, although contradictory, perspectives on the action.

89. I feel that the repeated choriambic is a sufficiently important element in the design of this ode to overcome the argument for the colometry of 483 = 499 and 486 = 501 defended by G. Zuntz, Drei Kapitel zur griechischen Metrik, Sitzungs-berichte der Akademie der Wissenschaft, Wien 443 (1984) 47, and adopted by Lloyd-Jones/Wilson.

90. Burton (1980) 152 points out unifying parallels in the second strophic pair: both stanzas begin with opposing men-de structures emphasizing the chorus’ befuddlement, and both stanzas conclude with a statement of loyalty to Oedipus.

91. This attitude is characteristic of the chorus throughout the play, even after his self-blinding (1297–1306); see Burton (1980) 138: “The chorus know, love, and trust their king. They have a horror of any attack on him, and their complete loyalty to him is an outstanding characteristic.” Long (note 27) 83 comments on a subtlety in the chorus’ language at 662: “By using phronesis the Chorus are able to dissociate themselves from an attitude of mind which some might hold. Pleading for Creon does not entail disloyalty to Oedipus.”

92. Dawe Commentary (note 70) on pantelos, 669: “Rhetoric overpowers logic, as Oedipus matches the extravagance of the Chorus’ language (661).”

93. A. S. McDevitt, “Antilabe in Sophoclean Kommoi,” RhM 124 (1981) 23 (based on Jebb and Pearson [note 43]), argues that the two iambic trimeters 658–59 and 687–88 should be excluded from any corresponding design; then he posits two interlocked strophic pairs (649–57 = 678–86; 660–67 = 690–96). The iambics would be the normal two-line choral tag to a lyric section. This structure has appeal in terms of the theme of divine control. In spite of shifting speakers and a structure that sounds to the audience as though strophic corresponsion is being avoided, only in retrospect at line 678 does it become clear that there is a larger order shaping events; see Chapter 4 for discussion of hyperforms.

94. Lines 870–71 = 880–81 are puzzling; A. M. Dale (1968) 136 n.2 and Pohlsander (1964) 103 identify the second portion of these lines as a choriambic hendecasyllable preceded by a telesillean; the meter is difficult to determine, but this identification at least relates to the meters found earlier in the stanza—and metrical patterns do tend to be repeated in this highly unified ode.

95. The bibliography on this ode is too large to cite fully. For the years 1939 to 1959, see the survey by Friis Johansen 232–34 and 242–43; from 1959 to 1977, see D. A. Hester, “Oedipus and Jonah,” PCPhS 23 (1977) n.29. Add the recent studies: R. Scodel, “Hybris in the Second Stasimon of the Oedipus Rex,” CP77 (1982) 214–23; Winnington-Ingram (1980) 179–204; Burton (1980) 156–69; C. Carey, “The Second Stasimon of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus” JHS 106 (1986) 175–79; Lloyd-Jones/Wilson, Sophoclea ad loc.; and K. Sidwell, “The Argument of the Second Stasimon of Oedipus Tyrannus,” JHS 112 (1992) 106–22.

96. The focus of this song on the truth of oracles is supported by Kranz’s observation (1933) 205 and 209 that in odes longer than one strophic pair the final stanza often takes its theme from the preceding episode; but Scodel (note 95) 215 n.3 rightly counters that this does not require the whole song to be centered on that theme. R. P. Winnington-Ingram, “The Second Stasimon of the Oedipus Tyrannus,” JHS 91 (1971) 119–35 and (1980) 180–85, discusses the broader issues that lie in the background and contribute throughout to the tension underlying this ode: “To the impurity of Oedipus, which in fact was shared by Jocasta, is added the impiety of Jocasta, which was to be endorsed by Oedipus.” J. C. Kamerbeek, “Comments on the Second Stasimon of the Oedipus Tyrannus,” WS 79 (1966) 80–92 and Commentary ad loc., Scodel (note 95), and Carey (note 95) argue in different ways that the chorus feels that religious authority as well as civic order will be destroyed if the oracles have no force.

97. It is important to remember that this chorus speaks for itself and is not intended to be the voice of the poet; contra, for example, M. Pohlenz, Die griechische Tragödie (Berlin 1930) 225–26 and Erlaüt. 62. The thorough-going relevance of this ode and the appropriateness of its words to the persona of the chorus is well defended by Kamerbeek 1966 (note 96). The words of the chorus about morality and the political well-being of the city can easily contain a secondary reference to contemporary affairs in Athens, but that is all; an excessive relevance is found by Webster (note 79) 22.

Of course, it is necessary always to be aware of the unconscious irony that underlies the well-intended words of the chorus—the same irony that controls all elements of the play; see especially for this play J.-P. Vernant, “Ambiguïté et renversement: Sur la structure énigmatique de l’Oedipe-Roi,” in Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne (Paris 1972) 99–132.

98. Burton (1980) 160–61 notes that the stanza at 873 beginning with no Connecting particle may offer examples of the divine laws discussed in the first strophe; Sidwell (note 95) 110–11 ties the general reference to divine laws in the strophe specifically to the threat of tyranny.

99. Blaydes proposed the meaningful alternative, hybrin phuteuei tyrannis, which has been supported by Winnington-Ingram (note 96) 124–27 and (1980) 191–93; Dawe Commentary (note 70); Burton (1980) 164; and J. Diggle, in his review of Burton, CR 32 (1982) 14. But I feel that the paradosis is correct and that the interpretation is somewhere in the metaphorical meanings suggested by H. Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus (2nd ed., Berkeley 1983) 213 n.23; see also Scodel (note 95) 215–18; Carey (note 95); A. A. Long, “Sophocles, 0.T 879–81,” LCM3 (1978) 49; C. Austin, “Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus 873,” CQ 34 (1984) 233.

100. The questioning and testing quality of this ode is clear in the structure of 883–96. Winnington-Ingram (note 96) 127–31 and (1980) 194–97 punctuates at 888 arguing that the stanza is to be understood as two conditional sentences. The asyndeton at 889 is acceptable because the second condition is confirming and reinforcing the first. Then the gar in the final sentence is a condition applying to the whole stanza; if the reverse of the two earlier conditions is true, then there is no point in celebrating the gods.

101. The pattern is a a a b a c c ab c c(?)/ d d b d b d a a a a d d c. Each stanza concludes with a summary coda: the first strophic set with contributing meters combined, the second with trochaic joined to aeolic from the first pair.

102. This unity is also clear in the high incidence of repeated motifs: begetting children (867–70, 873) vs. dying/disappering (906–10), holiness (sebo and cognates 864, 886, 890, and 899); as well as the large number of repeated words athikton (891 and 898), latha/lathoi (870 and 904), thnata vs. athanaton (869 and 905), aneron/aner/brotois vs. theos and synonyms Olumpos pater Zeus (869, 892, 903, vs. 867, 872, 881, 882, 885, 886, 904, and 910); logos vs. ergon/cheir/praxis (864 and 884 vs. 865, 883, and 895, and moira (863 and 887).

103. Knox (note 70) 59–60 and Winnington-Ingram (1980) 194–97 show that the charges do not apply fully or even well to Oedipus or Jocasta; they are general “worst case” charges. Although it is also clear to most critics that Oedipus is not being charged with the crimes listed in 883–96, it is also plain that there are unintended references to the ugly situation in which Oedipus and Jocasta are involved. Critics have written well in identifying such clues: see Sheppard (note 79) 150 ff., Knox (note 70) 182–84, Vernant (note 97) 113–14, Burton (1980) 165–67. The audience’s awareness of these inadvertent references to the king is important because they prepare for Oedipus’ coming fall; G. H. Gellie, “The Second Stasimon of the Oedipus Tyrannus,” AJP 35 (1964) 113–23, argues that this ode places Oedipus’ career in its proper moral context.

104. A. Henrichs, “‘Why Should I Dance?’: Ritual Self-referentiality in the Choral Odes of Greek Tragedy,” Arion 3 (1994–95) 56–111, shows how choral members are simultaneously performers and dramatic characters. There is wide support for a broad reading of the chorus’ question; see U. Hölscher, “Wie soll ich noch tanzen?: Über ein Wort des sophokleischen Chores,” in E. Kohler, ed., Sprachen der Lyric: Festschrift für Hugo Friedrich (Frankfurt 1975) 376–93; Segal (1981) 234–36; J. Bollack, l’Oedipe roi de Sophocle. Le texte et ses interprétations (Lille 1990) 3:582–84; and Winnington-Ingram (1980) 200.

105. Following Dawe’s colometry in his Commentary (note 70).

106. There are two previous interpretations that will allow this ode to be included within the dramatic persona the chorus has shown before: (1) Sophocles may have introduced this ode to increase the effect when its presumptions are shown to be wrong (e.g., Jebb; Webster [note 79] 116; and Kamerbeek, Commentary); (2) “the Chorus have caught Oedipus’ mood and even enhanced it with their own hopes” (Bowra [note 3] 199); cf. Kranz (1933) 213–14; Ronnet (note 19) 161–62; Knox (note 70) 51; A. M. van Erp Taalman Kip, “Some Reflections on the Chorus in Sophocles’ O. R.,” Miscellanea Tragica in honorem J. C. Kamerbeek (Amsterdam 1976) 81. To be sure, this ode is an expression of the chorus’ deep trust in the beneficent protection of the gods. And, of course, its joy does set up the contrast with the following ode where this belief will be shattered. Yet both approaches dismiss the song as relatively unimportant and do not explore in detail either the phrasing of the stanzas or the musical design; the key to understanding the function of this ode is an appreciation of the chorus’ continual dependence on the gods as the state’s saving force as well as an awareness that the truth is forcing its way to the surface although unrecognized by the chorus.

107. Note also the same ritual cry to Apollo at 154 and 1096.

108. In fact, after the parodos the plague is scarcely mentioned. Following the final references at 636 and 665 (indirect at 685), the words for disease become internalized within Oedipus (e.g., 1396).

109. The seriousness of the chorus’ tone as it echoes the hopes of Oedipus is well discussed by A. Machin, “Sur le troisième stasimon d’Oedipe-Roi,” REG 102 (1989) 192–201. The deep ambiguities in the words used throughout this song are discussed by D. Sansone, “The Third Stasimon of the Oedipus Tyrannos,” CP 70 (1975) 110–17.

110. See Dawe’s (note 70) note to 1187–88. It is difficult to choose between “how I count you as living a life which is a nothingness” and “how I count you as nothing while you live.”

111. The chorus reports its personal sensation through the metaphor of sleep. I read the statement as a contrast, thus the chorus experiences a metaphorical death: as these citizens came to life as a functioning community when Oedipus solved the riddie of the Sphinx, so now they return to the hopelessness of that earlier situation. Such is the meaning for koimao at Ajax 832 and El. 509; this is supported by scholiast. Kamerbeek, Commentary, notes that this end position is appropriate for a statement summing up Oedipus’ career as outlined in the ode, and that the contrast between an- and kat- calls for a contrast within the sentence. H. Weinstock, Sophokles (Berlin 1937) 197, and J. C. Opstelten, Sophocles and Greek Pessimism (Amsterdam 1952) 19–21 and 19 n.1 assign the more positive meaning, “thanks to thee I breathe again.”

112. Lines 1204–6 and 1211–12. Though there is a textual problem, the translation given by D. Grene in the University of Chicago series is: “But now whose tale is more miserable?/Who is there lives with a savager fate?/Whose troubles so reverse his life as his?”

113. See D. Korzeniewski (1961) 197–98.

114. The chorus’ painful learning of the non-uniqueness of Oedipus is clear in its use of paradeigma (1193), which occurs only here in Sophoclean tragedy, and it is emphasized by the unusual thrice-repeated ton son.

115. This ode does not reinforce the message of the second stasimon. Burton (1980) 178 claims that it does, citing in support Ant. 450–57 and 604–25 as statements of Sophoclean reality. A critic, however, must always remember that the words of the ode derive from the consistent persona of the particular chorus. The god that the chorus now recognizes is a less concerned god than the law-enforcer of the second stasimon—a harsher god, who cares little for the behavior of the individual man as he enforces his oracles on guilty and innocent alike.

116. The chorus specifies that the source of Oedipus’ situation is a mania sent by a daimon (1299–1302) vs. the messenger’s vaguer hegetou tinos (1260).

117. Oedipus gains awareness slowly. He does not appear to realize that there is a hearer present at 1307–11; he addresses the chorus only at 1321–26 and then responds directly to its questions at 1327–28.

118. Burton (1980) 180: “the utterances of the chorus are confined to iambic trimeters, flat, dull, and at times banal.” There is an easily perceptible difference in level between Oedipus and the chorus: the chorus’ response at 1312 is more related to a physical place or the physical isolation of blindness. Oedipus’ next statement (1313–20), however, shows that he is thinking of blindness but also more abstractly of the course of events and the forces that have brought him to his position.

119. For a discussion of this convention see L. H. G. Greenwood, Aspects of Euripidean Tragedy (Cambridge 1953) 131–32.

120. Dawe, Commentary (note 70) on 1329, points out the convention of asking the same question from a human and a divine aspect; thus Oedipus’ double response.

121. Dawe, Commentary (note 70), translates: “How I could have wished never to have known you,” a statement parallel to 1217; for an opposed reading see Kamerbeek, Commentary, and Burton (1980) 181–82.

122. The question of guilt is not raised in the play: see discussion by U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, “Excurse zum Oedipus des Sophokles,” Hermes 34 (1899) 55–80; J. Bollack, “Das Schicksal des Ödipus, ein Familienschicksal,” Poetica 19 (1987) 249–68 or “Destin d’Oedipe, Destin d’une Famille,” Metis 3 (1988) 159–77.

123. Oedipus gives three explanations of his situation during the final scene of the play, each of diminished intensity and easier to understand. The first and most profound is the lyric description that begins at 1313; in this passage he knows all the evils to which he has been subject but never regrets his life. He begins the second explanation at 1369 with the words: “That these things have not been done the best—do not tell me.” This statement is less mystical and more factual, being intended to be more understandable since it is based on an argument of pleasure vs. pain. Finally, addressing Creon at 1432, he avoids the difficult part of his life and only asks that he be allowed to return to Cithaeron to seek his proper future.

124. There are two major problems: (1) are the lines genuine? and (2) if genuine, who speaks them, Oedipus or the chorus? The scholiast finds the closing lines unauthentic but then assigns them to Oedipus. The lines were originally condemned by F. Ritter, “Sieben unechte Schlussstellen in den Tragödien des Sophokles,” Phil 17 (1861) 424–28. Sophoclea gives a review of opinions. Friis Johansen reports well on recent judgments from 1939 to 1959. Add W. M. Calder III, “Oedipus Tyrannus 1515–30,” CP 57 (1962) 219–29; H. D. F. Kitto, Poiesis: Structure and Thought (Berkeley 1966) 215; W. Potscher, “Sophokles, Oedipus Tyrannos 1524–30,” Emerita 38 (1970) 149–61; D. A. Hester, “Very Much the Safest Plan or, Last Words in Sophocles,” Antichthon 7 (1973) 11–12 and “The Banishment of Oedipus,” Antichthon 18 (1984) 13–23; Dawe (note 23) 266–73.

125. Ritter (note 124) feels that the closing tetrameters were attached later and that the play originally ended with Creon’s words. On this topic see further P. L. W. Graffunder, “Über den Ausgang des ‘König Oedipus’ von Sophokles,” NJPhP 132 (1885) 389–408; D.A. Hester, “Oedipus and Jonah,” PCPhS 23 (1977) 44–45; and J. R. March, The Creative Poet, BICS, suppl. 49 (1987) 148–54.

126. The direction of Oedipus’ exit is a significant problem; see Calder (note 124) 20–21; in note 83 he cites possible hints at this staging by R. W. Livingstone, “The Exodos of Oedipus Tyrannus,” in Greek Poetry and Life (Oxford 1936) 158–63; and O. Taplin, Greek Tragedy in Action (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1978) 45–46 (who has Oedipus exit into the palace). It is also an unusual problem in this play that is generally precise in providing clues for exits and entrances (see 84–86, 144, 297–99, 531 [Lloyd-Jones/Wilson, Sophoclea, reject 531 following the argument of H. J. Rose, “Sophokles, O.T. 530–1,” CR 57 (1943) 5], 631–33, 945–46, 1073–75, 1110–12, 1294–96, 1416–18, 1472–74, and 1521); but a similar problem blocks certainty in determining the moment of Oedipus’ exit following 446; see discussion by B. M. W. Knox, “Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos, 446: Exit Oedipus?” GRBS 21 (1980) 231–32.

Stage action is required for this final scene, yet the words do not lead to a clear conclusion, especially 1516 vs. 1517–18. I feel that the meeting with the daughters tips the balance in favor of Oedipus going off to the countryside; see my “The Exit of Oedipus Rex,” in From Pen to Performance (Washington, D.C., 1983) 103–109. Emotionally the audience has seen Oedipus’ final farewell to his daughters and heard his protests when they are taken from him as though he knows this will be the final meeting. It is difficult to have him reenter the palace to join them after these two moments. Discussions arguing that Oedipus is taken by Creon into the palace are: H. D. F. Kitto, Greek Tragedy (3rd ed., London 1961) 177–80 and Poiesis (note 124) 214; Hester (note 124) 8–13; M. Davies, “The End of Sophocles’ O.T,” Hermes 110 (1982) 272 and “The End of Sophocles’ O.T. Revisited,” Prometheus 17 (1991) 1–18; and O. Taplin, “Sophocles in his Theater,” in Entretiens de Fondation Hardt 23 (Geneva 1983) 155–83.

127. A characterization strongly defended by Knox (note 70), esp. chap. 5, and G. Gellie, “The Last scene of Oedipus Tyrannus,” Ramus 15 (1986) 35–42.

128. The following books and articles will be referred to by the author’s last name in this section: R. P. Winnington-Ingram, “The Electra of Sophocles; Prologomena to an Interpretation,” PCPhS 183 (1954–55) 20–27; H. Friis Johansen, “Die Elektra des Sophokles: Versuch einer neuen Deutung,” C&M 25 (1964) 8–32; T. M. Woodard, “Electra by Sophocles: The Dialectical Design,” HSCPh (I) 68 (1964) 163–205 and (II) 70 (1965) 195–233; C. Segal, “The Electra of Sophocles,” TAPhA 97 (1966) 473–545; and J. H. Kells, Sophocles: Electra (Cambridge 1973).

129. The major works assessing the position of Aeschylus’ Oresteia in the literary and artistic traditions are A. J. N. W. Prag, The Oresteia: Iconographic and Narrative Tradition (Warminster and Chicago 1985), esp. chap. 8; and A. F. Garvie, Aeschylus’ Choephori (Oxford 1986) ix-xxvi; see also E. T. Vermeule, “The Boston Oresteia Krater,” AJA 70 (1966) 1–22 and pls. 1–8; M. I. Davies, “Thoughts on the Oresteia before Aeschylus,” BCH 93 (1969) 214–60; M. J. Cropp, Euripides’ Electra (Warminster 1988) xliii-xlviii; see B. M. W. Knox in AJP 92 (1971) 694 for a cautionary note.

130. Justice was not necessarily an inherent element of the earlier versions; for a review of the two major versions of the Oresteia story see Prag (note 129) 68–84. For discussion of the differences between Sophocles and Aeschylus see A. J. A. Waldock, Sophocles the Dramatist (Cambridge 1951) 191–93; J. Jones, On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1962) 141–59; Friis Johansen (note 128) 24–27; Vickers (note 73) 566–73; P. T. Stevens, “Sophocles: Electra, Doom or Triumph?” G&R 25 (1978) 112; Winnington-Ingram (1980) 217–47; Blundell (1989) 178–83.

131. Aristotle, Poetics 1449315 ff., Vita Soph. 4, and “Suidas” s.v. Sophocles.

132. J. Jones (note 130) 159: “Sophocles’s rehandling of the Orestes myth causes group consciousness to be weakened, collective vitalities to be splintered, the objective parallelism of ritual and linguistic form with fact and event in the world to be lost or intermittently forsaken; and . . . more energy is generated by . . . the dramatic individual.”

133. For evaluation of the urn scene see C. Segal, “Visual Symbolism and Visual Effects in Sophocles,” CW 74 (1980/81) 134–37 and (1981) 287–89.

134. In Aeschylus this theme is found largely in the first two plays of the trilogy focusing on conscious deception (esp. Clytemnestra, Orestes) and irony/self-deception (Agamemnon, Clytemnestra). See discussion by R. W. Minadeo, “Plot, Theme and Meaning in Sophocles’ Electra,” C&M 28 (1967) 114–42; for the full development of the theme in Sophocles’ play see the articles by Woodard (note 128).

135. For scansion see discussion in Sophoclea ad 129.

136. For scansion of 153–54 see L. P. E. Parker, “Split Resolution in Greek Dramatic Lyric,” CQ 18 (1968) 243–44 and Sophoclea ad loc.

137. Even though Burton (1980) 188–89 stresses the smooth transition from prologue to parodos, it is impossible to ignore the contrast between the practicality of the prologue and the emotional intensity of Electra; T. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (note 17) 168–69 and Kells (note 128) on 77–120.

138. Gardiner (1986) 142.

139. Kamerbeek, Commentary on 86–120 argues that Electra’s monody is properly part of the prologue rather than the parodos; but Woodard (I) (note 128) 163–205, esp. 177–80, effectively argues that Sophocles’ Electra in combination with the chorus presents the world of women centered on logoi vs. the world of men’s erga that opens the play.

140. There are some earlier examples of characters joining with choruses to form lyric strophes: Xerxes at Pers. 931–1077; Cassandra at Ag. 1072–1177; the kommos at Ch. 306–478; the kommos at Ant. 839–75 (see discussion in Chapter 2); Oedipus/Jocasta at OT 649–96 (see discussion in this chapter). Still Burton (1980) 190 correctly senses that the Electra passage begins a new experiment in poetic form to express the relationship between actor and chorus: “Electra and the chorus together explore the pathos of her predicament. . . .: The parodos is no longer confmed to lament but embraces a variety of feelings, excitement, curiosity, suspense, and shock”; see the discussion of Sophocles’ use of lyric dialogue in Chapter 4.

141. Communication between the chorus and Electra is easy throughout the play (cf. the defensiveness of the chorus at Trach. 122–23). The identity of this chorus is not as explicitly established as in the other plays of Sophocles. Yet the obvious closeness between Electra and the women provides motivation for their presence at the palace (e.g., paramythion, 130); see Gardiner (1986) 141 and 143–44.

142. Gardiner (1986) 145–46 speaks of a women’s conspiracy, but the exchange at 251–60, while gracious in tone, marks real disagreement between the participants. Long (note 27) 68 comments on the increasingly particularized rhetoric: “in the earlier part of the lyric the chorus prefer a gentle generalization to a concrete statement of Electra’s situation.” See Woodard (I) (note 128) 179–80; Kells (note 128) on 153 ff.; and Burton’s (1980) especially effective analysis of the shape and tone of this ode on 190–96.

143. The earnestness of the chorus’ words is reinforced by the unusual appearance in 233–35 of twenty-one successive long syllables. Electra also has similar periods of anapaests: 202–204 = 222–24 and 239–40. Burton (1980) 195 sees all’ oun. . . ge (233) as a sign of resignation; J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles (2nd ed., Oxford 1959) 444 identifies the more insistent tone.

144. The careful phrasing of Electra’s final stanza is further unified by the structuring of 239–40, where the metrical form modulates from dactyls to anapaests. Since such modulation is rare in this ode, it provides impressive unity to these forceful words of Electra and offers further proof that the intensity of the ode increases as the opposition between the two opponents sharpens; see Kamerbeek, Commentary, p. 48–49 vs. I. M. Linforth, “Electra’s Day in the Tragedy of Sophocles,” UCPCP 19.2 (1963) 93. In a more general sense Burton (1980) 196 notes the growing sense of emotion toward the end of the parodos, marked by an increasing use of repetition and alliteration.

145. Burton (1980) 191 lists the conventional commonplaces used by the chorus in the first two strophic pairs.

146. This characterization continues into the next scene, Burton (1980) 197: “She follows with a reasoned statement of the position which she had outlined in her previous lyrics and reaffirms at the beginning and the end of her speech the points brought out in the third system of the parodos about her behaviour.”

147. The initial claim of the chorus to be good prophets (472–74) is common to Sophoclean choruses whether events bear them out or not; see OT 1086–88, OC 1080 vs. Ajax 1419–20.

148. Kells (note 128) takes Erinys as the subject of epeba (against Jebb) as does Burton (1980) 198–201, who cites the reinforcement of the Aeschylean connection of Dike and the Erinys through the parallel structure and meaning of 475 ff. and 489 ff.: Ag. 1432–33, Cho. 646–51, and Eum. 508–12. See supporting comments by Winnington-Ingram (note 128), and Long, (note 27) 136–37.

149. The impression of choral confidence is reinforced if tharsos appears in same position in the corresponding lines 479 and 495, but there is a textual problem in assuring the second reading. See A. S. McDevitt, “Sophocles’ Electra 495–7,” RhM 117 (1974) 181–82 and R. D. Dawe in Gnomon 48 (1976) 231–32.

150. Burton (1980) 201 sees a contrasting, isolated epode, but such probing of the past for an explanation of present activities is all a part of the normal choral practice: Ajax 172–81; Ant. 944–87; OT 1098–1109. Friis Johansen (note 128) 14–15 separates the strophes from the final stanza because of the abrupt change of subject, yet he also points out the connection of Dike and Erinys in the strophes which is actualized in the final stanza and, I would add, in the entrance of Clytemnestra; also Errandonea (1955b) 376–82.

151. Blundell (1989) 161–72 evaluates the conflicting views of justice.

152. The question of the chorus 823–25 does not express despair; Electra takes it as a serious question based on its trust in Olympian justice when she rejects that justice as false in 832–36.

153. This is the first lyric antilabe in Sophocles’ surviving plays; later the form is used at Phil. 201 = 210 and OC 534–48.

154. Gardiner (1986) 152 n.23 seems correct in rejecting the staging devised by the scholiast; in apoleis and 831–36 Electra is accusing the chorus of bringing her pain by false optimism; cf. Kamerbeek, Commentary ad 826–30, and Burton (1980) 204–205.

155. For the colometry of these two stanzas see Sophoclea on 1058–62.

156. The disagreement is clear even if ll.1050–54 are not in the text. See discussion in Sophoclea on 1050–51.

157. Gardiner (1986) 153 points out the reversal between 369–71 and 990–91, which underlies the words of the coming ode. In this ode the chorus provides its strongest support yet for Electra, but there is a clear hesitation that is consistent with its previous odes; see Burton (1980) 207–208 for the chorus’ assessment of Chrysothemis and Electra. On the assignment of 1015–16 see the arguments of A. Petropoulou, “The Attribution of Sophocles’ Electra, 1015–16,” AJP 100 (1979) 480–86.

158. I feel that this stanza compares humans and birds generally, but this is an elusive passage. The problem is to use the observations about the birds to illustrate the inverted situation in the house of Atreus. I feel that Kells (note 128) pp. 179–81, who judges the ode to be directed at Agamemnon, limits the meaning of onesin (1061) too strictly and must change the subject between teloumen and aponetoi (1062 and 1065). Burton (1980) 209–10 argues that the chorus is finding fault with those who do not care for their parents—that is, Chrysothemis.

159. Kells (note 128) on 1070 ff. defines these three components of the message.

160. At 1087 I lean to the reading argued by T. C. W. Stinton, “The Scope and Limits of Allusion in Greek Tragedy,” in Greek Tragedy and Its Legacy (Calgary 1986) 83–84 (cf. 100–101); reprinted in his Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1990); but see the comments in Sophoclea on 1087.

161. Such a recognition duet is found nowhere else in Sophocles’ surviving plays; the closest parallels are provided by Euripides but only in astrophic configurations at Hel. 625–97, IT 827–99, and Ion. 1437–1509.

162. Orestes sings at least lines 1276 and 1280; it may be that he sings throughout the lyric.

163. This process begins at 1160–62, where Electra bursts out in lyric anapaests.

164. This prayer does not represent a sudden conversion by Electra to the more trusting attitude of the chorus; Apollo is not a god mentioned by the chorus. J. P. Poe in correspondence reminds me that this Apollo is the Agyieus; an address to him as a convenient presence is conventional (cf. OT 919). A prayer for aid at a critical moment is different from total trust in divinity; she is not demonstrating patient waiting on the good grace of the god, but is praying for support in the bouleumata that have been devised by men. Compare Clytemnestra’s different prayer to Apollo at 634–59.

165. Parallel “evesdropping” scenes are found at Hipp. 565–600; Orestes 1296–1310—and a close parallel at H.F. 887–905, although Amphitryon is not on stage. These are less complex scenes because they are not composed in a strophic structure.

166. For similar noncorresponding strophic structures see Eur. Herc. 734–59 and Ion 205–37.

167. Jebb on pp. 221–22 reviews the history of attempts to organize these lines. On the missing lines and the distribution of parts see McDevitt (note 93) 24–28. Line 1432 is confused in transmission or has replaced the existing line in the manuscript.

168. Talaina can express hatred: El. 273, Trach. 1084, and Kamerbeek, Commentary on 1426–27.

169. She even appeared to direct the action inside; see D. Seale, Vision and Stagecraft in Sophocles (Chicago 1982) 74–75.

170. Ronnet (note 19) 209; S. C. Shucard, “Some Developments in Sophocles’ Late Plays of Intrigue,” CJ 69 (1973–74) 133–38, and Blundell (1989) 172–78 discuss the efficient, practical qualities of Orestes. C. H. Whitman, Sophocles: A Study of Heroic Humanism (Cambridge, Mass., 1951) 168–71, calls him a “dispassionate and divinely sent adjutant” (171). There is a danger, however, in viewing Orestes as being only an efficient agent in this play. There are further dimensions that he brings to the play. Reinhardt (1947) 166 catches the tone well: “a living man carrying his own ashes.” See as a corrective the comments of Kirkwood (1958) 142 n.33; Woodard (I) (note 128) 165–68; Segal, TAPhA (1966) 512–15; and Kells (note 128) on p. 81.

171. See Burton (1980) 222: “the conversational style of the advice which closes the dialogue contrasts well with the majestic simplicity of the language at the end of the strophe with its strongly emphasized antitheses, its subtle rhymes, and its evocative echo in palirruton haima of the ancient doctrine that blood will have blood.”

172. Gardiner (1986) 159 has Electra left alone on stage. If so, there would be a double address by the chorus: to Electra as they have done so often in their odes, and to the invisible predecessors of the unfortunate house (Kamerbeek, Commentary ad 1508–10). W. M. Calder III, “The End of Sophocles’ Electra,” GRBS 4 (1963) 213–16 completes the scene by having Electra exit alone into the palace, finally free, while the chorus goes out the parodos.

173. Teleôthen (1510) as the last word of the play picks up a key theme in the play that is repeated constantly: 646, 726, 735, 947, 1062, 1344, 1399, 1417, 1435, and 1464; the best commentator on this theme is Woodard (note 128).

174. The following books and articles will be referred to by the author’s last name in this section: I. M. Linforth, Philoctetes: The Play and the Man, UCPCP 15 (1956) 95–156; J.-U. Schmidt, Sophokles Philoktet: Eine Strukturanalyse (Heidelberg 1973); P. E. Easterling, “Philoctetes and Modern Criticism,” ICS 3 (1978) 27–39; S. L. Schein, “The Chorus in Sophocles’ Philoktetes,” SIFC 6 (1988) 196–204.

175. In Sophocles play there is no indication of native inhabitants who can visit Philoctetes; Aeschylus and Euripides (as reported by Dio Chrysostom, Orationes 52.15) provided him with a sympathetic chorus of Lemnian neighbors, but in neither play do they visit before the time of the Greek attempt to bring him to Troy. T. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (note 17) 269–71; J. S. Kieffer, “Philoctetes and Arete,” CP 37 (1942) 38–50; Kirkwood (1958) 36–40; and Vickers (note 73) 300–303.

176. The remoteness of the setting is striking especially when compared to the earlier Sophoclean plays, all of which, with the exception of Ajax, are set before a palace. Ajax, Phil., and OC show how conscious Sophocles was of the appropriateness of the setting and may explain why he was specially credited for scene painting (Aristotle, Poetics 1449a16). The rude accoutrements of the remote island clearly imply a locale on the fringe of the heroic community, thus unfamiliar with the heavy heroic values associated with Troy; in such a place it is possible to arrive at a new understanding. See comments by L. Feder, “The Symbol of the Desert Island in Sophocles’ Philoctetes,” Drama Survey 3 (1963) 33–41; E. Schlesinger, “Die Intrige im Aufbau von Sophokles’ Philoktet,” RhM ni (1968) 97–156; D. B. Robinson, “Topics in Sophocles’ Philoctetes,” CQ 19 (1969) 34 ff.; P. Vidal-Naquet, “Le Philoctète de Sophocle e l’ephébie,” in J.-P. Vernant and P. Vidal-Naquet, Mythe et Tragédie en Grèce ancienne (Paris 1972) 170–72; and Easterling (note 174) 35–39. For an exploration of the mythological connections to Lemnos see W. Burkert, “Jason, Hypsipyle, and New Fire at Lemnos: A Study in Myth and Ritual,” CQ 20 (1976) 1–6 and Segal (1981) 303–14 and 321–22.

177. For the importance of the bow see E. Wilson, The Wound and the Bow (Boston 1941) 272–95; P. W. Harsh, “The Role of the Bow in the Philoctetes of Sophocles,” AJP 81 (1960) 408–14; Knox (1964) 139–40; Musurillo (note 10, 1967) 121–22; Taplin (note 126) 89–93; and Seale (note 169) 36–50.

178. The sickness of the heroic warrior is another powerful indicator of the play’s theme. The savior is wounded and sick, physically crippled, and yet he is potent as opposed to the community members at Troy who are healthy, yet paralyzed. There is a tendency in this play toward healing and making-whole through seeking companionship and community membership.

179. For a full analysis of the principles followed by each of the main characters see M. Nussbaum, “Consequences and Character in Sophocles’ Philoctetes,” Phil and Lit 1 (1976) 25–53. Odysseus enters this play with a reputation as a man who lives easily with deceptions, schemes, and even lying; yet he is also the hero who spoke so feelingly about human weakness in Ajax and defended Ajax’s right to burial. He is thus not a petty person, but perhaps someone with a wider perspective than the average man; see Plato, Republic 620C3–d2, and W. B. Stanford, The Ulysses Theme (Oxford 1954). Yet see the negative characterization by M. W. Blundell, “The Moral Character of Odysseus in Philoctetes,” GRBS 28 (1987) 307–29.

180. Neoptolemos, the son of Achilles, is added to the story by Sophocles (Dio Chrysostom, Or. 52.15) presumably as a character steeped in basic heroic values; see H. D. F. Kitto, Form and Meaning in Drama (London 1956) 114; Knox (1964) 121–24; and M. W. Blundell, “The Physis of Neoptolemus in Sophocles’ Philoctetes,” G&R 35 (1988) 137–48 and (1989) chap. 6. Yet in myth he is also a person who becornes increasingly associated with acts of violence—especially in his treatment of Priam and his death at Delphi, where he arouses such suspicions in the Delphians that they stone him to death. He is a person of double potential and one who might well be marked as ready to succumb to the manipulation of Odysseus.

In addition, he needs a new father and can be seen to be choosing between Philoctetes and Odysseus as candidates; see H. C. Avery, “Heracles, Philoctetes, Neoptolemos,” Hermes 93 (1965) 279–97. For a similar choice among political values see Vidal-Naquet (note 176) 161–80.

W. M. Calder III, “Sophoclean Apologia: Philoctetes,” GRBS 12 (1971) 153–74, summarizes the negative actions of Neoptolemos but overstates his case when he neglects his self-questioning and his relative youth in comparison with Odysseus; for further criticism see Segal (1981) 476 n.32 and R. P. Winnington-Ingram, “Sophoclea,” BICS 26 (1979) 10–11.

181. That there are various versions of the oracle is only to be expected in a playwright who is so devoted to presenting different perspectives on a problem. For Sophoclean characters, information is seldom complete until the action is finished, since oracles do not seek to reveal the fullness of the truth but only to open a small window to the full order of the world. Cf. Trach. 79–81, 166–72, 1169–73. The larger question is why characters have such trouble understanding the import of individual oracles and reporting them accurately; see Kitto (note 180) 95–99 and M. Heath, The Poetics of Greek Tragedy (Stanford 1987) 114. For further discussion of this problem in Phil. see notes 214 and 215.

182. See Gardiner (1986) 16 for the identification of the persona of the chorus: “costumed to represent fighting men of military age.”

183. Gardiner (1986) 14 cites its knowledge of Philoctetes’ circumstances and attitudes as well as the use of plurals at 92 and 126 as signs that the chorus was present to hear the planning of Odysseus and Neoptolemos; see also Edward Capps, “The Stage in the Greek Theater according to the Extant Dramas,” TAPhA 22 (1891) 24–25; Errandonea (1958b) 263–64 and (1970) 179–82; and T. B. L. Webster, Sophocles: Philoctetes (Cambridge 1970) 66 and 79.

184. Well argued by Schein (note 174); see also G. Norwood, Greek Tragedy (4th ed., London 1948) 162.

185. Dio Chrysostom 52.17 comments that this chorus does not contain gnomic elements or incentives to virtue as do other Sophoclean choruses; this is substantially correct but one must note 1140–42. See Burton (1980) 249.

186. See discussion in Sophoclea, line 209.

187. Burton (1980) 228–29 sees a shift between “absorption in plot and contemplation,” but these are not necessarily discrete functions in this play where the level of choral contemplation is not high though the soldiers continually reveal their deep human concern.

188. For discussion of the relationship between the chorus and Neoptolemos see Gardiner (1986) 19–20; Schmidt (note 174) 53–54; and Burton (1980) 228.

189. Burton (1980) 230–31 comments on different style and rhythm in the middle strophic pair.

190. Neoptolemos himself shows concern for Philoctetes as early as 162–68.

191. A sign that the division in the chorus’ attitude is only potential is the inclusion of glyconic meter in both first and third strophic pairs (140 = 155 and 209 = 218).

192. The need to set a factual tone probably explains the immediate appearance of an iambic trimeter in the beginning of a lyric passage; Gardiner (1986) 21: “the parodos seems to take on the qualities of a military conference hastily convened in the field to discuss immediate tactics.” See Dale (1968) 86 and 207–208 for discussion of possible differences in delivery.

193. There is a question about why Neoptolemos excuses the wounding and subsequent suffering of Philoctetes as parts of a divine plan. His statement does give a certain authority to the scheme in which he is involved; but it may also betray initial signs of guilt or discomfort (Kitto [note 180] 111–13); opposed remain Schmidt (note 174) 51–52 and Gardiner (1986) 18–19, who feels that Neoptolemos’ explanation is a natural reading of the situation.

194. In fact, there seems no reason for the interjections of Neoptolemos at 201 = 210 except to employ musical design to support the impression of easy communication between commander and soldiers. Similarly, in the parados to OC (176–206), the accomodative relationship between Oedipus/Antigone and the chorus is portrayed by the joint creation of a strophic form; this mood is immediately broken by their inability to continue such a form when Oedipus refuses to tell them his name at 208.

195. Evidence is not conclusive on when the chorus enters; for an early entrance with Odysseus and Neoptolemos, see Webster’s (note 183) commentary on the Prologue and Burton (1980) 227–28; for an entrance at 135 see Kamerbeek, Commentary p. 44, Gardiner (1986) 14–16, and R. G. Ussher, Sophocles’ Philoctetes (Warminster 1990) p. 117. I have assumed that the chorus enters with the main characters or shortly thereafter.

196. This is well illustrated in the analysis of the rhetoric of Philoctetes by D. Donnet, “Sophocles, Philoctète, 219–390,” LEC 53 (1985) 193–204.

197. The chorus is already in the conspiracy in its first ambiguous speech to Philoctetes at 317–18; see Schmidt (note 174) 79 and Gardiner (1986) 21–22.

198. This stanza is parallel on first hearing to Aeschylus, Cho. 152–63; PV 687–95; Sophocles, Trach. 205–24; Euripides, Supp. 918–23. Scholars have sought motivations for the interjection of this seemingly astrophic stanza, but none has dealt successfully with the form: e.g., Kitto (note 180) 115: it “gives the long scene its second wind”; Linforth (note 174) III and S. M. Adams, Sophocles the Playwright (Toronto 1957) 144 n.9, suggest that the scene is too long without choral breaks; Burton (1980) 232: 391–402 “enhance the effect of Neoptomelus’ lying speech and convince Philoctetes that it is genuine.”

199. For the choice of Cybele and the chorus’ clever employment of the god’s name see Gardiner (1986) 23–26.

200. The other Sophoclean plays offer no parallel to a strophic structure that is split by such a large number of intervening lines; the closest—yet not very apt—analogues are Ajax 866–973, Ant. 1261–1346, OT 649–96, OC 833–86, and 1447–99; see also Euripides, Hipp. 362–72 = 669–79, El. 859–85, and Or. 1353–65 = 1537–37.

201. On the significance of wind as a symbol in this play see Blundell (1989) 203 n.74; relevant passages are 237, 464–67, 641–44, 779–81, 1450.

202. This effect is described by S. Osterud, “The Intermezzo with the False Merchant in Sophocles’ Philoctetes (542–627),” C&M, Dissertations IX (1973) 10–26 (he provides a good review of earlier scholarship); see also K. Alt, “Schicksal und Physis im Philoktet des Sophocles,” Hermes 89 (1961) 154–56; A. Masaracchia, “La Scene dell’Emporos nel Filottete di Sofocle,” Maia 16 (1964) 79–98; J. P. Poe, Heroism and Divine Justice in Sophocles’ Philoctetes, Mnemosyne, Suppl. 34 (Leiden 1974) 19–20; A. F. Garvie, “Deceit, Violence, and Persuasion in the Philoctetes,” Studi classici in onore de Quintino Cataudella 1 (Catania 1972) 215–20.

203. Gardiner (1986) 26–30.

204. For a discussion of the textual problems see Sophoclea on 676–79 = 691–95 and 683.

205. Errandonea (1970) 189–90 even suggests that Philoctetes never leaves the stage during the chorus’ song. For a review of schemes for staging this ode see R. J. Tarrant, “Sophocles, Philoctetes 676–729: Directions and Indirections,” in M. Cropp, E. Fantham, and S. E. Scully, eds., Greek Tragedy and Its Legacy (Calgary 1986) 121–34, and Gardiner (1986) 31–36.

206. In 647 Philoctetes makes it clear that he has to gather only a few items and then will be ready to leave; the time of the ode approximates the duration of the action so that the scene is experienced as continuous from episode through ode to next episode.

207. Only at 175 = 186; 202 = 211; and 680 = 696.

208. I assume that the front part of the cave is represented as fully open. The characters who go into this part of the cave need not disappear into the scene building; rather they merely go up on the stage and can hear the chorus every bit as much as Oedipus can in the opening scene of OC when he is found inside the grove of the Eumenides. Such a stage design accords with the descriptions and actions at 15–47, where Odysseus is careful to warn Neoptolemos to move silently in case Philoctetes is in the cave, and at 1261–66. See discussion by Schmidt (note 174) 128–34.

209. My argument is based on the continuity in the scene; there is no decisive exit, the chorus continues to play a role in the on-going scene, and the meter in the first strophic pair provides a clue that deception continues. See the review of positions by Gardiner (1986) 30–36 with relevant bibliography and the general discussion of songs that do not divide scenes by Taplin (note 56) 49–60.

210. There is a careful analysis of the metrical structure of this ode by W. Lameere, “L’Ode au Sommeil du Philoctete de Sophocle (w. 827–864),” AC 54 (1985) 159–79; for alternate readings, scansion, and colometry see Dale (1968) 117–19.

211. In addition, the split in metrical structure does not precisely coincide with the shift in content, thus allowing the words to build further links between the dochmiac and iambic sections.

212. This ode begins as a cletic hymn: epithets, repetitions, summoning verbs, ethical datives stressing personal interest; see J. A. Haldane, “A Paean in the Philoctetes,” CQ 13 (1963) 53–56, and Burton (1980) 241–43. The hymnic elements in 827–32 and the gnomic expression in 837–38 are the most obvious signs of an artificial quality.

213. I would paraphrase 848–64 as follows: as much as possible try to leave Philoctetes here and take the bow—do it even by stealth if possible (but you say that stealing the bow will not work). If you hold the same opinion as Philoctetes about these matters (i.e., it would be wrong to bring him to Troy unwillingly), there are obvious sufferings ahead (because you will be acting against either the will of Philoctetes or that of the Greek army and its commanders). The wind is fair (for sailing either to Troy or to Greece), but the man is blind and without strength or defense (stressing the pitiable status of Philoctetes). Therefore think through your plans; the best course of action will cause (him) the least fear. The interjected comment at 859 fits this sympathetic reading of the passage.

214. I am following Easterling’s (note 174) fine analysis of Neoptolemos’ statement: “Sophocles makes his characters respond to it [the oracle] as people would in real life, interpreting the cryptic revelation of the future according to their sense of what is actually feasible in the circumstances” (27). For bibliography on this question up to 1959 see Friis Johansen’s bibliography, 248–50. Add to it Whitman 183–84; Kitto (note 180) 95–99 and 119–20; Knox (1964) 131–32 and 187–90 n.21; A. E. Hinds, “The Prophecy of Helenus in Sophocles’ Philoctetes,” CQ 17 (1967) 169–80; W. Steidle, “Die Weissagung im Philoktet und die Gestalt des Neoptolemos” in Studien zum Antiken Drama (Munich 1968) 169–73; Robinson (note 176) 34–56; Ronnet (note 19) 268–69; Winnington-Ingram (note 56) 50–51 and (1980) 287–88; D. Seale, “The Element of Surprise in Sophocles’ Philoctetes,” BICS 19 (1972) 96–97; C. Segal, “Philoctetes and the Imperishable Piety,” Hermes 105 (1977) 144–46; C. Gill, “Bow, Oracle and Epiphany in Sophocles’ Philoctetes,” G&R 17 (1980) 137–46; Gardiner (1986) 38; Machin (note 2) 61–74.

215. Bowra (note 3) 281 and Kitto (note 180) 119 extend the truth-quality conveyed in the hexameters to an unnecessary degree. Neoptolemos does come to understand the oracle, but the type of realization I have in mind, though not stated in so many words in the text, is well characterized by Knox (1964) 131: “Faced with the unspeakable agony of the man he has come to pity and admire, he understands the real meaning of the prophecy of Helenos even though he has heard it only in the carefully calculated version of Odysseus’ spokesman. It was not a promise of victory for the Greeks, with Philoctetes the instrument of their triumph; it was the recompense offered Philoctetes by the gods for all that he had suffered.” See also Linforth (note 174) 127.

216. For the heroic overtones in the usage of hexameters see Winnington-Ingram (note 56) 48–50 and Gardiner (1986) 38.

217. Webster on 852 ff. feels that the chorus refers to Odysseus in 852–53; see discussion in Sophoclea on 852. Jebb and Kamerbeek, however, argue that the lines refer to Philoctetes. And I find this identification to be convincing because it fits both the context and the characterization of the chorus, which has been growing more sympathetic to Philoctetes.

218. For discussion of the readings for this line see Sophoclea on 1095.

219. For the scansion of 1173–74 see T. C. W. Stinton, “Two Rare Verse-Forms,” CR 15 (1965) 146.

220. For discussion of alternate ways of reading lines 1213–17 see J. A. J. M. Buijs, “Thematic Associations of Aeolic Metre in Sophocles’ Philoctetes and the Text of 1213–17,” Mnemosyne 39 (1986) 125–28.

221. Gardiner (1986) 39: “he does not reply to Philoctetes’ impassioned speech but speaks only to chorus or to himself (965–6, 969–70, 974).”

222. Kitto’s analysis (note 180) 98–99 of the motives of Odysseus in the scene from 973 to 1062 correctly demonstrates that Odysseus’ words at 1054–62 are only a ploy, but clearly the audience must hear them as a possible course of action, as argued by Robinson (note 176) 45–51; see also Hinds (note 214) 170–78.

223. The tone of the chorus’ words in this scene is well defined by Kitto (note 180) 124–26.

224. The only exception is the single aristophanean at 1100 = 1122, which is, however, closely related to the aeolics in Philoctetes’ song (glyconic, pherecratean, hipponacteon, dodrans).

225. In fact, the second strophic pair echoes the order of the meters in the first pair.

226. The breaks in the content flow over the metrical units to show that Sophocles is presenting Philoctetes’ understanding of his situation as a complex unity that cannot be crisply analyzed.

227. At 1123 and 1146 there is no direct response from Philoctetes to the attempts of the chorus to persuade him.

228. Strophic dialogue would be the normal expectation in Sophoclean drama; Burton (1980) 245: “previous experiments with sung dialogue have been rigidly antistrophic from Ajax onwards.”

229. A similar attempt by Philoctetes to adopt another’s meter as a sign of communication and friendship is noted by R. J. Newman, “Heroic Resolution: A Note on Sophocles’ Philoctetes 1405–6,” CJ 86 (1991) 305–10.

230. O. Taplin, “Significant Actions in Sophocles’ Philoctetes,” GRBS 12 (1971) in the Appendix 39–44 and GTA (note 126) 49 and 186 n.18, argues that 1218–21 are spurious. Their omission creates a sharp break after the lyric: “Suddenly the play is off to a new start, and the morbid, bitter ending, which seemed inescapable, is superseded” (GTA 49; see also his “Lyric Dialogue and Dramatic Construction in Later Sophocles,” Dioniso 55 [1984–85] 120–21). The interruption is even clearer when the two enter in the middle of a dialogue; see the appendix to the 1971 article.

231. A. J. Podlecki, “The Power of the Word in Sophocles’ Philoctetes,” GRBS 7 (1966) 233–50 describes this play as “a case study in the failure of communication”; add the comments of Winnington-Ingram (1980) 294 n.46.

232. A sign of the agreement achieved in the final scene is the adoption by Philoctetes and Neoptolemos of Heracles’ anapaestic meter. For a full discussion of the unity in the passage from 1409 to 1471, as opposed to the unfulfilled departure proposed at 1402–8, see M. C. Hoppin, “Metrical Effects, Dramatic Illusion, and the Two Endings of Sophocles’ Philoctetes” Arethusa 23 (1990) 141–82.

233. Hoppin (note 232) discusses the change in values from the only earlier use of anapaestic meter in this play at 144–49, 159–68, and 191–200.

CHAPTER 4. THE IMPORTANCE OF MUSICAL DESIGN IN SOPHOCLEAN DRAMA

1. For discussion of the elements of the myth that have been taken over into the Oedipus at Colonus, see C. Robert, Oedipus: Geschichte eines poetischen Stoffs im griechischen Altertum (Berlin 1915) 457–90.

2. Theseus does decide to accept Oedipus as a citizen and to defend his daughters, but these are not the type of weighty, ultimate decisions that are the keys to tragedy.

3. These numbers are derived from a rough calculation that begs many questions; I have considered only choral strophic odes without interrupting iambics or anapaestic insertions.

4. See earlier discussion in Chapter 3.

5. For discussion of the parallel means of establishing identities and initial motivations between the main characters and choruses in Sophocles’ plays see Gardiner (1986) 177–92.

6. The best discussion of the hero is Knox (1964), esp. chaps. 1 and 2, but see also C. R. Post, “The Dramatic Art of Sophocles,” HSCPh 23 (1912) 71–127.

7. This is a distilled version of the definition by Kirkwood (1958) 10: “a serious play in which a person of strong and noble character is confronted with a crucial situation and responds to it in his special way.”

8. See Chapter 2.

9. See discussion of Phil. 391–402 = 507–18 in Chapter 3.

10. See full discussion of the kommos at Ant. 1257–1346 in Chapter 2.

11. See Chapters 2 and 3.

12. See full discussion of El. 472–515 in Chapter 3.

13. I.G. ii^2 2325.

14. In comparison Aeschylus’ extant plays represent a period of only fifteen years; Euripides’ span only a slightly shorter time than Sophocles’, although more than double the number of complete plays remain—most from 438 to 405 B.C.

15. Although such growth has been difficult to find; see W. Kranz (1933) 174–75, and for the increased use of lyric dialogue see the chart on 124–25 and Burton (1980), passim, esp. 249–50.

16. Signs of development in choral style, complementary to the growth in the form of lyrical dialogue, are presented by H. A. Pohlsander, “Lyrical Meters and Chronology in Sophocles,” AJP 84 (1963) 280–86.

17. O. Taplin, “Lyric Dialogue and Dramatic Construction in Later Sophocles,” Dioniso 55 (1984–85) 115–22.

18. See the discussion by M. Heath, The Poetics of Greek Tragedy (Stanford 1987) 126 with references in n. 2.

19. See full discussion of all three dialogues in Chapter 3.

20. See full discussion of Phil. 1081–1217 in Chapter 3.

21. For an example of this form of debate, see Electra 121–250.

22. Burton (1980) 253–54.

23. The following works will be referred to by the author’s last name in this section: U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, “Oedipus auf Kolonos,” in T. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Die dramatische Technik des Sophokles (Berlin 1917); C. H. Whitman, Sophocles: A Study of Heroic Humanism (Cambridge, Mass., 1971); P. Burian, “Suppliant and Saviour: Oedipus at Colonus,” Phoenix 28 (1974) 408–29.

24. L. Slatkin, “Oedipus at Colonus: Exile and Integration” in J. P. Euben, ed., Greek Tragedy and Political Theory (Berkeley 1986) 210–21, discusses the political motifs that are developed in the first two-thirds of the play.

25. Contra I. Linforth, “Religion and Drama in Oedipus at Colonus,” UCPCP 14 (1951) 75–192. The gods play a major role in the fate of Oedipus but the connection between divine and human forces is difficult to define. Those who posit a weighty divine structure only create difficulties for a satisfactory understanding of the play; see, e.g., F. Altheim, “Das Gottliche im Oidipous auf Kolonos,” Neue Jahrbücher für Wissenschaft und jugendbildung 1 (1925) 174–86. Yet Sophocles does not define the control that the gods exercise; see F. Allègre, “Sophocle. Études sur les ressorts dramatiques de son théâtre et la composition de ses tragédies,” Annales de l’Université de Lyon II Droit, Lettres, fasc. 15 (Paris 1905); H. D. F. Kitto, “The Idea of God in Aeschylus and Sophocles,” in La Notion du Divin depuis Homère jusqu’à Platon (Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique, 1: Geneva, Fondation Hardt 1954) 175–76, 179; Kirkwood (1958) 27; L. Moulinier, “Trois Leçons sur l’Oedipe à Colone,” Annales de la Faculté des Lettres d’Aix 39 (1965) 127–71, esp. 170.

26. U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (note 23) 340 n.3 and Kamerbeek on 117–253 and 176 argue that there is no need to find a lacuna in this area—as virtually all editors have done; rather Kamerbeek identifies “two parts that have much in common, metrically and with regard to their division between Chorus and actors.” Thus he identifies a transition from strophic structure to the astrophic song at 207–53. He cites Phil. 1081–1217 as a parallel, and in several ways he is correct. But his long transitional passage would be unique in having so many parts alike while avoiding strophic responsion; see Sophoclea on 183f. In addition, such a loss of corresponsion blunts the strong effect of interjecting Oedipus’ resistance to speaking his name just at the point where growing cooperation must be continued into the next musical unit.

27. For the scansion of 216, 218, and 220 see T. C. W. Stinton, “Two Rare Verse Forms,” CR 15 (1965) 144.

28. The local, democratic nature of the chorus is stressed in 78 and 145; Burton (1980) 295 calls them “simple countrymen” rather than elders of the city, thus finding cause for the lack of moral and intellectual comment in their odes. Gardiner (1986) 110 n.38, however, corrects his interpretation of chora (“sacred grove”) to mean “land” or “country”; it is important that Oedipus is accepted by men who are “not simply the custodians of the grove but are meant to be perceived as the local nobility subordinate to the king in the city” (Gardiner 115). See also Errandonea (1953) 199–210.

29. The hurried, scattered quality of this entrance is supported by Antigone’s announcement of the first appearance of choral members at 111–12; Sophocles does not announce the first choral entrances for the parodos in his other plays. Also their first word is identical to Aeschylus, Eum. 254, the scattered entrance of the Furies for their second parodos, and the stage directions implied in the words of both passages are similar.

30. See the discussion of parallel passages by S. Brown, “A Contextual Analysis of Tragic Meter: The Anapest,” in J. H. D’Arms and J. W. Eadie, eds., Ancient and Modern (Ann Arbor 1977) 60–61.

31. Burton (1980) 256 points out the devices of meter, style, and language that emphasize the agitation of the entering chorus: “urgent questions and commands; adverbs in asyndeton (130f.); repetition of words, ho pantôn, ho pantôn (119f), planatas, planatas (123) marked by the bacchiacs; alliteration, especially of p?

Although there are no indications in the manuscript tradition, the frequent asyndeton suggests that the initial lines of the opening strophe (118–25) are spoken by different individuals, thus paralleling in both word and spirit the “second parodoi” in both Eum. (244–75) and Ajax (866–78). Such a form would present the divided chorus gathering itself visually as a community to deal with Oedipus. For such division of chorus lines see my “The Splitting of Choral Lyric in Aeschylus’ Oresteia,” AJP 105 (1984) 150–64.

32. The first part of this parodos (118–69) is one of the clearest examples in Greek drama of the possibility of different movement in the strophe and antistrophe.

33. A use of lyric dialogue parallel to the attempt of Philoctetes to maintain the support of the chorus at Phil. 1169–1217.

34. See Dale (1968) 139 n.3.

35. R. Meridor, “Sophocles O.C. 217,” CQ 22 (1972) 229–30, effectively argues that line 217 should not be given to Antigone, who thus remains silent through this part of the dialogue; so also Lloyd-Jones/Wilson, Sophoclea. Even at 226 the chorus peremptorily blocks her response, thus motivating her spirited statement at 237.

36. Dale (1968) 39–40 identifies this passage as a pnigos and Burton (1980) 258 describes the effect as a group of lines poured out in one breath.

37. The scholiast rejects Antigone’s speech because it is better for Oedipus to defend himself immediately after the chorus’ speech, but such a comment ignores the role of meter in shaping the dynamics of a lyric dialogue and the urgency and then lessening of tension as outlined by Burton 258. In addition, the need for Antigone to speak stresses the rejection of Oedipus by this chorus.

38. Burton (1980) 261 offers testimony to the effectiveness of this lyric dialogue: “Quick exchanges in lyric between chorus and actor, appeals, refusals to answer, shocked interjections of incredulity, and relentless cross-examination emphasize the horrors inherent in Oedipus’ past life and awake in audience and reader a powerful emotional response.” The care with which this dialogue is contained within a strophic structure is clear in the balanced four-part line at 539 = 546.

39. Knox (1964) 152 and Burian (note 23) 414–15 feel that the chorus exceeds propriety in its questions; the questions may seem abrupt and aggressive but three dramatic effects are achieved by their forwardness: Oedipus clarifies his own intentions at the same time that Ismene is cleansing his pollution; Theseus can enter to mark the more political focus in the next movement where he declares Oedipus a resident now that he is cleared of impediments from the past (Gardiner [1986] 112–13 and note 40: “by inference the question of Oedipus’ original guilt, and hence his possible religious pollution of the land, is resolved not by the authority of Theseus, who never mentions it, but by the old men of Colonus themselves”); and Theseus is made to appear more magnanimous, as noted by Burian (see A. Lesky, Zwei Sophoklesinterpretationen,” Hermes 80 [1952] 99–105).

40. P. Vidal-Naquet, “Oedipe entre deux cités. Essai sur l’Oedipe a Colonel,” in J. P. Vernant and P. Vidal-Naquet, eds., Mythe et tragédie en Grece ancienne, vol. 2 (Paris 1986) 202–204, makes clear from his discussion of normal procedure that Oedipus would never in fact become a full citizen, but only a resident or a privileged metic. I would question whether Sophocles is using language that is sufficiently technical to insist on this point.

41. Jebb on 683 and A. S. McDevitt, “The Nightingale and the Olive. Remarks on the First Stasimon of Oedipus Coloneus” in Antidosis. Festschrift für Walther Kraus zum 70. Geburtstag (Wien, Köln, Graz 1972) 226–37, note that the nightingale and narcissus are possible symbols of death; thus the ode not only describes the present condition of Colonus, but also “characterizes Athens as a place where new life arises from the midst of death.”

42. M. Detienne, “L’olivier: un mythe politico-religieux,” Rev. de l’hist. des Rel. 178 (1970) 5–23, discusses the societal and political meanings to be found in the myth of the Athenian olive. See also the discussion of the importance of place in this play by R. H. Allison, “‘This is the Place’: Why is Oidipous at Kolonos?” Prudentia 16 (1984) 67–91.

43. T. C. W. Stinton, “The Riddle at Colonus,” GRBS 17 (1976) 323–28, suggests that chalinos, as the answer to the parallel riddle in the strophe, refers both to the bridle and the mooring cable, thus including both gifts of Poseidon in one word.

44. J. Daly, “Oedipus Coloneus: Sophocles’ Threpteria to Athens,” QUCC 22 (1986) 76–93 and 23 (1986) 65–84, comments on paidotrophou at 701, which through a wide nexus of related words presents Athens as “parent and nurturer of her children. . . . As both city and mother of all the inhabitants of Attica, then, neither young nor old harm her, since any wrong committed against Athens would violently contradict their obligation as citizens to support and defend their parent, in repayment of the sustenance they had received from her” (67).

45. Notice the repetitions of the word “always” in this ode (679, 682, 685–91, 702–706) vs. Oedipus’ insistence on constant change and transience at 607–20. This sense of permanence returns as Oedipus begins to leave the stage. “Always” returns at 1525, 1555, and 1765; see G. Kirkwood, “From Melos to Colonos: Tinas Chorous Aphigmeth’ . . .” TAPhA 116 (1986) 116.

46. W. Jens, Die Stichomythie in der frühen griechischen Tragödie (Zetemata 11, Munich 1955) 100–101, emphasizes the originality of this scene’s forceful design.

47. The appearance of the only trochaic tetrameter lines (887–90) in the play calls attention to the significance of this entrance.

48. It is notable that Theseus must interrupt a public sacrifice to answer Oedipus’ summons, an incident that emphasizes the piety of Theseus but also shows how distant from Athens’ normal practices the behavior of Creon is; in contrast Oedipus accepted Athens’ ways by learning how to conform to the Athenians’ religious observances in the first movement of the play.

49. Burton (1980) 266: “His [Theseus’] opening four lines are recited in trochaic tetrameters, the only ones in this play, so that the excitement generated is carried over into the opening of the dialogue before settling down with iambic trimeters at 891.”

50. The signs of order that Theseus brings on stage are clear in the staging: he arrives with attendants (897–904), thus indicating proper civic ranking, and he stages a courtroom scene, an imitation of a civil procedure.

51. On this theme see Kirkwood (note 45) 103–10.

52. This is a highly emotional, imaginative ode that wills action into the present moment through the chorus’ desire to be participants. This intent is evident in the optatives at 1044, 1082, and 1086 and the other verbs that refer only to the present or future; the chorus emphatically presents its personal thoughts at 1054, 1075, and 1080; there are strong evocations of visual and oral elements in the imagined scene (1057 and 1067–68); the chorus specifically identifies familiar locations as it pictures the battle (1048–53 and 1059–64); it reports personal reactions in emotional metaphors (1075, 1080, 1081–84); it uses a prayer form at 1085–95. All is phrased with repeated words (1065–68, 1077–79), slight use of connectives, and many short sentences. See A. A. Long, Language and Thought in Sophocles (London 1968) 144–46 and Burton (1980) 281–83.

53. This meter appropriately appears during the epirrhematic thunder scene (1447–56 = 1462–71) when Oedipus’ heroization is affirmed by the gods.

54. S. M. Adams, Sophocles the Playwight, Phoenix, Suppl. 3 (Toronto 1957) 172: “Together they [the Colonus ode and the war ode] are a full expression of the greatness of the city, a kind of national anthem. Dramatically, they are a tribute to the city of wisdom and of power, for they are responsive in turn to the wisdom that accepted Oedipus and to the power that will protect him.”

55. See Dale (1968) 161–63.

56. See the discussion of this ode by Burton (1980) 284–92. He points out the careful balances that may indicate a greater portion of traditional statement in this ode than individualized response to the situation of Oedipus; both strophe and antistrophe begin with a kind of maxim and both have the same construction: maxim, reason, conclusion. For parallels to the statements of the chorus see Burton’s notes.

57. On the force of Oedipus’ curse see Whitman (note 23) 211–12; T. Rosenmeyer, “The Wrath of Oedipus,” Phoenix 6 (1952) 92–112; F. M. Wasserman, “Man and God in the Bacchae and in the Oedipus at Colonos,” in G. E. Mylonas and D. Raymond, eds., Studies Presented to D. M. Robinson 2 (St. Louis 1953) 566–68; P. E. Easterling, “Oedipus and Polyneices,” PCPhS 13 (1967) 9–11; and A. Machin, Cohérence et continuité dans le théâtre de Sophocle (Quebec 1981) 137–49.

58. See Chapter 3 for discussion on the similar “corroborating” entrance of Clytemnestra at El. 516.

59. O. Taplin, “Aeschylean Silences and Silences in Aeschylus,” HSCPh 76 (1972) 95 calls Oedipus’ breaking of his silence, “one of the harshest moments in Sophocles.”

60. Burian (note 23) 422f. and 425 n.39: “Out of the extremes of Oedipus’ very human emotions we see the daemon begin to emerge. To recognize this does not entail denying Oedipus’ humanity or suppressing our response to its powerful expression throughout the play.” See also Linforth (note 25), esp. 156; G. Müller, “Chor und Handlung bei den griechischen Tragikern,” in H. Diller, ed., Sophokles, “Wege der Forschung” 95 (Darmstadt 1967) 235; G. Ronnet, Sophocle: Poète Tragique (Paris 1969) 288–90; Easterling (note 57) 1–13.

61. Jebb on 1447 ff., Linforth (note 25) 166 n.66, and Burton (1980) 268–69 see that the opening words of this ode (nea tade . . . elthe moi) do not refer to a peal of thunder (vs. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff [note 23] 332–33; Reinhardt [1947] 291 n.32), but rather to fears excited by the previous scene.

62. Lines 534–41 = 542–48, the end of the first movement; 1047–57 = 1062–72 + 1074–84 = 1085–95, the end of the second movement.

63. The sounding of thunder at 1471 is supported by the repetition of words from 1456 that marked the chorus’ reaction to the first clap of thunder. It is thus possible that thunder was heard five times: at the end of the first stanza and at the beginning and the end of the second and third. Burton (1980) 269 identifies only three claps of thunder and comments that the thunder is not placed symmetrically in the lyrics. The audience’s appreciation of order would arise from predictably spaced sounds of thunder as elements in the musical design that Sophocles gradually reveals through the whole scene.

64. The symmetry is made complete when Theseus also speaks five lines of iambic on his entrance (1500–4).

65. O. Taplin, “Significant Actions in Sophocles’ Philoctetes,” GRBS 12 (1971) 31–32.

66. For discussion of possible meanings of this word see Linforth, App., 187–91, and Sophoclea on 1565–67.

67. Kirkwood (1958) 205.

68. I believe S. M. Adams, “Unity of Plot in the Oedipus Coloneus,” Phoenix 7 (1953) 146, puts the proper nuance to interpretation: “Jebb called it ‘a choral litany for the soul which is passing from earth.’ It is, I think, more than that: it is a prayer for a man who is passing into that daimôn-state of which his supernatural sight has been a symbol.” Kamerbeek on 1565–57 sees earlier hints by the chorus of the heroization of Oedipus, yet such an interpretation attributes to this chorus more awareness than it has heretofore shown. These lines are better read as a hopeful wish, a tone wholly appropriate to those who have come to favor Oedipus.

69. R. Fitzgerald in his translation of OC (1939) is even moved to insert a long pause after the choral song to allow time for the audience to realize that a mysterious event is happening off stage.

70. For the scansion pattern see L. P. E. Parker, “Split Resolution in Greek Dramatic Lyric,” CQ 18 (1968) 259–60.

71. As a result Ismene retreats into background—a subtler effect than, but similar to, the death of Clytemnestra at El. 1398–41.

72. In this case the musical design supports the comments of critics that Sophocles tends to close his plays with hints of a problematic future; Kirkwood (note 45) 114; M. Davies, “The End of Sophocles’ O.T.” Hermes 110 (1982) 271 n.10; D. H. Roberts, “Sophoclean Endings: Another Story,” Arethusa 21 (1988) 177–96; and Winnington-Ingram (1980) 274–75.

73. This is the answer to A. J. A. Waldock, Sophocles The Dramatist (Cambridge 1951) 226: “Antigone and Ismene have really nothing to say and they say it to the tune of too many verses.”

74. Just as Theseus’ other entrances (551 and 887) have furthered actions that set the play in a new direction.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE CHORUS IN SOPHOCLEAN DRAMA

For a discussion of editions published prior to 1990 see the Introduction in H. Lloyd-Jones and N. G. Wilson, Sophoclea: Studies on the Text of Sophocles (Oxford 1990); editions are cited by the editor’s name only in this study.

The following books and articles are a basic bibliography for work on the chorus in Sophoclean drama. Not all are mentioned in the notes, but if they are, they are referred to by their author’s name and the date of publication.

Blundell, M. W. (1989). Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics. Cambridge.

Burton, R. B. W. (1980). The Chorus in Sophocles’ Tragedies. Oxford.

Dale, A. M. (1968). The Lyric Meters of Greek Drama (2nd ed.). Cambridge.

(1971 and 1981). “Metrical Analysis of Tragic Choruses,” BICS, Suppl. 21.1 and 2.

Davidson, J. F. (1986). “Chorus, Theatre, Text and Sophocles,” in J. H. Betts, J. T. Hooker, and J. R. Green, eds., Studies in Honour of T. B. L. Webster, pp. 69–78. Bristol.

(1991). “Starting a Choral Ode: Some Sophoclean Techniques.” Prudentia 23:31–44.

Dawe, R. D., ed. (1984 and 1985). Sophocles Tragoediae I and II. Leipzig.

de Falco, V. (1928). La Tecnica Corale de Sofocle. Napoli.

Errandonea, I. (1922). “Sophoclei Chori Persona Tragica.” Mnemosyne 50:369–422.

. (1942). “El Coro como Elemento Integrante en la Tragedia de Sófocles.” Emerita 10:28–65.

. (1952). “El Estásimo Cuarto de Antígona (944–87).” Emerita 20:108–21.

. (1953). “La Personalidad del Coro base de la Unidad en Edipo en Colono.” Humanidades 5:199–210.

. (1955a). “ Filoctetes.” Emerita 23:122–64.

. (1955b). “Le Choeur dans l’Électre de Sophocle.” LEC 23:367–403.

. (1958a). “Les quatre monologues d’Ajax et leur signification dramatique.” LEC 26:21–40.

. (1958b). Sófocles: Invesitigaciones sobre la Estructura Dramática de sus Siete Tragedias y sobre la Personalidad de sus Coros. Madrid.

. (1970). Sofocles y la Personalidad de sus Coros. Madrid.

Gardiner, C. P. (1986). The Sophoclean Chorus: A Study of Character and Function. Iowa City.

Helmreich, F. (1905). Der Chor bei Sophokles und Euripides nach seinem ethos betrach-tet. Erlangen.

Hense, O. (1871). Der Chor des Sophokles. Berlin.

Jebb, R. C. (1883–96). Editions of all seven plays. Cambridge.

Kamerbeek, J. D. (1953–84). Editions of all seven plays. Leiden.

Kirkwood, G. M. (1954). “The Dramatic Role of the Chorus in Sophocles.” Phoenix 8:1–22.

. (1958). A Study of Sophoclean Drama. Ithaca, N.Y.

Knox, B. M. W. (1964). The Heroic Temper: Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy. Berkeley and Los Angeles.

Korzeniewski, D. (1961). Interpretationen zu Sophokleischen Chorliedern. RhM 104:193–201.

. (1962). Zum Verhältnis von Wort und Metrum in Sophokleischen Chorliedern. RhM 105:142–52.

. (1968). Griechische Metrik. Darmstadt.

Kranz, W. (1933). Stasimon. Untersuchungen zu Form und Gehalt dergriechischen Tragodie. Berlin.

Kraus, W. (1957). Strophengestaltung in der griechischen Tragodie. Sitz-Ber., Akad. d. Wiss., Wien 23, vol. 4.

Lesky, A. (1972). Die tragischen Dichtung der Hellenen (3rd ed.). Gottingen. Eng. ed., Greek Tragic Poetry, trans. Matthew Dillon. New Haven 1983.

Muff, C. (1877). Die Chorische Technik des Sophokles. Halle.

Musurillo, H. (1967). The Light and the Darkness: Studies in the Dramatic Poetry of Sophocles. Leiden.

Pohlsander, H. A. (1964). Metrical Studies in the Lyrics of Sophocles. Leiden. Rahm, A. (1907). Über den Zusammenhang zwischen Chorliedern und Handlung in den erhaltenen Dramen des Sophokles (und Euripides). Sondershausen.

Reinhardt, K. (1947). Sophokles. Frankfurt a.M. Eng. ed., trans. H. and D. Harvey. Oxford 1979.

Roberts, D. H. (1987). Parting Words: Final Lines in Sophocles and Euripides. CQ 37:51–64.

Scott, W. C. (1984). Musical Design in Aeschylean Theater. Hanover and London.

Segal, C. P. (1981). Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles. Cambridge, Mass.

West, M. L. (1982). Greek Metre. Oxford.

Winnington-Ingram, R. P. (1980). Sophocles: An Interpretation. Cambridge.

INDEX

Achelous, 104–105, 106

Adonic (adonean) meter: in Ant., 53; in OC, 236

Aegisthus: death of, 169–70; Electra denying a final word, 171; Electra’s fear of, 163; leaving the stage alive in El., 151; plan to isolate Electra, 158

Aeolic meter, xvi, xvii; in Ajax, 73, 80, 82, 83; in Ant., 53; in El., 160; in OC, 225, 231, 236; in OT, 140, 199; in Phil., 191, 192, 311n224; in Trach., 105, 111

Aeschylus: Aeschylean qualities of Ode to Zeus, 42, 273n86; Agamemnon, 198; anapaestic entrances in, 284n174; average length of odes in, 199; Choephorei, 198; choral songs of, 24; contrast between word and deed in, 302n132; Eumenides, 151, 286n199, 313n29; lyric dialogue in, 209–10; music as essential to plays of, ix–x; Oresteia, 149, 150–51, 170, 171, 198, 302n134; Persians, 209; Philoctetes in, 198, 306n175; plays compared to those of Sophocles, 149–50; as poet of early Athenian democracy, 1; Sophocles’ use of music compared to, 18; traditional beliefs in, 27; words for music and sound in, 12, 16

Agamemnon, 67, 88

Agamemnon (Aeschylus), 198

Ajax: Athena seeking to humble, 67; the chorus as appropriate to, 198; the chorus as depending on, 69; deception speech of, 81–83; disappointed expectations of, 66; emerging lucidity of, 76–77; in first kommos, 75–78; as focal point of Ajax, 65–66; imagery of, 69; inability to communicate with his soldiers, 76; intention to kill himself, 79, 81; Odysseus and, 66, 67; response to challenge by, 251; suicide of, 80, 84; Tecmessa discovering body of, 85, 87; Tecmessa on death of, 88–89; tent of, 66

Ajax, 65–93; beginning again after death of Ajax, 87–88, 286n193; divine intervention in, 276n109; entrances and exits in, 282n159; final song of, 2, 93; Homeric tradition in, 66; lyric dialogue in, 210; meter and form in epiparodos and kommos, 83–90; meter and form in first stasimon, 79–81; meter and form in kommoi of, 73–78, 86, 88, 90; meter and form in parodos and epirrhematic scene, 68–73; meter and form in second stasimon, 81–83; meter and form in third stasimon, 90–92; rule-breaking as theme of, 67; scene change in, 65, 281n154. See also Ajax; Chorus of Salaminian soldiers in Ajax; Odysseus; Tecmessa

Alcaic decasyllable meter, 238

Anaclast, xvii

Anacreontic meter: in Ant., 45, 53; in El., 162–63; in Phil., 192

Anapaestic meter, xvii; in Ajax, 69, 70–71, 72, 91, 93; in Ant., 29–37, 40, 41, 43, 46, 49, 50, 52–56, 59–60, 63–65, 204, 205, 265n38, 266n41, 268n58, 268n60, 272n82; in El., 154, 155, 160, 171, 172, 212, 303n143, 304”163; entrances in, 29, 204, 284n174; in lyric dialogue, 210; in OC, 224, 225, 226, 249; in OT, 128, 143, 144; in Phil., 177, 194, 311n232; preparodos anapaests, 284n175; in Trach., 105, 107, 115, 116, 119

Antigone: as autonomos, 50; as bride of death, 49, 277n111; capture by Creon in OC, 220, 231, 233, 234; the chorus of Ant. and, 16, 35, 39–41, 49–51, 53–54; Creon and, 26, 51, 52, 62, 63, 279n127, 279n130; Electra compared to, 151, 277n118; in epirrhematic scene of OC, 242; final exit in Ant., 48–57, 63, 279n130; final statement in Ant., 51–52; foresees results of her actions, 3; Haemon and, 46–47, 265n32, 275n103; history of Labdacids and, 42, 272n85; Ismene and, 25; lamenting Oedipus’ death, 247–49; on the laws of Zeus and Dike, 41–42, 206–207; mythological precedents for, 55–56, 57; Niobe cited by, 50, 278n118; with Oedipus in grove of Colonus, 224–26, 314n35; relationship to Oedipus, 50, 272n84; response to challenge by, 251

Antigone, 25–65; complete strophic songs in, 29; conflict and its consequences in, 26–27; conflicting perspectives in, 64; consistency of meter in, 28, 202; final choral ode as balance to parodos, 58; hyperforms in, 205–207; kommoi of, 5, 29, 35, 48–57, 59–64; lyric dialogue in, 210; major structural division of, 35–36; meter and form in Antigone’s final exit, 48–57; meter and form in final scene, 59–64; meter and form in fifth stasimon, 9–11, 57–59; meter and form in fourth stasimon, 54–57; meter and form in Ode on Man (first stasimon), xiii–xviii, 37–41, 269nn68–69, 270n70, 271n71; meter and form in Ode to Eros (third stasimon), 46–48; meter and form in Ode to Zeus (second stasimon), 41–46, 272n83, 272n85, 273n86; meter and form in parodos of, 30–37; music of, 28–29; opening scene of, 25–26; Polyneices, 33, 46, 55, 64; reason and final song of, 65; Teiresias, 56, 58, 280n139. See also Antigone; Chorus of Creon’s councilors in Ant.; Creon; Ismene

Antistrophe. See Strophe/antistrophe

Aphrodite, 105, 111

Apollo: in Ajax, 82; in El., 168, 304n164; in OT, 125, 128, 129, 138, 145, 146, 149; in Oresteia, 150

Ares: in Ajax, 70, 82; in OT, 125; in Trach., 291n36

Aristophanean meter: in Ajax, 77, 80; in Ant., 45, 67; in OC, 247; in Phil., 311n224

Aristophanes (playwright), 24, 261n16

Aristophanes of Byzantium, 18, 259n4

Aristotle, 4, 149, 263n24

Artemis, 70, 125

Asclepiadean meter: in Ajax, 80; in Ant., 56; in Phil., 183

Astyanax, 86

Athena, 67, 86, 230

Atreus, House of, 158, 171, 304n158

Audiences of ancient Greece: departure from basic meter’s effect on, 23; developing an ear for basic meters, 22; familiarity with conventions of Greek theater, 24; interpretations of OT by, 147; judgments required of, 1; levels of interpreting the choral odes, 11; music as guide for, x; as privileged to know the outcome of the play, 201; as proper spectators of Sophocles, 5; Sophocles playing on expectations of, 34, 35, 61, 64–65, 72, 207–208, 214–15, 280n147

Bacchiac meter, xvi

Capaneus, 266n43, 266n47, 278n126, 280n145

Choephorei (Aeschylus), 198

Choreography. See Dance

Choriambic dimeter, xvii; in Ant., 36, 45, 47, 53; in Phil., 191; in Trach., 98

Choriambic meter, xvii; in Ajax, 73, 78, 83; in Ant., 36, 45, 47–48, 54, 57; in El., 155, 160; in OC, 228, 236, 247; in OT, 128, 129, 136, 140, 142, 199, 296n189, 296n94; in Phil., 176, 182, 191, 192; in Trach., 105

Chorus: choice between male or female, 16; choral consistency, 201–204; choral perspective, 197–201, 217–18; as ideal spectator, 4, 5, 7; in lyric dialogue, 210; meter and form enhancing persona of, 94; as mirroring the social and political environment, 6; in modern productions, ix; musical design as basic to, 217–18; persona of, 5–6, 94, 250, 253; as representing a community, 200–201; Sophoclean, 4–11, 16, 17, 200–201, 217–18, 257n11, 258n22, 263n24, 303n147. See also individual choruses

Chorus of Argive women in El.: birds and humans compared by, 162, 304n158; breakdown in music, 172; changing their tune, 163; on the death of Clytemnestra, 168–71, 213–14; dialogue with Electra in parodos, 154–56, 302nn140–41; on Electra’s determination to kill Clytemnestra, 162–64; encouraging Electra when she thinks Orestes is dead, 160, 212–13; as female, 16; final choral lines, 171–72, 305n172; in first stasimon, 157–59; as integral parts of the drama, 151; metaphors relating to music and dance in, 12; as mirroring the social and political environment, 6; musical role preempted, 166, 203; retreating into the background, 173; weak perspective of, 202

Chorus of Athenian citizens in OC: during confrontation between Oedipus and Creon, 233–34; entrance of, 223, 313n29, 317n68; in epirrhematic scene, 240–44; final ode to Oedipus, 244–45, 317n68; in heroization of Oedipus, 238–40, 316n56; increasing abihty to make music, 231; lamenting Oedipus’ death, 247–49; local, democratie nature of, 313n28; as male, 16; ode on the gods of Athens defending Oedipus, 236–37, 316n52; Ode to Colonus, 230–31, 232, 315n41; Oedipus accepted by, 227–29, 314n39; with Oedipus in the grove at Colonus, 223–26; as representatives of the community, 198–99; thunderclaps interrupting, 13–14, 208, 241–43, 317n63

Chorus of Creon’s councilors in Ant., 94–95; Antigone and, 35, 39–41, 49–51, 53–54; balanced strophic forms for, 28; breakdown in music, 63; celebration of Theban victory, 32–33, 36–37; as a consistent character, 203, 263n24; and Creon, 26, 27, 28, 30, 40, 60, 263n23; extreme positions of, 281n152; in the fifth stasimon, 9–11, 58–59; final anapaestic song of, 64–65; in the final scene, 60, 63, 64, 205–207, 280n145; in the first stasimon (Ode on Man), 37–39; as mirroring the social and political environment, 6; music as metaphor for order in, 13; myth used to support position of, 56; prayer to Dionysus, 10–11, 58–59; repetition of meter by, 202; in the second stasimon (Ode to Zeus), 41–46; sound-words used by, 12; in the third stasimon (Ode to Eros), 46–48; traditional beliefs supported by, 27–28, 29–30; weighty perspective of, 202

Chorus of Salaminian soldiers in Ajax, 94–95; after Ajax’s death, 84–90; on Ajax’s deception speech, 81–83; Ajax’s inability to communicate with, 76; on Ajax’s madness, 79–81, 285n188; background role of, 67, 282n162; breakdown of music, 85, 89; as depending on Ajax, 69; diminishing role in final scenes, 4, 92, 282n162; final anapaestic song of, 93; in first kommos, 75–78; jumping from topic to topic and meter to meter, 72–73, 202, 203; as male, 16; in the opening choral scene, 69–73; reaction to offstage sound, 13; as soldiers, 67, 282n161; weak perspective of, 202

Chorus of soldiers in Phil.: breakdown in music, 185–86, 193; community orientation of, 174–75, 193; conversation with Neoptolemos, 186–87; in deception scene, 178–81, 205; deterioration of communal singing between actors and, 195, 203–204; divided will of, 176–78, 307n191; entrance of, 174; in the final scene, 194; as male, 16; Neoptolemos interrupting, 193; ode to Sleep, 185; and Philoctetes’ song, 190–93; on Philoctetes’ wretched life, 15, 182–83; preassigned role of, 258n21; repetition of meter by, 202

Chorus of Theban elders in OT: basic meters of, 126; breakdown in music, 142, 200; characteristics of, 295n77; choosing between Oedipus and Teiresias, 148; disruption of established meter of, 202; in final scene, 144–48, 203, 300n118; in first stasimon, 128–30; in fourth stasimon, 139–43; learning the truth, 139; loyalty to Oedipus, 131–32, 296n91; lyric dialogue with Oedipus, 131–33; as male, 16; on Oedipus’ blinding, 2; prayer to the gods in parodos, 125–27; questioning need to continue dancing, 6, 8, 14, 135–36, 149; religious attitude of, 296n88; in second stasimon, 134–36; as speaking for itself not the poet, 29n97; terrified by what it has witnessed, 124; in third stasimon, 137–38; trust in consistent divine purpose, 129, 137, 298n106; weighty perspective of, 202

Chorus of young women in Trach.: action interrupting songs of, 102–103, 121; breakdown in music, 112–13, 114; choral song on return of Heracles, 102–103; in the Deception Scene, 104; Deianeira defended by, 110–11; Deianeira described by, 6, 100, 105–106, 121, 122; after Deianeira’s suicide, 23, 111–12, 291n44; diminishing role in final scenes, 4. 119, 293n65; disruption of established meter of, 202; as female, 16; in fourth stasimon, 113–14, 121; Heracles and, 6, 14–15, 16, 122; Heracles appropriates role of, 119, 120, 121–22; Hyllus directs them to leave, 119; idealized picture of marriage of, 96–97, 120–21; innocence of, 12, 288n4; lack of developing thought and originality in, 99; as mirroring the social and political environment, 6–7; musical role preempted, 203; in the parodos, 98–101; repetition as device of, 99, 202, 289n11; seeking to escape their role, 113–14, 121; shift to new music by, 113, 118; in the third stasimon, 110–13; thoughts diverging from the reality of the play, 106–108; weak perspective of, 202; Wheel of Fortune motif used by, 288n10; words relating to music and dance in, 12, 14–15, 102, 108; on Zeus, 98, 99, 100, 102

Chrysothemis, 157, 161–63, 251, 304nn157–58

Clytemnestra: death of, 168–71, 213–14; Electra rejects argument of, 158–59; night vision of, 158; in Oresteia, 150, 151, 170; reaction to report of Orestes’ death, 159; response to challenge by, 251; as visual hyperform in El., 208–209

Corresponsion. See Responsion

Creon: accused of plotting against Oedipus, 130–32, 143; and Antigone, 26, 51, 52, 62, 63, 279n127, 279n130; Antigone and Ismene captured by in OC, 231, 234; arrested by Theseus, 234; attempting to tell truth to Oedipus, 122, 123; and the chorus in Ant., 26, 27, 28, 30, 40, 60, 263n23; confrontation with Oedipus in OC, 233–35; at end of Ant., 2, 44, 60–64, 205–207; entrance in Ant., 34, 268n57; entrance in OC, 233; extreme positions of, 281n152; in final scene of OT, 146, 147, 148; mythological precedents for, 55; during Ode to Eros in Ant., 276n106; on Oedipus’ blinding, 2, 123–24; response to challenge by, 251; succeeding Oedipus as king, 124; as transgressor in Ode to Zeus in Ant., 274n92

Cretic meter, xvi; in Ant., 36; in OC, 247

Dactylic hexameter, 115, 116

Dactylic meter, xvii, 275n98; in Ajax, 73, 89; in Ant., 40; in El., 155; as meter for heroic tales, 72; in OC, 226, 228, 230, 247; in OT, 126, 140; in Phil., 182, 185, 191, 192; in Trach., 99, 104

Dactylo-epitrite, xvii; in Ajax, 72, 73; in Ant., 44; in El., 168; in OC, 236; in OT, 137, 140; in Trach., 98, 104, 107, 110

Dance: the chorus and, 27; metrical patterns and, xviii, xix; responsion and, 21; words relating to music and, 11–12

Deianeira: the chorus after suicide of, 23; the chorus as appropriate to, 198; chorus’ defense of, 110–11; the chorus’ description of, 6, 100, 105–106, 121, 122; cursed by Heracles, 116, 117; in the Deception Scene, 104; in first section of Trach., 96; at Heracles’ imminent arrival, 14; kept separate from Heracles on stage, 96, 108; and message of return of Heracles, 101–103; problem of maintaining her identity in marriage, 97; realizing that the robe is poisoned, 107; response to challenge by, 251; suicide of, 107, 111–12; willingness to compromise, 120

Dike. See Justice

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 21, 260n12

Dionysus: chorus of councilors’ prayer to in Ant., 10–11, 58–59, 280n145; chorus of elders’ prayer to in OT, 125

Dochmiac meter, xvii; in Ajax, 77, 78, 89, 90; in Ant., 62, 63; in disruptions of established metrical patterns, 202; in El., 155, 212, 214; in OC, 233, 234, 241, 244; in OT 132, 199; in Phil., 185; in Trach., 111, 118 Dodrans meter: in Ajax, 80, 83; in Ant., 36; in OC, 225; in Phil., 311n224

Electra: Antigone compared to, 151, 277n118; as asserting her presence, 151–52; the chorus as appropriate to, 198; Clytemnestra’s argument rejected by, 158–59; at death of Clytemnestra, 168–71, 213–14; denying Aegisthus a final word, 171; determination to kill Clytemnestra, 3–4, 161–64; dialogue with chorus in parodos, 154–56, 302n140–41; as dominating El., 150–51; at end of El., 2, 171–72, 305n172; and the female chorus, 16; in first stasimon, 157–59; at Orestes’ return, 165–67, 213, 215; reaction to report of Orestes’ death, 159–61, 212–13; remaining unmarried and childless, 172; response to challenge by, 251

Electra (Euripides), 198

Electra (Sophocles), 149–73; actors as singers in, 166; contrast between word and deed in, 151, 168, 302n139; final scene of, 2, 171–72; hyperform in, 208–209; Justice in, 152, 158, 159, 171, 172; literal sounds in, 12; lyric dialogues in, 211–15; meter and form in first stasimon, 157–59; meter and form in kommoi, 159–61, 165–67, 167–71; meter and form in parodos, 152–56; meter and form in second stasimon, 161–64; meter and form in third stasimon, 167–71; music associated with vengeance in, 172–73; recognition duet in, 165. See also Aegisthus; Chorus of Argive women in El.; Clytemnestra; Electra; Orestes

Enoplion meter, xvii; in Ajax, 80, 89; in Ant., 40, 53, 56, 272nn80; in OC, 228, 238; in OT, 135; in Trach., 111

Epode, xix; in Ant., 207; in Sophocles, 23; in Trach., 121

Erinyes (Furies): in Ant., 42, 43, 273n89, 274n90; Dike and, 303nn148–49; in El., 158, 159; in Eumenides of Aeschylus, 151; in Trach., 112

Eros, Ode to (Antigone), 46–48

Eteocles: in Ant., 33; in OC, 227

Eumenides (Aeschylus), 151, 286n199, 313n29

Euripides: average length of odes in, 199; Electra, 198; Orestes, 259n6, 260n12; Philoctetes in, 198, 306n175; recognition scene in Oresteia parodied by, 24

Eurydice, 44, 60, 279n136, 280n139

Eurysaces, 91, 92

Furies. See Erinyes

Glyconic meter, xvi; in Ajax, 73, 80; in Ant., 36, 44, 45; in El., 162; in OC, 21–22, 225, 230, 231, 238, 239, 249; in OT, 140, 141, 199; in Phil., 176, 182, 185, 311n224

Haemon, 41, 43–44, 47–48, 60, 265n32, 269n62, 275n103, 280n146

Heracles: attempting to smuggle a rival into the house, 104; borne on stage while dying, 114; and the chorus in Trach., 6, 14–15, 16, 122; chorus’ role appropriated by, 119, 120, 121–22; death chosen by, 117; Deianeira cursed by, 116, 117; deification of, 122, 294n69; as extreme character, 118; fighting Achelous for Deianeira, 104–105; Hyllus at death of, 115–16, 117; Hyllus preparing pyre of, 119–20; and Iole, 102; kept separate from Deianeira on stage, 96, 108; message of return in Trach., 101–103; in Phil., 174, 175, 183, 194; response to challenge by, 251; in second section of Trach., 96; strophic song in Trach., 114–22; Zeus addressed by, 116, 117

Hermes, 168

Hexameter, 118, 185, 186, 187, 310n215

Hipponactean meter, xvi; in Ajax, 80; in Ant., 36, 44; in OC, 230; in Phil., 311n224

House of Atreus, 158, 171, 304n158

Hyllus: chorus directed to leave by, 119; cries interrupting the chorus, 114; Deianeira’s fears confirmed by, 107; and the dying Heracles, 115–16, 117; Heracles’ pyre prepared by, 119–20; increased importance in final scene, 293n65; marrying Iole, 120; sent to inquire about Heracles, 100; wishing Deianeira share Heracles’ fate, 110; on Zeus’ control of events, 119

Hyperforms, 204–209, 216

Hypodochmiac meter, 140, 141

Iambic meter, xvi, xvii; in Ajax, 69, 73, 77–78, 80, 82, 83, 85, 89; in Ant., 40, 44, 45, 51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 60, 62; in El., 155, 156, 158, 164, 170, 212, 214; in lyric dialogue, 210, 211; in OC, 22, 226, 228, 230, 231, 234, 236, 238, 241, 242, 244, 245, 247–49; in OT, 126, 128, 132, 135, 136, 140, 141, 144–46, 199; in Phil., 176, 177, 182, 185, 191, 192, 216; resolution of, 22–23; in Trach., 98, 99, 104, 107, 108, 110–12, 114, 118, 121

Iambic trimeter: in Ajax, 74, 78, 82, 84, 85, 89, 286n199; in El., 165, 168, 213, 214, 215; in OC, 208, 233, 234; in OT, 132, 143, 144, 145, 296n93; in Phil., 182, 308n192

Iambo-dochmiac meter: in Ajax, 89; in disruptions of established metrical patterns, 202; in El., 165, 166, 168, 172, 213; expressing heightened emotion, 241; in OC, 241; in Phil., 178, 179

Ichneutai, 255n3

Imagery: of Ajax, 69; web of connections of, 8, 258n24

Iole, 102, 112, 114, 117, 121

Ionic meter, xvi; in El., 160; in OC, 225; in OT, 128; in Phil., 192

Ismene: in Ant., 25, 35, 264n32, 268n61, 279n131; in OC, 220, 227, 228–29, 231, 233, 247–49; response to challenge by, 251

Ixion, 183

Jocasta: attempting to tell truth to Oedipus, 122, 123; disbelief in the oracles, 134, 142; intervening between Oedipus and Creon, 130, 131; as prideful sinner, 136; response to challenge by, 251; suicide of, 124

Joy-before-disaster odes, 9

Justice (Dike): in El., 152, 158, 159, 171, 172; Erinyes and, 303nn148–49; in Oresteia, 150, 301n130

Kommos, 5, 217, 265n38. See also individual plays

Labdacids, 42, 43, 44, 128, 272n84

Language: in the odes, 8; Tecmessa’s language reflecting her character, 283n171; words relating to music and dance, 11–12, 16

Lichas, 101, 102, 104, 105, 114, 290n24

Lyric: development of lyric dialogue, 209–17; form of choral, 23–25. See also Music and sound in Sophoclean drama; Song, choral

Megareus, 44, 60, 275n97, 279n136

Menelaus, 67, 91

Mesode, 207

Meter, 18–25; in ancient Greek music, 19–20; annotating text with, xvi; disruption of established patterns, 202; repetition of, 20–21, 202; responsion, 20–21, 169; shifts in, 22, 47, 62, 99, 132, 186, 288n9; in Sophoclean drama, xvi–xvii; standard and basic forms, 20; syncopated, 20, 73. See also Metrical patterns; Resolution of meter; Scansion patterns and individual meters and plays

Metrical patterns: choral personae identified by, 5; clustering of, xviii–xix; responsion, 20–21, 169, 225, 260n12. See also Epode; Strophe/antistrophe

Molossi meter, 105

Music and sound in Sophoclean drama, ix–x, 1–17; allotment of lines for, 18; average length of odes, 199; bringing presence of invisible forces on stage, 209, 249; choral consistency in, 201–204; choral personae identified by, 5; choral perspective in, 197–201; ending stanzas of extant plays, 287n205; hyperforms, 204–209; lyric, 23–25, 209–17; as means of celebrating god, 149; as metaphor of an orderly world, 13–14; meters of, xvi–xvii; musical design as basic to Sophoclean chorus, 217–18; omission of corresponding lines for character who has died, 215; opera compared to, 18; reconstruction of x; satyr plays, 256n3; as significant even when expressly denied, 15–16; signs of Sophocles’ interest in music, 11–17; words for music and sound in Sophocles, 11–12, 16. See also Meter; Metrical patterns and individual plays

Music of ancient Greece: absence of musical notation for, 18–19; comments by ancient critics, 19; rhythm of, 19–20

Myrtilus, 158

Myth, use of: in Ant., 55–56, 57, 280n138; audience’s knowledge of the myth, 201; in Phil., 183; in Trach., 112

Neoptolemos: characteristics of, 306n180; chorus interrupted by, 193; chorus presses for a decision, 190; conversation with the chorus, 186; 87; in deception scene, 178–81, 205; entrance of, 174; epiphany of, 186; the oracle and, 186, 310n215; Philoctetes on, 194; on Philoctetes’ suffering, 308n193; plan to take Philoctetes to Troy, 176–78; preparing to depart with Philoctetes, 182, 184

Nessus, 110, 291nn39–40

Niobe, 50, 278n118

Ode on Man (Antigone), xiii–xviii, 37–41; 269nn68–69, 269n70, 271n71

Ode to Colonus (Oedipus at Colonus), 230–31, 232, 315n41

Ode to Eros (Antigone), 46–48

Ode to Zeus (Antigone), 41–46, 272n83, 272n85, 273n86

Odysseus: in Ajax, 66, 67, 75, 86, 88, 286n196; in Phil., 173, 174, 177, 178, 180, 185, ICO, 194, 306n179, 311n222

Oedipus: Antigone’s relationship to, 50, 272n84; birthplace of, 137–38; blinding of, 123; Child of Fortune speech in OT, 127, 137, 139; chorus of Athenian citizens’ acceptance of, 227–29, 314n39; chorus of Athenian citizens’ final ode to, 244–45, 31n168; chorus of elders choosing between Teiresias and, 148; chorus of elders’ loyalty to, 131–32, 296n91; confrontation with Creon in OC, 233–35; Creon accused of conspiring against, 131–32, 143; death of, 12–13; entrance in OT, 126, 295n80; in epirrhematic scene of OC, 240–44; fabricating plots to defend himself, 142–43; in final scene of OT, 144–48, 149, 299n117, 300n118, 300n123, 301n126; in the grove at Colonus, 223–26; heroization of, 219, 220, 238–40, 245, 248, 316n56, 31n168; on his blinding, 2, 145; learning the truth, 139; as model Sophoclean lover, 252–53; new oracle for burial of, 227; as paradigm for all humans, 140, 299n114; as prideful sinner, 136; refusing to hear the truth, 122–23; response to challenge by, 251; searching for secret to end plague of Thebes, 126, 127; status of as main topic of OC, 219; Teiresias attempts to tell truth to, 122, 123; Teiresias names as murderer, 128, 131, 132, 133, 134; Theseus granting protection to, 220, 230, 231–32, 314n39; wishing to plug up his ears, 15

Oedipus at Colonus, 218–50; deniai of sound in death in, 16; final scene of, 2–3, 4, 219; first movement of, 221–29; a fundamental decision absent in, 196, 218, 312n12; hyperform in storm scene, 208; as invention of Sophocles, 196; lyric dialogue in, 223–24, 225, 227, 248, 249, 314nn37–38; meter and form in amoiboion, 226–29; meter and form in epirrhematic scene, 240–44; meter and form in first stasimon, 229–32; meter and form in fourth stasimon, 244–45; meter and form in kommoi, 233–35, 245–49; meter and form in parodos, 221–26; meter and form in second stasimon, 235–37; meter and form in third stasimon, 237–40; meter in, 21–22; Oedipus’ status as topic of, 219; Polyneices, 227, 238, 239, 240, 241; second movement of, 229–37; third movement of, 237–49; three movements of, 220, 249; unusual features of, 196–97. See also Antigone; Chorus of Athenian citizens in OC; Ismene; Oedipus; Theseus

Oedipus Tyrannus, 122–49; basic principles of musical design in, 148–49; dramatic irony in, 258n22; final scene of, 2; lyric dialogue in, 210–11; meter and form in first stasimon, 127–30; meter and form in fourth stasimon, 138–43, 199–200; meter and form in kommoi, 130–33, 143–48; meter and form in parodos, 124–27; meter and form in second stasimon, 133–36; meter and form in third stasimon, 136–38; orchestration of events in, 124. See also Chorus of Theban elders in OT; Creon; Jocasta; Oedipus

Oresteia (Aeschylus), 149, 150–51, 170, 171, 198

Orestes: in Aeschylus, 150, 302n134; in El., 159, 161, 164–71, 212, 213, 215, 305n170; in Sophocles, 302n132, 302n134

Orestes (Euripides), 259n16, 260n12

Pan, 82, 83

Parodos, ix. See also individual plays

Paroemiac meter, 226

Peplos, 158

Persians (Aeschylus), 209

Phalacean meter: in Ajax, 80; in OC, 230; in Phil., 182, 185, 191

Pherecratean meter, xvi; in Ajax, 80; in Ant., 36; in El., 160, 162; in OC, 225, 230, 231, 238; in OT, 140, 141, 199; in Phil., 176, 182, 185, 191, 311n224

Philoctetes: accepting voyage to Troy, 194; in Aeschylus and Euripides, 198, 306n175; bow of, 173, 174, 180, 184, 186, 190, 191, 310n213; choice required of, 173–74; the chorus as appropriate to, 198; in deception scene, 178–81, 205; at end of the play, 2; the fake merchant and, 180; on Neoptolemos, 194; Neoptolemos attempts to take to Troy, 176–78; preparing to depart with Neoptolemos, 182, 184, 309n206; pressured to return to Troy, 174–75; response to challenge by, 251; sickness of, 184, 306n178; song of, 190–93; threatening suicide, 185, 193

Philoctetes, 173–95; deception scene, 178–81; end of, 2, 194–95; hyperforms in, 205, 216; lyric dialogue in, 203–204, 215–16; meter and form in amoebaeon, 187–931 meter and form in first stasimon, 181–83; meter and form in parodos, 175–78; meter and form in second stasimon, 183–87; oracle of Helenos, 174, 186, 307n181, 310n215; setting of, 173, 306n176, 309n208. See also Chorus of soldiers in Phil,; Neoptolemos; Odysseus; Philoctetes

Pindar, 72

Polyneices: in Ant., 33, 46, 55, 64; in OC, 227, 238, 239, 240, 241; response to challenge by, 251

Praxillean meter, xvi; in Ant., 36

Pylades, 168, 213

Reizianum meter, xvi; in Ajax, 73, 89; in Ant., 36; in El., 160; in OC, 236; in OT, 128, 140, 141, 199

Resolution of meter: effect on audiences, 22–23; in OC, 248; in Trach., 23, 111, 114

Responsion (corresponsion), 20–21, 260n112; in El., 169; in OC, 225

Samos, revolt of, 1

Satyr plays, 256n3

Scansion patterns: in Ajax, 68, 73–74, 79, 81, 83–84, 90–91; annotating text with, xvi–xviii; in Ant., xiii–xviii, 30–31, 37, 46, 48–49, 54, 57, 59–60; in El., 152–54, 157, 159, 161, 164–65, 167–68; in interpretation of words of songs, 9; in Ode on Man, xiii–xviii, 37; in OC, 221–23, 226–27, 229–30, 233, 235–36, 237, 240, 244, 245–46; in OT, 124–25, 127–28, 130, 133–34, 136–37, 138–39, 143–44; in Phil., 175–76, 178, 181–82, 183–84, 187–89; responsion aiding in recovering, 20; of Sophoclean odes, 199; substitution and resolution of meter revealed by, 22; in Trach., 97–98, 101, 103–104, 106–107, 109–10, 113, 114–15

Searchers, The, 255n13

Semele, 58

Solon, 27

Song, choral, xiii–xix; joy-before disaster odes, 9; levels of interpretation of, 11; metrical patterns for, xvi–xviii; scansion patterns for, xvi. See also Music and sound in Sophoclean drama; Song vs speech

Song vs speech: in Ajax, 71, 72, 75, 78, 85, 89; in El., 156; in OT, 144–45, 146; in Trach., 112

Sophoclean heroes, 3, 200, 201, 257n8

Sophocles: adaptations of earlier theater, 7, 149, 197, 209, 217; audience as proper spectator of works of, 5; audience’s expectations played on by, 34, 35, 61, 64–65, 72, 207–208, 214–15, 280n147; the chorus in works of, 4–11, 16, 17, 200–201, 217–18, 257n11, 258n22, 263n24, 303n147; dramatic irony in, 258n22; endings of plays of, 1–3; focusing on one or two characters, 17; the hero in works of, 3, 200, 201, 25n18; hyperforms in works of, 204–209; length of career of, 209; lyric dialogue development by, 209–17; plays compared to those of Aeschylus, 149–50; Orestes myth in, 302n132, 302n134; as poet of mature Athenian democracy, 1; political activities of, 1; setting in, 306n176; the Sophoclean play, 201, 312n7; tragic conception of life, 271n71; trilogy abandoned by, 16; Wheel of Fortune motif in, 288n10. See also Music and sound in Sophoclean drama

Spondee, xvii; in Ant., 53; in El., 158

Stanza: of Aeschylus and Sophocles compared, 24; periodicity in, 261n15

Stasimon, 23. See also Scansion patterns and individual plays

Strophe/antistrophe: in Ajax, 69, 70, 73, 77–78, 83, 85; in Ant., 29, 40, 44–45, 49, 51, 56–57, 61; balanced form of, xix; in El., 156, 158, 168–69, 173; in OC, 224, 228, 230–31, 233–34, 236–37, 238–39, 241–42, 247–48; in OT, 126, 128–29, 131, 134–35, 140–43, 199–200; in Phil., 177, 181, 182–83, 185–86, 187, 191–93, 203–204; responsion, in, 20–21, 260n12; scansion patterns for, xvi; in stasimon, 23; in Trach., 101, 102, 107–108, 111, 113–14

Telesillean meter, xvi; in Ajax, 80; in OC, 225, 231, 236, 238; in OT, 128, 136, 141, 199, 296n94; in Phil., 185

Tecmessa: Ajax’s body discovered by, 85, 87; at Ajax’s burial, 91, 92; on Ajax’s death, 88–89; appearing when Ajax is called for, 67, 70–71, 283n167; final speech of, 90; in first kommos, 75–78; during first stasimon, 79, 285n187; importance of role of, 283n172; language reflecting character of, 283n171; pledge to join Ajax in death, 78; on the slavery before her, 86

Teiresias: in Ant., 56, 58, 206, 280n139; attempting to tell truth to Oedipus, 122, 123; chorus of elders choosing between Oedipus and, 148; Oedipus named as murderer by, 128, 131, 132, 133, 134; seeing the truth but preferring to not speak, 142, 143; special position of, 294n74

Teucer, 79, 90, 91–92, 93, 284n178

Theseus: Creon arrested by, 234; decision-making in OC, 312n2; in epirrhematic scene of OC, 242–43; granting protection to Oedipus, 220, 230, 231–32, 314n39; on significance of Oedipus’ death, 248–49

Trachiniae, 96–122; Deception Scene, 104; division into two parts, 96, 287n2; Iole, 102, 112, 114, 117, 121; lyric dialogue in, 211; meter and form in choral stanza, 101–103, 289n20; meter and form in first stasimon, 103–106; meter and form in fourth stasimon, 113–14; meter and form in Heracles’ strophic song, 114–22; meter and form in parodos, 97–101; meter and form in second stasimon, 106–108; meter and form in third stasimon and kommos, 109–13; the Old Man, 115–16; resolution of meter in, 23. See also Chorus of young women in Trach.; Deianeira; Heracles; Hyllus

Trochaic meter: in Ant., 54; in El., 166, 213; in OC, 238, 247, 248; in OT, 135

Trochaic tetrameter, 315n47, 316n49

Zeus: Antigone on laws of, 41–42, 206–207; chorus of Argive women in El. on, 155, 156, 163; chorus of elders in OT appeal to, 125, 129; chorus of soldiers in Ajax appeal to, 82; chorus of young women in Trach. on, 98, 99, 100, 102; in fifth stasimon of Ant., 10; Heracles addresses in Trach., 116, 117; Hyllus on, 120; ode to in Ant., 41–46, 272n83, 272n85, 273n86; plan for Philoctetes, 174; as victor over Creon, 62