Imagining Illegitimacy in Classical Greek Literature 0739105388, 9780739105382

Table of contents :
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Metaphors of Illegitimacy
1. Where the Girls Are: Parthenioi and Skotioi
2. Teucer, the Bastard Archer
3. Images of Fertility and Sterility
4. Euripides' Hippolytos
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Citation preview

Imagining Illegitimacy in Classical Greek Literature

Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches Series Editor: Gregory Nagy, Harvard University Assistant Editor: Timothy Power, Harvard University On the front cover: A calendar frieze representing the Athenian months, reused in the Byzantine Church of the Little Metropolis in Athens. The cross is superimposed, obliterating Taurus of the Zodiac. The choice of this frieze for books in Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches reflects this series' emphasis on the blending of the diverse heritages-Near Eastern, Classical, and Christian-in the Greek tradition. Drawing by Laurie Kain Hart, based on a photograph. Recent titles in the series are:

Nothing Is As It Seems: The Tragedy of the Implicit in Euripides' Hippolytus by Hanna M. Roisman

Lyric Quotation in Plato by Marian Demos

Exile and the Poetics of Loss in Greek Tradition by Nancy Sultan

The Classical Moment: Viewsfrom Seven Literatures Edited by Gail Holst-Warhaft and David R. McCann

Nine Essays on Homer Edited by Miriam Carlisle and Olga Levaniouk

Allegory and the Tragic Chorus in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus by Roger Travis

Dionysism and Comedy by Xavier Riu

Contextualizing Classics: Ideology, Performance, Dialogue Edited by Thomas M. Falkner, Nancy Felson, and David Konstan

The Pity of Achilles: Oral Style and the Unity of the Iliad byJinyo Kim

Between Magic and Religion: Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and Society Edited by Sulochana Asirvatham, Corinne Ondine Pache, and John Waltrous

Iambic Ideas: Essays on a Poetic Tradition from Archaic Greece to the Late Roman Empire Edited by Antonio Aloni, Alessandro Barchiesi, Alberto Cavarzere

The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, Second Edition by Margaret Alexiou Revised by Dimitrios Yatromanolakis and Panagiotis Roilos

Homeric Variations on a Lament by Briseis by Casey Due

Imagining Illegitimacy in Classical Greek Literature by Mary Ebbott

Tragedy and Athenian Religion by Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood

The Usable Past: Greek Metahistories Edited by K. S. Brown and Yannis Hamilakis

Imagining Illegitimacy in Classical Greek Literature

Mary Ebbott

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • Oxford

LEXINGTON BOOKS Published in the United States of America by Lexington Books A Member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland 20706 PO Box 317 Oxford OX29RU,UK Copyright © 2003 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ebbott, Mary Imagining illegitimacy in classical Greek literature I Mary Ebbott. p. cm. - (Greek studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. English text with selections of the original Greek. ISBN 0-7391-0537-X (alk. paper)- ISBN 0-7391-0538-8 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Greek literature-History and criticism. 2. Illegitimacy in literature. 3. Inheritance and succession in literature. 4. Inheritance and succession-Greece. 5. Illegitimate children-Greece. 6. Illegitimacy-Greece. I. Title. II. Series. PA3015.144 E28 2003 880.9'355-dc2 l 2002034091 Printed in the United States of America

8™

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Infonnation Sciences-Pennanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO 239.48-1992.

For my parents, for all they made possible, and for Mark, for living through it with me

Contents Foreword Acknowledgments

IX XI

Introduction

Metaphors of Illegitimacy

1

Chapter 1

Where the Girls Are: Parthenioi and Skotioi

9

Chapter 2

Teucer, the Bastard Archer

37

Chapter 3

Images of Fertility and Sterility

67

Chapter 4

Euripides' Hippolytos

85

Conclusion

109

Bibliography Index About the Author

113 119 123

Foreword Building on the foundations of scholarship within the disciplines of philology, philosophy, history, and archaeology, this series concerns not just the archaic and classical periods of Greek traditions but the whole continuum-along with all the discontinuities-from the second millennium B.C.E. to the present. The aim is to enhance perspectives by applying various disciplines to problems that have in the past been treated as the exclusive concern of a single given discipline. Besides the crossover of the older disciplines, as in the case of historical and literary studies, the series encourages the application of such newer ones as linguistics, sociology, anthropology, and comparative literature. It also encourages encounters with current trends in methodology, especially in the realm of literary theory. Imagining Illegitimacy in Classical Greek Literature, by Mary Ebbett, explores the idea of the nothos or 'bastard' in Greek poetry and prose. Other classical studies have focused on the historical realities of illegitimate birth and its social consequences in ancient Greek society. Ebbott's work is unique, however, in being the first to show how such realities come to life in the literary traditions of that society. Her aim is not merely to extract from those traditions the history of ideas concerning what it is to be illegitimate. More than that, she shows how the literature of the ancient Greeks pictures the very idea of illegitimacy, and how this picture, this world of metaphors, has a history of its own. Carefully and intuitively, Ebbett pieces together this imaginary world, which casts new light on some of the best-known creations of Greek literature. A salient example is her reassessment of the Hippolytos of Euripides: a reading of Ebbott's book is sure to change the conventional view of this drama's protagonist, Hippolytos himself. The character of this virgin hunter, born of an Amazon and sired illegitimately by the legitimate king of Athens, is illuminated by Ebbott's thorough analysis of the metaphors she sees at work in the drama.

lX

X

Foreword

The reader has now been prepared for a deeper-far deeper-look into the character and motivations of this most intriguing and compelling of tragic heroes. Earlier chapters abound with other lively characterizations, driven by powerful metaphors evoking unforgettable images. Among these are oversexed girlfaced boys given to fits of violence, bantam archers darting from behind the body-covering shields of legitimate big brothers, and pale youths of questionable descent lingering in the shady recesses of households run by women while the menfolk are away making a living. Such literary imaginings are fueled by the mystique of the nothos, that distinctly Greek construct of a nonperson who defines what it is to be a person, what it is to have a Greek identity. Gregory Nagy General Editor

Acknowledgments This book began as a doctoral dissertation for the Ph.D. in Classical Philology at Harvard University. I most gratefully acknowledge the help and encouragement of my readers for that dissertation: Gloria Ferrari Pinney, who gave me a new eye for metaphor and whose work continues to inspire me to be both more rigorous and more imaginative, and Charles P. Segal, who led me to new ways of reading texts and made manifest for me what it means to have a command of Greek literature. I enjoyed fruitful conversations about various subjects with Douglas Frame, Leonard Muellner, and Dr. Ingo Pini. I must thank above all two colleagues. First, Greg Nagy, the best of alt' dissertation directors, amazes me with his intellectual power and generosity and has been an unfailing source of encouragement, support, and inspiration. And Casey Due, my colleague and good friend, kindly read through a draft of the entire book and made many helpful suggestions; her brilliance inspires me and reinvigorates my love of Greek literature. Any blame for the contents herein attaches solely to me, of course.

xi

Introduction Metaphors of Illegitimacy On a billboard advertisement for a DNA paternity testing service, the selling line is "because you want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt." 1 Doubt over the child's parentage casts a metaphorical shadow, one that may be imagined to cover the child himself or herself. The image exploits anxieties about proving paternity that remain even in our technologically advanced society and assures that the test can provide the certainty that may otherwise be elusive. The phrasing of the advertisement also hints at a common use of DNA paternity testing: that is, as evidence in a law court. Although not actually employed in any legal standard, the phrase "beyond a shadow of a doubt" nevertheless evokes this type of situation in which one may want proof of paternity since it is commonly confused with the legal phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt." Ancient Greek poetry also employs a metaphor of "shadowy" to describe nothoi, or 'illegitimate children'. This metaphor, as we shall see, conjures up different mental connections, and we cannot assume that a shadow in current American culture has the same implications as one in ancient Greek society. Yet the metaphor functions in a similar manner in that it evokes implicit associations with the nothoi so described. This study is an investigation of this and other metaphors of illegitimacy in classical Greek literature. I concentrate in particular on the way in which the nothos is imagined in narratives. These narratives present a complex portrayal of illegitimacy, and an exploration of the conceptualization of the nothos will reveal cultural assumptions behind these representations. Because metaphors are culturally bound, my task is to reassemble the mental connections that come so immediately to the cultural "insiders," similar to the way that we can easily understand the implications of the phrase "beyond a shadow of a doubt." 1

The billboard was posted in the Harvard MBTA station in Cambridge, MA, in April 2001. The advertisement was for CBR Laboratories in Boston, MA.

2

Introduction

Legitimate birth is also a cultural definition, and the very concept of legitimacy discloses an attempt to regulate sex and procreation within the social community. When legitimacy is made a requirement for citizenship or particular political roles, the political community then becomes involved in, or at least interested in, the determination of who is legitimate and can thus be included in the polis.2 The figure of the nothos is the problematic point of convergence where concerns about women, sexual reproduction, and marriage meet those about citizenship and the composition of the citizen body. To explore the metaphor world of nothoi, then, is to expose the implicit tensions and contradictions in these cultural categories and the dynamics of such concepts in cultural artifacts. Some problems surrounding the determination of legitimacy in ancient Greek society are illustrated in a narrative related by Herodotus about the Spartan king Demaratos (Histories 6.61-69). As Herodotus tells it, the Spartan king Ariston tricks a friend into giving his wife to Ariston. When she gives birth to Demaratos "not having filled out her ten months," Ariston "counting the number of months on his fingers" declares that it cannot be his son. He later regrets this statement, which he had made in the presence of the ephors, when he becomes convinced over time that Demaratos really is his son. When Ariston dies, Demaratos succeeds him, but his legitimacy is challenged by one of his own kinsman, Leotychides, whose own bride Demaratos had stolen. The ephors are asked as witnesses about the father Ariston's statement. When they affirm that he did state his doubts about his paternity, an embassy is sent to consult the oracle at Delphi about the matter. Cleomenes, who is working with Leotychides, bribes the priestess at Delphi with the result that the reply denies that Demaratos is Ariston's son. Demaratos is deposed. Later insulted by Leotychides at the Gymnopaidiai, a festival at which new citizens are enrolled,3 Demaratos then sacrifices an ox to Zeus, hands some of the entrails to his mother, and asks her who really is his father. He explains that some say it is her former husband, but others say it was a donkey-keeper slave. His mother tells Demaratos the story of his conception, claiming that either the hero Astrabakos is his father (who approached her in the form of her husband Ariston) or Ariston is. She also explains that children are not always born in the tenth month, and she curses those who say his father was the donkey-keeper slave that their wives should have such children.

2

Roy 1999.5 points out that the po/is relied on the oikos to demonstratethat its sons were eligible for citizenship. Part of this demonstrationconsists in witnessed ceremonies be?inning with t_h~amp~idromia, to create a "record" of the child's legitimacy and eli~ibiltty for later c1tizensh1p.See Ogden 1996.88-106 for his discussion of the oikos as the "site" of legitimacy. 3 See Robertson 1992.147, 153-154 on this passageand the Gymnopaidiai.

Metaphorsof Illegitimacy

3

This brief episode in the Histories demonstrates the complexities that can surround a question of legitimacy. Demaratos asks his mother the central question in a patrilineal society: "Who is my father?" The need for this question demonstrates the problems of determining paternity and, in turn, identity. The extent of the uncertainty (for only one's mother really knows) is such that the gods must be consulted. We see in this narrative also the importance of witnesses concerning the circumstances of the birth of the child (and the worrisome possibility of bribing). This narrative points to concerns about the control of women's sexuality and desires as well. These concerns often (as here) find expression in the possibility of a low-status man as the sexual partner of a highstatus woman. It also suggests that public discussion of another man's wife and child might result in an all too close examination of one's own household. Within this historical narrative we also find elements more often seen in a mythical context: the possibility of a god or hero as the father, for one, and unusual marital arrangements as well: Ariston gains a wife by deception and Demaratos does so by outright theft. Extraordinary marriages or arrangements for procreation and deception are both indicators of illegitimacy that will be explored further. The detail of the insult at the Gymnopaidiai suggests questions surrounding citizenship or the role of the illegitimate person in the city. This narrative, focused on a question of legitimacy, accumulates detail after detail that intensify the original anxiety of whether the "prematurely" born Demaratos could really be Ariston's son. The poetic narratives examined in the following chapters also present the point of view that there is legitimacy, where everything is in place and according to the rules, and that "illegitimacy" is everything else. So despite protestations in mythical narratives of the formerly high status of one's mother, such as we see in Sophocles' Ajax, when Teucer asserts that he is royalty on both sides of his family, or in Euripides' Andromache, where it is often remarked that Andromache (who is the mother of the only child left in the house of Peleus) was of the highest status in Troy before it fell, the narratives seem to take for granted that children of non-Greek "outsiders" are nothoi. Similarly, poetic narratives do not confront what has often been a conundrum of the modern debates concerning Athenian bastard status -whether the offspring of two unmarried Athenians was a nothos-but instead reinforce a strict definition of proper marriage as necessary for legitimacy. Yet, at the same time, in several narratives there is an overdetermination of illegitimacy; that is, the child's parents are both unmarried and of different ranks and/or ethnicities. Thus, there is frequently an abundance of markers of illegitimacy and problems that would have to be overcome for legitimacy. These narratives leave little doubt about illegitimacy-when that status is what is to be emphasized. As we shall see, there are narratives in which the illegitimacy of one character can be highlighted precisely because the same standards are not applied to others. For example, Teucer's status as nothos in Sophocles' Ajax is emphasized, but that of Eury sakes is glossed over. Also, in Euripides' Hippoly-

4

Introduction

tos, much is made of the outsider status of Hippolytos's mother, but although Phaedra's Cretan origins are made explicit, her children with Theseus are nevertheless considered legitimate within the drama. In the cases of Teucer and Hippolytos, the term nothos is applied, again to remove any doubt. There are other cases where the term nothos is not used, such as in the story of Danae and Perseus, but the imagery employed again shows an overdetermination. Narratives may also provide a legitimization that could not occur in reality, once again showing that they do not concern the specific legal issue of who is a not hos but a more diffuse question of legitimacy. My underlying assumption in examining these narratives of illegitimacy is that a nothos is a child whose parents were not married, or, at Athens, whose parents were not both Athenians. These criteria seem to be the definition of illegitimacy in Athens after the Periclean citizenship law of 451/0 B.C. Most of our full narratives about nothoi come from Athens, but those that come from other Greek cities also emphasize in particular the different status of the mother of the child, and this difference is often figured in her not being a "wedded wife." In any case, this general definition of a nothos fits the portrayal in the narratives, which, as I have mentioned, usually feature multiple indications of illegitimacy. Laws and norms about illegitimacy developed over time, of course, and a similar development can be detected in the poetics of illegitimacy. 4 The two developments are similar in the sense that both laws and poetry reflect the culture from which they spring, but the development of the poetics has many factors, and a strict correlation between the legal definition of nothoi and the poetic exploitation of the status is to be avoided. As the po/is develops, its relationship to the individuals who comprise it or are subject to it in some way fluctuates as well. Poetry can reflect this ongoing negotiation in its own way, but poetry is not the only way of negotiating it. In other words, I am not using the poetry as evidence for the historical reality of nothoi or the quality of their lives. Rather, this investigation explores the representation of the nothos and the types of associations made with illegitimate status. Whatever the reality of nothoi-whether they were common or not, how they were treated by their families and their fathers in particular, etc.-nothoi seem to be "good to think with," as evidenced by their prevalence in poetic narratives. Nothoi are good to think with because of the complexities of the status. The scholarly problems in determining just who qualified as a nothos and under what circumstances these regulations should be enforced are themselves evidence of these complexities.

4

Ogden 1996.32-82 traces the development of laws regarding bastardy in Athens. He also ~~vers bastardy in Sparta and in the Hellenistic period, arguing for difference in ~efimhon from one po/is to another and across time. Patterson 1990.47 uses the narra!1vesof !he Homeri~poems in an attempt to understandwhat the definition of nothoi was m archaicand classicalGreece, and particularlyAthens.

Metaphors of Illegitimacy

5

Metaphors and Meaning In this investigation of the metaphors of illegitimacy, I understand metaphor as an interaction between terms: in I. A. Richards's famous formulation, between the tenor, the literal expression that frames the metaphor, and the vehicle, the 5 metaphorical expression itself. As an interaction, a metaphor is not simply a comparison and cannot be replaced with a literal expression; rather, it creates meaning in its context by seeing one thing in terms of the other. 6 The very expression "seeing one thing in terms of the other" suggests the visual qualities of a metaphor. As a figure of speech, metaphor combines the verbal and the visual-it has what has been called the "picturing function of 7 The metaphorical expression, though expressed in metaphorical meaning." words, projects one image onto the other. And, as Paul Ricoeur has said in his discussion of metaphor and imagination: "Imaging or imagining ... is the concrete milieu in which and through which we see similarities. To imagine, then, is not to have a mental picture of something but to display relations in a depicting 8 mode." That is, the imagining connected with the vehicle organizes our understanding of the tenor through the selection of and emphasis on particular qualities. Because metaphor operates in the realm of the imagination, the qualities envisioned do not necessarily have to accord entirely with reality-yet they must be part of what Max Black has called a "system of associated common9 places" which can be "readily and freely evoked" by members of a culture. 5

I. A. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric (Oxford, 1936). See Black 1962.37-41. See also Black 1962.44 for a description of how the interaction works both ways. In his example: "If to call a man a wolf is to put him in a special light, we must not forget that the metaphor makes the wolf seem more human than he otherwise would." 7 See Ricoeur 1978.144 for the "picturing function of metaphorical meaning." Ricoeur 1978.151: Metaphorical meaning "denies the well-established distinction between sense and representation .... By blurring this distinction, the metaphorical meaning compels us to explore the borderline between the verbal and the non-verbal." See also Ferrari 1997.5: "Word and image do indeed come together in the trope of metaphor, which is defined precisely by its visionary quality, its capacity to 'put before the eyes' the abstractions of logical discourse .... [M]etaphor does, indeed, entail a measure of visualization. The definition of the trope adopted here is not the classical one, but that of metaphor as 'interaction.' According to that definition, metaphor does not consist in exchanging one term for another, but in seeing one thing in terms of another. It is the process of drawing connections between two concepts in such a way that one (the image-laden one, the vehicle) provides a grid that organizes and guides our understanding of the other (the abstract one, the tenor)." 8 Ricoeur 1978.150. 9 Black 1962.39. Ricoeur 1978.147: "This insight into likeness [referring to Aristotle's theorein to omoion] is both a thinking and a seeing." See also Ferrari 1997.5: "while the figures of its metaphors reveal the principles that hold a society together, they are no 6

6

Introduction

Metaphors are culturally bound, and the metaphors a culture produces and (reciprocally) understands are guided by principles embedded within that culture's language and society. As Ricoeur provocatively suggests: "the figure of speech that we call 'metaphor' allows us a glance at the general procedure by which we produce concepts." 10 The framing of an abstract notion in terms of the more imaginable quality of a metaphorical expression shapes the very conception of that notion. Employing this approach, this study examines how metaphors (and the visual clues present in them) that are used in poetic narratives about nothoi can help us decode some of the many associations that ancient Greek culture would make with this complex status. That is, how the metaphors connected with nothoi shape the concept of illegitimacy. Again, my approach is to uncover how illegitimacy is imagined, not necessarily the historical reality of actual individuals who were living nothoi. For as Gloria Ferrari points out in her study of metaphors and riddles in Aeschylus's Agamemnon: "Knowledge of a real object to which the image may refer is not a key that will unlock a metaphor, because images represent ideas, not things. The task requires instead access to a 'system of associated commonplaces' that guides the way members of a particular com11 munity thinks about that (real or imaginary) object." To fully exploit the possibilities of decoding metaphors concerning illegitimacy, I am particularly interested in elaborated narratives about nothoi. In chapter 1, "Where the Girls Are: Parthenioi and Skotioi," the metaphor of darkness is examined, exemplified in a word used for illegitimate children, skotios. We will see that other metaphors and imagery related to marriage inform the metaphor of 'darkness', such as the torch light that accompanies a wedding procession and the underground vault in which a betrothed but not yet married woman is imagined to inhabit. We will also see that the nothos is conceptually affiliated with women and imagined to be a perpetual boy. In chapter 2, "Teucer, the Bastard Archer," the character Teucer, illegitimate son of Telamon, is the focus, and his appearance in several narratives allows us to examine the structural importance of his illegitimate status in opposition to his legitimate brother Ajax. These narratives bring forward associations of nothoi with other secondary statuses, such as archers, slaves, and foreigners.

more immediately accessible to the outsider than its language, because, like language, they are cultural constructs. The dense metaphors of poetry, in particular, remain impenetrable unless the reader is equipped with the correct mental image. The recovery of that figure is essentiallyan exercise in code-breaking." 10 Ricoeur 1978.149. 11 Ferrari 1997.5. The metaphor from the billboard with which we started is a good example of how a system of associated commonplaces works. The actual legal standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt." Yet the phrase "beyond the shadow of a doubt" is still commonly associatedwith the American legal system.

Metaphorsof Illegitimacy

7

The question of knowing one's father is also a central one in the portrayal of Teucer. In chapter 3, "Images of Fertility and Sterility," I will examine narratives in which nothoi are connected with metaphors of hyperfertility, on the one hand, and sterility, on the other. The narratives of the Spartan Partheniai, in which both hyperfertility and sterility figure, lead us to consider the metaphor of a mule as a nothos. Particularly important in this image is the sterility of the mule because of its "mixed" parentage. Also in this chapter I consider how the sterility of women figures in Euripides' Andromache and Ion. These representations of human sterility again prompt questions about women's sexuality and the need for it to be controlled within male-controlled cultural boundaries. In the fourth and final chapter, I turn to the nothos Hippolytos in Euripides' drama. Euripides' characterization of Hippolytos allows us to visit many of these metaphors again and also acquaints us with the important metaphors of monetary exchange and counterfeit coinage. The coinage metaphors are explored through the archaic poetry of Theognis, where they are used for philoi in general, and I argue that there is a civic angle to the metaphor that can be seen in Euripides' characterization of Hippolytos. As we have already seen in Herodotus's story of Demaratos, the questions of legitimacy in these narratives are complicated by multiple details that point to possible illegitimacy. Many of the questions necessarily remain unanswered, even if that particular nothos gains some sort of legitimacy within the narrative, as we will see in the stories about Teucer, the Partheniai, Ion, and Hippolytos. For these narratives can provide this legitimacy without fully supplying the answers to the complex questions. This lack of resolution should again serve as a reminder that we are dealing with the metaphor world, and not the legal statutes, of illegitimacy. Yet decoding the metaphors provides answers to an important, albeit different, set of questions. What does the depiction of illegitimacy in these narratives tell us about ideologies of marriage and those of citizenship? How was the concept of illegitimacy shaped and reshaped in this poetry and in the culture that produced it? And in what way can we better understand these texts once we recognize the implications of these metaphors? The imagining of illegitimacy is an intricate web of connections that we must take apart strand by strand to approach such questions, and an examination of the mental pictures of metaphors is a first step in this process.

' Chapter1 Where the Girls Are: Parthenioiand Skotioi Marriage and legitimacy are inseparably linked in ancient Greek thought. Not only is the legitimacy of children determined by the marital status of their parents, but marriage is defined in terms of legitimate children. 12 The often quoted line from Menander's Perikeiromene TauTl)V yvria{wv na{Bwv En' d:pon,> oot 6{6wµt 'I give you this woman for the sowing of legitimate children' indicates that legitimate children are not just the result, but indeed the express purpose of marriage. 13 Marriage in ancient Greek society is also viewed as a civilizing force, one that controls sexuality, especially female sexuality. Through marriage and a tight control of women's sexual behavior, men attempt to ensure that they truly are the fathers of the children of their wives and that therefore the oikos, the family and household, is perpetuated through legitimate (gnesioi is the Greek term) offspring only. The forms of sexual relationships outside of marriage that could produce children are multiple and include adultery, concubinage or slavery, and prostitution. In this chapter, however, I propose to look at the imagery of nothoi in narratives that deal with a particular type of illegitimate child: one born from a woman who is appropriately eligible for marriage (unlike a slave, concubine, or prostitute) but is as yet unmarried when she becomes pregnant. This is a particularly poten( situation for the production of metaphors.

12

See the famous statement at [Demosthenes] 59.122 for the definition of marriage in terms of legitimate children. [Demosthenes] 46.18 defines legitimacy in terms of marriage with engue (a 'betrothal', or attested promise between the bride's guardian and the bridegroom, on which more below). 13 Menander Perikeiromene 1013-1014. See also Menander Dyskolos 842-843, Misumenos 444-445, and Samia 726-727 for similar sentiments and phrasing; in each case a dowry (proix) is also mentioned. Cf. Just 1989.46, who calls marriage with 'betrothal' (engue) and legitimate (gnesioi) children "reciprocallydefined categories." 9

Chapter 1

10

The story of Danae and Perseus can serve as our point of departure, as narrative concerning a child born from an unmarried woman. The basics of the story are as follows. Danae's father, Akrisios, consults the oracle in Delphi about a male child and is told that he will not have one, but that his daughter will. Then comes the bad news-Akrisios will die at the hands of his grandson. So Akrisios tries to prevent the conception of the child destined to kill him by locking his daughter up, thereby preventing any man from gaining access to her. But Danae becomes pregnant anyway (more later on who the father might be), and Perseus is born. When Akrisios discovers the child, he asks Danae who the father is, and does not believe her when she claims that the father is Zeus. He then encloses his daughter and grandson in a box and throws it into the sea (of course, when Perseus has grown up, he does accidentally kill Akrisios, and so the oracle is fulfilled). This narrative has many fascinating details, but here I focus only on the double imprisonment of Danae and how this imagery relates to her status as an unmarried girl-indeed, as a girl whose father wants to prevent from ever getting married. The story is related most fully by Pherecydes (as reported in a scholion to Apollonius 4.1091) and by Apollodorus, who records a variant of the identity of Perseus's father. First, here is the narrative as told by Pherecydes: 14 'AKptol.OS-yaµEt EupuBtKT]VT~V AaKEBa{µovos-· TWV BE '}'tVETat t:.avaw xpwµEVC¼)BE aUTC~TTEpl apaEvos- TTat6os-, EXPT]O"EV 6 9EOS- h Ilu9ot, on auTQ µh OUKEO"Tal.TTms apO-T]V,EK BE TTJS-euyaTpos-· TTpos-OU mhov 15 6 BE ETTaVEA9wv EiS- ..Apyos-, 0qAaµov BEl Cl'.TTOAE0"9at.

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E E'l'Tl EK ul.05,. 0 uE OU TTH0ETat an El.S: eiapvaKa E µBtBaln auTTIV llETO'. TOU TTat§os:· Ka\ KAEtaas- KaTaTTOVTOl.Kat cpEpoµEVOl. a:cpi.KVOUVTatEiS- LEptcpov T~v vijaov. Ka\ auTous- E~EAKEt t:.tKTUS- 6 IIEpdrn ~ t:.avaT] avot~at tKETEUEl. T~V Aapta9Evous-, BtKTUC¼) O:Al.EUWV. Tl

14

V

f

1

,

\

I

\

,

'

Pher~cy~es,fragment26 (FGrH),from the scholia to ApolloniusRhodius 4.1091. The translation1s my own. 15 or TTapE/\ '8, WV. 16 , or KpunTouaa.

Where the Girls Are vaKa.

6 BE

avo{eas,

Kat µa8wv

11

OtTtVES Etcnv, ayEt

EtS TOV OlKOV, Kat

TpEq>Et ws av auyyEVE\S mhoD OVTas.

Akrisios married Eurydike, the daughter of Lakedaimon. From them, Danae was born. When Akrisios asked the oracle about a male child, the god in Pytho [Delphi] answered him, that there would be no male child for him, but there would be one from his daughter at whose hands he would be killed. Akrisios, returning to Argos, made a bronze chamber in the courtyard of his house underground, where he led Danae and her nurse. In this he guarded her, so that no child would be born from her. But Zeus fell in love with the girl, and he poured down like gold through the roof. She received him in her lap. After he revealed himself, Zeus had sexual intercourse with the girl. From them Perseus was born; Danae and the nurse raised him, hiding him from Akrisios. When Perseus was three or four years old, Akrisios heard his voice while he was playing. Summoning Danae with her nurse through servants, he killed the nurse, and he led Danae with her child to the altar under the statue of Zeus of the Household. Alone he asked her from where this child was born to her, and she said, "From Zeus." He did not believe her, but put her in a chest with her child. Once he closed it up he threw it into the sea. Carried along, they arrived at the island Seriphos. Diktys the son of Peristhenes drew them out of the sea while fishing with a net. Then Danae begged him to open the chest. After opening it and learning who they were, he led them to his house and took care of them as though they were his relatives. The story continues, of course, with Perseus's adventures when he is older. But the details of the underground chamber and the chest, along with the emphasis on the father's house and the protective household deities, point to the illegitimate nature of Perseus's birth. The sexual relationship is illicit by default because, first and foremost, it does not have the sanction of the girl's father, who 7 would act as her kurios ('guardian') in giving her in marriage.1 An unmarried girl's sexual behavior is supposed to be controlled by her kurios (her closest male relative )--only he, and not she, can give consent for approved sexual relations. A hint of the illicit nature ofDanae's behavior is also recorded in a variant 18 reported by Apollodorus. His version of the narrative is as follows: 'AKptotl\)

BE nEpt na{Bwv

Eq>TJyEVfo8at

6 17

'AKptotos

YEVECJEWSappEVEWV XPTJCYTT)ptaCoµEVC\) 6 8EOS

na1Ba EK -rfjs

-rou-ro,

8uya-rp6s, os mhov

i'.mo yfiv 8at-auov

anoKTEVEt. BEfoas BE

KaTaQKEyagas:

YqAKEQV

IDV

Just 1989.46 defines the woman's kurios giving her to the husband as a "fundamental principle of marriage by engue" (a procedure whereby the legitimacy of the children firoduced from the union is ensured). 8 Apollodorus 2.4.1. Text is from Frazer 1921. The translation is my own.

Chapter 1

12

Aayanv EI.J,l MKTUS' apas- KaA~ IIo>..uµtj>-.11 ~u>-.aVTOS' 8uyaT11p· Tfjs- 6E KpaTUS-'ApyEt~OVTllSTjpdcraT',o~8a>-.µotcrtv l6wv µETo: µEXnoµEVlJGlV

EV xop0 'ApTEµt6os- xpucr11>-.aKCXTO\J KEAa6Etvfjs-. aUTtKa 6' EJS um;pw' avaBas TiaDE;AEfoTo Xa0pn 'EpµEtas- O:KCXKllTa, nopEV 6E o\. ay>-.aov u\.ov Eu6wpov TTEpt µEv 8EtEtV rnxuv Tj6E µax11Ttjv. mho:p ETTEt6~ Tov YE µoyocrToKos- El>-.E{8uta EeayayE npo ~ows- 6E Kat T]EAtO\J'{6Ev auyas-, T~V µh 'EXEKAfjos- KpaTEpov µEVOS-'AKTop{6ao TJYCXYETO npos- 6wµaT ', ETTElnopE µ.up{a E6va, TOV 6' 0 yfowv ~u>-.as EU ETOEtAT] KEaA'fl,TEAaµwvtE KOtpavE Aawv ~(XAA' OUTWS',at KEV n ows-ti.avaotat YEVT]at naTpt TE a0 TEAaµwvt, 0 a' ETpEETUT8ov EOVTa, Ka( O"E vo8ov TTEP EOVTa Koµ(aaaTO ~ EVl OlKL\)" Tov Kat TT]Ao8' Eovrn Ei.iKAEtT]S'Ent~T]aov. OTT]

280

285

He stood, going next to him, and addressed a speech [muthos] to him: "Teucer, dear one, son ofTelamon, commander of the people, strike that way, so that you may be a light to the Danaans and to your father Telamon, who raised you when you were little, and took care of you in his house even though you are illegitimate; bring him to glory, though he is far away." Iliad 8.280-285 Let us notice first that Agamemnon is speaking a muthos-that is, he is performing. 101 The elaborate apostrophe to Teucer confirms that this is a special form of speech, and in it he addresses Teucer with a patronymic. This reference to his father Telamon becomes the focus of his exhortation. Agamemnon is 100

Higbie 1985.11-12 notes that it is rare for a son's name to originate from a quality of his mother (while it frequently does from that of his father), and she cites as examples of the phenomenon Teucer and Eudoros in Iliad 16, whose narrative was discussed in the first chapter. Higbie does not note, however, that both of her examples are illegitimate sons, and thus it makes more sense that they are associated with their mothers through their names. (We will see another example in the next chapter: the Partheniai are so called because they are illegitimate and their mothers are parthenoi.) See also Janko 1992, ad Joe. 13.46 for possible associations of Teucer's name. 101 Martin 1989.12 defines muthos in Homer as a speech-act, with the emphasis on the performance of the speaker.

Teucer, the Bastard Archer

39

flattering Teucer after a fashion, claiming that Teucer has an especially-if unexpectedly-close relationship with his father. The phrasing of TpEOVyap ~EAOS' a.v6pos

EUXEal auTWS'.

~ nais

a.vaAKl6os

aq,pwv·

oun6avo1o.

390

Archer, worthless miscreant, famous for your hair, girl-watcher, if indeed you should try your chances in close combat with arms, your bow and thick-flying arrows would not help you; but now having grazed me on the flat of my foot, you boast even so. I do not care, just as if a woman should strike me, or a senseless child; for the missile of an impotent, no-account man is blunt. Iliad 11.385-390

In this litany of abuse that is obviously sexually charged, Diomedes starts by calling Paris an archer first. The taunts that Paris fights from afar rather than hand to hand portray him as less than a man, and so equal to a woman or a very young child. Thus archers and nothoi both share an affiliation with women and

125

Lissarrague 1990. Lissarrague 1990.17. 127 Lissarrague 1990, especially chapter 1. 128 Lissarrague 1990.19 for the opposition of masculine/feminine, 53 for the interchangeability of the archer with the woman in the scene. 126

48

Chapter 2

young boys (we saw this connection between nothoi and women, and the visualization of nothoi as perpetual children in chapter 1). One of the connecting strands between these categories is again a lack of agency. And as we saw that the feminized nothoi can be pictured as boys who never grow up, archers are also figured as not fully grown men. The archer god Apollo is an example of this depiction. Never to inherit his father's estate, Apollo is a perpetual youth just on the verge of manhood but never completing the transition. 129 Representations of Apollo in sculpture and vase painting picture him as beardless. For example, visual representations of the struggle between Apollo and Herakles over the tripod at Delphi show a con130 trast between the beardless Apollo and a (more) bearded Herakles. It is worth noting that the "Scythian" archers that appear on several vases of the late sixth century are often pictured as having a short, thin beard, "growing on the chin but not on the cheeks, and very different from the full beard of the Greeks." 131 This Scythian dress is also seen on an archer identified as Teucer: on a black-figure amphora an archer crouches next to a warrior who is identified by inscription as Ajax. 132 The dress identifies him as both an archer and a foreigner. Lissarrague describes a vase fragment which pictures a young man handing a helmet to a warrior with a shield. The young man himself is nude but wears a Scythian cap. Lissarrague argues that the "marginality" of the Scythian hat is used "pour marquer un ecart par rapport a l'hoplite, ecart qui clans le cas present vient relayer une opposition d'age (imberbe/barbu)." 133 The young man appears not to be an archer himself, but the distinctive mark of the archer is used, like his beardlessness, to set him off as younger than the hoplite warrior. And Photius, in his lexicon under the entry sunephebos, says that the Eleians called their ephebes "Scythians" ('rous- BE Eq,tj~ous- 'HAEtot µh LKu8as- KaAoDotv).134 Through their beardlessness (or possessing a very slight beard), as well as other markers, archers, like nothoi, are figured as boys or adolescents who are in some way underage, and thus the two categories can be interchanged or combined. 135 129

See Nagy 1994 for Apollo as an eternal youth. There are numerous examples of this scene in both sculpture, such as the West Pediment of the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi, and vase painting. For two examples of the latter, see the black-figure kylix of the Lysippides painter (Munich 2080) and a red-figure amphora of the Andocides painter (Berlin F 2159). 131 Pinney 1983.127. 132 Munich 1408, ABV368, 106. 133 Lissarrague 1990.52-53. 134 See Lissarrague 1990.170-172 for his discussion of this entry. 135 Lissarrague 1990.53 notes that on the archaic vases the Scythian archer is not necessarily a young man nor a future hoplite. He argues that although archers on archaic vases are marked as noncitizens, they are not depicted as "pre-citizens." But see Pinney 1983 for her argument that the Scythian archer marks the scene as belonging to epic narrative. My argument is simply that he is shown as underage, whether this is a scene of epic (and I do agree with Pinney) or a "genre" arming scene. 130

Teucer,the BastardArcher

49

In these cases we again see a transference across categories that do not necessarily include one another. Apollo is depicted as a perpetual youth and an archer, but he is no bastard. I introduced the scenes of Apollo and Herakles struggling over the tripod, though, because Herakles is figured at times as a nothos, regardless of his beard. 136 As the son of Zeus with a mortal woman, he falls into the category of skotioi paides that the Alcestis describes as mortal (this passage was examined in chapter 1). In Euripides' Herakles, his mortal father, Amphitryon, is contrasted with his "absent" divine father, Zeus. His markedly uncertain parentage is also combined with an emphasis on his role as an archer in this drama. Herakles is not called a nothos directly in Euripides' tragedy, but the play opens with Amphitryon describing himself as the man who "shared his wife" with Zeus ('rov 6tos au11.11.EKTpov, Herakles 1), introducing a suggestion of adultery and the question of who is the father of Alcmene's son. The Chorus (353-354) and Herakles himself (1263-1265) add to the ambiguity over who should be called the father of Herakles. 137 The words of the tyrant Lykos combine the question of dual paternity and Herakles' role as archer. He derides Amphitryon for claiming that Zeus shared his wife and produced a child with him (ws auyyaµos aot ZEUS 'fEKVOU'fE KOtVEWV, 149); he also ridicules Herakles' achievements, saying that he is a coward since he is an archer (157-164). The famous debate about archery has been much discussed, and I do not want to rehearse arguments about its place within the drama. 138 My purpose in introducing this passage into this discussion is to point out that archery is here connected with the uncertain parentage of the archer, as well as attributes of cowardice and unmanliness that we just saw in Diomedes' insult of Paris and will see again later in Teucer's imagined confrontation with his own father. Also, there has been an enticing suggestion that Lykos's description portrays Herakles 139 as "an ephebe who has failed to become a man." The statement that Herakles 140 has never held a shield is taken to mean that he is not fully adult. Like the archers in vase painting, Lykos's speech casts Herakles as a nonhoplite, and therefore as not a man. So in this case as well we see the series of connections between bastard, archer, and underage youth.

136

See AristophanesBirds 1649ff.for a comicexampleof Heraklesas nothos. Michelini 1990.254-258 discusses Herakles' two fathers as part of the larger theme of divinity versus humanity. Gregory 1991.128-132 centers her discussion of the dual fatherhood on notions of eugeneia. 138 George 1994.146n4collects some of the many studiesof this question. 139 George 1994.147. He builds this argument on Vidal-Naquet's analysis of ephebes in The Black Hunter (Baltimore 1986). 140 George 1994.148. 137

Chapter2

50

Family "Resemblance" and Legitimacy in the Ajax Let us return from the sneers of Lykos in the Herakles to the snide comments of Agamemnon in the Ajax and look again at the problems of legitimacy that Sophocles' drama offers. When as part of his many insults Agamemnon says that he wants a free man to plead Ajax's case, he accuses Teucer of not knowing who he is by birth: ou µa0wv os d ctTTI 8av6vros Kat 6oµous VEUOlutomk TOtaUT av~p 6uoopyos-, EV YTJPQ'. f3apus-,

1015

0

EpEt, npos- ou6h

ElS- Eptv 8uµouµEvos-·

TEAOS-6' Cl'.TTWOTOSyfls- Cl'.1TOpptq>8l]OOµat, 600>-.os-AoyotcrtV Cl'.VTEAEU8EpouaVEl5,. 0

1020

Where is it possible for me to go, to what sort of mortals, having helped you not at all in your troubles? I suppose Telamon, your father and mine, too, might receive me with glad countenance and perhaps kindly when I arrive without you-sure he will! He is never sweetly smiling even when times are good. What will he conceal? What sort of malicious thing will he not say? Bastard, born from my war spear, who betrayed because of cowardice and unmanliness you, dearest Ajax! Or by deception, so that with you dead I might possess your position of power and your home.

Teucer, the Bastard Archer

55

Such things the angry man, severe in his old age, will say, angry and ready for quarreling even at nothing. In the end I will be disowned, driven away from his land, made to appear a slave by his words instead of a free man. Ajax 1006-1020

Teucer's status as nothos is certainly highlighted here: he imagines that his father will even use the term nothos as a reproach, as part of the vitriol that includes calling him a coward or a swindler who would forsake his brother's life so that he might get Ajax's inheritance. 151 He predicts that he will be exiled, and will be in a position more like a slave's than like a free man's. We see once again accusations of the nothos being less than a man in the imagined words of Telamon. When we considered the confrontations between Teucer and both Agamemnon and Menelaos, we saw that many of these same associations are used against Teucer there as well: that his mother was a spear-won slave (and therefore a foreigner); that Teucer, too, is not a free man but like a slave, and that he is deceitful. Now, let us turn to the confrontation Ajax envisions having with Telamon. In Ajax's version of a reception by Telamon, he imagines going home without the highest prize, the armor of Achilles, and without honor (atimos, 440) among the Greeks. This sort of return is especially painful, since Telamon came home from Troy having won the most beautiful prize (Teucer's mother, in fact) and bringing home all glory (mxaav EUKAElav Epwv,436), whereas Ajax will have failed to live up to the standard set by his father. And so he cannot imagine how he could face his father if he does leave Troy and goes home. Ka't TTOlOVoµµa TEAaµwvt; yuµvov

TTaTpt 6TjAWO"WaVEl.S

TTWS µE TAT]O"ETa{TTOT'Elcrt6EtV

avEVTa TWV d:pwTElWV ClTEp,

wv auTS Eo-XE o-TEavovEUKAEtas µEyav; OUK EO"Tl TOupyov TATJT0V.

And showing up there what sort of face will I show my father Telamon? How will he ever bear to look at me appearing naked, without prizes of excellence, of which he has the great crown of glory? This is an unbearable deed. Ajax 463--467

151

A similar suspicion about nothoi using nefarious ways of getting an inheritance is seen also at Hippolytos 1010-1013, which I will discuss in chapter 4.

56

Chapter 2

Significantly, both brothers imagine first the look on their father's face or even his inability to look at them. Ajax wonders how his father will tolerate looking at him (464, using a similar word for his own feelings on the situation-that it will not be tolerable, 467). Teucer wonders what the expression on his father's face will be (eupros6pos, with glad countenance, 1009) as he receives him. Ajax cannot look Telamon in the eye (463) and imagines himself naked (gumnos, 465), both indications of shame. 152 The shame that Ajax felt over his failure to win the arms of Achilles and his mad slaughter of the cattle is then transferred to Teucer, who feels shame over his failure to protect his brother. But should Teucer be the one protecting Ajax? In the Iliad, as we have seen, Ajax is the protector, wielder of the great shield that can cover both his brother and himself. He is the wall of the Achaeans. 153 P. E. Easterling argues that in her appeal to Ajax, "Tecmessa understands that it is part of Ajax's greatness to be 154 protector of his ownphiloi (158-61, 410f)." The role of protector was a specialty of Ajax. Yet Teucer's imagined confrontation with his father seems to imply that Teucer was just as responsible for his brother's life as Ajax was for his. Many scholars have suggested that Homeric poetry had influence of various kinds on 155 Sophocles' portrayal of Ajax. The close connection between Ajax and Teucer, as a pair akin to Castor and Polydeuces, which is suggested in the Iliad, is also hinted at in the Ajax. But just as the scene between Tecmessa and Ajax has striking differences with that of its model between Hektor and Andromache, so, too, the idea of the coordinating pair of fighting brothers that is present in the Iliad shifts as the death of one of them is considered. In short, once Ajax is dead, Teucer takes on the characteristics of Ajax. 156 152

See Williams 1993.78 for the connection between being seen in the wrong condition, especially naked, and shame. Williams 1993.85 discusses Ajax 463-467 in particular with regard to shame. 153 See, for example, Iliad 7.211. 154 Easterling 1984.3. 155 Easterling 1984.8 draws the conclusion that "Sophocles' highly individual response to Homer had profound significance for the composition of Ajax." For other discussions of the Ajax and Homeric models, see Knox 1961; Goldhill 1986.154-161; Zanker 1992.20-25. A prime example of Homeric influence (one that has been noted as far back as the scholiasts) is the influence of Andromache's speech to Hektor in Iliad 6 on the speech of Tecmessa (485-524). For discussions of Tecmessa's speech as a proleptic lament that draws on Andromache's speech to Hektor in Iliad 6, see, among others, Easterling 1984, who points out that the scholiasts noted this as well. On how Tecmessa uses the speech to position herself, see Ormand 1999.113-123. 156 Stanford 1979.xiv, not an admirer of Teucer, says that "Sophocles portrays him as an alter Ajax, loyal, high-spirited and fearless, but without Ajax's greatness of passion and spirit, and with a noticeable lack of onvoTTJs." My argument here is not whether Teucer is a successful other Ajax, but that his character as presented in the Ajax taps into the mythical paradigm of the brother-pair that is also suggested in the Iliad.

Teucer, the Bastard Archer

57

It might be argued that it is "natural" for Teucer to take on a protective role of Ajax's philoi once Ajax is dead, but this shift of attributes to Teucer goes beyond his taking charge of the burial of his brother and the protection of Eurysakes (which Ajax himself asked that he do, 565-573).1 57 We have already noted that the shame which Ajax felt, and which he remedied through suicide, has been transferred to Teucer, and that this shame results in the same type of imagined encounter with their father. Teucer is also treated by the Greeks as though he were Ajax, his brother. When Ajax has realized what he has done, he worries that "the whole army, armed with a spear in each hand, would kill me" (nas- oE o-TpaTOS'o{naXTOS' µE XElP'- cpovEuot, 408-409), for, as he later says, the Greek army hates him (µto-Et µ ' 'En tjvwv aTpaTpovEtv, 677). These similarities are more than a "two peas in a pod" phenomenon if they are tapping into a mythological paradigm of brothers whose very lives are connected. This identification between Ajax and Teucer after Ajax's death is also suggested in dramatic terms. In terms of the structure of the drama, it is likely that the same actor played both roles, although this is not known for certain. But if the same actor did play both Teucer and Ajax, the repeated questions about Teucer's whereabouts are imbued with further meaning. Ajax first calls for Teucer when he comes out of his madness, and his question "Where is Teucer?" (TioD TEuKpos-; 342) is picked up twice more by Tecmessa (797 and 921). Teucer will not appear until after Ajax has killed himself, though, and the effect of being portrayed by the same actor may have added to the sense that the brothers "alternate" with one another. Teucer's willingness to join his brother in death in his efforts to protect him (1310-1311) fits into the paradigm seen in the case of Castor and Polydeuces, although it is reversed, since the illegitimate (which, structurally speaking, is equivalent to mortal) brother will choose to share death

av

157

Note, however, that Teucer will make up for his perceived lapse to his brother in the protective role. As he prepares for the burial, he makes sure that the Chorus will stand by the corpse in his absence, using again arego in his request (1183). See page 53 above for my discussion of this verb in its other instances in the play. Thus when he once again has to be away, he takes care of the protection which he feels he failed to give when Ajax committed suicide.

58

Chapter2

instead of the legitimate/immortal brother, as in the case of Castor and Polydeuces. The paradigm at work seems to be that the brothers, while alive and working together, had complementary qualities (as seen in the Iliad). When the dominant brother dies, the recessive brother takes on his traits.

Tencer on His Own When we look at Teucer's post-Trojan War career, then, he has absorbed the qualities of Ajax. Euripides' Helen presents a version of the next episode in Teucer's life. Ajax is dead, and Teucer has returned to Salamis and has been turned out by Telamon, just as Teucer in the Ajax predicted he would. Now his story must become his own, for he is not with his brother any longer. The appearance of Teucer in Euripides' Helen seems at first glance somewhat arbitrary. Never a major figure in any version of Helen's life story, he is not strictly "necessary" to the events in this drama either. Indeed, the central question surrounding Teucer's role in the Helen may be "why is he a part of this drama at all?" Certainly, his appearance seems very convenient, and Teucer's role has often been considered simply one of an informer. 158 With his arrival in the prologue, Helen has the opportunity to converse with a Greek man who is not directly connected to her situation. In this conversation Helen (and the audience) is told that she is an object of hatred for the Achaeans who fought long and hard in the war over her (Helen 81). She learns that Troy has been sacked, that the Trojan War lasted ten years, and that it has been over for seven (106-114). Most importantly, she learns that Menelaos recovered the phantom Helen, but that they have not yet reached home and, in fact, many consider Menelaos dead (115-132). Helen, however, understands immediately that Teucer hates her because he is an Achaean warrior who was at Troy-she does not need him to explain that to her (85). She already knows about the eidolon Helen and the war fought for her, and even the reputation these events have made for her (42-55). As far as the plot is concerned, the important piece of information that Teucer provides is that the Greeks were scattered in their homecoming, and that Menelaos is believed lost. Again, it could be argued that it is convenient for it to be Teucer who tells Helen this, since he is not on his way back to his Greek homeland and so cannot be expected to rescue Helen himself. I will argue, ho~ever, that there is more at stake in the encounter of Teucer and Helen. The details of their conversation show, as I hope to demonstrate, that Teucer is an appropriate figure in the story of the Egyptian Helen because they both have a transferred sense of shame from the events of the war, but each also has a possibility of redemption and a 158

Karsai 1992.217 notes that in the previous discussionsofTeucer's role in this drama ' the emphasishas been on his role as an informer.

Teucer, the Bastard Archer

59

new life after leaving Egypt. I will also argue that Teucer's life story as a nothos is a key aspect to these similarities. Teucer's status as nothos needs no explicit mention in the Helen-it is a fact that can be taken for granted. Helen, on the other hand, is not usually thought of as illegitimate, yet in Euripides' narrative, her own descriptions of her birth use tropes commonly associated with illegitimacy. Helen gives versions of her origins both before and shortly after Teucer's appearance that problematize the circumstances of her birth. In the opening monologue, she introduces Sparta as her homeland and Tyndareus as her father, but then she immediately adds that the story is told that Zeus sired her in the form of a swan 9 and concludes, "if the story is true" (17-21 ).15 As he did in the Herakles, Euripides here casts lineage from Zeus as an ambiguous situation, and doubt over the identity of one's father is a fundamental condition of illegitimacy. This ambivalence is later compounded with the story of Helen's birth from an egg, where "they say" that she did not come into the world in the usual way (256-259). Her displacement from her own identity because of the eidolon is conveyed by her figurative illegitimacy at the beginning of this drama. Although the authenticity of lines 257-259 has often been doubted, I would argue that the sentiments expressed actually fit in well with her situation. In any case, the question she asks in line 256, which modern editors do not excise, also has a hint of illegitimacy, as Helen asks whether her mother bore her as a teras. We will see further in chapter 3 how recent scholarship has connected the ideas of bastardy and this sort of unnatural or monstrous birth. 160 Thus the presence of Teucer, an undisputed nothos, is an indication of illegitimacy as an analogy to Helen's loss of identity, and this loss is in a sense retrospectively applied to the circumstances of Helen's birth as well. The unstable identity of both Helen and Teucer is seen as well in their disconnect from their respective parents: Teucer has been disowned by his father and Helen's mother has committed suicide because she is ashamed of Helen (Teucer, in fact, tells Helen that this is the report, 136; see also 687 when Helen repeats this news for Menelaos). 161 Indeed, these profound reactions of Telamon and Leda to the sup159

Dale 1967 .ad loc. notes that the "ambivalence is curious and a little upsetting." She also notes the more explicit doubt of Zeus's parentagein the Herakles. 160 Ogden 1997.9-14. Seep. 77 below. 161 In Helen's case, there is the additional possibility that her brothers also committed suicide in shame over her actions (137-142). For a similar suggestion that Castor and Polydeuces may have felt shame over Helen, compare Helen's words at Iliad 3.236-242, in which she assumes that she does not see her brothers among the Greek forces because they are too ashamed to come to the battlefield or perhaps to come to Troy at all. See Ebbott 1999.15. The mention of her brothers here may be an allusion to their role as rescuers of Helen from Theseus and so potential rescuers of her now, but following the mention of Leda, who would not be in a position to rescue Helen, the emphasis seems to be on the shame that led to their deaths. Of course, the appearance of Castor and

60

Chapter 2

posed actions of Teucer and Helen indicate another characteristic that the two share: that is, they are both intensely shamed, though the disgrace is not their own doing. The words that Helen speaks as Teucer enters announce the idea of a "transferred" shame. At the end of her opening monologue, Helen is explaining that Theoclymenus is now pursuing her for marriage and that she has made herself a suppliant at the tomb of Proteus so that she may keep her bed for her husband, concluding, "so that although I bear an ill-famed name throughout Greece, my body may not bring shame to me here at least" (ws-,El Ko:0' 'Et,),ao ' ovoua 01.JEpW,µtj µ01..TO awµ& y, EV0ao' alcrxuvnv Oq>AlJ, 66-67). This contrast between a name with duskleia in Greece and an existence without shame elsewhere introduces Teucer, and we will see that these sentiments are appropriate to Teucer's situation as well as Helen's. He, too, has found shame at home but hopes for another kind of life in another place. The source of the shame of each is brought out in the details of their con162 versation. Once he has been convinced that the woman he is speaking to is not really Helen, Teucer tells her that he is a Greek who has been exiled from his homeland (84-90). 163 When Helen learns that it was Telamon, Teucer's own father, who expelled him, she asks what Teucer could have done that would make his father cause him such suffering. Teucer's response shows the cause of his disgrace: "Ajax, my brother, destroyed me by dying in Troy" (94). Although it is made clear that Ajax committed suicide, the implication is that the death of his brother has caused a kind of "social death" for Teucer and that this results from the deep connection of identity between the two brothers: that is, both were destroyed by the death of one of them. Just as Helen has lost her true identity because of the eid6lon, Teucer has also been deprived of his through the death of his brother. Thus the sharing of identity between Ajax and Teucer that we saw in the Ajax is apparent in this narrative as well. When Teucer tells Helen the story of Ajax's suicide, she asks him: "Are you then sick with the sufferings of that man?" (au rn1s- EKE{vou ofjTa ntjµacrw vocrE1s-;103). In other words, she asks whether Ajax's misfortune affects Teucer, but her words describe this in

Polydeuces as divinities at the end of the play resolves the question of which story is accurate within the drama. 162 Karsai 1992.219-222 characterizes their conversation as an "interrogation." He argues that Helen asks the vast majority of the questions and gets what she wants out of Teucer, but that Teucer has nothing that he came for when he leaves. Karsai does not mention, however, that much of the questioning centers on Teucer and his story. 163 Diggle in his 1994 edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press) excises lines 86-89, in which Teucer explicitly identifies himself by name, as Teucer, son of Telamon, from Salamis. Yet even without these lines, Teucer's background is established: it is made clear that Telamon is his father (92), Ajax is his brother (94), and Salamis is his homeland (150).

Teucer, the Bastard Archer

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terms of sickness, of corporeally experiencing the pain of his brother. The connection between the brothers is represented as sharing the same disease, feeling the same pain and suffering. 164 Teucer's response shows what the connection should have been: "Because I did not perish together with him" (60oUVEK' aihQ