Theology and Existentialism in Aeschylus: Written in the Cosmos (Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies) [1 ed.] 9781138796737, 9781315757674, 1138796735

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Prelude: On Non-Compulsory Literary Criticism
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Written in the Cosmos
1 The Radical Theology of Prometheus Bound; or, On Prometheus’ God Problem
2 The Curse of Inherited Guilt in Seven against Thebes
3 The Necessity of Agamemnon
4 Fatal Aftermaths: Libation-Bearers and Eumenides
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Theology and Existentialism in Aeschylus

Theology and Existentialism in Aeschylus revivifies the complex question of fate and freedom in the tragedies of the famous Greek playwright. Starting with Sartre’s insights about radical existential freedom, this book shows that Aeschylus is concerned with the ethical ramifications of surrendering our lives to fatalism (gods, curses, inherited guilt) and thoroughly interrogates the plays for their complex insights into theology and human motivation. But can we reconcile the radical freedom of existentialism and the seemingly fatal world of tragedy, where gods and curses and necessities wreak havoc on individual autonomy? If forces beyond our control or comprehension are influencing our lives, what happens to choice? How are we to conceive of ethics in a world studiously indifferent to our choices? In this book, author Richard Rader demonstrates that few understood the importance of these questions better than the tragedians, whose literature dealt with a central theological concern: What is a god? And how does god affect, impinge upon, or even enable human freedom? Perhaps more importantly: If god is dead, is everything possible, or nothing? Tragedy holds the preeminent position with regard to these questions, and Aeschylus, our earliest surviving tragedian, is the best witness to these complex theological issues. Richard Rader teaches Latin and Greek at Montgomery Bell Academy, USA. He was Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), USA. Prior to UCSB he held a Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship at the University of Southern California. He is co-editor of The Enigmatic Context: Approaches to Greek Drama (2013).

Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies

1 The Roman Garden Katharine T. von Stackelberg 2 The Eunuch in Byzantine History and Society Shaun Tougher 3 Actors and Audience in the Roman Courtroom Leanne Bablitz 4 Life and Letters in the Ancient Greek World John Muir 5 Utopia Antiqua Rhiannon Evans 6 Greek Magic John Petropoulos 7 Between Rome and Persia Peter Edwell 8 Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought John T. Fitzgerald 9 Dacia Ioana A. Oltean 10 Rome in the Pyrenees Simon Esmonde-Cleary 11 Virgil’s Homeric Lens Edan Dekel

12 Plato’s Dialectic on Woman Equal, Therefore Inferior Elena Blair 13 Roman Literature, Gender, and Reception Domina Illustris Edited by Donald Lateiner, Barbara K. Gold and Judith Perkins 14 Roman Theories of Translation Surpassing the Source Siobhán McElduff 15 Displaying the Ideals of Antiquity The Petrified Gaze Johannes Siapkas and Lena Sjögren 16 Menander in Contexts Edited by Alan H. Sommerstein 17 Consumerism in the Ancient World Imports and Identity Construction Justin St. P. Walsh 18 Apuleius and Africa Edited by Benjamin Todd Lee, Ellen Finkelpearl and Luca Graverini

19 Lucian and His Roman Voices Cultural Exchanges and Conflicts in the Late Roman Empire Eleni Bozia

20 Theology and Existentialism in Aeschylus Written in the Cosmos Richard Rader

Other Books in this Series: Childhood in Ancient Athens Iconography and Social History Lesley A. Beaumont

Late Classical and Early Hellenistic Corinth 338–196 BC Michael D. Dixon

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Theology and Existentialism in Aeschylus Written in the Cosmos Richard Rader

First published 2015 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Taylor & Francis The right of Richard Rader to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rader, Richard, author. Theology and existentialism in Aeschylus : written in the cosmos / by Richard Rader. pages cm — (Routledge monographs in classical studies) 1. Aeschylus—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. II. Series: Routledge monographs in classical studies. PA3829.R34 2014 882′.01—dc23 2014032755 ISBN: 978-1-138-79673-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-75767-4 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex Covantage, LLC

Contents

1

Prelude: On Non-Compulsory Literary Criticism Acknowledgments

ix xi

Introduction: Written in the Cosmos

1

The Radical Theology of Prometheus Bound; or, On Prometheus’ God Problem

21

2

The Curse of Inherited Guilt in Seven against Thebes

56

3

The Necessity of Agamemnon

89

4

Fatal Aftermaths: Libation-Bearers and Eumenides

150

Bibliography Index

197 209

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Prelude On Non-Compulsory Literary Criticism

‘Love and hate are crucial for critics, along with deep-seated ambivalence. Those emotional engagements reveal that the writer’s work has really touched us’ (Morris Dickstein, ‘The Work of a Critic’). I take these words to heart in the following pages. This is not a book of historicism, even less of the soft sociology we nowadays call cultural poetics. This is, rather, a book of literary criticism—one that is essentially personal in scope. Criticism is always personal and we should strive to make it more so—we have nothing to be ashamed about. Without treating my readings—and they will always be plural—as sites of auto-ethnography or solipsistic impressionism, I try throughout to open myself to these plays, to discover their insights for me (and perhaps and hopefully for others too), and to ask and attempt to answer why I keep returning to them. This approach, this relationship we might call it, has both a practical and an ethical provenance: practical because I cannot claim any other reader’s experience of Aeschylus for my own. The way you read and feel Aeschylus will necessarily differ from the way I read and feel him, and that is as simple as saying I am I and you are you. As banal as that sentiment might be, the pose of dispassionate erudition taken by scholars in books of criticism tends to underplay or, worse, to ignore the intensely personal nature of interpretation. ‘Critics are not anatomists who murder to dissect but seismologists attuned to every rumble in the terrain of art and their own inner lives.’ And their own inner lives. I can only hope that readers find my engagement with Aeschylus compelling enough to continue reading along. As for the ethical provenance, we will never recover the ancients’ experience of Aeschylus. In light of this simple fact it is less polemical than sincere to say that any and all attempts to pin down an original audience’s impression, or a subsequent audience’s impression, or even—and this is a truer mystery—subsequent readers’ impressions, is at best speculation and at worst intellectual colonialism. Historicism and cultural poetics may take us along a (not the) path to discovering partial reasons for the continuing survival of Aeschylus’ plays. But they will always only be partial. And that is okay because the reasons why Aeschylean tragedy survives are far less important than the fact of its survival. Ultimately, the reason it survives

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Prelude

is that people keep reading him. Our task as teachers and scholars, and ultimately as transmitters of the tradition, is to demonstrate not how an audience of the fifth century might have responded to Aeschylus but why we should continue to read and perform him, to come up with ever more sophisticated and compelling ways to explain his meaningfulness to us. You might call that anachronism, but since all interpretation is technically anachronistic for being belated, I propose we embrace anachronism as the fundamental condition of interpretation. So whatever we may think about the importance of Aeschylean tragedy in the Western literary canon or its aesthetic sublimity or its pots-and-plays material relationship to fifth-century Athenian culture, its existence is at bottom just a (beautiful, in my opinion) accident. Literary criticism in this regard, unlike historicism, is an ever-evolving form of reader reception. It is an act of gratitude and intimacy ‘without which there can be no penetrating insight.’ What I offer here, therefore, is my own gratitude and intimacy. To do anything else—to pretend to magisteriality, to give the impression of a compulsory reading—would be an act of bad faith, to forget that ‘works of art are not so much objects as experiences.’ Readers looking for (the pretension to) an authoritative account of Aeschylean tragedy will have to look elsewhere.

Acknowledgments

Most first books, I suppose, originate in a dissertation, and while this book surely bears some relation to the dissertation I wrote so many years ago, it has undergone rather radical changes in the time since I left graduate school—and so much the better for it. All the same, I couldn’t have finished a project of this size and scope without the foundations I gained during my time at Ohio State University. The faculty of the Department of Classics (formerly Greek and Latin) truly inspired me intellectually and I’d like to single out a few of the most influential. Victoria Wohl struck me in my very first year with a passion for Greek tragedy and literary theory, and to a large extent all the work I’ve done since has been the product of her influence. Her steady diet of tough love over the years has kept me on track even in my moments of cynicism and despair. Bruce Heiden, believe it or not, gave me the inspiration for the ideas behind this book in an undergraduate mythology course for which I was a teacher’s assistant; his subsequent mentorship and friendship were crucial to my development as a Hellenist. William Batstone and Erik Gunderson showed me how to do imaginative literary criticism. Anthony Kaldellis, no fan of poetry (by his own admission), came to my aid too many times to count when I was finishing my dissertation. And Gregory Jusdanis kept asking about the quality. I spent two magical years on fellowship while working on this project: the first in Freiburg, Germany, with the DAAD under the supervision of Bernhard Zimmermann and, perhaps less formally but no less meaningfully, Jonas Grethlein; the second in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California with the Mellon Foundation. Colleagues and friends at both institutions, as well as subsequent places I worked (UCLA, UCSB), kindly endured my presentations and no doubt improved the quality of this book. James Collins and I struck up a friendship during this time that I am truly grateful for professionally and personally. This book would literally not have come together without the patient prodding of Lauren Verity, who gave me the final push I needed to get across the finish line. Katie Pagan deserves a medal for chasing down citations and cleaning up the bibliographic mess I handed her just one month before deadline.

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Acknowledgments

Finally, Chiara, my most faithful ally—I will keep your secrets and you will always be my mirror. This book is dedicated to you and Evan. I am grateful to the following publishers for allowing me to reprint portions of the manuscript that have appeared elsewhere: The Johns Hopkins University Press (‘The Fate of Humanism in Greek Tragedy,’ Philosophy and Literature 33.2, 2009, 442–54); CAMWS (‘Aeschylus in the Classroom, On Stage and Beyond: Rethinking a Paradigm,’ Classical Journal 106.4, 2011, 465–82); and Cambridge University Press (‘The Radical Theology of Prometheus Bound; or, On Prometheus’ God Problem,’ Ramus 42, 2013, 162–82).

Introduction Written in the Cosmos

To our minds the tragedians were the paradigmatic fatalists. Perhaps because their literature grappled in the most engaged way with notions of divinity and human agency we are quick to call them superstitious. This is, in fact, one way of distinguishing ourselves culturally from them, we who no longer believe that a Zeus or Apollo is pulling strings behind the sensible world. But we are more Greek than perhaps we know, for fate is everywhere these days. Hurricane Katrina was called an act of divine retribution. Popular television shows such as Lost and Heroes insist that everything happens for a reason. The advertisements for psychics and clairvoyants are nearly inescapable. What could explain our fascination with the supernatural? The modern, secular world we live in is driven almost entirely by an ideology of free agency, so the pervasiveness of the Fate industry, with its language of guidance and determinism, might come as a surprise. This situation would appear to reflect a contradiction between official and unofficial belief, for we are ready to believe that there is a larger purpose behind seemingly random events, that our futures, however shadowy, have a definite shape. This possibility, though, raises tricky questions: If forces beyond our control or comprehension are influencing our lives, what happens to choice? If all of our decisions are predetermined to fit within a more meaningful order of existence, what space is left for human freedom? How are we to conceive of ethics in a world studiously indifferent to our choices? Few understood the importance of these questions better than the tragedians, whose literature dealt with a central theological concern: What is (a) god? And how does god affect, intrude on or even enable human freedom? Perhaps more importantly: If god is dead, is everything possible, or nothing? Tragedy holds the preeminent position with regard to these questions, engaging and re-imagining the relationship between humans and gods familiar to Homer. Tragedy both resonates with the thematic fixations of Homeric poetry (heroes, Übermenschen, aristocrats) and diverges significantly from it. And Aeschylus, our earliest surviving tragedian, is the best witness to this perplexing evolution in theology. Consider the following comparison. In Book 1 of the Iliad, after the Greeks have been ravaged for days by plague (Apollo raining down on

2

Introduction

them with his arrows), Agamemnon and Achilles find themselves in serious conflict over the solution to their plight. Achilles, with the approval of the rest of the Greek army, suggests that Agamemnon simply give back the girl Chryseis to her father, a proposal Agamemnon angrily rejects by threatening to take Achilles’ girl Briseis in return. As Achilles in his anger poises to draw his sword and kill Agamemnon, Athena, prompted by Hera, arrives and prevents him from doing so. The gods’ intervention in this episode, direct and unmistakable, suggests two things. First and foremost, gods play an active role in the course of the war, indeed even have personal stakes in it. Many of them have children involved, and others simply like the Greeks or Trojans for their own reasons. Second, and more importantly, they intervene not only to influence the action but also to forestall the consequences of decisions that are unforeseeable to the humans making them. For all his justifiable rage, Achilles cannot foresee that killing Agamemnon is a disastrous move. Human decisions and actions by themselves are short sighted and dangerous. The gods are a necessary check on human impulse, a buffer between thought and action. Contrast this episode with the plight of Orestes in Aeschylus’ Eumenides. After Orestes has ‘justifiably’ killed his mother to avenge his father, Agamemnon (citing the authority of the god Apollo), he is hounded by the pus-oozing, acid-breathing Furies, punishers of kin bloodshed. When Apollo arrives to defend Orestes—the first divine intervention in the entire Oresteia—he cannot simply save him like Athena saves Achilles. He must risk submitting Orestes to the bloody but lawful authority of the Furies. Even he, a god, cannot prevent the consequences of Orestes’ actions. Unlike Homer, then, Aeschylus abstracts direct divine intervention. Apollo is there for Orestes but he is no longer flicking away spears on the battlefield like so many flies. This move points up the ambiguity of human decisions taken without the guarantee of an Athena or Apollo to back them up. Although humans may invoke the gods to justify their decisions, they are essentially left to themselves.1 What of the even more abstract cases of Seven against Thebes, Suppliants, Agamemnon, Choephoroi and Persians, where gods are consigned entirely to invocations, cries, desperate prayers and murderous and priggish selfjustifications?2 Where have they gone? What are we to do now? Tragedy’s reimagining of the human–divine relationship raises the question: What kind of world do we live in, and how are we to conduct ourselves, when the gods have abandoned us? How are we to confront the impasse of choice without an Athena to pull our hair as we poise to chop off our opponents’ heads? If the gods are gone, or ‘dead’ as far as responsibility for human action is concerned, what does that mean for our freedom? We feel the gods’ absence, we resent it, yet for better or worse we have to carry on with our lives. And in the world of tragedy that means carrying on with horror and malice, despicable decisions that point up how badly in fact we need the guidance of the gods.

Introduction

3

Sartre famously asserted that we are condemned to freedom: thrown into a godless world alien to us for being beyond our possession, we have nothing but our choices. This terrifying and liberating experience of commitment to our decisions, without metaphysical guarantee, is what makes us elementally human. ‘Those who conceal from themselves this total freedom, under the guise of solemnity, or by making reference to determinist excuses, I will call cowards. Others, who try to prove their existence is necessary, when man’s appearance on earth is merely contingent, I will call bastards’ (Sartre [1946] 2007: 49). Such a bold claim as this almost perfectly describes the world of Greek tragedy, where characters are desperate to be released from their responsibility. How else to describe their invocations of the gods—who never materialize—in moments of monstrosity? As Agamemnon holds the knife to his daughter’s throat, Artemis is nowhere to be found; as Orestes steels himself to thrust his sword into his mother’s bared chest, Apollo is but a distant ringing in his ears. Why are they absent now all of the sudden? We may never know. But one answer, and the one that pervades in scholarship, is that tragedy elevates Necessity to a theological principle in the place of direct divine involvement. Agamemnon, we are told, ‘put on the yoke of Necessity’ when he sacrificed Iphigeneia. One way or another—gods or no gods—he had no choice. This deterministic view of tragedy has a long history. To take just a few examples: A drama is a play about man and his fate—a play in which God is the spectator. (Lukács) The battle takes place between the single individual and the ‘powers,’ between man and demons, between man and gods . . . Man does not know. Unknowingly and unconsciously he falls prey to the very powers that he wanted to escape. (Jaspers) Tragedy . . . is not a spectacle of evil; it is a spectacle of a constant and inevitable relation between good and evil, a dramatic representation of a law of values. (Myers) The tragic hero is very great as compared with us, but there is something else, something on the side of him opposite the audience, compared to which he is small. This something else may be called God, gods, fate, accident, fortune, necessity, circumstance. (Frye)3 On this view humans face an intractable cosmic systematicity. The tragic is the space in which a protagonist acknowledges, willingly or not, his or her limitations before it. Heroes and victims emerge either to transcend their suffering or succumb to the inevitable. Either way the conclusion is always the same: an impersonal sense of necessity always wins out. To adapt Adorno, it seems the work of tragedy is to permanently put pistols to a person’s head. As Terry Eagleton (2003) has explained, in this world the tragedies inflicted

4

Introduction

on humans are testament not to the vagaries of choice and chance but to a ‘mysteriously providential’ force. Tragic theory thus transforms human suffering into a tragic metaphysics. Bruce Heiden has pointed out that the Enlightenment background of modern scholarship betrays a ‘determined adherence to the explanatory first principle of Necessity’: ‘If you believe that there is a supreme being, and that being is Necessity, then the notion of choice . . . is a pernicious illusion’ (Heiden 2006: 3). The reigning assumption of tragedy studies, in fact, is that freedom has become so circumscribed in a cosmos overdetermined by fate as to essentially disappear. Even modern philosophical treatments of tragedy, which tend to speak in terms of the sublime and finitude, fail to break free from the language of determinism. The (now Kantian) hero ‘sees himself constrained to act under the weight of a necessity,’ affirming himself and his freedom to act even in vain (Beistegui and Sparks 2000: 6). Bernard Williams once cautioned that we should ‘attend to ways in which the sense of this necessity in tragedy is an artifact of dramatic style, and not simply a deployment in the theatre of something that everyone believed anyway,’ but concluded in the end that human agency in tragedy is constrained. Agamemnon, for example, ‘understands only too well that Artemis has brought it about that if he sacrifices Iphigeneia, the fleet can sail, and if not, not’ (Williams 1993: 131, 135). That we have in Agamemnon, a paradigmatic drama for determinists, only an account of an act that took place more than ten years prior—and that this account is, furthermore, a retelling of an oracular interpretation by the seer Calchas, not the words of the goddess Artemis herself—ought to arrest us from such deterministic certainties. In effect, Williams comes to the same conclusion as Agamemnon. The implication of this concinnity is disturbing. Recent studies have tried to move beyond the fascination with freedom and fate in tragedy. For Timothy Reiss (1980), for example, tragedy is an epistemological (not metaphysical) discourse, a site opening out on the question of referential truth. Can we justly comprehend the world? The space of the tragic (i.e., the fundamental unintelligibility of the world) is infinitely open and unresolved, tracing and haunting the gap between what we know about the world and all that escapes. Hence, Reiss sees tragedy (qua genre) as an attempt to impose order and experience (‘our will to knowledge’) on a world that will always outplay schematization.4 Even in this sophisticated approach, however, the referentiality of the tragic is posed in largely binary terms (the inexpressible and expressible, conflict and resolution, asemy and sign), dichotomies suspiciously similar to that of freedom and fate. But binaries do not necessarily denote equality or balance. The belief that ‘Freiheit ohne Notwendigkeit nicht Freiheit wäre,’ as Karl Reinhardt (1949: 14) noted with regard to Aeschylean theology, expresses an antinomy without equilibrium: Necessity is the opposite of freedom like a cat is the opposite of a dog. One speaks of them together, but there is little logical symmetry. The fascinating thing is that our struggle to locate in tragedy a yearning for order in chaos, truth in a nonreferential universe, is the very struggle

Introduction

5

Aeschylean tragedy itself (as a genre) stages in its depiction of characters deciding, acting and trying to make sense of the world and their place in it. Which is to say, the metaphysical and the epistemological dimensions of fate and freedom are two sides of the same coin. As I elaborate later, Agamemnon is a prime example of this dialectic. His play gives us precious little insight into his decision to kill Iphigeneia. How does Agamemnon know the omen of the eagles has been interpreted correctly (and is that even possible)? How does he know the injunction to sacrifice his daughter is binding? Why would he need to gag Iphigeneia if her sacrifice is divinely mandated? This both textual and hermeneutic indirection is a precise illustration of the limitations of human knowledge in a world without gods to underwrite decisions. Unlike Achilles in the Iliad, no god is present to disabuse Agamemnon’s reading of the ‘signs.’ All he is left with is a decision, one that reflects no more than his isolation in a world that refuses to give him straight answers. Any justification he summons—I cannot disobey the gods, I cannot be seen as weak before my troops—is thus a reflection of his fear (gods) and desire (troops). Neither is the truth. The chorus’ assertion that he put on the ‘yoke of Necessity’ is pure hindsight, less a statement of fact than a confused and horrified guess. How else to explain Agamemnon’s callous decision except to say he had to do it? The assertion names an aporia without explaining it and so reflects the chorus’ lack of knowledge, their failure of understanding. We cannot take the words of the chorus for truth. We may take them for truth claims, but as Nietzsche so devastatingly showed, truth claims spring from the will to power and thus reflect not realities but desires and interests, fears and malicious hopes. Tragedy is thus meant to show how characters acknowledge, confront and attempt to overcome this maddening undecideability, how they come to their decisions without knowing the truth. It is emphatically not a justification or a theodicy. Fatalism and tragedy, of course, are reciprocal to the point of being tautological. Whether we are talking about gods, curses, inherited guilt or necessity, it is assumed that human freedom is always at risk. The most recent major contributions to tragedy and Aeschylean studies take this as their starting point.5 But when we get down to it, what does it mean that a god or a curse caused a character to do something? That it physically forced him?6 Obviously this force is different from Apollo shoving Patroclus to the ground in Iliad 16. So how exactly does this transfer of force happen? Is it, to use James Frazer’s famous terminology, ‘sympathetic magic’ traveling through an ‘invisible ether’? This seems to be the assumption among scholars, though none of them spells it out explicitly.7 We even still hear mention of ‘double motivation,’ a term coined by Albin Lesky (and subsequently developed by Vernant) to counter the rather crude determinism of influential earlier critics, as a way to reconcile fate and freedom.8 Does this mean that a god or curse has circumscribed the circumstances in which a character acted? In which case what is the ratio of freedom to determinate

6

Introduction

circumstance? Can that ratio change? If so, how? And what if any would be the consequence? Such questions are never asked. The appeal to the modern world as a parallel or corollary to this soft determinism has been a seductive impulse. No major character in Aeschylus suffers simply because he is cursed, or somehow fated to do so. What is inherited is not only the curse or the guilt but the propensity to incur fresh guilt. Nor does anyone suffer without being under some kind of constraint to act as he does. It may seem illogical, but it is not untrue to human experience. The decisions that we make are not made in a vacuum; they are determined in varying degrees by circumstances which are often beyond our control. Sometimes, through no fault of our own we may be put in a situation where we are forced to make a decision between two courses of action both of which seem wrong. But we are still responsible for the decision that we make. (Garvie 2010: 70) But to say, for example, that religion or global capitalism ‘caused’ the attacks of September 11, 2001, or that my mother’s alcoholism ‘caused’ my inability to have meaningful relationships, is different from the way scholars say Oedipus’ curse ‘caused’ Eteocles to meet his brother Polynices at the seventh gate of Thebes. How exactly does the curse ‘cause’ Eteocles and Polynices to meet? There is thus a fatal vagueness in this model too, although it is regularly invoked as if it constituted an explanation for human decisions. So something such as double motivation—or ‘supernatural necessity,’ to use Bernard Williams’ term9—muddles rather than clarifies the matter because ultimately you either are or are not forced, and most of the time you are not.10 We talk of cause and effect as if humans are billiard balls. But human beings are not billiard balls.11 Most of the time when tragic character say they ‘had no choice’ or ‘were forced,’ it is rarely the case that they ‘had no choice’ or ‘were forced.’ (Here again tragedy’s difference from Homer, where gods play a direct and unmistakable part in human action, is meaningful.) It is mostly a figure of speech, a truth claim that reflects (mis) judgment or (impure) reasoning or (ill) feeling—in other words, it is a question of character not forces. We could say then that fatalism is less a metaphysical sine qua non of tragedy than a perspective of its characters. I contend here, in fact, that fatalism results from the intersection of two experiences of time built into both the perceptions tragic characters have of their relationship to the world and the very structure of the plays (in every case we are dealing with a narrative of something past).12 We might for the sake of simplicity identify these experiences as ‘retrospective’ and ‘prospective.’ The former transforms discrete events of the past into teleology and inevitability, writing necessity into the movement of history. Looking back, for example, how could Eteocles not

Introduction

7

conclude that god and his father’s curse have conspired to put Polynices behind the seventh gate of Thebes? The retrospective experience views causality as a function of chronology: post hoc ergo propter hoc. Here is a prime example: In Prometheus Bound Prometheus claims he gave Zeus the secret to defeat the Titans in the Titanomachy; Zeus and the Olympians (with an apostate Prometheus on his side) are victorious; ergo Prometheus is to be credited with Zeus’ victory and rise to power (and thus Zeus owes him). Prometheus’ subsequent querulous invocations of Zeus’ fate are obviously tied to this willful retrospective misreading of the past. And with the exception of a tiny minority, critics of the play never fail to get seduced by Prometheus’ version of the story. By their reading Zeus has no choice but to reckon with Prometheus’ superior knowledge: His fate depends on it. The prospective experience of time, on the other hand, sees events of the past as merely traces of immeasurable things such as desire, hope and potential, simply one thing out of many others in the contingent unfolding of unlimited possibilities. At the moment of decision looking forward, in other words, anything could have happened and anything else yet might. Freedom and fate, depending on the way we read or the direction we look, are two sides of the same coin.13 Let me provide an analogy: If, on looking back at a failed relationship, I say, ‘I should have seen this coming. There was that time he said this, and this other time he did that,’ and then conclude the relationship was ‘bound’ to fail, does this mean that the individual events I remember ‘caused’ or ‘determined’ its failure? Not really (or literally), because only in retrospect can they signify in this way. Life moves forward, so how could I possibly know in the moment that any of these individual events have a larger teleological meaning for my relationship as a whole? Anything else might have happened and anything else yet might. So it is important to keep an eye on the direction of our perspective when we start to recognize the hand of god or the force of necessity, as hindsight tends to furnish clarity and purpose otherwise unavailable.14 If it is fairly well agreed that fatalism is an intrinsic feature of tragedy, what about free will? Was this a concern for the tragedians or, for that matter, the ancient Greeks? Are we imposing modern preoccupations on a literature unfamiliar with them? Reading tragedy for insight into the question of human freedom tends to raise the specter of anachronism. J. P. Vernant ([1972] 1990c) famously claimed that the Greeks had no word for free will and thus that our modern fascination with parsing it in tragedy risks irresponsibility.15 This is sensible but overcautious. The theological dialectic of fate and freedom may not have taken hold until Augustine (or perhaps earlier with St. Paul), but this fact emphatically does not mean that the Greeks, and especially the tragedians, were incapable of posing questions that reflected their interest, fear and curiosity in the limitations of human freedom. Greek tragedy is deeply theological. It concerns itself with gods— was even put on stage in honor of one—and the humans involved with them. Gods have infinite freedom, humans finite. Tragedy thus addresses the

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Introduction

difference between them without having to announce itself. Tragedy needed no parabasis to pedantically reveal its message. The medium, the genre, the questioning running through it and animating it—this is the message. So while tragedy may not literally deploy a discourse of fate and free will, it is assuredly the foundation on which subsequent theological and philosophical discourses built their edifices. One often hears the objection that Aeschylus under this light sounds like Sartre, an anachronistic assertion if ever there was one. But Aeschylus did not have to read Sartre: Sartre read Aeschylus. Let me emphasize that to speak of theology and determinism in tragedy is not to stake a claim on some grand theological vision. We shall not speak of the theology of Aeschylus, or fate in Aeschylus, if by that we mean one unified doctrine. Perhaps ironically, that approach was popular among both proponents of such readings (Nestle, Reinhardt, Nicolai, Nilsson) and their critics (Lloyd-Jones in particular). Thomas Rosenmeyer (1955: 249), however, reframed and refined the question by showing that gods in Aeschylus were malleable to their dramatic context and function. By this reading we need not square one depiction of Zeus (say, that of Prometheus Bound) with another (Agamemnon).16 This grants us considerable freedom to investigate the theology of Aeschylus’ plays without having to fit them all into one neat package. It also means that inconsistency of divine representation between plays need no longer embarrass us or make us defensive (or worse, dismissive). It goes without saying, of course, that this flexibility is not a free-for-all: There is a relatively stable pantheon of gods in Aeschylus and their functions and powers are for the most part consistent with Greek theology. So, although Hugh Lloyd-Jones was surely right that ‘there is no possibility of deducing a coherent theology’ (1971: xv) in Aeschylus, and although we will discover therefore a host of theologies and fatalisms, one unifying element stands out: The gods are exceedingly rare visitors to the stage. Of the six definitively Aeschylean extant tragedies only one, Eumenides, puts actual gods on stage. The seventh, Prometheus Bound, considered by most not to be from the hand of Aeschylus, has, with the exception of the character Io, a cast that is entirely gods (though none as major as the Olympians). We can, unfortunately, only speculate on Aeschylus’ many other plays, which are either fragmentary in the extreme or entirely lost. Even those we can safely assume used gods for characters provide little consolation or insight about the nature of their divine involvement (see Sommerstein 2010a: 61–81). For now, though, despite this despairing paucity we must admit that the absence of gods in the plays we have is striking. And we have to ask whether and how this is meaningful. I believe it is meaningful precisely because, as I suggested earlier, Aeschylus lets us witness his characters making decisions and offering justifications based on some calculus about those absent gods. Am I to sacrifice my daughter to appease a remote and angry god that I unwittingly offended? (Yes) Am I to murder my mother and pollute my hands because a god told me to? (Yes) Am I to kill my brother because my father cursed us? (Yes) These are impossible and horrific

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questions, but in answering them we gain insight into character and thus into an ethics, one we might call an ethics of tragic humanism.17 As William Zak eloquently suggests, Tragedy recurs and persists because [the characters’] response to the question, ‘What am I to do?’, is less a reverent exploration than a rationalization of what they have determined has already been decided for them, less a threshold they willingly cross, troubled by the risk to the sacred, than a grave they grudgingly dig for themselves and their kin to preserve their self-respect. (Zak 1995: 57) In asking after this ethics we get a better understanding not of the nature of divinity but of humanity. In the absence of the gods this is, in fact, all we can attempt to comprehend. Theology after all is but a human discourse; rarely does god corroborate. Under this light Greek tragedy, and Aeschylean tragedy in particular, is like philosophy to the extent that it provokes (theologically and humanistically) ethical questions, more so even than it is the trace of a long-lost public theater. It need not be controversial to read tragedy this way. Although it is common to hear that certain interpretations of tragedy are ‘too intellectual’ or ‘too philosophical’ for a genre performed before an untrained audience, we have very little meaningful evidence for ancient performances.18 Why then do we still bother? Even when we insist on the authenticity of historical precedent or the conventions of the Great Dionysia, there remains something antiperformative about Aeschylean tragedy. The near two-hundred-line choral ode at the beginning of the Agamemnon springs to mind, not to mention the central shield scene in Seven against Thebes in which Eteocles and his scout discuss the highly pictographic emblems of their enemies’ shields—which the audience cannot see.19 This kind of thing does not lend itself to easy staging, rather like an adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest for the stage, including footnotes and asides, would make for terrible theater. Such features, though, exist for a reason: We are meant to puzzle over them, dig into their complexities and nuances, discover their inertias—these scenes effectively beg for scrutiny and interpretation, not just stage directions. This resistance to enactment points toward a tension between tragedy as drama and tragedy as literature. An overly fastidious (or purist) faith in the former tends to obscure the fact that the survival of Greek tragedy into the modern world has less to do with actors and dramaturges than with readers and interpreters.20 There is more going on in a play than can be comprehended on one viewing, and it is this surplus, built into both the structure and the content of the play, that we have to account for. Perhaps Aeschylus wrote his plays with other concerns in mind than simply dramaturgy. Is it too provocative to suggest he was anticipating the critical attention of Plato, Aristotle and beyond—that is, philosophical and

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hermeneutic engagement—in addition to, or perhaps instead of, a favorable response from his audience? Aeschylus was not exactly Seneca, but Seneca certainly took something from Aeschylus. To stake a claim like this is to suggest that drama has a particular and peculiar power as performative art. As poetry it shares the tensions and ambiguities of language that permeate epic and lyric texts and can therefore sustain a multiplicity of interpretive approaches. We might even say that the poetry of drama revels in contradiction, that it demonstrates the forces and civil wars within every word. There is always more going on than we are aware. With drama we are privy to a type of communication that does not exactly map onto a transparent public language. Characters talk and act in ways that seem comprehensible, but their words are cast in a highly formalized and rigid poetic structure. Normal conversations do not take place in iambic trimeter, to say nothing of dochmiacs or glyconics. So there is already a distance between us and them. Even as we identify with them something remains to be figured out. As performative poetry, moreover, drama literally stages ‘things being done,’ a generic feature that reveals its revolutionary difference from epic or the novel (cf. Goward 1999: 10, 13). In these latter a narrator, omniscient or not, provides insight for us: context, motivation, desire, fear, ambivalence, hypocrisy—in the presence of a narrator these things are radically available to us in ways we perhaps forget. In drama, on the other hand, we have no direct access to these things except as they are acted out in deliberations or decisions. Drama thus starts with inaccessibility: Who is this person? What is she thinking? Why is she doing that? This inaccessibility, though, because it is fundamental to tragedy’s very formal existence, is an obstacle, not a hindrance. It enables scrutiny, gives way to insight. Drama, in other words, asks us to figure things (and people) out, to put the pieces together ourselves, to determine whether we have enough to put it together and figure it all out. Drama requires engagement. And the reflective relationship between audience and actor is an ethical one—drama presupposes ethics. Are we justified, though, in trying to figure these characters out? Can we peek behind their masks and into their minds?21 Tragedy certainly invests strongly in its characters, producing a mimesis of subjective depth. This claim, however, is not as uncontroversial as we might like. In fact, the question of this tragic subject, variously rendered as protagonist, agent, hero, subject or self, has been a fixture of the critical imagination since criticism began. Discussion started with Aristotle, who famously claimed in his Poetics that character is incidental to action: Tragedy is mimesis not of persons but of action and life; and happiness and unhappiness consist in action, and the goal is a certain kind of action, not a qualitative state: it is in virtue of character that people have certain qualities, but through their actions that they are happy or the reverse. So it is not in order to provide mimesis of character that

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the agents act; rather, their characters are included for the sake of their actions. (1450a15–21) For Aristotle, plot, the arrangement of actions, is the first principal and character is only secondary. It is for this reason that he reiterates ‘tragedy is mimesis of action and it is chiefly for the sake of the action that it represents the agents’ (1450b1–2). By his reckoning character colors the action of which tragedy is a mimesis. The almost obtuse precision of Aristotle’s argument has not prevented critics from finding in the Poetics a notion of the tragic hero. John Jones showed that critical interest with the hero is an ‘importation’ into the treatise: the ‘center of gravity’ in Aristotle’s theory is ‘situational and not personal’ (Jones 1971: 16). Tragedy is thus concerned with the situation or context of action and everything else, from character to diction and so forth, is organized around it. And as Stephen Halliwell explains, Aristotle envisions a reciprocal relationship between character and action but nevertheless offers a ‘clear conceptual disjunction of motive and intention (character) and their realisation in action’ (Halliwell 1987: 94). That Aristotelian tragic theory is situational and not character-oriented, however, does not mean that tragedy involves disembodied action.22 As Jones acknowledges, Aristotle ‘cannot mean that Tragedy lacks what we loosely call human interest; somehow the imitation of actions and life must carry human interest without being an imitation of human beings’ (Jones 1971: 30). By claiming that character is secondary to action, ‘he is saying that character is included for the sake of the action; he is not saying, or he is saying only incidentally, that character is less important than action’ (Jones 1971: 31).23 We may ask ourselves despite this refinement whether tragedy still takes no interest in humans and their characters. For the plays we have are almost entirely populated by humans—occasionally a god shows up—whose motivations and desires are explored in detail as causes for their actions. As Helene Foley (2001) has shown, Tragic characters may view themselves as undertaking intentional actions for which they may be reviewed as responsible and judged accordingly. Yet at other points the character herself, the chorus, or another character may view her action as partly determined, or even in the case of madness entirely determined, by gods, of inherited curses and dispositions, or even separate internal forces within the self. (17; cf. 243–71) Thus Aristotle (and perhaps even Jones) prematurely lays the problem of character to rest without considering such issues as motivation, selfperception or internal conflict.

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For this reason the problem of the tragic subject continued to occupy an important place in the critical imagination. Perhaps the most influential advances belong to J. P. Vernant. In a series of essays Vernant argued that Greek tragedy marked a ‘new stage in the development of the inner man and of the responsible agent’ (Vernant [1972] 1990a: 23). He was quick to point out that the development of the tragic subject did not entail the concomitant emergence of the ‘psychological subject, an individual “person”’ (Vernant [1972] 1990a: 24), but he did situate the tragic subject within the world of tragic action as an intentional, ‘willful’ agent. The tragic subject became an agent in a world that he could not entirely control but of which he was an intimate and responsible part. Tragedy ‘takes as its subject the man . . . forced to make a decisive choice, to orient his activity in a universe of ambiguous values where nothing is ever stable or unequivocal’ (Vernant [1972] 1990a: 26). Vernant positions the tragic subject between ethos (‘all that the hero feels, says and does’) and daimon (‘the expression of a religious power’): ‘Tragic man is constituted within the space encompassed by this pair’ (Vernant [1972] 1990b: 37).24 Hence the relationship between agent and action so precisely articulated by Aristotle becomes more complex: The action does not emanate from the agent as from its source; rather, it envelops him and carries him away, swallowing him up in a power that must perforce be beyond him since it extends, both spatially and temporally, far beyond his own person. The agent is caught in the action. He is not its author; he remains included in it. (Vernant [1972] 1990c: 63) ‘Tragedy, for Vernant,’ according to Simon Goldhill, ‘depicts a conflict within man himself’ (Goldhill 1986: 170). By introducing the ethos/daimon dialectic Vernant both furnished the tragic subject with autonomy and limited it by situating him amid the ‘tensions and ambiguities’ of human existence. The subject was ultimately inscrutable. Goldhill developed this line of thinking in a different direction by adducing Barthes’ argument (in S/Z) about the dynamic, reciprocal relationship of character and discourse. First, we must maintain a distinction between a ‘figure’ and a ‘person’: the former is in simplest terms ‘a character in a literary text,’ the latter ‘an individual patient with a subconscious, a history, a family’ (Goldhill 1990: 106). ‘It is because a character is a “figure” and not a “person” that there can be no sure and fixed answer to what a character is “really feeling”, “really thinking”, “really wanting”—his/her (real) motivation—at any particular moment in a text’ (Goldhill 1990: 113). And second, a figure cannot be divorced from the discourse or world she or he inhabits. Goldhill (1990) underscores the symbiotic relation between a character and the discourse with and within which she or he functions:

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Discourse and character . . . can be seen in ‘good narrative writing’ as mutually and inextricably implicative: ‘from a critical point of view . . . it is as wrong to suppress a character as it is to take him off the page in order to turn him into a psychological character (endowed with possible motives): the character and the discourse are each other’s accomplices.’ (112, quoting Barthes) By this approach we see ‘the questions of motivation as part of the narrative discourse of the play’ (Goldhill 1990: 113). Taken together the ideas of Vernant and Goldhill opened the door to a new sense of the tragic subject. Vernant’s tragic subject is a semiautonomous agent in the world, irreducible to that world but responsible to it all the same. Goldhill’s is an agent whose decisions and actions are indissociably bound up with the discursive demands of the play and its mythological tradition (cf. Goldhill 1986: 188). Vernant and Goldhill endowed the tragic subject with enough character to make him more than a cipher but less than a fully realized human with such complications as a ‘subconscious, a history, a family.’25 But can we, as Goldhill claims, maintain a firm distinction between a figure on stage and a ‘real’ person with a ‘subconscious, a history, a family’? Because these elements are very much a part of tragedy’s discourse and, in fact, produce the mimesis of subjective depth I spoke of earlier. As Pat Easterling has pointed out, the distinction between figures on stage and real people presupposes that ‘“real” people and the “real world”, as opposed to stage figures in the world of make-believe, are relatively stable and definable and can serve as some sort of yardstick (for comparison or contrast) when we come to think about theatrical creations’ (Easterling 1990: 84). Good faith requires acknowledging that ‘our working assumptions about “reality” and “real people” are in fact quite provisional’ (Easterling 1990: 85). A hard and fast distinction between the stage world and the real, while commonsensical and useful at first glance, could eventually collapse under the weight of its presumptions. More than this, tragedy very much also depicts ‘figures’ with histories, families and, one could argue, subconsciouses.26 Even Aristotle claimed that the best tragedies were centered on a small number of notorious families whose complicated and treacherous histories made for the best plots (Poetics 1453a16–22). These families may well be just figures on stage, but tragedy takes an interest in their relations to and effects on the tragic subject. We might then suggest that histories, families and subconsciouses are also terms of tragic discourse. And it is in exploring the tensions and ambiguities between a character and his or her family, history and subconscious that tragedy opens up a space for the tragic subject. There will always be a question of inaccessibility of character; we simply cannot know how and why they think and do the things they do. But to insist on inscrutability is to mistake an effect of dramatic character for a

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defect. Tragic characters are inaccessible indeed, but not because they are not ‘real’ or human; they are inaccessible precisely because they are human. No one, as Easterling noted, is so transparent to herself as to have a perfect grip on motivation and intention, let alone the motivation and intention of another person. Tragic characters are more dense and sensationalistic nodes of character than perhaps we are, but that is because they are literary characters, and tragic characters at that, so inevitably they take on stronger valences. This is no way precludes examination of their desires and motivations; it simply means we have to wade through more layers and accretions of literary, poetic and generic baggage. In response then to the question (or objection), ‘Are we allowed to peek behind the mask of the characters and into their minds?’ my answer is a definitive yes.27

COWARDS AND BASTARDS So we are in need of a methodological framework that can encompass both the possibility of the human subject and her ability to exist and to act in a world that, contrary to scholarly orthodoxy, imposes no deterministic constraints on them. A framework that vouchsafes the minimal dignity of a committed choice in the maximal space of an unencumbered cosmos. Sartre’s existentialism, which I invoked earlier in this chapter, provides just such a framework. Sartre’s magnum opus, Being and Nothingness, was a radical strike against a number of philosophical determinisms (Freudian psychoanalysis, Marxism, Catholicism, and so on). Taking its cue, and clearly also its title, from Heidegger’s world-shattering Being and Time, Sartre’s ‘phenomenological essay on ontology’ was at bottom an attempt to posit the fundamental existence and value of free will. Unlike Heidegger’s view of the relationship between existence and essence, and in particular the relationship between man and Being, Sartre pointedly argued that ‘existence precedes essence.’ By this he meant that our subjective existence as human beings—the brute fact of our being in the world, what we do and how we act—literally and figuratively takes precedence over who we are or how we define ourselves. Accordingly, ‘existentialism’ was to be imagined as a philosophy of action and will.28 And in this world of action and will any and all determinisms had to be dismantled. The most notorious dismantled determinism, and the one most relevant to this study, of course, was Sartre’s rejection of God, the ultimate determiner. Specifically because of the polemical urge of Being and Nothingness Sartre came in for some serious criticism.29 In response Sartre delivered a lecture in 1946 called ‘Existentialism Is a Humanism,’ which was subsequently published and became one of the definitive manifestos of existentialism. And it is here that I want to dwell for a moment so as to clarify some of the ideas that will be fundamental to this book as a whole.

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‘What we mean by “existentialism” is a doctrine that makes human life possible and . . . offers man the possibility of individual choice’ (Sartre [1946] 2007: 18, 19–20). As we noted near the beginning of this introduction, for Sartre our fundamental characteristic as humans is the fact that we have been ‘thrown into existence’ (22), into a world that neither requires us nor proves willing to entertain our questions, fears and desires about it all. We are thus born into an essential alienation. But this alienation is in fact the foundation of our freedom and strength: ‘Man is nothing other than what he makes of himself . . . Thus, the first effect of existentialism is to make every man conscious of what he is, and to make him solely responsible for his own existence’ (Sartre [1946] 2007: 22–23). Alienation, however, makes for solidarity not solitude: Because every other human being is also thrown into the world, and hence because her alienation is likewise the basis of her freedom and strength, we are all connected to one another. This in fact is our responsibility: ‘Nothing can be good for any of us unless it is good for all . . . Our responsibility is thus much greater than we might have supposed, because it concerns all mankind’ (24).30 God cannot validate or protect this responsibility we have to one another, nor can he be responsible for us himself, because God for Sartre does not exist.31 This ‘abandonment,’ a corollary to our alienation from the world, is another condition of our freedom. But Sartre does not celebrate the death of God with the same triumphal glee as, say, Richard Dawkins: Existentialists . . . find it extremely disturbing that God no longer exists, for along with his disappearance goes the possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There could no longer be an a priori good, since there would be no infinite and perfect consciousness to conceive of it. Nowhere is it written that good exists, that we must be honest or must not lie, since we are on a plane shared only by men. (Sartre [1946] 2007: 28)32 Hence Sartre’s famous expression that we are ‘condemned’ to freedom (28–29). We have to exercise our will, we have to choose, and even if we do not choose that still constitutes a choice (44). For better and worse there is no god to underwrite those choices. Some choices are clearly better than others. Even in the world of tragedy we can distinguish between truly depraved choices (the gagging of Iphigeneia) and marginally more understandable choices (Aegisthus’ participation in Agamemnon’s murder). For Sartre, however, a judgment of someone’s decision can only be based on her authentic fidelity to the freedom to act. The only acts he will strictly condemn are those wrapped in deterministic platitudes.33 Hence his rather acidic characterization of those who abnegate their freedom to choose by invoking fatalistic pieties as cowards and those whose inhumanity reveals a belief in their own higher existential value as bastards.34

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Under this light, as I suggested earlier, Aeschylus’ plays are full of cowards and bastards. Aeschylus himself, however, is neither coward nor bastard. Rather like Sartre he is the diagnostician of the existential hellscape otherwise known as Greek tragedy.35 He wants us to behold this existential hellscape, to measure the values and authenticities of its inhabitants against our own, and to ask ourselves whether like so many of his protagonists we choose to be cowards or bastards. So what exactly is freedom for a son of Oedipus or an Agamemnon or even a Zeus? The orthodox answer to that question has gotten stale. It is time for a systematic reappraisal.36 My hope with this project is to initiate a dialogue about the centrality of determinism in tragedy and, more importantly, in our work on it. And my central point throughout the following study is that what we identify as fate and determinism in tragedy are retrospective explanations characters use to justify decisions or make sense of their place in the world. Tragedy shows us that when we kill or act brutally, we never really ‘have to do it.’ We must never forget choice. Against our fatalistic impulses tragedy dramatizes a tragic humanism, the play and hedge and uncertainty of decision making, and does so for our readings and rereadings, for our reflection. The reflection it inspires is to ground our ethics. Freedom is in the deliberation, the choice, good or bad. We cannot blame god or anyone else for the consequences. We are, as Sartre claimed, condemned to freedom. Perhaps then the ultimate insight of tragedy is that our freedom is only ever imperiled when we believe that is has been imperiled.

NOTES 1. Cairns (2005), however, holds the view that in tragedy too gods ‘function as a limitation upon human self-assertion’ (314). 2. Consider the deeply perceptive remarks of Gould (1985): Ritual and myth . . . are both modes of religious response to experience in a world in which ‘chaos’, the threat posed by events which seem to be unintelligible or which outrage moral feeling, is always close . . . How did an ancient Greek know that a divine power was at work in the world of his experience? The answer, of course, is that he didn’t—outside, say, the fictional worlds of the Iliad and Odyssey. He had to guess, to wrestle with uncertainty and disagreement, both in discerning the active power of divinity at work in events and, more particularly, in determining what divinity and for what reason. And until these questions could be answered, response was premature and might be misguided and misdirected; it was inhibited by thoughts of the consequences; it might involve irreparable loss in the effective destruction of foodstuffs, in the slaughter of scarce animal resources (or in myth even of sons and daughters), and might even result in an outcome counter to the intentions of the respondent. (9) Cf. Mikalson (1991: 7), Mastronarde (2005: 322) and Parker (2009: 128). 3. All of these quotations I have taken from Arthur Coffin’s (1991) collection of essays on tragedy by prominent thinkers. 4. See also Gellrich (1988). Cf. Eagleton (2003: 19).

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5. Cf., for example, Sewell-Rutter (2007), Föllinger (2003, 2009), Käppel (1998), Bees (2009), and Kyriakou (2011). See Gagne (2014) for a comprehensive study of the development of ancestral fault in both classical literature and modern scholarship. 6. Cf. Williams (1993) on this contradiction: At the limit, [necessity] consists of physically moving people, tying them, locking them up: but that is not making people do things—it is only putting them into situations in which they can or cannot do certain things. When someone is constrained actually to do something, the typical situation is, rather, that there is an imposed choice: they are given the alternative of doing what is required, or, on the other hand, pain or death or some other outcome less drastic but also undesirable. (152–53) 7. See, for example, the recent instantiation of Stehle (2005) who essentially reiterates Cameron (1970) and Winnington-Ingram (1983). 8. See, for example, Mastronarde (2005: 322) and Mark Griffith’s exchange with Robert Parker in Jouanna and Montanari (2009). 9. Williams (1993) offers the most sophisticated taxonomy of fatalism: Immediate fatalism, such as Eteocles’ invocation of his father’s curse, involves ‘a fatalistic necessity . . . applied to the action that is being considered’ (138); long-term or deferred fatalism ‘demands that some action and decision do have an effect . . . but that, with regard to the vital outcome, they make no difference in the long run’ (141); and supernatural necessity, whose characteristic feature is the idea that ‘the structure of things is purposive . . . [and] things are arranged in such a way that what you do will make no difference to the eventual outcome’ (141), hence ‘there is nothing relevant to be said about ways in which things might have gone differently—either about other routes by which the inevitable outcome might still have come about or about routes which if they had been taken (though inevitably they were not), the outcome would have been prevented’ (145). 10. Double motivation also reflects poorly on our view of tragic characters: ‘If tragic protagonists are at least free to resist their inevitable ruin, doesn’t the fact that they do so comment rather unfavourably on their intelligence? . . . If all the lifeboats have been launched, why not just have a drink in the bar?’ (Eagleton 2003: 103). Cf. Zak (1995): ‘Affording decision and responsibility in the dramas to human and divine beings alike . . . virtually defies reason’ (17). 11. I encourage readers to consider Michael Frayn’s (2006: 71–110) very elegant explanation of why even billiard balls do not demonstrate cause and effect like we think they do. The New York Times opinion forum ‘The Stone’ has recently featured some exhilarating back-and-forth by contemporary philosophers on the question of free will and determinism. See especially Egginton (2010): As much as we owe the nature of our current existence to the evolutionary forces Darwin first discovered, or to the cultures we grow up in, or to the chemical states affecting our brain processes at any given moment, none of this impacts on our freedom. I am free because neither science nor religion can ever tell me, with certainty, what my future will be and what I should do about it . . . I am condemned to freedom. I am not free because I can make choices, but because I must make them, all the time, even when I think I have no choice to make. 12. Goward (1999: 20–24) offers a similar distinction but divides the experiences of time by choral lyric (‘synchronic . . . capable of vast shifts of temporal perspective’) and iambic trimeters (‘diachronic’).

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13. Cf. Eagleton (2003): Tragedy is the present lived as though it were the past, tempering the excitement of a ‘What comes next?’ with the consoling certitudes of an ending we read back at each point into the evolving action . . . We move backwards and forwards simultaneously, mixing freedom and fatality. (101–2; cf. 117–18) 14. This, as it were, is the fatal flaw of Williams (1993: cf. 139–45), who recognized the post-hoc validation of necessity in the characters of tragedy but did not subsequently draw any conclusions about the narrative and ethical effect of such late realizations. What does it mean that we can only recognize necessity after the fact? 15. See now Michael Frede (2011) on the origin and development of the notion of free will in antiquity. 16. Despite the somewhat official sanction given to Rosenmeyer’s piece by Taplin (1977), as well as his subsequent elaboration in The Art of Aeschylus (1982: 274ff.), it is disappointing to discover the most recent sustained treatment of theology in Aeschylus (Bees 2009, which cites neither the essay nor the book) falls right back in line with Nestle’s project. For a recent instantiation of the position that gods serve dramatic function, see Robert Parker (2009). 17. Cf. Mastronarde (2005): ‘Tragedy’s interest in human action, human decisionmaking, and the dramatic force of uncertainty and open-ended struggle is usually better served by keeping gods out of sight and by revealing the disparity of knowledge and power gradually and belatedly’ (326). 18. See, for example, Wiles (2000) and Ley (2006). 19. Poochigian (2007–8) argues, to the contrary, that the combination of deictics and perfect-tense verbs in the scene suggests the presence of the Argive warriors on stage. 20. See Heiden (2005): Even in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. performances were apparently infrequent, but plays circulated alongside the epics of Homer, the historical writing of Thucydides, and the works of Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers. All these discourses share an obsession with ethics, which necessarily frames a temporal horizon much longer than that of a performance. (12–13) Hutchinson (1985: xl–xli) claims that widespread literacy in Athens likely created demand for Aeschylus’ texts, and that the medium of memory alone could not have accounted for their survival. For this reason he supposes that Aeschylus himself oversaw the publication of his plays. 21. See, for example, the remarks of Vidal-Naquet (1990) regarding the ‘psychological verisimilitude’ of Eteocles: One cannot insist too often on the fact that Eteocles is not a ‘human being,’ reasonable or otherwise. He is not derived from psychoanalysis, which can only draw upon living people or fictions fairly close to us in support of this mode of interpretation; nor from a study of character in the manner of the novels of the nineteenth century. He is a figure in a Greek tragedy and it is as such that he must be studied . . . Our task is not to . . . turn the textual Eteocles into a living Eteocles. (277–78) Cf. Van Erp Taalman Kip (1996). 22. Cf. Halliwell (1987): ‘[Action] is no loose or empty term for whatever may occur in a play, but a way of denoting tragedy’s encompassment of the significant goals of life’ (95).

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19

23. The virtue of Jones’ (1971) argument is his commitment to Aristotle’s precision. Consider, for example, his critique of Bywater’s and Else’s inflections of secondary into subordinate (31). With the exception of a pedantic moment in which he imagines Aristotle himself condescending to Kitto (18), Jones concedes that a more precise reading of Poetics still leaves the text making less-than-perfect sense and does not necessarily improve our understanding of Greek tragedy (cf. 17). 24. Cf. Vernant (1972c): ‘The nature of tragic action appears to us to be defined by the simultaneous presence of a “self” and something greater that is divine at work at the core of the decision and creating a constant tension between two opposed poles’ (75). 25. Cf. Foley (2001: 16) for similar observations. 26. Note Goldhill’s canny use of psychoanalytical terms (‘patient,’ ‘subconscious’). He has himself deployed this methodology (cf. Goldhill 1986: 168–98) and has elsewhere extolled the advances of psychoanalytical criticism in the Classics (Goldhill 1997: 324–47, esp. 340–43). Cf. Griffith (2005) and Goward (1999: 9). 27. See Ahl (1991: 5–14, 30–34) for intelligent criticism of the deterministic view of mythic tradition espoused by Goldhill (with particular reference to Oedipus). 28. ‘[Existentialism] cannot be considered a philosophy of quietism, since it defines man by his actions, nor can it be called a pessimistic description of man, for no doctrine is more optimistic, since it declares that man’s destiny lies within himself. Nor is existentialism an attempt to discourage man from taking action, since it tells him that the only hope resides in his actions and that the only thing that allows him to live is action. Consequently we are dealing with a morality of action and commitment’ (Sartre [1946] 2007: 40). 29. Marxists reacted to his unwillingness to privilege our material existence in the world (the external determining forces of class, say, on our ability to make ethical choices). Although Sartre had been at one point a committed Marxist and member of the Communist party, he eventually rejected materialism: ‘The effect of any form of materialism is to treat all men—including oneself—as objects, which is to say as a set of predetermined reactions indistinguishable from the properties and phenomena that constitute, say, a table, a chair, or a stone’ (Sartre [1946] 2007: 41). Psychoanalysts bristled at his association of the unconscious with ‘bad faith’ (essentially the privileging of essence over existence), and, unsurprisingly, Catholics could not countenance his rejection of God as an obstacle to ‘good faith’ morality. Heidegger himself claimed that Sartre’s privileging of existence over essence failed to undo the metaphysical distinction between the two terms. 30. Cf. Eagleton (2003): No action is ever purely one’s own . . . Our free actions are inherently alienable, lodging obstructively in the lives of others and ourselves, merging with the stray shards and fragments of others’ estranged actions to redound on our own heads in alien form. Indeed, they would not be free actions at all without this perpetual possibility of going astray. (110) Pace Rosenmeyer (1982): ‘The principal requirement of a free choice, namely that it be practiced in the virtual absence of all other constraints except the mutual exclusiveness of the options, is not found in Aeschylus’ (302). In Sartre’s view of the world, as Eagleton corroborates, no choice is ever taken in a vacuum. Why would Aeschylus choose to portray such a world? 31. Or at least the Judeo-Christian Superego Sartre associates with god—cf. Mailer (2005). Eagleton (2006, 2010) accuses the New Atheists (Richard Dawkins,

20

Introduction

Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and others) of willfully misreading the Bible in service of ‘vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a firstyear theology student wince’ (Eagleton 2006: 32). 32. See Eagleton’s (2008b) brilliant diagnosis of the death of God: Because God had created human beings in his own image and likeness—that is to say, fashioned them as free—they were now able to press that freedom to its limit by abolishing the source of it and installing themselves in his place. Man was now the transcendent peak of creation, owing almost as little as the Almighty had to nature and biology. As Nietzsche scornfully pointed out, surprisingly little was thereby altered. Instead, the religion of Yahweh gave way to Feuerbach’s religion of humanity. There was still a stable metaphysical centre to the world; it was just that it was now us rather than a deity. Idolatry accordingly gave way to narcissism . . . What the humanist parallel between the infinity of Man and the eternity of God overlooked was that God is traditionally thought to be in love with the fleshly, frail and finite—a doctrine known as the Incarnation. Once Man had emancipated himself from this belief, however, he was free to persuade himself that he was boundless. As such, he found himself in perpetual danger of developing too fast, over-reaching himself and bringing himself to nothing, as in the myth of the Fall. The consequence of forgetting one’s limits is hubris. There is a traditional cure for this oblivion known as tragic art, but it is a therapy almost as devastating as the sickness itself. Cf. Williams (1993: 152) on ‘metaphysical freedom.’ 33. ‘We may also judge a man when we assert that he is acting in bad faith. If we define man’s situation as one of free choice, in which he has no recourse to excuses or outside aid, then any man who takes refuge behind his passions, any man who fabricates some deterministic theory, is operating in bad faith’ (Sartre [1946] 2007: 47). 34. Cowardice and bastardy, Sartre claims, are themselves choices: People would prefer to be born a coward or be born a hero . . . Essentially, this is what people would like to think. If you are born a coward, you need not let it concern you, for you will be a coward your whole life, regardless of what you do, through no fault of your own . . . What the existentialist says is that the coward makes himself cowardly and the hero makes himself heroic; there is always the possibility that one day the coward may no longer be cowardly and the hero may cease to be a hero. What matters is the total commitment, but there is no one particular situation or action that fully commits you, one way or the other. (38–39) Cf. Eagleton (2003: 114, 122, 152) on this desire for compulsion. 35. Cf. the eloquent formulation of Rosenmeyer (1982): [Aeschylus] does not pinpoint blame, he locates energies and associations. He is, as it were, primarily a statistician, a graphic artist, and only secondarily a judge. His divine emblems are like the curves in a sociological table. And because he does not deal in exclusive judgments, the moral impenetrability of serious action comes through. (284) 36. At the risk of undermining this very aim I have chosen not to include Suppliants and Persians, neither of which is particularly susceptible to a treatment of the kind I offer here. This is not to say that there is no question of determinism in those plays, only that a reading of their (marginal) determinisms would likely not improve my arguments about those I have chosen to include.

1

The Radical Theology of Prometheus Bound; or, On Prometheus’ God Problem

Prometheus Bound (PV) is a meditation on God par excellence, second only perhaps to the Bible or Paradise Lost. It is, accordingly, the only extant tragedy from the ancient world featuring gods primarily as characters.1 For this reason it stands out in a genre fixated principally on human suffering, where ‘death carries overwhelmingly more weight than salvation.’2 Gods, of course, do not suffer like humans: Prometheus, the play’s protagonist extraordinaire, may be subject to an eternity of punishment for stealing fire from Zeus, but his pain, real and visceral as it is, differs from ours in that it lacks the potential closure of death. It is perhaps justifiable then to suggest that the play’s focus is not just the awful things gods are capable of doing to one another (just like humans) but, rather, the meaning of such behavior without the ultimate consequence (death). That is, the portrayal of Prometheus suffering and Zeus menacing redounds equally to the type of characters they are as to simply what they are. Whereas the former aspect is of psychological or political interest, the latter is a theological concern. And PV is theological in its implications as much as it is political. The question is: What type of theology does it convey? The answer is complex.3 In the modern world PV has primarily been read for its political allegory—as a meditation on oppression, or martyrdom for the intellectual cause.4 Many critics therefore argue that the play articulates the conflict between Prometheus and the absent Zeus primarily in terms of freedom versus authoritarianism.5 As Shelley famously put it many years ago in the prologue to his Prometheus Unbound, the imprisoned Prometheus represents ‘the highest perfection of moral and intellectual nature impelled by the purest and the truest motives to the best and noblest ends’ (Shelley [1820] 2007: ix). Marx and Goethe felt similarly.6 This position aligns Prometheus with the forces of enlightenment and progress against the brutality of Zeus’ authority.7 It is not hard to see why this is the case: the play’s unrelenting focus on Prometheus gives little reprieve from the sight of his punishment. His imprisoners (Hephaestus, Kratos and a silent Bia) and visitors (a chorus of Oceanids, Oceanus, Io and Hermes) provide distraction, but not much. They mainly express shock and sympathy for his suffering, drawing

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attention to the fact that he is a victim of Zeus’ power.8 PV understandably became an atheist manifesto.9 But what kind of victim is he exactly? Critics have raised objections to the hagiography of Prometheus, but seldom do such critiques go further than pointing out his heroic stubbornness.10 It is rare that Prometheus’ intransigence, or Zeus’ absence and inability to answer the charges leveled against him, raise questions as to whether we should regard his one-sided account as the truth.11 Two critical discussions of PV provide illumination of these matters. Stephen White has argued that Prometheus misunderstands the theodicy behind Zeus’ responsibility for Io’s suffering. He presents a convincing challenge to the image of Prometheus as heroic benefactor by drawing out his confusions and contradictions: ‘Zeus, far from being a wanton despot and rapist, favours Io with extraordinary grace. The play’s account of her tribulations . . . provides the key to understanding how it seeks to justify the ways of Zeus to mankind’ (White 2001: 116). Zeus is ‘not a despotic autocrat but the leading member of a deliberative council of fellow immortals’ (132–33). Prometheus, on the other hand, ‘conferred [gifts] without rules or constraints,’ thereby ‘enabl[ing] mortals to plunder the earth, slaughter themselves and ignore the gods’ (133). White (2001) seeks to ‘justify Zeus without demonizing his rival’ (110), paying special heed to the seductions of his rhetoric: Deceit and deception aside, most characters in tragedy show a very limited grasp of events, and none tells us more than part of what we are meant to believe, much less comprehend fully. Ambiguity, obscurity, conflict and rhetorical distortion enlarge the scope for irony and indirection still further. Such polyphony is especially treacherous here, where the protagonist is a notorious trickster and his antagonist the always remote and often inscrutable Zeus. (109) Erik Vandvik noted the seductive power of Prometheus’ rhetoric as well but offered as counterpoint his inability and unwillingness to comprehend the consequences of his behavior for humankind.12 To Vandvik (1943) the ‘apparent defect in [Zeus’] nature is indeed a defect in [Prometheus’] capacity of comprehending it’ (4). Starting with Hesiod, Vandvik (1943) showed that there is no evidence of a misanthropic Zeus. Neither is there anything to prove that Prometheus is the great benefactor who rescues humanity . . . Prometheus believed, indeed, that Zeus intended to destroy mankind. This is, however, not the opinion of the poet, but an illusion of the rebel who had not the wisdom to understand the plans of Zeus. (9–10)

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In PV ‘the criticism of the supreme being is an ex parte argument’ (31), and thus necessarily susceptible to partisan misreading. ‘The Zeus of Aeschylus is never subject to Fate . . . The consequence of this fact is that the conviction of Prometheus must be a phantasma . . . The future was unknown to Zeus only till he was warned’ (34).13 How much then does Prometheus really know? Are we to trust his accusations or threats? Is Zeus really fated to be usurped by one of his children? Prometheus, we must remember, is a character in the play, not an abstraction. As much as he ‘represents,’ or his name signifies, foreknowledge, he is not himself an abstract embodiment of it.14 As a character then, especially one who plays in Hesiod a dynamic and shifty part in the early life of the cosmos, he is open to the same examination of ambition, desire and motivation that we bring to others (like Zeus). We must analyze Prometheus with the same scrutiny we train on other tragic protagonists, whose tragedies are occasioned by their own shortcomings. Irrespective of his intellectual reputation, Prometheus can still be wrong; PV is testament to that possibility. Our task then is to consider the links between his (mis)knowledge and the play’s theological insights. In a famous passage early in PV, for example, Kratos taunts the chained Prometheus with these words: ‘Go on and break the rules up here then, stealing the rights of the gods and giving them to mortals. How are these ephemerals going to help you now? The gods are wrong to call you Prometheus. You’ll need προμηθία to wriggle out of this device’ (82–87).15 Far from conflating Prometheus with his power, Kratos posits a radical separation of the two. To be sure, the association has to be familiar in order for him to make the distinction, but what is important to Kratos is not Prometheus’ insight but rather his hybris (ὕβριζε, 82), his recourse to theft (συλῶν, 83) and his reputation for trickery (ἐκκυλισθήσηι, 87). The conflation, to Kratos at least, is a mistake and the mistake leads to hybris. To follow this train of thought throughout the play is, emphatically, not to underplay or, worse, provide justification for Prometheus’ persecution. It is simply to probe his rhetoric for its slips and inconsistencies. PV reveals these inconsistencies to suggest there may be a gap between what Prometheus says and claims to know and the way things are or could be in the cosmos. Such revelations speak to the play’s theological scope. So there are avenues of inquiry that have yet to be fully explored. By asking exclusively after the nature of the political relationship between Prometheus and Zeus (is Zeus a tyrant? what does the asymmetry between Prometheus’ transgressions and his punishment suggest about Zeus’ ambitions as ruler?) we occlude its insights about the nature of the gods. Bearing this in mind, my aim is to explore the way PV both develops and reflects a type of theology; that is, an understanding of the ways of god(s). And this involves essentially coming to terms with Zeus.

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The Radical Theology of Prometheus Bound

We run almost immediately into an obstacle: Zeus is not a dramatic character per se in PV; that is, he does not appear on stage. But although he plays no physical part, he is nevertheless its center of gravity. And in the conversations, threats, fears and questions of the characters who do appear (especially Prometheus) we can trace a discourse about Zeus as well as a broader discourse about the nature of the gods. Focalized though it may be through the perspective of Prometheus, PV sets in tension two theological discourses: (1) the personal, in which Zeus figures as a negatively omnipotent ruler; and (2) the impersonal, in which the universe is governed by deterministic forces of Necessity and Fate. In this play Zeus is portrayed as both a Punisher and just another god subject to the iron law of the cosmos; he not only exercises an ‘arbitrary tyranny’ (Solmsen 1949: 149, 152) but is also (potentially) subject to a fatal sexual liaison in the future, of which Prometheus claims exclusive knowledge. Once I have teased these two discourses apart and shown their interrelationships, I suggest that PV’s radical theological insight is the ‘third discourse’: (3) the interpersonal, in which Zeus and Prometheus have a meaningful and dynamic part to play in the creation and sustenance of a universe without design. What I offer here is an organic reading of PV’s radical theology, not a comparative approach with other plays of Aeschylus in order to develop a systematic theology or to stake some speculative claim on the lost Prometheus trilogy. I do this for two very specific reasons. First, Zeus’ role in this play, his absence especially, is different from his absence in other plays where—with the exception perhaps of the Psychostasia—he is more an abstract principle (of right, justice, etc.) than a proper character. Thus Zeus’ actual portrayal in PV, even in absentia, serves a particular dramatic and theological function that differs from its dramatic and theological function in others. Second, and complementarily, as Thomas Rosenmeyer has compellingly argued, gods in tragedy are malleable to dramatic purpose: ‘When it was a matter of using the gods in his plays, Aeschylus was, within the limits of mythology, bound only by the dictates of his dramatic purposes . . . His control over them is the same as his control over most of his material’ (Rosenmeyer 1955: 250). The virtue of this approach is that it frees us of the responsibility (or necessity) of squaring one depiction of Zeus with another in the service of some systematic Aeschylean theology.16 All of this need not raise the specter of PV as Lesedrama, unconnected to an original trilogy,17 although my treatment of the play will seem to fall in line with that possibility—if only because the remains of the trilogy provide little clue about the relationship between PV and Prometheus Lyomenos (see Griffith 1983: 281–305), and because too many assumptions about the latter are ‘retroboded’ back into the former without the slightest methodological self-consciousness. Ultimately, this is less a matter of endorsing one theory over another than interrogating in the fullest way possible the world PV constructs irrespective of its supposed relationship to other plays.

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BACKGROUND: HESIOD’S COSMOS The conflict between Prometheus and Zeus that PV made (in)famous was a feature of their shared mythology from long before Aeschylus dramatized it. Hesiod’s Theogony, which deals centrally with the ascension of Zeus to king and with all the struggles and uncertainties this entailed, sketched out a picture of the discord between them along similar lines.18 A fresh look at how Hesiod’s Theogony forges a theological framework with regard to Zeus will help us better appreciate the way PV engages with that poem’s theology for its own purposes. The theology of Hesiod’s Theogony hinges in many ways on the question of whether Zeus’ ascent to supremacy is ‘teleological’; that is, whether a sort of external cosmic momentum is behind his rise to power.19 Tracing the line of generational violence from Ouranos to Kronos to Zeus, and mapping it onto the transition from a primordial Chaos through to the establishment of order and justice, critics justifiably see in Hesiod’s cosmos a deterministic force (albeit a force for good). But succession patterns cannot account for the subtle ways Hesiod highlights Zeus’ difference from his predecessors, whom he makes a point of depicting as a flexible, open-minded decision maker. Unlike Ouranos and Kronos, who act out of instinct and despotic self-regard, Zeus is shown on several important occasions to be amenable to the advice of others—advice that ultimately proves integral to his successes. When, for example, Ouranos and Kronos feel threatened by the potential of being overthrown by one of their own offspring, they both try to singlehandedly thwart that usurpation: Ouranos simply prevents Gaia from giving birth to their children, which leads to her scheming with Kronos to castrate and eventually overthrow him (Theogony 154ff.; hereafter Th.); and Kronos, on hearing a prophecy that one of his children would outstrip him, decides to swallow all of them. This leads to Rhea deceiving him and raising Zeus in exile, who eventually comes back to challenge him (Th. 459ff.). These acts are brutal but also tyrannical; that is, made on the presumption of a discreet and intractable authority. Ouranos and Kronos behave as if they are untouchable, as if they can suppress all threats without regard for others, and it is for this reason in part that they fall. Zeus, on the other hand, takes a different tack. When he returns to challenge the Titans, he listens to the advice of others and enlists the aid of his nominal enemies. His alliance building (Th. 392ff.), in fact, is a point of focus. The narrative of the Titanomachy (Th. 617–735), which seals Zeus’ sovereignty, highlights Zeus’ decision to recruit some Titans who had been imprisoned by Kronos (Th. 624–26): ἀλλά σφεας Κρονίδης τε καὶ ἀθάνατοι θεοὶ ἄλλοι οὓς τέκεν ἠύκομος Ῥείη Κρόνου ἐν φιλότητι Γαίης φραδμοσύνῃσιν ἀνήγαγον ἐς φάος αὖτις·

26

The Radical Theology of Prometheus Bound But the son of Kronos and the other deathless gods whom rich-haired Rhea bore from union with Kronos brought [the Hekatonchires] up again to the light at Earth’s advising.20

Along with the fury of Zeus’ thunderbolt (Th. 687–93) the strength and handiness of Kottos, Briareos and Gyes proved instrumental to his victory (ἐνὶ πρώτοισι, Th. 713). Zeus’ success is shown here to be predicated on his willingness to listen, compromise and collaborate even with former enemies (neither of which his father or grandfather were capable of). Gaia’s φραδμοσύνη, and Zeus’ recognition of it, is the key. It is this same willingness to listen that forestalls the threat of his union with Metis, who could have produced a child to eventually depose Zeus, following the precedent of Ouranos and Kronos. Again Hesiod illustrates Zeus’ adaptability (Th. 888–98): ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ ἄρ’ ἔμελλε θεὰν γλαυκῶπιν Ἀθήνην τέξεσθαι, τότ’ ἔπειτα δόλῳ φρένας ἐξαπατήσας αἱμυλίοισι λόγοισιν ἑὴν ἐσκάτθετο νηδύν, Γαίης φραδμοσύνῃσι καὶ Οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος· τὼς γάρ οἱ φρασάτην, ἵνα μὴ βασιληίδα τιμὴν ἄλλος ἔχοι Διὸς ἀντὶ θεῶν αἰειγενετάων. ἐκ γὰρ τῆς εἵμαρτο περίφρονα τέκνα γενέσθαι πρώτην μὲν κούρην γλαυκώπιδα Τριτογένειαν, ἶσον ἔχουσαν πατρὶ μένος καὶ ἐπίφρονα βουλήν, αὐτὰρ ἔπειτ’ ἄρα παῖδα θεῶν βασιλῆα καὶ ἀνδρῶν ἤμελλεν τέξεσθαι, ὑπέρβιον ἦτορ ἔχοντα· But when she was about to bring forth the goddess bright-eyed Athena, Zeus craftily deceived her with cunning words and put her in his own belly, as Earth and starry Heaven advised. For they advised him so, to the end that no other should hold royal sway over the eternal gods in the place of Zeus; for very wise children were destined to be born from her, first the maiden bright-eyed Tritogeneia, equal to her father in strength and in wise understanding; but afterwards she was to bear a son of overbearing spirit, king of gods and men. Gaia’s and Ouranos’ motivation is not hard to discern: They wish no one else to gain Zeus’ position as king of the gods. They see, in other words, a brighter future for the cosmos with Zeus at the helm and without the threat of another revolution. And Zeus honors their faith in him by taking their φραδμοσύνη (Th. 891) seriously. Even his act of swallowing Metis, which on the face of it seems to recapitulate Kronos’ decision to swallow his children, turns on the same belief in reciprocity: ‘Zeus put her into his own belly first that the goddess might devise for him both good and evil’ (Th. 899–900). Metis thus stands permanently beside Zeus as advisor by

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virtue of being within him. This would mean that Zeus’ actions, unlike his predecessors’, are more than just ‘political deals’ whereby he ‘secures the instruments of organized violence which are characteristic of political power’ (Brown 1953: 20). They emphasize rather ‘the principles of reciprocity and the importance of political alliances’ (Clay 2005: 107). So while the similarity of Zeus’ swallowing of Metis and Kronos’ swallowing of his children (not to mention Ouranos’ suppression of his own) might hint at a pattern, in fact Zeus’ ability to collaborate and comply with the advice of others belies any sense of necessity to his ascension. The ‘cycle’ of violence and usurpation does not pertain to Zeus because he is not like his father and grandfather, tyrants through and through. From a theological perspective, then, Hesiod’s Theogony is remarkably progressive with regard to Zeus, giving us not an intractable or implacable deity (this being the failure of both Ouranos and Kronos) but rather a willing collaborator. Zeus’ sovereignty as king of the gods is guaranteed by no cosmic force other than his ability to listen: The gods recognize his authority and in turn he affirms their honors (Th. 392ff.). Technically, Zeus was ‘supposed’ to marry Metis who would give birth to a son who would overthrow him in turn. This does not happen, which would seem to suggest that what is ‘fated’ is not as inflexible as one might expect had this son indeed been born. This determinate event, furthermore, was not obstructed by Zeus himself out of jealous regard for his own supremacy (à la Kronos) but by Gaia and Ouranos. So the picture we have of Zeus and the gods in their milieu is of a ‘deliberative council’ (to borrow White’s phrase) in a constantly evolving cosmos, faced with uncertainties for which they consult one another, disagree, make alliances and ultimately act without any guarantees.21 One gets the sense that even for the gods the future is as open as it is for humans. It makes sense then that the challenge posed by the behavior of Prometheus in Theogony would be problematic. His initial attempt to trick Zeus at Mekone with the sacrifice ruse and his later theft of fire both show a marked unwillingness to work together either with Zeus or, by extension, with others. Indeed, in this regard his actions are symptomatic of his generation’s illusions of self-sufficiency, stubbornly clinging to the older values of the universe (like violence and theft) that ultimately destroyed it.22 Zeus eventually punishes humans for Prometheus’ transgression because they have learned his underhanded craft and values. He does not, after all, rerevoke fire after it has been stolen and given back to them. Instead, he makes humans work for it: Pandora introduces not scarcity but labor. Hesiod’s Theogony provides, as it were, the atmosphere in which Aeschylus raises his own theological questions. Long established by the time of Aeschylus’ emergence, Hesiod—and along with him Homer—clearly gives the impression of a cosmos in which gods are personal agents and Zeus is (or can be) a collaborative player in the governing of the universe.23 Given this background, PV’s apparent depiction of a tyrannical Zeus is shocking. Critics who have found the play unbecoming bear the burden of explaining

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this rather egregious divergence from tradition. Either one must assume that it is not a question that needs to be addressed, or that a tyrannical Zeus was already present in Hesiod. The former is common and the latter I have previously tried to address briefly. Aeschylus’ tragedy, however, is suffused with Hesiodic theology and he thinks carefully with and within it. Drawing the conflict between Zeus and Prometheus in the way he does reflects a deep process of thinking through this theology. I turn now to PV to illustrate the complexity of this theological engagement.

THE SILENCE OF PROMETHEUS The play begins with Hephaestus, Kratos and a silent Bia leading Prometheus to the farthest reaches of the world to punish him (1–87). This is the only scene in which Prometheus is not speaking, so we get a somewhat unfiltered perspective on the relationship between Prometheus and Zeus and its theological dimensions. Some of the very first lines invoke Zeus as a father figure (3–6): Ἥφαιστε, σοὶ δὲ χρὴ μέλειν ἐπιστολὰς ἅς σοι πατὴρ ἐφεῖτο, τόνδε πρὸς πέτραις ὑψηλοκρήμνοις τὸν λεωργὸν ὀχμάσαι ἀδαμαντίνων δεσμῶν ἐν ἀρρήκτοις πέδαις. Hephaestus, you had better take care of the orders father gave you and bind this criminal to these skyscraping rocks with adamantine chains! In the ensuing speech of Hephaestus and his subsequent dialogue with Kratos over the severity of the punishment, three similar references are made: Hephaestus claims that ‘disregarding father’s words brings heavy consequences’ (17); Kratos asks, ‘How could one possibly disobey father’s words? Wouldn’t you say that’s more frightening?’ (40–41); and later Kratos barks, ‘Hurry up and put these chains on Prometheus so that father doesn’t catch you slacking off!’ (52–53). Perhaps it is not a striking observation that Zeus is called father, as from Homer on he was known as ‘father of gods and men.’ But what makes these appellations significant is the authority that is implicitly linked with being the father. In the first instance, although Hephaestus is hesitant to harm a relative (συγγενῆ θεὸν, 14), he knows better than to contravene Zeus’ order. In the second, while Kratos understands Hephaestus’ hesitation (σύμφημ’, 40), he genuinely asks whether it is even possible to disobey. This he equates with terror (δειμαίνεις, 41). More than this, there is a pervasive sense of obligation to Zeus’ authority as father, which in four instances is underwritten by the force of necessity: χρὴ (3), δεῖ (9) and ἀνάγκη (16, 72). This sense of compulsion links Zeus’

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words to their execution by another and thereby forecloses the possibility of disobedience. The strength of this paternal authority is also emphasized by the less emphatic but no less binding way that Zeus conveys his orders. He ‘puts upon’ (ἐφεῖτο, 4) Hephaestus his ἐπιστολὰς. His ἐντολὴ (12) has one purpose and nothing else.24 These descriptions suggest that Zeus’ word is the final word; he imposes his orders and there is no circumventing them. Zeus even ‘oversees’ (προσδερχθῆι, 53) Hephaestus’ work.25 Furthermore, he has δυσπαραίτητοι φρένες (34) and his new rule is τραχὺς (35). He is the only one truly free (50) and does not suffer intellectual competition (62).26 These examples paint a rather clear picture of Zeus: He is the father and he has all the power. What is the nature of this power? Kratos claims that Prometheus must pay a penalty for his transgressions ‘so that he learns to love the tyranny (τυραννίδα) of Zeus and to give up his human-loving ways’ (10–11). While the connotation of τυραννίς is ambiguous, Kratos’ brusque assertion that Prometheus must learn to ‘love’ (στέργειν) Zeus’ rule through violent punishment certainly seems to imply absolute authority.27 Prometheus, just like Kratos and Hephaestus, must obey his ‘father.’ From a theological perspective the opening of the play seems to offer us a Zeus as menacing Superego, an omnipotent and untouchable force whose power is sustained by oppression. There are, however, intimations in this opening scene that nuance this picture as well. Consider, for example, Kratos’ early assertion regarding Prometheus’ theft of fire (7–9): τὸ σὸν γὰρ ἄνθος, παντέχνου πυρὸς σέλας, θνητοῖσι κλέψας ὤπασεν. τοιᾶσδέ τοι ἁμαρτίας σφε δεῖ θεοῖς δοῦναι δίκην It was your flower, the gleam of all-fashioning fire, that he stole and gave to mortals. It is for this transgression that he must pay a penalty to the gods. Kratos makes two points. First, Prometheus’ crime affected more than simply Zeus. Hephaestus first and foremost ought to be offended: Prometheus stole ‘your bloom’ (τὸ σὸν γὰρ ἄνθος), the position of the pronominal adjective throwing emphasis on Hephaestus’ victimhood in the situation.28 Second, and consequently, Prometheus must pay his penalty to the gods (θεοῖς). Zeus, it follows, is the one to enforce the punishment of offenses against his fellow gods. This much should be clear from Hephaestus’ reticence (12–17)—he does not disagree with Kratos, only insists that he is not fond of punishing a relative. Ultimately he does, couching his indictment in theological terms (29–35): θεὸς θεῶν γὰρ οὐχ ὑποπτήσσων χόλον βροτοῖσι τιμὰς ὤπασας πέρα δίκης·

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The Radical Theology of Prometheus Bound ἀνθ’ ὧν ἀτερπῆ τήνδε φρουρήσεις πέτραν ὀρθοστάδην ἄυπνος, οὐ κάμπτων γόνυ· πολλοὺς δ’ ὀδυρμοὺς καὶ γόους ἀνωφελεῖς φθέγξηι· Διὸς γὰρ δυσπαραίτητοι φρένες, ἅπας δὲ τραχὺς ὅστις ἂν νέον κρατῆι. A god yourself, you did not shrink before the wrath of us others when you gave our honors to mortals. There you crossed the line. The fruit of your decisions is to guard this horrid rock, pinned upright, with no sleep, unflinching. You’ll cry and shout but all in vain. Because the temper of Zeus is unapproachable, and every new ruler is harsh.

The juxtaposition of θεὸς θεῶν is striking because it both veils and underscores the divide between Prometheus and the other gods: He is one and they are many.29 They have a collective sense of justice (πέρα δίκης, 30) and Prometheus’ granting of fire to mortals contravenes it.30 And because Zeus is a young ruler (νέον, 35), he has an intractable temper (δυσπαραίτητοι φρένες, 34). Hephaestus, however, is clear that this is a feature of every new ruler (ἅπας δὲ τραχὺς, 35). Thus the implication is not that Zeus will be unapproachable forever, but that once he is no longer a young ruler he will likely be more flexible about roguish behavior. Hephaestus’ indication of Zeus’ youth then points us toward a time when he will be older and more mature, less an unbending autocrat than an experienced negotiator. So from early on we have an indication that the power dynamic of the play has more nuance than might appear at first glance.31 For Kratos and Hephaestus this is a personal matter between Prometheus and Zeus (and the other gods). Prometheus’ opening words, on the other hand, conflate this personal issue with a different and impersonal one. His brief monologue before the entrance of the chorus (88–127) picks up the language of oppression: Prometheus suffers ‘for ages’ (94–95) at the hands of the νέος ταγὸς μακάρων (96), and laments his seemingly unending torture (98–99). Immediately, though, his tone changes (101–05)32: καίτοι τί φημί; πάντα προυξεπίσταμαι σκεθρῶς τὰ μέλλοντ’, οὐδέ μοι ποταίνιον πῆμ’ οὐδὲν ἤξει. τὴν πεπρωμένην δὲ χρὴ αἶσαν φέρειν ὡς ῥᾶιστα, γιγνώσκονθ’ ὅτι τὸ τῆς ἀνάγκης ἔστ’ ἀδήριτον σθένος. And yet what am I saying? I know very well all that is to come—no pain will come unexpected. One must bear what is ordained as easily as one can, aware that the strength of Necessity is unbreakable. Prometheus has moved from blaming Zeus (strand one) to invoking a broader discourse of determinism (strand two). The language is no longer

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accusatory but abstract: He speaks of ‘what is to come’ (τὰ μέλλοντ’), ‘what has been ordained’ (τὴν πεπρωμένην), ‘necessity’ (ἀνάγκης). The cosmic dimension of these terms is underwritten by his full foreknowledge (πάντα προυξεπίσταμαι), his precision (σκεθρῶς) and his expectations (οὐδέ μοι ποταίνιον). The switch between these two discourses, personal omnipotence and impersonal necessity, has important implications for the play’s theology. It suggests that Prometheus believes in a systematicity to the universe, and that even before there has been any mention of his secret he has an access to its working that Zeus potentially does not. On the other hand, and precisely because of this, the switch undermines—even forecloses—Zeus’ ability to do anything about it (like consulting with others to figure out what to do, as he had in Hesiod) and reasserts Prometheus’ superiority as the Forethinker. Prometheus’ sense of exceptionalism thus informs what he ‘knows’: He invokes this impersonal determinism in part because it corroborates his privileged understanding of the way the cosmos works.33 With the entrance of the chorus a similar blurring of theological discourses occurs. The chorus comes to visit Prometheus out of friendship (φιλία, 128), recognizing in his punishment the mark of Zeus (149–52): νέοι γὰρ οἰακονόμοι κρατοῦσ’ Ὀλύμπου, νεοχμοῖς δὲ δὴ νόμοις Ζεὺς ἀθέτως κρατύνει, τὰ πρὶν δὲ πελώρια νῦν ἀιστοῖ. New rulers hold Olympus. Zeus with his new-fangled laws lords it over unjustly, suppressing the older generation. They reckon that Prometheus stands to suffer until Zeus’ ‘heart/wrath is quenched or someone else captures his impregnable sovereignty through some trick’ (166–67). Thus, for them this is about Zeus, his ‘new-fangled laws’ (νεοχμοῖς . . . νόμοις, 149) and his annihilating power. Prometheus corroborates this unsavory picture for them but adds a cosmic wrinkle (167–71): ἦ μὴν ἔτ’ ἐμοῦ καίπερ κρατεραῖς ἐν γυιοπέδαις αἰκιζομένου χρείαν ἕξει μακάρων πρύτανις, δεῖξαι τὸ νέον βούλευμ’, ὑφ’ ὅτου σκῆπτρον τιμάς τ’ ἀποσυλᾶται· Even while I’m still being tortured by these strong shackles, the head of the gods will need me to point out the new plot—how he’ll be robbed of his power and authority.

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Again, Prometheus positions himself as the linchpin between Zeus as allpowerful punisher and the iron law of his fate. He is the one to disclose the plot threatening Zeus’ sovereignty. As much as the chorus sympathizes with him, they are just as concerned with his threats (178–85): σὺ μὲν θρασύς τε καὶ πικραῖς δύαισιν οὐδὲν ἐπιχαλᾶις, ἄγαν δ’ ἐλευθεροστομεῖς. ἐμὰς δὲ φρένας ἠρέθισε διάτορος φόβος, δέδια δ’ ἀμφὶ σαῖς τύχαις, πᾶι ποτε τῶνδε πόνων χρή σε τέρμα κέλσαντ’ ἐσιδεῖν· ἀκίχητα γὰρ ἤθεα καὶ κέαρ ἀπαράμυθον ἔχει Κρόνου παῖς. You are too brash. You’ll never be released from your bitter pains this way. You run your mouth too much. Now as a result a piercing fear stirs my heart, a fear for your predicament, a fear for where you must find the deliverance of this suffering. For the son of Kronos has an unapproachable temper and a heart unsympathetic to words. This is pointed language: The Oceanids charge him with overweening boldness and insist that his inflexibility is the principal obstruction to his release. His too-free tongue (ἄγαν δ’ἐλευθεροστομεῖς, 180) is, paradoxically, the root cause of his unfreedom. Thus, what started as an expression of horror at the injustice of Zeus turns into an indictment of Prometheus. Zeus may, as they say, have an unapproachable temper, but their principal fear is the situation he faces as a result of his intransigence (although even this speaks to their fear of Zeus as punisher). But Prometheus sticks to his position: Zeus will be ‘soft of spirit’ (μαλακογνώμων, 188) once he has been ‘smashed’ (ῥαισθῆι, 189) by his fatal entanglement. Prometheus claims, though, that his superior knowledge will eventually produce his ultimate charity, friendship (εἰς ἀρθμὸν ἐμοὶ καὶ φιλότητα, 191) and equality (σπεύδων σπεύδοντί, 192) with Zeus. Again he takes credit: He will usher Zeus back from the brink of determinate disaster. This dialectic of theological perspectives suffuses the play: We hear at one moment of Zeus’ unjust behavior as Supreme Being, at another the deterministic dimension and inescapable consequence of his shortsightedness. He is an untouchable tyrant but simultaneously caught up in a cosmic web of fate. Indeed, for Prometheus the latter seems ever sweeter precisely because of the former, and he maintains faith in his knowledge to the bitter end. For the sake of clarity and organization I present his perspective on the Zeus problem and its theological implications in a systematic way before moving to the challenges posed by the other characters.

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PROMETHEUS ON PAST AND FUTURE Io is the only mortal in the play, and her episode, which dominates the second half of the play (PV 561–885), amply shows the way Prometheus’ mind works. For it is here that he proves his ability to draw a meaningful connection between past and future.34 In this episode we learn of Io’s travels and travails as she recounts for the chorus the history of her wandering, and as Prometheus foretells her future course.35 This scene establishes a strong affinity between Io and Prometheus as victims of Zeus, but the bonds that connect them—the remoteness of his punishment, the distance she has traveled, her role as progenitor of his savior—are more than simply personal. Their connection expresses a relationship between past, present and future that is integral to the play’s conception of theology. At the chorus’ request Io recounts her plight (645–86). She tells of Zeus courting her in her dreams, her father’s confusion about the meaning of the dreams and his subsequent expulsion of Io from home, her metamorphosis into a cow, the gadfly and the long journey that has taken her the world over. Prometheus then lays out the long wandering ahead of her (707–35, 790–815, 844–76). He even recounts the travels she has undergone up to the present (829–43) to assure her of the accuracy of his words (824–25).36 Prometheus tells Io that ultimately she will reach Canopus in Egypt, where Zeus will restore her form and impregnate her with his gentle touch (ἀταρβεῖ χειρὶ, 849), thereby initiating the generational line that will eventually set Prometheus free. Given time neither to take heart in her eventual redemption nor to ‘look forward to a comforting vision of maternal joy and prosperity’ (White 2001: 121), Io is driven off in a fit of pain by the gadfly (884–85). This is the last we see of her.37 But even if Io cannot relish Prometheus’ revelations, the importance of the Io excursus is nevertheless paramount for the play itself and for our purposes here. For it shows that Prometheus sees significant and meaningful relationships in the movement of time between past, present and future (whether he understands them is another question). He weaves together the stories of Io’s past and future into a broader tapestry of meaning for her (redemption), for himself (Io’s descendant, Heracles, will free him) and for Zeus (who will send Heracles to reconcile with Prometheus). More than this, though, for Prometheus Io is a victim of Zeus’ desire in the same way that Thetis could potentially be as well. Prometheus thus uses Io to connect the dots: The same sexual appetite that brought Zeus to impose himself on Io in the past will bring him to impose himself on Thetis in the future, who will produce a son to depose him (cf. 907–10, 955–59). By relating Io’s past and foretelling her future, Prometheus intimates that the cycle of violence and usurpation in Zeus’ family line has not yet come to an end. In this regard the Io scene illuminates the tension produced by the conflation of theological discourses: For Prometheus, Zeus’ fall as a result of his tyrannical sexual desire (strand one) is written in the cosmos

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(strand two). Crucially, he supposes that he—and only he—understands the meaning of it all. Let’s pause here for moment to consider the implications of this exclusivity. It is not unjustifiable to believe that the revelations of the Io scene vindicate Prometheus’ foresight: That what he says about Io turns out to be true (at least in later traditions) lends force to his predictions about Zeus. But Prometheus’ foresight is also an aspect of his belief in the systematicity of the cosmos, so his revelations to Io are more than just an objective explanation of the truth. They are also his platform for assuming that he knows the workings of the universe. Even granting that Prometheus is right about Io, what is there to necessitate the same regarding his knowledge of Zeus? Io and Zeus are not of the same standing, so perhaps what one can know of the course of human life bears no relation to what one can know about that of divine life. Perhaps more importantly, Prometheus could only have heard the secret about Thetis from his mother Gaia/Themis (cf. 209–10), which means his knowledge about the future is limited too. Gaia, as most scholars assume, played the role in Lyomenos (like Oceanus; i.e., a ‘blocking’ character?) of trying to convince Prometheus to reconcile with Zeus. And as we know from Hesiod, she was the one who eventually warned Zeus about Metis. Why would Prometheus assume she would not eventually do the same with regard to Thetis? His assumption then that he has the upper hand is meant to look like a delusion.38 Prometheus, though, only sees direct causes and effects: The past curses the future. This is the very point he makes by invoking Zeus’ father, Kronos, a bit later. Before the entrance of Hermes in the final episode, Prometheus speaks of the fatal marriage that will bring Zeus’ demise (908–10), drawing a connection between this union and a curse of old uttered against him (910–12): πατρὸς δ’ ἀρὰ Κρόνου τότ’ ἤδη παντελῶς κρανθήσεται, ἣν ἐκπίτνων ἠρᾶτο δηναιῶν θρόνων. Then at long last will his father Kronos’ curse have been brought to pass entirely, the curse he pronounced upon being banished from his lofty throne. Later, when he is trading barbs with Hermes, he claims, ‘You all are young and so is your rule, and you think you’re holding something beyond the reach of suffering. Haven’t I already seen two tyrannies fall for the very same reasons? And now I’m about to witness the third, our current leader, take a swift, terrible dive’ (955–59). Hesiod makes no mention of this curse and it is found nowhere else in our literature.39 Griffith (1983: 249 ad loc) has suggested that it is a ‘casual and pointless’ reference given that it was likely the first time anyone had ever heard of it.40 But in terms of the history it precipitates and its repercussions for Zeus’ future, the allusion is seminal.

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For the curse sets in motion the history that is Zeus’ past, present and—if we are to believe Prometheus—his doomed future. It is retroactive because it looks back to Kronos’ usurpation of Ouranos as well as Zeus’ usurpation of Kronos, and prospective to the extent that Zeus will potentially be overthrown by his child. This allusion links past, present and future, focusing our attention on the predetermined and deterministic aspect of Zeus’ rule that he is seemingly blind to. From Prometheus’ point of view this relationship between the past and the future is fixed and fatal. There is more to Prometheus’ threats against Zeus than these scenes reveal. Throughout PV Prometheus often and explicitly speaks of Zeus’ future and his doom with fervent certainty. ‘Every scene,’ Griffith (1983: 16) notes, ‘except for the Prologue and the Ocean scene, is built around a prophecy of some kind from P.’ For example, near the end of the parodos Prometheus proclaims to the chorus that Zeus will need him ‘to disclose the new plot, who shall rob him of his throne and power’ (169–71). A bit further on, Prometheus is ‘sure, I know, that [Zeus’] temper will soften when he has been broken in this way [i.e., by the plot]’ (188–92). In the subsequent stichomythia he tells the chorus that his torture will not end until Zeus sees fit (258). At the end of the second episode with Ocean, Prometheus openly announces the fall of Zeus (511–25). And in the Io scene ‘the central stichomythia unexpectedly combines the triple themes of Zeus’ fall, P.’s release, and Io’s respite from pain’ (757–79; Griffith 1983: 16). Near the end of the play Prometheus’ predictions become more strident as he asserts Zeus’ demise without the slightest doubt (907–40, 955–59). Prometheus also invokes ‘necessity’ or ‘fate’ a considerable number of times to strengthen the force of his predictions. Themis/Gaia foretells Prometheus what is ordained (τὸ μέλλον ἧι κρανοῖτο) to happen in the Titanomachy (211–13). Moira has determined (πέπρωται) that Prometheus shall not yet be released from his bonds; besides, his skill is far weaker than ἀνάγκη (511–14). The chorus asks Prometheus, ‘Who is the ἀνάγκης . . . οἰακοστρόφος?’ (515). He replies that ‘not even Zeus can escape what has been ordained (τὴν πεπρωμένην)’ (518). Prometheus tells Io that one of her descendants is fated (χρεών) to release him (772). And finally, Prometheus asserts to Hermes that nothing will force him to give up who is destined (χρεών) to overthrow Zeus (996). Taken together, these allusions to necessity indicate the rather rigid understanding Prometheus has of the universe: Zeus’ fate is bigger than the two of them—it is written in the cosmos—so there is nothing he can do about it. As Griffith (1983: 16) has pointed out, however, Prometheus’ predictions are inconsistent, even to the point of contradiction. For example, we hear at 755–56 that for Prometheus ‘there is no end of my suffering in sight until Zeus falls from power.’ In the ensuing dialogue with Io he asserts in no uncertain terms that Zeus will, in fact, fall (757–68); that is, unless Prometheus is released and warns him (769–70). But as has become clear already from his predictions to Io about her wanderings, it will be one of her

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descendants who liberates him (771–74, 871–73). ‘In this play, P. is unusually aware, and his interlocutors unusually inquisitive—but his statements to them are not quite consistent, and thus the tension between the inevitable and the possible, between the known and the anticipated, is maintained’ (Griffith 1983: 19; cf. also 16).41 Prometheus’ inconsistency, whether good or bad, nevertheless reflects a blurring of theological discourses. On the one hand, he portrays Zeus as a tyrant whose power is unmatched and untouchable; on the other, he insists that Zeus, for all his intractable menace, is still subject to the same systemic law of the cosmos, Necessity. And Prometheus’ belief in the latter props his ‘heroic’ tolerance of the former. If he can just hold on to his secret long enough, Zeus will fall and he will be redeemed for the visionary he is. The confusions and ambiguities in his words, however, necessitate that we hear out the cases made by the other characters in the play, whose interactions with Prometheus reveal a different understanding, a different theological discourse. In contrast to Prometheus they regard the cosmos as open and undetermined (strand three). AN UNDETERMINED UNIVERSE? We have already considered the chorus’ initial interactions with Prometheus, but to reiterate the point: Impressed and frightened as they are by his proclamations, they are just as unsettled by his intransigence, not only acceding to his insistence on the cosmic dimension of it all but also, more importantly, bringing the issue back to personal behavior. To the chorus it is a matter of how Prometheus and Zeus are treating each other; they may be concerned about the force or backing of his threats but are more worried about the fact he is making threats in the first place. This sensitivity to behavior is evident in their back-and-forth with Prometheus over the exact reasons Zeus has punished him (252–61): Πρ. πρὸς τοῖσδε μέντοι πῦρ ἐγώ σφιν ὤπασα. Χο. καὶ νῦν φλογωπὸν πῦρ ἔχουσ’ ἐφήμεροι; Πρ. ἀφ’ οὗ γε πολλὰς ἐκμαθήσονται τέχνας. Χο. τοιοῖσδε δή σε Ζεὺς ἐπ’ αἰτιάμασιν Πρ. αἰκίζεταί γε κοὐδαμῆι χαλᾶι κακῶν. Χο. οὐδ’ ἐστὶν ἄθλου τέρμα σοι προκείμενον; Πρ. οὐκ ἄλλο γ’ οὐδὲν πλὴν ὅταν κείνωι δοκῆι. Χο. δόξει δὲ πῶς; τίς ἐλπίς; οὐχ ὁρᾶις ὅτι ἥμαρτες; ὡς δ’ ἥμαρτες, οὔτ’ ἐμοὶ λέγειν καθ’ ἡδονὴν σοί τ’ ἄλγος. P: In addition to [the gift of blind hope] I gave them fire. Ch: Are you saying that mere mortals now have gleaming fire?

The Radical Theology of Prometheus Bound P: Ch: P: Ch: P: Ch:

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Yes, and from this they will acquire many more arts. That’s the reason Zeus . . . . . . tortures me like this and never ceases to plague me. Is there, then, no end of this suffering lying before you? Not until Zeus sees fit. But he won’t. There’s no hope. Can’t you see you were wrong? But I don’t like to say that, and it certainly is painful for you to hear.

That Prometheus would give fire to ‘ephemerals’ is inconceivable to the chorus. Whatever their reason for thinking so, they very clearly believe Prometheus has overstepped a line.42 It is for this reason they respond, ‘That’s why Zeus . . . ’ (255). But before they can even complete their response, which might have charged something like ‘is justifiably punishing you,’ Prometheus interrupts with ‘tortures.’43 But from what follows it is obvious they think he is the one at fault, twice asserting his responsibility (ἥμαρτες, 260 bis).44 He still refuses to acknowledge his role in the situation: When asked whether he foresees any reprieve from his suffering, he replies that it is up to Zeus. Again the chorus calls him on it: ‘How is it up to him? Don’t you see it’s your fault?’ The chorus thus intimates that Prometheus lacks self-awareness. Where Prometheus asserts a relationship between his punishment and its cosmic ramifications for Zeus, the chorus reminds him of the personal element. For them it is not about the mysterious superstructure of the cosmos but personal behavior. They like Prometheus and sympathize for his pain but also call attention to the rather black-and-white understanding of the conflict he displays. Consider in this regard the peculiar conversation they have with Prometheus later on when he hints at the inevitable and cosmically ordained downfall of Zeus. This dialogue turns on the subtle move from the personal to the impersonal (511–25): Πρ. οὐ ταῦτα ταύτηι Μοῖρά πω τελεσφόρος κρᾶναι πέπρωται, μυρίαις δὲ πημοναῖς δύαις τε κναφθεὶς ὧδε δεσμὰ φυγγάνω. τέχνη δ’ ἀνάγκης ἀσθενεστέρα μακρῶι. Χο. τίς οὖν ἀνάγκης ἐστὶν οἰακοστρόφος; Πρ. Μοῖραι τρίμορφοι μνήμονές τ’ Ἐρινύες. Χο. τούτων ἄρα Ζεύς ἐστιν ἀσθενέστερος; Πρ. οὔκουν ἂν ἐκφύγοι γε τὴν πεπρωμένην. Χο. τί γὰρ πέπρωται Ζηνὶ πλὴν ἀεὶ κρατεῖν; Πρ. τοῦτ’ οὐκέτ’ ἂν πύθοιο, μηδὲ λιπάρει. Χο. ἦ πού τι σεμνόν ἐστιν ὃ ξυναμπέχεις; Πρ. ἄλλου λόγου μέμνησθε, τόνδε δ’ οὐδαμῶς καιρὸς γεγωνεῖν, ἀλλὰ συγκαλυπτέος ὅσον μάλιστα. τόνδε γὰρ σώιζων ἐγὼ δεσμοὺς ἀεικεῖς καὶ δύας ἐκφυγγάνω.

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The Radical Theology of Prometheus Bound Pr: Moira who brings all things to pass has not been appointed to fulfill these things in this way. Only when I have been wracked by infinite pain and torture will I escape this imprisonment. Skill is far weaker than Anangkē. Ch: Who then is the helmsman of Anangkē? Pr: The triple-form Moirai and the ever-remembering Erinyes. Ch: Are you saying that Zeus is weaker than they are? Pr: Not even he could escape what is ordained. Ch: Well, what has been ordained for Zeus except to rule forever? Pr: You’re not going to find out, so don’t keep asking. Ch: I suppose what you’re holding onto so tightly is something beyond conceiving? Pr: Worry about something else, because it’s not quite the right time to reveal this one. Rather I must keep it buried within me as much as I can, for by holding on to it I will escape these disgraceful bonds and tortures.

Prometheus’ invocation of Moira as the agent responsible for bringing ends to pass (τελεσφόρος, 511) seems to be an unambiguous reference to its power (i.e., the impersonal force). But as Griffith points out, this is less clear than it sounds because it conflates two statements: one in which Moira is the active subject of κρᾶναι, the other in which Moira is the passive subject of πέπρωται (Griffith 1983: 179 ad loc). Prometheus, however, links the power of Moira with ἀνάγκη: He and Zeus face an abstract, impersonal force of necessity or compulsion and thus his powers are powerless. What, though, are we to make of Prometheus’ initial personification of Moira? The chorus picks up on this very personification by asking a strange question: Who ‘turns the steering-wheel’ (οἰακοστρόφος) of ἀνάγκη (515)? The chorus thus seems to take Prometheus at his word that there is in fact someone at the helm of the ship of necessity. For this reason they ask who (τίς)—not what—is in control. For if an impersonal force were directing the ship in a necessary or destined direction, presumably it would neither need a person to steer it (let alone have a rudder in the first place) nor could it be turned (-στρόφος). Prometheus corroborates this suspicion by answering, ‘The triple-form Moirai and the ever-remembering Erinyes.’ These are, in other words, someones and not somethings. To be sure, the Moirai and the Erinyes have an ambiguous status as personified beings in classical literature, but we should be careful not to conflate them with their duties. In fact, the contrast between their mythological ambiguity and Prometheus’ confidence about who they are or what they stand for is what makes this passage interesting. For it is here in this marked confusion about the personal/impersonal nature of the Moirai and Erinyes that the play raises alternative theological

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possibilities. If the Moirai and Erinyes are the οἰακοστρόφοι, are they steering and is the direction a matter of ἀνάγκη or choice? Hereafter there is a subtle shift from the personal to the impersonal. In response to the chorus’ question concerning Zeus’ relationship to the Moirai and Erinyes, Prometheus says: ‘Not even he would escape what is ordained’ (τὴν πεπρωμένην, 518). Prometheus does not say that Zeus is subject to or weaker than the Moirai and the Erinyes (or what they represent); rather, only ‘what has been ordained.’ This slight modification abstracts the discussion of the fate of Prometheus and Zeus out of the world of choice and into the realm of impersonal design. As in the previous instance, the chorus takes its cue from Prometheus, dropping the reference to the Moirai and Erinyes and asking after ‘what has been ordained’ (τί γὰρ πέπρωται). Following Prometheus’ lead, the chorus substantiates the abstraction from the personal to the impersonal.45 But this shift raises a question: If the downfall of Zeus has already been ordained, why would Prometheus need to keep it a secret? It is for this reason, we might say, that the chorus does not in fact follow his demand to move on, at least not immediately. Their perplexity at the turn in the conversation prompts them to ask whether his secret is τι σεμνόν (521). Is what Prometheus professes to know about Zeus’ future beyond their comprehension or status, goddesses though they are, and so must be kept secret? Prometheus neither affirms nor denies that the substance of his knowledge is as they describe, saying only that it is not the right time to reveal it. Holding on to it, he claims, will enable him eventually to escape his punishment. This suggests that the future is less a matter of law than his decision to release the secret at the proper moment. He thus unwittingly backs off the strength of the impersonal abstraction he had just asserted to the chorus (τὴν πεπρωμένην, πέπρωται) and reaffirms the principle of personal choice.46 In these passages Prometheus lays claim to an exclusive knowledge informed by his abilities (‘You’re not going to find out, so quit asking,’ 520). But the confusion revealed in this scene—not necessarily in Prometheus’ confidence but through the play—hints at a potential gap, a potential misrecognition on the part of Prometheus. What catalyzes this inconsistency, I think, is the difference between Prometheus’ assumptions with regard to his knowledge and the chorus’ utter lack of presumption or pretension. They may not know as much information as he does, but they do know that obtuse behavior has consequences, and they show that Prometheus’ intransigence prejudices his point of view. This is important because the potential result of Prometheus’ threat is not a meaningless matter—it entails a cataclysm in the universe. In that case he ought to know for sure what he is talking about. The chorus raises a suspicion he may not. The conflict between Prometheus and the Oceanids turns on a distinction between the personal and the impersonal, but the constant shifting between them suggests that there is little certainty about the design of the cosmos. It is here we start to see an opening

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into the third strand of theological discourse: the possibility that there is no systemic design, that the cosmos is open and undetermined. Prometheus’ run-ins with other characters play out in a similar way. Oceanus, for example, shares the same sensibility as his daughters. He too believes in the personal element and emphasizes that things can change (288–97): ταῖς σαῖς δὲ τύχαις, ἴσθι, συναλγῶ· τό τε γάρ με, δοκῶ, ξυγγενὲς οὕτως ἐσαναγκάζει, χωρίς τε γένους οὐκ ἔστιν ὅτωι μείζονα μοῖραν νείμαιμ’ ἢ σοί. γνώσηι δὲ τάδ’ ὡς ἔτυμ’, οὐδὲ μάτην χαριτογλωσσεῖν ἔνι μοι· φέρε γὰρ σήμαιν’ ὅ τι χρή σοι συμπράσσειν· οὐ γάρ ποτ’ ἐρεῖς ὡς Ὠκεανοῦ φίλος ἐστὶ βεβαιότερός σοι. Know that I share in your misfortunes, Prometheus. Our blood-ties, I think, make it necessarily so. But even apart from our relationship, there is no one I give greater respect than you. Believe me, it’s true—I would never flatter you in vain. So tell me what I can do for you. This way you’ll never claim Oceanus isn’t a true friend to you. Oceanus stresses the importance of reciprocity.47 Importantly, he does not say he owes Prometheus anything, only that he wants to help because he likes him. Like his daughters he shares in Prometheus’ suffering (συναλγῶ, 288), invoking their familial relationship (ξυγγενὲς, 289; γένους, 291) as a binding principle (ἐσαναγκάζει, 290). He offers to help Prometheus in light of this bond (συμπράσσειν, 295) because that is what a φίλος does. Next to Prometheus Oceanus could well look like an ingénue (cf. Prometheus’ condescending responses throughout the episode48). But he patiently makes a case that things can work out differently (this is why he asks if there is anything he can do), that Prometheus’ insistence on the inflexibility of the universe is in fact the problem. Consider his initial response to Prometheus’ assertion that he aided in the establishment of Zeus’ sovereignty but only got punishment as a reward.49 It is a quick but subtle remark (307–8): ὁρῶ, Προμηθεῦ, καὶ παραινέσαι γέ σοι θέλω τὰ λῶιστα καίπερ ὄντι ποικίλωι. I see that, Prometheus. To be sure, you are a subtle person, but I still wish to give you the best advice I can. Oceanus makes no pretense of being cleverer than Prometheus; he simply states that even clever types need advice sometimes. Just as Prometheus

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stood by Zeus’ side in the Titanomachy and offered him advice, so Oceanus is willing to do the same for him (παραινέσαι, 307—notice the sense of equality evoked by the spatial prefix παρ-: I am standing right beside you as your equal). As Prometheus’ φίλος, Oceanus twice offers to visit Zeus to see if he can get Prometheus released (325–26, 338–39), a proposal that signifies nothing if not his belief that personal acts have the power to transform. He goes on (309–24): γίγνωσκε σαυτὸν καὶ μεθάρμοσαι τρόπους νέους· νέος γὰρ καὶ τύραννος ἐν θεοῖς. εἰ δ’ ὧδε τραχεῖς καὶ τεθηγμένους λόγους ῥίψεις, τάχ’ ἄν σου καὶ μακρὰν ἀνωτέρω θακῶν κλύοι Ζεύς, ὥστε σοι τὸν νῦν ὄχλον παρόντα μόχθων παιδιὰν εἶναι δοκεῖν. ἀλλ’, ὦ ταλαίπωρ’, ἃς ἔχεις ὀργὰς ἄφες, ζήτει δὲ τῶνδε πημάτων ἀπαλλαγάς. ἀρχαῖ’ ἴσως σοι φαίνομαι λέγειν τάδε· τοιαῦτα μέντοι τῆς ἄγαν ὑψηγόρου γλώσσης, Προμηθεῦ, τἀπίχειρα γίγνεται. σὺ δ’ οὐδέπω ταπεινός, οὐδ’ εἴκεις κακοῖς, πρὸς τοῖς παροῦσι δ’ ἄλλα προσλαβεῖν θέλεις. οὔκουν ἔμοιγε χρώμενος διδασκάλωι πρὸς κέντρα κῶλον ἐκτενεῖς, ὁρῶν ὅτι τραχὺς μόναρχος οὐδ’ ὑπεύθυνος κρατεῖ. Look at yourself.50 Change your habits. For the ruler of the gods is also new. If you keep flinging out these barbed words, pretty soon Zeus might hear you from high on his throne and make your present misfortunes seem like child’s play. Really, my tragic friend, put aside this intransigent anger of yours and look for a way out of this suffering. Perhaps what I’m saying you’ve heard a million times over. But your present hardships are surely payment for your overreaching tongue. You, however, refuse to be humble, refuse to yield to misfortune. You would rather pile more misery on top of what you are already suffering. If you let me be your teacher, you won’t add insult to injury since you’ll see that the new ruler is unflinching and beholden to no one in his power. As in his previous opening speech, here again Oceanus identifies Prometheus’ problem as his unwillingness to compromise or cooperate. As David Konstan (1977) notes, Oceanus ‘does not demand that Prometheus recant, but only that he be reconciled’ (64).51 That is, he does not say that Prometheus is wrong for feeling aggrieved, only that his sense of victimization has affected his judgment (γίγνωσκε σαυτὸν, 309). The word νέος intimates change: Zeus is new, so Prometheus ought to be new. Oceanus, of course, pulls no punches about the power dynamic: Zeus is a τραχὺς

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μόναρχος οὐδ’ ὑπεύθυνος κρατεῖ (324). So this is not exactly an equal trade.52 But he also insists, as had his daughters in the previous episode, that things do not have to be this way. By Oceanus’ reckoning, Prometheus’ punishment is not the result of his aiding of humankind (as Prometheus so eloquently claimed) but, rather, of his loud, running mouth (τῆς ἄγαν ὑψηγόρου γλώσσης, 318–19; μηδ’ ἄγαν λαβροστόμει, 327; γλώσσηι ματαίαι, 329). This is crucial to Oceanus because for him words are the key: they can heal (‘Words are the tonic for sickly anger,’ 378) or poison (311–14). Prometheus, however, cannot be taught this insight; throughout the episode he offers clever rebuttals instead of listening.53 Oceanus cannot persuade Prometheus because he is too committed to his intellectual superiority and privilege; because Prometheus believes Zeus’ fate is inscribed in some larger cosmic movement that others cannot understand, he fails to see with Oceanus that things can change if he simply chooses to makes things right. But he will not—he rejects Oceanus’ offers and sends him off dazed and fearful of Zeus’ wrath.54 Theologically speaking, the episodes with the chorus and Oceanus paint a subtle picture of the relationship between Prometheus, Zeus and the cosmos. As much as Prometheus invokes the malicious omnipotence of Zeus, he holds on to his privileged sense of access to the universe’s plan. Oceanus and his daughters, on the other hand, attempt (in vain) to demonstrate to him that the functioning of the cosmos has little, if anything, to do with impersonal forces; to their minds the well-being of all within depends on good relationships. Prometheus continues to abuse his friends and sympathizers in spite of their good intentions and sound advice. He refuses to believe things can change. Even Hermes, who is usually taken for a ‘nasty lackey,’55 tries in a lastditch effort to convince Prometheus to yield (944–52): σὲ τὸν σοφιστήν, τὸν πικρῶς ὑπέρπικρον, τὸν ἐξαμαρτόντ’ εἰς θεοὺς ἐφημέροις πορόντα τιμάς, τὸν πυρὸς κλέπτην λέγω· πατὴρ ἄνωγέ σ’ οὕστινας κομπεῖς γάμους αὐδᾶν, πρὸς ὧν τ’ ἐκεῖνος ἐκπίπτει κράτους· καὶ ταῦτα μέντοι μηδὲν αἰνικτηρίως, ἀλλ’ αὔθ’ ἕκαστα φράζε, μηδέ μοι διπλᾶς ὁδούς, Προμηθεῦ, προσβάληις. ὁρᾶις δ’ ὅτι Ζεὺς τοῖς τοιούτοις οὐχὶ μαλθακίζεται. You there, sophist, trash-talker, insulting the gods by giving their honors to mortals, thief of fire—I’m talking to you. Father bids you to tell whatever marriage it is you boast of by which he will fall from power. And say it without being cryptic, every little thing as it is. Don’t force me to make two trips, Prometheus. You see that Zeus isn’t softened by such behavior. In the catalogue of accusatory names with which Hermes begins, never once does he acknowledge Prometheus’ power. Given the combative context, one would not likely expect an exchange of pleasantries or small talk.56 Then

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again, given all that has happened in the play up to this point (Prometheus making inconsistent predictions, confusing others by partly revealing, partly concealing the course of events to come, rebuffing their attempts to help him), these names are also fittingly descriptive. So it is perhaps striking that Hermes does not acknowledge the insight Prometheus is known for, only rather his ability to manipulate (σοφιστήν, 944)—an ability in all likelihood influenced by his overweening bitterness (τὸν πικρῶς ὑπέρπικρον, 944). His insight and his cynicism, Hermes claims, go hand in hand. The substance of Hermes’ request is: ‘Tell whatever marriage it is you boast of by which he will fall from power.’ This phrase is pregnant with subtleties. This potentially fatal sexual liaison is here designated by γάμους (947), a rather nonspecific plural. This could be any number of ‘marriages’ Zeus might involve himself in and not any single one ordained to bring about his downfall. The indefinite pronominal adjective (οὕστινας, 947) reinforces the vagueness, broadening the scope of the threat to ‘any such’ marriages. Little in the language suggests fear of a determinate fall from power. So the gist of Hermes’ request is: ‘Alright, tell us about these marriages, whichever they are, that you keep going on about, because of which Zeus will fall from power.’ This is a far cry from the language one might expect of someone truly at the mercy of fate. Hermes’ indifference might well seem to be a pose, but it is strange that barely a word in this passage acknowledges either the threat posed by Prometheus’ secret or any impetus on Zeus’ part (a fear of his fate, for example).57 Perhaps then Hermes’ indifference is genuine. The remainder of the episode, in fact, conveys this impression. The barbed stichomythia between Hermes and Prometheus following the previous speech contains a handful of allusions to Zeus’ fall (from the mouth of Prometheus), but nothing else Hermes says betrays a concern about the substance of Prometheus’ secret. As Vandvik (1943: 36–37) saw, Hermes is only interested in the ‘secret’ to the extent that it reflects Prometheus’ change from delusion to wisdom, obstruction to collaboration. Like the others Prometheus has interacted with, Hermes stresses that things do not have to be this way. The punishments he describes for Prometheus (1014–35) are frightening, but never does Hermes say they are necessary—there is nothing to suggest that either he or Zeus actually desires to torture Prometheus. Prometheus, however, is intransigent: ‘I figured this out a long time ago and made up my mind then’ (998). As Griffith (1983) notes, ‘the perfect tenses of P.’s reply underline the finality of his decision’ (262 ad loc). This is precisely the problem: Prometheus is unwilling to change his mind, resolved as he is about his exclusive insight into the way things ‘have to be.’ This resolve is the very substance of the conflict, and Hermes calls him on it: ‘You fool, at some point you ought to start thinking about your present misfortunes. That’s the right way to think’ (999–1000). Like Oceanus’ admonition that the new cosmic order requires new responsibilities and behaviors (309–10), Hermes insists that new situations demand new solutions.58 Prometheus,

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however, tells Hermes that his advice is as useless on him as it is on the ocean (κῦμ’ ὅπως παρηγορῶν, 1001). For all his acuity and insight, Prometheus aspires to be a blunt force of nature.59 It is no coincidence then that he believes in an unbending determinism. Hermes gives him another chance (1030–35): πρὸς ταῦτα βούλευ’, ὡς ὅδ’ οὐ πεπλασμένος ὁ κόμπος ἀλλ’ εὖ καὶ λίαν εἰρημένος· ψευδηγορεῖν γὰρ οὐκ ἐπίσταται στόμα τὸ Δῖον, ἀλλὰ πᾶν ἔπος τελεῖ. σὺ δὲ πάπταινε καὶ φρόντιζε, μηδ’ αὐθαδίαν εὐβουλίας ἀμείνον’ ἡγήσηι ποτέ. So make up your mind, because this is not some fabricated boast. Once it has been pronounced, it takes effect all too well. Zeus’ mouth doesn’t know how to lie; every word finds its mark. So take a look around and give it some thought, and don’t make the mistake of thinking that stubborn pride is a better thing than good advice. The chorus is persuaded, ‘express[ing],’ as Griffith (1983) says, ‘surprisingly firm support for Hermes’ view, even to the point of echoing his key words’ (269 ad loc) (1036–39): ἡμῖν μὲν Ἑρμῆς οὐκ ἄκαιρα φαίνεται λέγειν, ἄνωγε γάρ σε τὴν αὐθαδίαν μεθέντ’ ἐρευνᾶν τὴν σοφὴν εὐβουλίαν. πιθοῦ, σοφῶι γὰρ αἰσχρὸν ἐξαμαρτάνειν. To us at least what Hermes is saying is not unhelpful. He’s just encouraging you to put aside your self-indulgent inflexibility and seek out good and wise advice. Listen to him. Because it would be a shame for a thoughtful person like you to miss this opportunity. They call his words οὐκ ἄκαιρα (1036; they certainly could have used something more evocative of abject fear or submission if they wanted to emphasize the terror of his threats), insist that Prometheus should put aside his αὐθαδία (1037) for εὐβουλία (1038) and even load their encouragement with moral language (αἰσχρὸν, 1039).60 Prometheus is resolutely not persuaded: ‘I knew what this guy had to say a long time ago’ (1040). He wants a fight, naively believing he has the upper hand. Hermes rightly characterizes this inflexibility as madness (1054–57): τοιάδε μέντοι τῶν φρενοπλήκτων βουλεύματ’ ἔπη τ’ ἔστιν ἀκοῦσαι· τί γὰρ ἐλλείπει μὴ παραπαίειν ἡ τοῦδ’ εὐχή; τί χαλᾶι μανιῶν;

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What you’re hearing are the words and decisions of a madman. How does this boast of his not fall short of raving lunacy? I see no end of this madness.61 Ultimately, Prometheus will not budge. He takes his defiant commitment to his secret with him into the abyss. Hermes barely bats an eye: ‘As soon as he understands that the criminal’s blindness and contumacy has not abated, he does not mind the “danger” anymore’ (Vandvik 1943: 36–37). This is a remarkable lack of tension at the pitch of the dramatic action.62 To the very end PV shows the confusion and ambiguity produced by the deep entanglement of theological discourses. In Prometheus’ eyes Zeus is destined to make a fatal mistake, to suffer the same disgrace as his father and his grandfather, and thus his tyrannical behavior will ultimately cost him. On the other hand, as I have tried to demonstrate, Prometheus’ interactions with the other characters show he is overcommitted to a rigid sense of the functioning of the cosmos. As a result he cannot see—indeed, refuses to see—that the supremacy of Zeus has been (and will continue to be) successful not because his power is intractable but because his power is intractable for being built on the reciprocity of personal relationships.63 This is the point that emerges from the scenes with the chorus, Oceanus and Hermes. For them everyone is integrally responsible for the well-being of the universe, everyone has a part to play in its existence.64 Aeschylus’ play shows how the cosmos works from Prometheus’ perspective but then slightly raises the curtain on other possibilities. In this way PV makes a compelling case for not seeing the past as a curse or the future as closed to change. Otherwise, we are left with the dread resignation that history is doomed to cycles and that the future, just like Prometheus at the end of the play, can only plunge into an abyss of torture and suffering.65

THE THEOLOGY OF TRAGEDY, THE TRAGEDY OF THEOLOGY If it is right, or at least potentially productive, to read PV in this way, then perhaps we can push its implications for further critical appraisal in new directions as well. Vandvik, as I suggested earlier, saw PV as Aeschylus’ opportunity to redress the relationship between Prometheus and Zeus: After the reading of Hesiod the poet is likely to have asked himself how it might be possible that the Titan, who in his shortsightedness had hurt mankind, became the object of divine worship. It was a religious question which also the latest events of Greek history were likely to impress on the mind of the poet who on other occasions too takes a special interest in religious and ethical issues. (Vandvik 1943: 22)

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The question as I see it is not whether Zeus really is a tyrant or whether Prometheus really is a victim. Those questions, somewhat justifiably, presume their own answers. The question is, rather: To what extent does (mis)conceiving their relationship as one of (political) hierarchy occlude the (theological) insights about symmetry and the possibilities it engenders? Vandvik’s interest was primarily to rehabilitate the image of Zeus. My aim has been to show (1) that this misconception is Prometheus’ own and (2) that we have sustained that misconception by reading the play the same way repeatedly. The answer we need to seek is the nature of Zeus—again, the theological crux. Hugh Lloyd-Jones (2003) has suggested that the way PV frames this theological crux could justifiably give the impression of a ‘monotheistic’ perspective.66 Prometheus certainly acts as if Zeus were the Supreme Being, even if he believes Zeus ultimately has no control over his own fate. But Oceanus, his daughters and even Hermes provide a different perspective, all trying to convince Prometheus that his caustic fatalism is the root of his troubles. They consistently emphasize that both he and Zeus have choices and thus have a hand in the creation and sustainability of the universe. They challenge him to see that ‘divine creation is bound up with the contingency of the world,’ subtly making the case that Zeus is neither Superego nor pawn but, rather, more like an artist for whom ‘existence is gift, not fate, play rather than necessity’ (Eagleton 2008b: 19; cf. also 2003: 101–52). He is subject to no deterministic force of necessity because the future can change at any moment depending on the relationships he cultivates with others. For them Zeus is (like): A God who is no more confident of the end than we are; a God who is an artist, not a law-giver; a God who suffers the uncertainties of existence; a God who lives without any prearranged guarantees . . . A god who, no matter His or Her cosmic dimensions (whether larger or smaller than we assume), embodies nonetheless some of our faults, our ambitions, our talents and our gloom.67 Notwithstanding the Christian flavor, to my mind nothing could more gracefully describe the theological scope of PV. It suggests that the future is not yet written—not for Zeus, for Prometheus, Oceanus or the chorus.68 This openness, very much unlike the ending of the play, is cause for hope because it offers Prometheus the opportunity to be a ‘vital part of a larger phenomenon that searches for some finer version of life that could conceivably emerge from [the] present . . . condition’ (Mailer 2005). Bearing this in mind, I end at the beginning of PV. In his one moment of personification Kratos tells Hephaestus, ‘Everything is a burden except ruling among the gods. No one is free except Zeus’ (49–50). Coming out of the mouth of a ‘thug’ who has no independent mythological existence beyond this play, this observation seems straightforward: ‘To Kratos, the

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personification of Power, anything less than absolute monarchy is “burdensome”, and he sees himself and Hephaestus as virtual slaves of Zeus’ (Griffith 1983: 93 ad loc).69 But what could it mean that only Zeus is free? If, as Hesiod and Homer knew, Zeus’ power intimately depends on his relationships with other gods, then why would he treat them as slaves? Being the king and being a tyrant are two different things. And if the success of his supremacy rests on acts of charity and reciprocity, why would he need to fear being overthrown? As Eagleton (2006: 33) points out, God’s creation of the universe is an act of love, not necessity, so he is free of any ‘neurotic’ need for subservience. Extrapolating for PV’s theological context, perhaps then what Kratos means is, ‘Everything is a burden without a ruler among the gods. Without Zeus no one is free.’ Under this light Zeus enables freedom, not forecloses it: ‘God is not an obstacle to our autonomy and enjoyment but . . . the power that allows us to be ourselves’ (Eagleton 2006). He is the one to facilitate the power of relationships, to make them a meaningful engine in the life of the cosmos. And without him the universe, as Hesiod made quite clear of the eras before his ascension, would look bleak—proper cause to fear the eternal return. Thus, Aeschylus, as Unterberger (1968) rightly notes, ‘versucht dabei nicht, Zeus zu “rechtfertigen”’—indeed has no need to—because his is already the ‘Herrschaft der Gerechtigkeit’ (138). For this reason we are relieved of the responsibility, as I suggested at the beginning of this chapter, of coming to terms with Zeus’ evolution as ruler. As Unterberger noted, and as Reinhardt first suspected, Zeus does not change. But the reason is not just a lack of evidence from the trilogy. Zeus does not have to change: He is already the embodiment of the new ideal. His revolution consists not in his untouchability—which would be just another symptom of his patriline’s delusions (and he is not technically beyond the reach of suffering, as the Iliad [1.397ff.] and Theogony [617ff.] told us, but simply enjoys the support of his fellow gods70)—but in that, despite Prometheus’ insistence that it is all the same thing over and over again (cyclical violence), Zeus is a different type of god than his forebears: The advent of Zeus is the advent of both cosmic justice and kingship, with all that these loaded terms imply: legitimate authority, delegated power, advisory councils, balanced and impartial judgment, and ideal of persuasion and consent, and rule for the good of the whole; or in a word, the justice of Zeus. (White 2001:132) Thus his new laws are ‘radical’ only to the extent that they introduce new values such as collaboration and reciprocity, the very things Ocean stands for and that Hermes and he tried to offer with their exhortations to be νέος. Prometheus, however, is stuck in the past. Ultimately he is the conservative (pace Konstan 1977: 67), the one who wants things to stay the same as they have always been even as he is loudly proclaiming and boldly creating a

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new future for his mortal beneficiaries. As White (2001) rightly shows, ‘Prometheus cannot even imagine the new order. He therefore misrepresents it in his own terms as brutal, vindictive and oppressive. Yet he reveals, apparently unwittingly, that the world has begun to change for the better’ (133). Thus, we do not have to worry about squaring this apparently untypical Zeus with the one we (think we) will eventually meet in Lyomenos and beyond, because in PV he is already that person: There is no need to imagine him developing or maturing from an arbitrary and brutal oppressor into a guarantor of justice and piety. The trilogy . . . did not envision him first embodying destructive forces of nature and only in the end becoming a protector of civil society and the polis. Io’s world is rather what evolves, as mortals and Titans alike outgrow their native barbarism and gradually learn to prosper by adopting Olympian norms. Prometheus and other gods of old must renounce their opposition, and mortals their impious and inhuman ways, not Zeus any alleged despotism. (White 2001: 133) So, just as Prometheus liberates humans from their execrable existence, Zeus unburdens the gods of a fatal future. Violence and usurpation are things of the past, even if Prometheus wants to hold on to them as determinate values in the cosmos. ‘The bonds and wedges fixing Prometheus to his rock are ultimately self-imposed; the anvil on which they were forged is of his own ambitious devising’ (Rosenmeyer 1963: 75). And so the chief critical and dramaturgical concern of PV ought to be how to unbind the chains Prometheus wears, not on his hands and feet, but in his deep and far-reaching mind. NOTES 1. I proceed—admittedly, with little investment—under the somewhat controversial assumption that Aeschylus is the author of PV. The debate about its authenticity, however, has raged back and forth for many years now. Cf. Solmsen (1949), Podlecki (1966, 2005), Herington (1970, 1979), Conacher (1980), Griffith (1983), Said (1985), Martin West (1990), Marzullo (1993), Bees (1993) and Stephanie West (2005). I defer primarily to Griffith (1977), who is considered the authority and who suspects the play is not from Aeschylus’ hand. The problem is vexed, though, since ‘no ancient author seems to have suspected it’ (Lloyd-Jones 2003: 54). Bollack’s (2006) recent remarks are also well taken: ‘We must envisage the possibility that an author other than Aeschylus could have written an interesting play’ (87 n.5). 2. I have borrowed this observation from Buxton (2009), although the essay from which it comes is not apposite to my argument here. 3. Not that critics haven’t deemed it otherwise—cf. M. West (1990): ‘The Zeus of Prometheus has no redeeming feature . . . [I]t is difficult to believe that

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5. 6. 7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

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Aeschylus thought Zeus had ever been what he is in Prometheus . . . The theology of Prometheus is no theology at all’ (63, quoted in Podlecki 2005: 34–35). Let me note that I do not mean to draw an invidious distinction between theology and politics; within the context of the play, which interweaves reflections on the nature of Zeus and the kind of rule appropriate to the gods, theological and political considerations go hand in hand. As I discuss further on, the question of PV’s theology is almost exclusively tied to its supposed relationship to a Prometheus trilogy. See, most recently, Carter (2007, esp. ch. 2). Eric Havelock’s translation and study of the play, to cite an illustrative example, was called The Crucifixion of Intellectual Man (1950); Rose Unterberger (1968) spoke of the ‘Klagen des Gemarterten’ (29). See, for example, Greene (1968: 122–23). Goethe, ‘Prometheus’ (1773): ‘Hier sitz ich, forme Menschen / Nach meinem Bilde, Ein Geschlecht, das mir gleich sei, / Zu leiden, zu weinen, / Zu geniessen, zu freuen sich, / Und dein nicht zu achten, / Wie ich!’ See Podlecki (1966: 101–22). For the ‘anthropological’ allegory—that PV traces a ‘symbolic opposition between civilised life with agriculture, dike, xenia and uncivilised life knowing technology, but lacking agriculture, marriage, and xenia’—see Bouvrie (1993). Fowler (1957: 180) makes the interesting case that the allegorical opposition between Zeus and Prometheus is one of tyranny and aristocracy. Cf. Griffith (1995). Stage productions also tend to follow this line. James Kerr’s 2006 production of the play for the Aquila Theater Company in New York City gave a chained and bleeding Prometheus railing against the savagery of tyrannical power and the thankless job of being humankind’s savior and martyr. By all accounts the play was a smash. Writing in the New York Times (March 27, 2007), Wilborn Hampton spoke of the play’s powerful timeliness: ‘The fifth-century B.C. lessons about the abuse of power by an autocratic ruler who runs roughshod over anyone who disagrees with him are not lost on a 21st-century audience. Just plug in names from today’s headlines for any of the characters.’ Another drew attention to the proto-Christian symbolism of his cruciform pose: Prometheus bears his cross for ‘sinning’ against Zeus (Time Out New York, no. 600, March 29–April 4, 2007). This illustrates well, as Hall and Macintosh (2005) have shown, how theatrical production corresponds with the critical reception of drama. For the Nachleben of Prometheus in general, see Duchemin (1974), Trousson (1976), Bernhardt (1983) and Bremmer (1991). Shelley was an outspoken atheist, and his Prometheus Unbound, ‘with its polarizing of an oppressive God and a glorified rebel’ (Eagleton 2003: 118), was likely influenced by his earlier The Necessity of Atheism (1811). See the fascinating study of Bryan Shelley (1994), who argues that Shelley’s oeuvre is suffused with Gnostic theology. Wecklein ([1878] 1981: 7–19) and Dodds (1973: 26–44), for example, suggested that Prometheus’ mistake was to challenge Zeus during the precarious time of his political succession. Griffith (1995: 109) has also pointed out the simple polarity (democracy/tyranny) that tends to underwrite judgments about the play. And Stephanie West (2005: 317) has recently claimed that ‘in [Prometheus’] increasing intransigence we see a growing resemblance to the tyrant against whom he is rebelling.’ West (2005) falls back ultimately on a political interpretation along the lines of Wecklein and Dodds. Rehm (2003) baldly asserts that ‘Zeus exhibits a typical tyrant’s paranoia and desperation, fearing his own fall from authority’ (47). And Podlecki (2005: 34–37) offers only a quick outline of the issue.

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12. Neither Vandvik nor White claims that Prometheus was not a benefactor to the human race, a well-established element in the myth. Their interest, rather, is the damage he does to them as well by conferring his gifts underhandedly—most notably, bringing the anger of Zeus against them. 13. Vandvik’s small but forceful monograph, published in Oslo in English, seems not to have been very influential. I can find only two citations: Solmsen (1949: 124 n.1, 135 n.57 and esp. 140 n.79) deems it too ‘subtle and sophisticated’ for an audience of the fifth century. Unterberger is less kind: Es ist . . . absurd, zu behaupten, Aischylos habe die technē als ein Übel betrachtet. So Vandvik, der das ganze Stück für eine einzige ‘tragic irony’ erklärt: Zeus sei der wahre Menschenfreund, Prometheus aber, wenn auch in bester Absicht, samt seinen Gaben ein Übel für die Menschheit. (1968: 78 n.81)

14.

15. 16.

17.

18.

She adduces in support of her critique Todd’s (1925) almost personal attack on the character of Zeus. Podlecki (2005: 36) does not mention Vandvik but characterizes White’s argument as ‘ingenious,’ a judgment Bassi (2010: 103 n.45) seems to endorse. Cf. West (2005): ‘We may find it surprising that the extraordinary portrayal of Zeus did not attract more attention’ (315). As Benjamin Fortson (2004: 27) points out, the conflation of Prometheus with his intellectual faculty is the result of a folk etymology; linguistically his name means ‘fire-stealer’ and thus connects him to other Indo-European tricksters. This does not mean the folk etymology carries no weight. Podlecki (2005) provides a citation of Alcman (F 64), for example, to suggest that by the end of the seventh century BCE ‘word-formations in Prom-were in use as proper (significant) names, and that what they signified was “Fore-knower”’ (3). Cf. Griffith (1983: 2 n.5). προμηθία is Elmsley’s conjecture, whereas the manuscripts have προμηθέως (‘You’ll need a Prometheus . . . ’). I follow Page (1972) throughout. Like, for example, that of Reinhardt (1949), who believed ‘mit dem Regiekünstler entwickelt sich zugleich in Aischylos der Theologe’ (12), or Nestle ([1930] 1974), who strove to discover the Religiosität of Aeschylus but found something closer to Christianity (256, 263). When Nestle’s essay was reprinted in Hommel (1974), Taplin (1977a) dismissed it as old fashioned in favor of Rosenmeyer. Cf. the recent effort by Bees (2009), wholly committed to showing that Aeschylus is essentially concerned with ‘die Gerechtigkeit des Zeus’ (esp. 260–309). PV is a ‘bewußte Provokation gegen den echten Aischylos’: ‘Der Gerechtigkeit des Zeus . . . die Ungerechtigkeit eines tyrannischen Gottes gegenübergestellt’ (260). Cf. Schmid (1929), Fitton-Brown (1959) and Bees (1993); Taplin (1975) makes an especially forceful claim for this likelihood. For the development of Zeus through the trilogy, see especially Unterberger (1968), who offers the most systematic treatment of PV’s forward-looking moments while at the same time maintaining that PV itself gives no evidence of Zeus’ evolution: ‘Wie ist die Veränderung zu verstehen? Jedenfalls nicht im Sinne einer psychologischen Entwicklung. Rational betrachtet, sind es die Göttervorstellungen, die sich wandeln . . . Zeus ändert seine Politik, nicht mehr und nicht weniger’ (138). Vandvik (1943) had a specific reading of this literary and mythological influence: ‘After the reading of Hesiod [Aeschylus] is likely to have asked himself how it might be possible that the Titan, who in his shortsightedness had hurt mankind, became the object of divine worship’ (22). Friedrich Solmsen (1949) had another: Neither [Aeschylus’] moral nor his dramatic sense allowed him to acquiesce in the view that the sequence of sin and punishment should cease to work

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at the moment of Zeus’ advent to power. And if the record of Zeus’ reign was defiled by deeds of violence, it was all the less possible to believe that he should from the beginning have been immune against a repetition of the fate which his two predecessors had suffered. (162) 19. See most recently Clay (2005) but also Solmsen (1949), Brown (1953) and West (1966). 20. Cf. also Th. 883–85. 21. Cf. Redfield (1994): ‘Zeus on Olympus blusters about his power but in practice seems less like an absolute tyrant than a somewhat embattled administrator, forced to pick his way between conflicting constituencies’ (227). 22. Pace Martin (2004), who sees in Hesiod a ‘broader picture of Zeus and Prometheus as co-equal creators,’ a ‘diptych about alternative models of creation’ (39). 23. See Heiden (2008) on gods as personal agents. 24. The phrase ἔχει τέλος δὴ κοὐδὲν ἐμποδὼν ἔτι (13) could also mean that Hephaestus has finished his work and is asking Kratos to back off. Cf. Woolsey (1869: 55 ad loc), Mather (1883: 85 ad loc) and Griffith (1983: 85 ad loc). 25. Notice also in Hephaestus’ response to Kratos in the following line (54) that προσ- has been dropped from δέρκεσθαι. This perhaps implies that not even Kratos, the very personification of Zeus’ power, has the same oversight authority as Zeus. That simple prefix, I argue here, is what distinguishes Zeus from his enforcer. 26. The word Kratos uses is σοφιστής. See Griffith (1983) for the semantic range of this term: ‘The sentence does not compare Zeus and P. as sophists: rather, “he may learn, sophist that he is, that he is more stupid than Zeus”’ (95 ad loc). 27. Parker has argued that the term τυραννίς did not by the time of PV’s composition necessarily connote brutality but, rather, power held without monarchical succession. He contends, however, that of Aeschylus’ tragedies only PV exhibits both the neutral connotation and its later connotation of violence (Parker 1998: 159). Cf. Griffith (1995: 96 n.114) and Crane (1996). White (2001) points out that ‘Zeus’ rule, while repeatedly labeled tyranny, is never called despotic’ (130 n.89). 28. Cf. τὸ σὸν θνητοῖσι προύδωκεν γέρας (PV 38). 29. Cf. the same juxtaposition a bit later: τὸν Διὸς ἐχθρόν, τὸν πᾶσι θεοῖς / δι’ ἀπεχθείας ἐλθόνθ’(PV 120–21). 30. One could speculate then that the privilege of giving fire to humans belonged to Zeus: to give it to them in charity, not have them receive it in an underhanded way. Note the sly verbal echo of ἄνθος in ἀνθ’ ὧν in line 31. 31. Pace Unterberger (1968): Dieses neon drückt die Bedingtheit aus, die sowohl die Welt wie ihren Beherrscher kennzeichen. Zugleich aber wird damit angedeutet, dass die gegenwärtige Erscheinungsform des Gottes noch nicht die endgültige, noch nicht ‘das Ganze’ ist; seine Härte wird nicht aus seiner wesenhaften Eigentümlichkeit, sondern aus den Gesetzen der Macht und der Zeit erklärt. (29) 32. The meter changes as well from anapests (93–100) back to trimeters. 33. On the relationship between sight and power in the play, see Larmour (1992). 34. For discussion and overview of the function of the Io scene and its integration in the play, see Bouvrie (1993: 192–95, 203). 35. White (2001) notes that PV does not address ‘why Zeus chose Io and why she migrates to Egypt’ (120 n.45). Prometheus has an idea: ‘The god, lusting to have sex with her, cast this wandering on her’ (PV 737–38). Dorter (1992: 128–33) strikes a good balance between Zeus’ ‘mere lust’ or ‘selfish obsession’

52

36.

37.

38.

39. 40. 41.

42.

43. 44.

45.

The Radical Theology of Prometheus Bound with Io and his ‘(perhaps penitent) curing’ of her in his discussion of the force of love in the play. See, however, the brilliant reading of Scodel (2010: 431–34) on Io’s narrative inconsistencies. See White (2001) on the world in which Io suffers: ‘Human life as Prometheus portrays it is a stark struggle for survival, and the world he envisions, while recognizably human, is devoid of the sacred and humane: no kindness or fellowship, no religion or government, no families or civil society’ (115). For Prometheus’ ‘parageography’ see Bouvrie (1993), West (1997), Finkelberg (1998) and White (2001). Vandvik (1943) and White (2001) treat the Io episode as theodicy. There is merit to this argument: White sees ritual influence in the description of Io’s torture, and Vandvik notes that Io’s ‘present affliction is the consequence of Hera’s jealousy’ (59). Contrast Griffith (1983): ‘It is true that P.’s prophetic knowledge is shared by his mother, Ge-Themis, who theoretically could intervene of her own accord to save Zeus; but there is no hint of this in Prom.’ (8 n.26). This despite the fact, as Griffith notes a few pages earlier, however, that the more ‘immediate source’ for Prometheus’ knowledge of the secret, Pindar’s eighth Isthmian ode (ll.27ff.), gives Themis—at the advice of the other gods—warning Zeus and Poseidon about the threat of marrying Thetis. Vandvik (1943) understood this: ‘The coercive means which he has found in it and which is his great comfort throughout the play only exists in his own imagination. The future was unknown to Zeus only till he was warned’(34). Solmsen (1949: 160) sees an allusion to the curse Ouranos pronounces against Kronos on his own usurpation in Theogony. That is, unless it was mentioned in Prometheus Pyrphoros. For a good discussion of whether this play was the first or last of a trilogy, see Fitton-Brown (1959) and Podlecki (2005). Here I also agree in part with White (2001), who suspects that Prometheus ‘misinterprets his “secret”, that Zeus only appears to be at risk, and that the marriage of Thetis to Peleus was eventually revealed to be part of his plan’ (115 n.35). Podlecki (2005) is not convinced. But see also Vandvik (1943), Unterberger (1968) and Conacher (1980). The scholiast on lines 120ff. states that ‘Even the gods were angry at Prometheus because of the fire. For because of this humans had everything easily for the remainder and no longer consistently gave sacrifice’ (citation in Vandvik 1943: 29). To be sure, the verb (αἰκίζεταί) picks up verbatim the chorus’ earlier question: ‘For what reason has Zeus snatched you up and continuously tortured you so dishonorably and harshly?’ (PV 194–95) Vandvik (1943) believes this judgment ‘in the mouth of the chorus can only signify the ethical error, the fire theft’ (45), not a more pointed criticism of Prometheus’ behavior. For him (as for Winnington-Ingram 1983: 176) the chorus is ‘superficial,’ ‘inconstant’ and given to ‘shallow compassion and naïve admiration of the prisoner’ (Vandvik 1943: 42–43). Unterberger (1968) picks up on this distinction but takes it a step too far: ‘Zeus hat den Kairos der Gefährdung überdauert—er kann demnach nicht ‘schwächer’ sein als Moiren und Erinyen. Ist er also stärker, kann er ihre Gesetze null und nichtig machen? Keineswegs’ (80). The question is not whether Zeus is stronger or weaker than the Moirae and Erinyes (he is, of course, stronger), but whether his ability to sidestep the threat, as is clearly the case from the tradition, is to render their authority ‘null und nichtig.’ Simply put, it is not. The citation of Eumenides Unterberger adduces to support her contention in

The Radical Theology of Prometheus Bound

46.

47.

48. 49.

50.

51.

53

fact undermines it: Athena, Zeus’ surrogate, convinces the Furies, even if not entirely, that the acquittal of Orestes does not spell the end of their honor but, rather, expands its boundaries. Bollack has some interesting, if ultimately unsubstantiated, ideas about Prometheus’ silence regarding this τι σεμνόν. This he sees not as a substantive secret about Thetis (cf. Bremer 1988 ad loc: ‘Es ist wohl ein Geheimnis . . . ’) but as the mysterious logic of the cosmos, which would necessarily be off limits to the chorus (Bollack 2006: 80; cf. 87 n.3). The central problem, however, is not whether Prometheus’ secret has banal positive content or provides access to the architecture of the universe—because Prometheus clearly believes they are related—but what he thinks it means: that it gives him an advantage over Zeus. A character issue is thus wrapped up in the so-called metaphysical issue. So, the most we can say is that there is a question at play about whether ‘there exist powers’ at a higher level, even if I think PV ultimately gives the lie to it. In any event, PV does not allow us to assert it definitively. As Griffith notes, Oceanus is primarily a ‘warning’ figure, ‘a friend whose sensible advice or warning is rejected by the tragic hero’ (1983: 139). See also Konstan (1977). Podlecki highlights the theme of reciprocity but restricts his analysis to ‘the constant recurrence of key concepts and terms, now applied by Prometheus to Zeus or his supporters, now shown by the other characters, or acknowledged by Prometheus, to be equally applicable to himself’ (1969: 287). See Dorter (1992) on Prometheus’ condescension toward the other characters, particularly Oceanus and Io. Bollack (2006: 82), on the other hand, reads the Io scene as a ‘professor’s magisterial lesson.’ It is worth noting that apart from Prometheus’ word, which by now we see is not entirely trustworthy, we have no evidence in classical literature suggesting that Prometheus was responsible for Zeus’ victory in the Titanomachy. Hesiod makes no mention of his influence. None of the other characters in the play acknowledges it. Aeschylus seems then to have invented this bit not only to make the conflict between Prometheus and Zeus more dramatically compelling but also to highlight Prometheus’ delusion. His claim rather resembles post hoc ergo propter hoc logic: after Prometheus told Zeus the ‘key’ to victory (which he himself had heard from Gaia/Themis) the Olympians prevailed—ergo Zeus and the Olympians were victorious because of Prometheus. It is not hard to see that his punishment has exacerbated his entitlement and led him to exaggerate his influence. But even granting Prometheus’ claim that he helped Zeus establish his ‘tyranny’ (his word), what else would be expected from a tyrant? What is more, Prometheus took Zeus’ side in the Titanomachy only after his fellow Titans rejected his proposal that δόλος was the key to victory, not βία. What does this tell us? That the Titans are dim-wits (as Prometheus claims) or that he is an opportunistic turncoat? γίγνωσκε σαυτόν, an iambic version of the well-known Delphic γνῶθι σεαυτόν, is regularly invoked to ‘admonish the proud or ambitious to recognize their limitations’ (Griffith 1983: 144 ad loc). I mean not only to evince this meaning (i.e., that Prometheus for all his cleverness does not have the same standing as Zeus) but also to play off Oceanus’ very next sentiment (‘Can’t you see, Prometheus, that you don’t fit in anymore with this behavior of yours. You need to change your inflexible ways.’). Cf. Vandvik (1943): ‘Oceanus is speaking to the deluded prisoner who just needs to become acquainted with his dubious disposition’ (46–47). Konstan (1977), however, claims that ‘in his eagerness for the immediate resolution of divine harmony, Ocean telescopes the process of resolution and imagines that it is only Prometheus’s attitude that stands in the way. This is a

54

52. 53.

54.

55.

56. 57.

58. 59.

The Radical Theology of Prometheus Bound mistake: he is misled, as Prometheus observes, by his light-minded good nature’ (65). But is he really misled, or has Prometheus mistakenly convinced him that he is misled? Cf. Rosemeyer (1963: 92ff.) in notes 62 and 64 further on. Vandvik (1943), however, is probably right to suggest that this is no criticism of Zeus: ‘In the mouth of the speaker the adjective can only mean “strict”, for the character of Oceanus renders a pejorative sense impossible’ (47). Prometheus responds to Oceanus: ‘You’re right, but only if you apply them to the heart at the right time, and not pressure a swollen spirit by force’ (PV 379–80). These words cut both ways. For Prometheus, it is clear—the right time means when he thinks it will be advantageous to him. But why would he think Oceanus is there to pressure him? In his pride he assumes Oceanus, who comes of his own accord and makes a demonstrable show of his sympathy, is just another of Zeus’ henchmen. As Conacher (1980) points out, ‘however sound Prometheus’ timing and his confidence in his hidden knowledge, there is in this exchange an irony at his expense as well’ (46). Unterberger (1968) makes an interesting connection: ‘Wie etwa in Antigone und Ismene, so stehen sich in Prometheus und Okeanos eine tragische und eine untragische Person gegenüber’ (58). Unfortunately she does not clarify her distinction between a tragic and an untragic character. This is White’s (2001) formulation, although he does not endorse it: ‘An impartial reading of his lines, by themselves and uncoloured by Prometheus’ abuse, gives a favorable impression . . . His is the voice of reason astonished at Prometheus’ insolent folly’ (129 n.85). Cf. Griffith (1983) on Hermes’ opening words: ‘[A] peremptory and belligerent mode of address, in sharp contrast to the customary civilities of tragic dialogue’ (254 ad loc). One final thing is noteworthy in this passage: Hermes asks Prometheus to divulge his secret without riddle (μηδὲν αἰνικτηρίως) and not force him to make two trips down to him. Hermes implies, first, that one trip is all it takes for Prometheus to change his present misfortunes; Zeus will be willing to accommodate him if he cooperates. And second, that Hermes would be willing to make two trips means Zeus would likely be open to renegotiation. Cf. Griffith (1983): ‘Here . . . the audience is faced squarely with the question whether P.’s conduct is morally, or practically, appropriate. The answer remains unclear’ (263 ad loc). Cf. Rosenmeyer (1963): Prometheus is surrounded by the Oceanids and responding to the voices of his tempters with a roar of his own. The breakers are not all hostile; the daughters of Ocean certainly are not. But Prometheus treats them as if they were; his special nature does not acknowledge friends. Both visually and spiritually he merges with the rock. (93)

60. Even if the chorus is a group of impressionable but sympathetic observers of the suffering of the major players, they are not negligible. They take a stand at Prometheus’ side in the final few lines, a feat of courage that critics have not left unremarked (see Griffith 1983: 11). 61. I am puzzled by Griffith’s (1983) assertion that Hermes is an ‘unreliable source’ (263 ad 999–1000). Why would we not take Hermes seriously? There is little to dispute in his words. This suspicion would seem to reflect a latent prejudice in favor of Prometheus as an innocent victim. 62. Cf. Rosenmeyer (1963): ‘We should not conclude either that the fall is imminent or even that it is effective as a hope’ (98–99).

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63. In his recent inaugural lecture at Ohio State University (March 2009) Bruce Heiden remarked that Zeus need not fear dethronement because technically he has no throne. He is the king, to be sure, but his throne does not entail domination. 64. Cf. the perceptive remarks of Rosenmeyer (1963): Prometheus the fire-bringer, the founder of social organization, the champion of philanthropic intercourse, does not, in his own dramatic person, know the pleasures of friendship or sociability. His mode of existence is loneliness . . . Deprived as the hero is of other forms of expression, he is all speech, all lecture and remonstrance . . . The philanthropist despises men too much to consider them equal participants in discourse. His heroism, his superiority, carries with it the necessary adjunct of contempt. He is torn between silence and speech, with the result that the words which he utters seem to be addressed to himself rather than to anyone about him. Monologue and harangue rather than conversation . . . Irony, bitterness, resignation, bombast; these are some of the moods supporting Prometheus’ speech . . . He raises a wall between himself and others, always surprised at any initiative they show, always convinced that they live in comfort and sloth and flinch from exposing themselves. (92, 95, 96) 65. ‘Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers, / And the future is dark, and the present is spread / Like a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head’ (Shelley [1820] 2007: i.561–63). 66. Here Lloyd-Jones is responding to West’s (1990) reappraisal (and re-negation) of PV’s authenticity. See also Lloyd-Jones (1983: 79–103). 67. This quotation I have taken from Norman Mailer’s (2005) tribute to Sartre, which was featured in The Nation’s coverage of the centennial anniversary of Sartre’s birth. Mailer takes Sartre to task for existentialism’s ‘God problem’; that is, its disavowal of God’s creative potential. 68. Cf. Eagleton (2003): For Christian faith . . . God sees what I will freely do in the future because he is omniscient, not because he forces me to do it. Nor can God foretell what is inevitably going to happen, since in an open-ended universe there is no such thing as what is inevitably going to happen, and thus nothing to be foretold. Even the Almighty cannot see what doesn’t exist. (109) 69. Cf. Unterberger (1968): ‘Dies führt wiederum auf die neuen Machtverhältnisse, die . . . ihre eindeutigste Charakterisierung erfahren’ (30, my emphasis). 70. Cf. Hammond (1965): ‘Zeus would not always rule the Olympians gods, if he relied on force alone . . . Zeus never had been and never was omnipotent’ (45).

2

The Curse of Inherited Guilt in Seven against Thebes

In the introduction I suggested that the unique element of drama is the ethical engagement it demands. Drama asks us to figure things out for ourselves: who is this person and why is she behaving this way? While speculation on these matters is often built into the play (in the form of questions and judgments by other characters, especially the chorus, or an occasional divine intervention), rarely are definitive or authoritative answers given to us. This ultimate lack of definitive, authoritative answers to the mystery of character is, I believe, drama’s most enduring legacy. What though are we to make of the fact that dramas were produced in trilogies and comprised of stories familiar to the mythological cannon? For nothing would seem to militate against the open-ended ethics of drama more than the trilogic shape of Greek tragedy. Even despite our meager tragic remains, and despite our general lack of evidence for actual trilogies, the logic stands firm: The best tragedies in Aristotle’s judgment—and he was no mean arbiter—revolved around the intergenerational fortunes of famous families (Poet. 1451b24–26).1 Trilogies provide, no doubt, thematic continuity—think of our one surviving trilogy, the Oresteia. And they provide, for better or worse, a sense of momentum both within and between plays. This may help us account for the difficulties of textual or hermeneutic inconsistency: as we saw in the previous chapter, for example, assuming that a particular thematic or plot point was prevalent in a prior play (like Prometheus’ theft of fire or his invocation of Kronos’ curse against Zeus) helps smooth over what we might otherwise attribute to, among other things, poor playwrighting or scribal error. But the logic of a trilogy also has a deleterious effect: It limits the explosive, radial power of tragedy’s poetry. Contradictions and ambiguities within and between plays are mere blips in the movement from point A to B to C. We no longer have to figure them out, just attribute them to a dramatic machinery grinding its way through a story whose ending we all already know. The trilogic form, we could say in the spirit of this inquiry, is a type of determinism. In this sense it is impervious to our engagement; it tramples on and subsumes the ethical call of drama. The tension, however, between a trilogy’s momentum and an individual play’s discreet action cannot be effaced: Its characters and actions grate

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against any unifying deterministic force. There is a simple reason for this, one we should not forget: They do not know they are characters in a tragedy, let alone part of a trilogy. We would do well then to seek out their resistances to such a force, for it is here that tragedy’s power as ethical literature really sparks.2 Seven against Thebes reflects this dialectic of resistance. Originally the third part of a trilogy that included a Laius and an Oedipus, Seven seemingly bears out what we think it should: Eteocles and Polynices, the cursed sons of Oedipus, play out in dramatic fashion the fated actions of ill-fated lives. They bring to fruition in their mutual deaths a blight long ago set on their family by the god Apollo.3 This, we might say, is the opinio communis, which has to the detriment of the play itself hardened into a sort of orthodoxy, a hermeneutic reflex. The most recent treatments of the play take this fatal framework as their starting point and then seek to discover the multifarious ways it structures the action of the tragedy, from the dramatic irony of Eteocles’ aversion to women to the ominous invocation of his father Oedipus’ curse.4 The sticking point of this line of thinking catches hold when Eteocles hears that his brother Polynices is stationed at the seventh gate and becomes convinced that the Erinys and curse on his family line have now brought about his ruin (653ff). This point used to exercise critics, in particular German critics, to no end: The formerly staid and cocksure ruler of Thebes, a man for whom no contingency is a threat to the smooth functioning of the state, throws himself over to a corrosive fatalism, seemingly forgetting himself.5 Seven can sustain, indeed deserves, a more penetrating analysis than this. The reason it has not, and the reason it continues to be (mis)read in the same predictable way,6 speaks to the power of orthodoxy to shape critical practice. In fact, the basic premise of this chapter is that it is time to move beyond this deterministic paradigm, to embrace the possibility that the play’s ethical purview shows the devastating consequences of surrendering our lives to fatalism. Critics who cannot see this possibility, I suggest somewhat provocatively, are merely recapitulating the mistakes and fallacies that the play is symptomatizing in its tragic lead character—a fact that ought to give us serious pause. So I want to ask a seemingly awkward question, but one that will help to reframe our inquiry into the play. If, as critics justifiably assume, either a blight laid on the Labdacid line was described in the Laius or a curse was pronounced by Oedipus against Eteocles and Polynices in the Oedipus, does that really mean anything? That is, does either of those possibilities overdetermine the course of decisions and actions that Eteocles takes?7 Does Aeschylus want us to carry that knowledge forward with us, to privilege us with greater insight into Eteocles’ life than Eteocles himself? Despite a glaring paucity of evidence for the Laius or Oedipus, critics have overwhelmingly responded to these questions in the same way—yes, yes and yes indeed.8 Froma Zeitlin, for example, in one of the most nuanced readings of Thebes

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in the tragic imaginary, has argued that the recursive catastrophes that can be traced over the generations of Labdacid rule—from Labdacus himself down through to the children of Oedipus, from Aeschylus’ treatments of these characters through Sophocles’ and Euripides’—confirm that Thebes is subject to the ‘law of the Eternal Return’: ‘Thebes is a place where the past inevitably rules, continually repeating and renewing itself so that each new generation, each new episode in the story, looks backward to its ruin even as it offers a new variation on the theme’ (Zeitlin 1990: 153; cf. 150). For Zeitlin this holds particularly firmly for the house of Oedipus ‘where, given the dominant and continuing role of oracles in its history, the future can and must fulfill an end already predicted in the past’ (154).9 Now, from where we stand, with all the available evidence at our scholarly disposal and a sense of the diachronic development of the Labdacid myths, as well as the various narratives that shaped and reshaped them, this conclusion makes a certain sense. But this argument is premised on the problematic assumption that repetition expresses necessity. Even if we can say the generational tragedies are more salient for their similarities than their differences—a move I am uneasy about10—it is still problematic to say, always retrospectively, that the repetitions had to happen, that they therefore illuminate the workings of fate or a curse. It is to confuse the long run with the shape of life—even the life of a tragic Labdacid—which moves forward without the scholarly assurance of synoptic clarity. This retrospective view is wrong in many innocuous ways11 but it is especially disconcerting for its inhumanity: Tragic characters are reduced to nodes on a grid, ‘predictably act[ing] out their allotted roles’ (Zeitlin 1990: 150), as if the tragedians hadn’t taken pains to flesh them out but instead chose to portray androids and automatons programmed to fulfill destinies. Zeitlin—and she is not alone—essentially reads the play backwards, as if its point was to show us that the outcome was already inscribed in the opening act. She takes no account of the choices Eteocles makes except to the extent that they prove or reflect genealogical determinism.12 More important still, choice is elementally based on faith—this is because we cannot know the future before we take a decision. Eteocles may well think he has got it figured out that god and curse have conspired against him (and we may too), but it’s not a position the chorus shares, let alone Aeschylus. There can be no more vague, middle-voice talk of forces ‘working themselves out’.13 We must remove the straitjacket of structuralism. I have singled out Zeitlin’s argument not because its determinist bent is unique—though hers is certainly the most theoretically rigorous—but because it demonstrates the critical complacency even the most perspicacious of us can fall into. This very complacency in fact is what tragedy in general, but Seven in particular, symptomatizes: If you think repetition is necessity, that you have to kill your brother because your father cursed you at some time in your past life, then you are deadly. And so our task is to examine the way Seven illuminates how and why characters, in particular

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Eteocles, come to believe what they do and then act on it, how and why the deterministic conclusions they draw are problematic (if understandable) and how and why their self-justifying deterministic conclusions lead to tragedy. One of the most illuminating inroads to such an examination of Seven, to come back to my previous discussion of trilogies, is that the play’s title is not Eteocles or Eteocles and Polynices as we might have expected from the example of the first two plays.14 I take for gospel Sommerstein’s (2010c) contention that the title of a Greek drama rarely provides a ‘clue to the understanding of its play’ (25), but that slight difference would seem to suggest that the continuities between the plays may not be exactly what we as critics think they are. Giving the play the title Seven against Thebes draws attention less to the superficial similarities between the three generations of men or the fatal shape of their individual lives than the effect of Eteocles’ life, cursed or not, on the city of Thebes. Eteocles’ decisions, based on whatever motivations and justifications he summons, very much affect the fortunes of his people. This slight change in the title then points toward the tension between the (fatal or deterministic) momentum of the Labdacid trilogy and the possibility—emphasized everywhere throughout the play—that things might turn out otherwise. This is where Seven sparks as ethical literature, in the dialectic of a deterministic tradition (whether mythic, tragic or theological) and the lives of innocent humans.15 For the sake of organization I will proceed incrementally through the play, episode by episode. This has the advantage not only of revealing the dramatic structure and art of the play as it develops organically but also of positioning us alongside the characters as they decide and act. In this vein, moreover, it will prevent us from drawing premature conclusions from a retrospective vantage, reducing in the process the intellectual superiority we think we have over them. This way alone, I believe, gives insight into those moments of resistance to deterministic form, those forward-looking moments of hope, desire, fear and the like.

ETEOCLES, SCOUT AND FIRST CHORAL ODE Eteocles’ opening monologue gives the impression of a pious man, but one whose piety is subsumed within his civic responsibilities. For this reason we hear vaguely officious assertions about divine goodwill: Eteocles states that responsibility for the well-being of the city in a time of crisis belongs to the gods, whereas if things turn out badly, he alone will be held accountable (1–4); he calls on Zeus ἀλεξητήριος to protect him and his citizens (8); entreats his citizens to guard the altars of the city’s gods (14); warns that the good fortune they have enjoyed up to this point is the provenance of the gods (21–23); and closes with a prayer that god give them luck (35). As Dawson (1970: 30) suggests, for Eteocles reference to god or gods means ‘little more than “luck,” “chance”’ and is ‘immediately followed by refer-

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ence to practical measures’ (33): He has taken it on himself to send a scout to observe what the Argives are up to beyond the walls (36–38). Eteocles has also heard from an unnamed prophet, presumed to be Tiresias, that the Argives are planning the ‘greatest attack’ on the Thebans during the night (24–29). This prophet is afforded some authority for ‘discerning in his ears and mind without the aid of fire the mantic birds with his unerring skill’ (νῦν δ’ ὡς ὁ μάντις φησίν, οἰωνῶν βοτήρ / ἐν ὠσὶ νωμῶν καὶ φρεσὶν πυρὸς δίχα / χρηστηρίους ὄρνιθας ἀψευδεῖ τέχνηι, 25–26); he is called the ‘master of such prophecies’ (οὗτος τοιῶνδε δεσπότης μαντευμάτων, 27).16 Whatever his reliance on the gods or diviners, Eteocles clearly values native pragmatism. This is first and foremost a civic crisis, one whose solution resides in its citizens: Now it is time for all of you . . . to come to the city’s aid and its native gods’ altars—never let their honors be destroyed—for the children and your mother-earth, that dearest nurse. For she . . . bred you to take up the shield in her defense, to show yourselves true in this time of need. (10–20) A necessary and life-dependent defense it is too. The scout’s report of Argive activities outside the walls contains this famous and terrifying description (43–53): ἄνδρες γὰρ ἑπτά, θούριοι λοχαγέται, ταυροσφαγοῦντες ἐς μελάνδετον σάκος, καὶ θιγγάνοντες χερσὶ ταυρείου φόνου, Ἄρην Ἐνυὼ καὶ φιλαίματον Φόβον ὡρκωμότησαν, ἢ πόλει κατασκαφὰς θέντες λαπάξειν ἄστυ Καδμείων βίαι, ἢ γῆν θανόντες τήνδε φυράσειν φόνωι· μνημεῖά θ’ αὑτῶν τοῖς τεκοῦσιν ἐς δόμους πρὸς ἅρμ’ Ἀδράστου χερσὶν ἔστεφον, δάκρυ λείβοντες, οἶκτος δ’ οὔτις ἦν διὰ στόμα· σιδηρόφρων γὰρ θυμὸς ἀνδρείαι φλέγων ἔπνει λεόντων ὣς Ἄρη δεδορκότων. I saw seven men, furious warriors, slitting a bull’s throat over a blackrimmed shield. Dipping their hands in the bull’s gore they swore an oath by Ares, Enyo and bloodthirsty Fear that they would either lay destruction upon the city of Cadmeans and plunder it by force or die trying and stain this land with their own gore. For their parents back home they piled keepsakes upon Adrastus’ chariot, shedding tears, though no sound of grief passed through their lips. For their iron hearts blazed and bellowed with courage like lions looking war from their eyes. Of particular saliency here is the trinity of gods the Argives have singled out for invocation. Hutchinson notes that swearing oaths by three deities

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was common practice among the Greeks, even combinations of these very names, and so this one would not come off as a ‘monstrous parody of normal oaths.’ By the same token, ‘the combination of gods in oaths was rigid, not fluid, and this particular trinity will probably have seemed quite individual’ (Hutchinson 1985: 49 ad loc). If we are to grant the Argives some theological purpose in invoking this particular idiosyncratic combination, it could be said to underscore two distinct but not wholly exclusive things. First, the oath is a supplement to the Argives’ bloodlust, a prop for their single-minded purpose. You might expect men about to sack a city to invoke such deities as War, War and blood-desirous Fear. Second, enlisting the gods provides cover for their actions, effectively justifying victory through total destruction (πόλει κατασκαφὰς / θέντες λαπάξειν ἄστυ Καδμείων βίαι, 46–47) or despoliation through death (γῆν θανόντες τήνδε φυράσειν φόνωι, 48). In either case, or both in tandem, the scout makes a point of the randomness of the fallout: ‘I left them there casting lots as to how each of them, having sorted it by a throw of the dice, would lead his force against the gates’ (κληρουμένους δ’ἔλειπον, ὡς πάλωι λαχὼν / ἕκαστοςαὐτῶνπρὸςπύλαςἄγοιλόχον, 55–56). I have deliberately rendered these lines in an ungainly manner to indicate the scout’s emphasis on the arbitrary nature of the sortition. Three words signifying unpredictability load the line (κληρουμένους . . . πάλωι λαχὼν), nullifying any sense of overarching shape or causality to the Argive array. (Or so the scout claims in any event—we’ll spend more time with his character further on.) This very fact, coupled with the generic ‘faith’ Eteocles has in his people, a faith that looks forward to an uncertain end, sets the tone from the beginning of the play: Anything can happen.17 Eteocles’ final soliloquy bears this out (69–77): ὦ Ζεῦ τε καὶ Γῆ καὶ πολισσοῦχοι θεοί, Ἀρά τ’ Ἐρινὺς πατρὸς ἡ μεγασθενής, μή μοι πόλιν γε πρυμνόθεν πανώλεθρον ἐκθαμνίσητε δηιάλωτον Ἑλλάδος, φθόγγον χέουσαν καὶ δόμους ἐφεστίους ἐλευθέραν δὲ γῆν τε καὶ Κάδμου πόλιν ζυγοῖσι δουλίοισι μὴ δῶτε σχεθεῖν· γένεσθε δ’ ἀλκή· ξυνὰ δ’ ἐλπίζω λέγειν, πόλις γὰρ εὖ πράσσουσα δαίμονας τίει. O Zeus and Earth and all you gods who protect this land, Curse and mighty Erinys of my father, for me alone do not overturn this city, end on end to its utter destruction, making it captive, this city which speaks the language of Greece, along with its ancestral homes, this free land, the city of Cadmus. Do not give it over to be possessed by the slaves’ yoke. Be our bulwark. I hope I’m saying things relevant to the both of us, that a city that fares well pays back its gods.

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We might be surprised Eteocles has suddenly found religion in a more traditional sense, but what really strikes is his invocation of the ‘curse and mighty Erinys of Oedipus.’ Critics make much of the mix of curse and prayer in this passage, in particular the potential for contamination of the latter by the former, as well as the dramatic relevance of the curse for the play in general.18 Are we to read this invocation as Eteocles’ dawning realization of the fatal framework of his life? It would be hard to say. A number of critics have suggested that this reference would harken us back to revelations in the previous play, possibly the moment Oedipus cursed his sons.19 Apart from the generic difficulty of connecting the dots between plays, let alone between plays that are lost, I do not get the sense that Eteocles’ invocation here eradicates his belief in the possibility that things may turn out well. In any event, we cannot possibly know from the evidence of the play up to this point, irrespective of what may or may not have carried over from the previous. What remains amid these speculations—in fact, it is the one ineradicable thing we can say—is that Eteocles still has hope. He tries to turn this pantheon of gods, curse and Erinys included, to a unified purpose: ‘Be our bulwark. I’m hopeful I’m saying things relevant to the both of us, that a city that fares well pays back its gods’ (76–77). Advantages for men and gods are mutual. What matters for Eteocles is that the future is open, not foreclosed. We should not take that from him. This sentiment is dramatically undercut by the entrance of the chorus, and to good effect. Aeschylus here shows up the very different conception the women have of divine involvement in human affairs; we are to judge theirs next to Eteocles’.20 A stunning evocation of fear, the parodos (78–181) gives a frantic chorus, addressing the gods in desperate prayer. Reacting to the sights and noises they experience beyond the walls (dust clouds, horses’ hoofs, shields, groaning chariot axles, whizzing spears), the chorus bookends their song with generic appeals to the gods (87– 99, 166–81). In between they call on a litany of gods individually: Ares (104, 135), Zeus (116), Athena (129, 161), Poseidon (131), Cypris (140), Apollo (145, 159), Artemis (147, 154), Hera (151), Onca (163). Their final lines employ the same appeal to mutual benefit as Eteocles had used just earlier: ‘Bethink you of the city’s sacred offerings, and as you think of them, bring rescue! Yes, and the city’s loving rites of sacrifice—be mindful of them, we pray you’ (μέλεσθέ θ’ ἱερῶν δημίων / †μελόμενοι δ’ ἀρήξατε† / φιλοθύτων δέ τοι πόλεος ὀργίων / μνήστορες ἔστε μοι, 177–81). Irrespective of the nature of their piety—whether it is legitimately to be considered ‘irrational’—the chorus’ frightened invocations of the gods betray no more fatalism than Eteocles’ own ‘sober’ prayer just prior and no less faith that the gods are capable of saving them from the Argives. They too see that the future has not yet been written, a type of faith that will be meaningful in their confrontations with Eteocles throughout the play.21

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For the time being, though, they very clearly strike a nerve with Eteocles, who commences with his infamous speech on the problem of women (182–202, 256). We needn’t here address the nature or extent of his ‘misogyny,’ which has been well and variously accounted for by critics, nor is it necessary to dwell on the potentially ironic hints at his own problematic genealogical history in the speech.22 Rather, what is salient about this exchange between Eteocles and the chorus is the difference between his rigidity and their malleability. Not that his criticism of the chorus’ behavior doesn’t have some grounding: His efforts to deal with the threat outside the walls, it can be argued, are potentially undermined by a type of ‘threat’ within.23 It is for this reason that he claims their conduct is not helpful or encouraging, and enjoins them, if they insist on prayer, to at least make the right type of prayer (one for victory, 265ff.). But by the same token his appeals to ‘rational’ and ‘practical’ measures throughout the exchange (208–10, 236–38, 242–44) all of a sudden start to sound self-justifying and opportunistic. Consider, for example, his advice concerning prayer: Gods are most effective at keeping away enemy spears and desert captured cities (216–18); obedience is the best form of piety (223–25); and it is man’s job to appeal and sacrifice to gods in the time of war, while woman’s is to remain silent (230–32). It would be hard to know whether such assertions accurately reflect theological or ritual protocol,24 but it is clear that Eteocles’ masculine faith is remarkably and conveniently apposite to the circumstances as he judges them, almost to the point of tautology. That coincidence, however, does not necessarily mean he is right (or entirely right). Why, we might ask, would the gods begrudge the Theban women for their fear and desperation? To assume that they will not take thought of their suffering devotees, or to assume that they act consistently or exclusively in one manner, is to make a potentially limiting claim on their powers. Critics have long noted the misogynistic color of Eteocles’ brand of piety but rarely take notice of the counter-faith evinced by the chorus. In response to Eteocles’ certainty about obedience, for example, they speak of the potential for divine grace: ‘True, but there is still a divine power, looking down, and often when a man is distressed, helpless and in deep misery, his view overcast by lowering clouds, it rescues him’ (ἔστι· θεοῦ δ’ ἔτ’ ἰσχὺς καθυπερτέρα/πολλάκιδ’ ἐν κακοῖσι τὸν ἀμήχανον/κἀκ χαλεπᾶς δύας ὕπερθ’ ὀμμάτων/κριμναμενᾶν νεφελᾶν ὀρθοῖ, 226–29). And in response to his gendering of liturgy in times of war, they say: ‘It’s the gods that grant us life in a free city, though the enemy force is held off by our walls; what resentment can be roused by that?’ (διὰ θεῶν πόλιν νεμόμεθ’ ἀδάματον / δυσμενέων δ’ ὄχλον πύργος ἀποστέγει/τίς τάδε νέμεσις στυγεῖ, 233–35). Even if by virtue of a simplistic balance the chorus’ faith can be called ‘feminine,’ and even if it is equally self-regarding and susceptible to overgeneralization, the chorus nevertheless holds onto the possibility that things may turn out in ways unforeseeable to them or to Eteocles.25

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Eteocles, we see by contrast, believes that an anodyne and euphemistic ritualism is the key to controlling the unpredictable (266–80): εὔχου τὰ κρείσσω, ξυμμάχους εἶναι θεούς. κἀμῶν ἀκούσα εὐγμάτων ἔπειτα σὺ ὀλολυγμὸν ἱερὸν εὐμενῆ παιώνισον, Ἑλληνικὸν νόμισμα θυστάδος βοῆς, θάρσος φίλοις, λύουσα πολεμίων φόβον. ἐγὼ δὲ χώρας τοῖς πολισσούχοις θεοῖς, πεδιονόμοις τε κἀγορᾶς ἐπισκόποις, Δίρκης τε πηγαῖς ὕδατί τ’ Ἰσμηνοῦ λέγω, εὖ ξυντυχόντων καὶ πόλεως σεσωμένης †μήλοισιν αἱμάσσοντας ἑστίας θεῶν ταυροκτονοῦντας θεοῖσιν ὧδ’ ἐπεύχομαι θήσειν τροπαῖα πολεμίων δ’ ἐσθήμασι λάφυρα δαΐων δουρίπληχθ’ ἁγνοῖς δόμοις στέψω πρὸ ναῶν πολεμίων δ’ ἐσθήματα†. τοιαῦτ’ ἐπεύχου μὴ φιλοστόνως θεοῖς, μηδ’ ἐν ματαίοις κἀγρίοις ποιφύγμασιν· Make a stronger prayer: that the gods be our allies. After you’ve heard my prayers, raise the cry of victory, holy and gracious, the Greek custom of the sacrificial uttering that brings courage to our friends and breaks their fear of enemies. And I say to the gods who protect this land, those haunting the fields and those watching over the public spaces, to the springs of Dirce and the waters of Ismenus: If all turns out well and the city is saved, the citizens will redden the hearths of the gods with the blood of sheep and bulls—so I pray to the gods—and shall set up trophies, and I shall divide up the spoils, spear-pierced garments of the enemies, and crown their holy temples with them. These are the types of prayers you need to make to the gods, minus the self-indulgent lamentation and useless, aggressive panting. For Eteocles the future is a condition of the present and thus his openmindedness has a limit.26 This we will need to keep in mind.27 Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the chorus takes their cue from Eteocles (‘I am quiet; I’ll face what comes with the rest,’ 263) but still cannot shake their humble fear of the unknown. The ode that bridges the first and second major movements in the play (coming right before the famous shield scene) poignantly illustrates the threat posed to the Theban women by the Argive attack: rape and slavery (287–368). It stands to reason that they do not calmly choke back their fears as Eteocles had ordered in favor of bettersounding prayers.28 Their recourse to the gods, fearful and hopeful in equal measure, makes perfect sense. Coming into the shield scene then, the centerpiece of the play, we have a revealing portrait of Eteocles and the chorus, in particular their sense of

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balance between the open-ended future of their lives and any deterministic influences exercised on them. Each, we might say, is conflicted: Eteocles about his freedom to act in defense of his city with his father’s curse stalking him from the shadows and the chorus about the gods’ protection in the face of an enemy determined to strip them of all freedom. As much as both Eteocles and the chorus hold out hope that things might turn out well, neither can shake the fatalistic fear that forces beyond their control are shaping the course of events. This tension, this ambivalence, we must keep in mind for the remainder of the play.

SHIELD SCENE With this framework in mind I turn now to the famous shield scene. Here the scout relays to Eteocles the positions of the Argive attackers and describes the emblems on their shields. These in turn Eteocles ‘interprets’ and then positions a Theban who himself (or in one case whose shield) balances or counteracts the enemy’s shield.29 Much has been made of the semiotic troping employed by Eteocles in this scene: through a combination of ancient and modern hermeneutic concepts, scholars have illuminated how Eteocles neutralizes and turns the signs on the enemies’ shields back against them, activating unknown (and unwanted) ambiguities to their detriment. This is known as kledonomanteia, the divination of ominous signifiers. As Cameron (1970) explains, Eteocles ‘shows how the motto, boast, or blazon of the enemy is in fact true in an unexpected sense unfavorable to the attacker. His explication and acceptance of this meaning activates the omen’ (107).30 John Austin’s theory of performative utterance, whether explicitly acknowledged, lurks behind scholarly treatments of this sort.31 To the extent that kledonomanteia is conceived of as activating and unleashing a physical force within language on the world, it maps relatively cleanly onto the field of performative utterance.32 I do not intend to belabor this scene with another analysis of the seven Redenpaare, which has been done ably by many prominent critics.33 Rather, while drawing on the interpretations of various critics as we move through it (in particular those that take performative utterance as their basis), I want to raise some questions that I feel have not been asked or properly considered, questions whose semiotic implications dramatically affect the ‘meaning’ of the shield scene for the play and for our insight into it.34 Let me first provide a brief description of the paired warriors and their shields. 1. Tydeus vs. Melannipus: The shield of Tydeus bears a depiction of the heavens glittering with stars and a moon in the center. Eteocles claims that it redounds to the disadvantage of Tydeus: the darkness of the night shall fall on his eyes in death (403). Melanippus in turn is

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2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

described as noble and respectful (409–10), as one who hates boastful words (410) and is said to be a direct descendant of the Spartoi (412–13). There is no mention of a correspondent shield. Capaneus vs. Polyphontes: Capaneus vows that he will destroy Thebes, god willing or unwilling, and likens Zeus’ lightning bolts to midday heat. On his shield is depicted an unarmed man with a torch in his hand and an inscription that reads ‘I shall burn the city’ (434). In response Eteocles claims that Zeus will smite him for his hybris, and sends forth Polyphontes who enjoys the ‘good will of Artemis along with the other gods’ (450). There is no mention of a correspondent shield. Eteoclus vs. Megareus: On Eteoclus’ shield an armored man scales a ladder onto an enemy tower and boasts in an inscription that not even Ares will cast him from the wall. In turn Eteocles stations Megareus, ‘child of Creon from the race of the Spartoi’ (474), who will either capture the two men (Eteoclus and the man on his shield) and the city on the shield or die trying. There is no mention of a correspondent shield. Hippomedon vs. Hyperbius: On Hippomedon’s shield the monster Typhon, Zeus’ final hurdle in his ascent to king of Olympus, exhales black smoke from his flaming mouth while snakes coil round the edge (493–96).35 Opposite him Eteocles stations Hyperbius, whose shield bears the image of Zeus ‘firmly flaming a lightning bolt in his hand’ (513). Since Zeus proved mightier in his battle with Typhon in myth, then surely Hyperbius stands to win with his protection. These are the only two warriors whose shields actually balance each other. Parthenopaeus vs.Actor: Parthenopaeus wields on his shield the ‘city’s shame’ (539), the Sphinx, which carries in its claws ‘one of the Cadmeans’ (543), thus putting the Thebans at risk of potentially striking one of their own—or his representation at least—in the battle. In response Eteocles stations Actor, a man not of boasts but of deeds (554), whose volley of hits will cause the Sphinx to turn on Parthenopaeus himself. There is no mention of a correspondent shield. Amphiaraus vs. Lasthenes: Amphiaraus, a seer, is first described as castigating Tydeus and Polynices for their respective impious behaviors. He foresees his own death in the battle and takes his stand valiantly, brandishing a shield with no symbol carved into its surface. By the scout’s reading Amphiaraus ‘wishes to actually be the bravest rather than to seem so’ (592). Opposite the ‘moderate, just, noble and reverent’ (610) prophet Eteocles stations Lasthenes, coldly extolled for his xenophobia (621). There is no mention of a correspondent shield. Polynices vs. . . : On Polynices’ shield a woman modestly leads forth a man fashioned of gold. In an inscription the woman, who ‘claims’ to be Justice (646), says she ‘is bringing this man back and he will have

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his city and free reign over his father’s home’ (647–48). In response, after invoking the aforementioned family curse (653–55), Eteocles vehemently denies that Justice has ever attended Polynices and so cannot now be party to his destruction of the fatherland. Perhaps unsurprisingly, but perhaps also meaningfully by now (more further on), there is no mention of a correspondent shield. A few things of note that will be important for our following analysis: 1. Only one of the seven pairs of warriors has correspondent shields (no. 4); for the remaining six pairs only the shields of the Argive attackers are described. Why are the Theban shields left out? 2. In most cases (nos. 1–3, 5–7) the Theban defender balances out or answers to his Argive attacker’s shield. On two of these (nos. 1 and 5) are emblems with no attendant inscription to describe the ‘action’ on the shield. 3. In some cases (nos. 2, 3 and 7) an inscription accompanies the emblem; on each of these the Theban defender balances out or answers to the inscription on the Argive attacker’s shield. In this regard Eteocles treats the inscriptions as if they too had performative force; he must balance them and/or overturn them and/or activate their self-subversive ironies before they unleash their effects on his (and his Thebans’) world.36 Hence: 4. Eteocles’ kledonomantic performance encompasses—or rather, has to encompass—nonlinguistic symbolic representation versus nonlinguistic symbolic representation (no. 4), man versus nonlinguistic symbolic representation (nos. 1 and 5), man versus linguistic symbolic representation (nos. 2, 3 and 7) and, in the case of Amphiaraus, man versus nonsymbolic yet still interpretive representation (no. 6). That is, Eteocles has to flatten potentially significant differences among types of sign symbolism. We will need to keep this in mind as we consider his kledonomancy. We may wonder at this initial stage, for example, whether and how a sign, pictorial and/or linguistic, can stand in opposition to flesh and bone. Before we commence with the shields and with Eteocles’ readings, however, we need to ask an admittedly unorthodox yet still fundamental question: Is the scout a reliable witness? Because Eteocles’ entire performance hinges on this man’s report—and under the current circumstances, a civil war in which one side has sworn by bloodthirsty demons to do unimaginably terrible things—he ought to be trustworthy. Here are his opening words: ‘I am reliably informed and will report the enemy battle plan’ (λέγοιμ’ ἂν εἰδὼς εὖ τὰ τῶν ἐναντίων, 375). It comes off as a simple statement of fact, one so smooth

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and convincing that we have little reason to doubt it. But is it possible that he has confused which warriors are at which gates, or which signs appear on which shields? Could we imagine that the scout intentionally mistook the shield devices? These questions might at first glance appear irrelevant, but it strikes me as strange that if, as scholars nearly unanimously claim, the shield scene is essentially an epistemological and hermeneutic performance,37 we would not then take into consideration the epistemological limitations and hermeneutic prejudices of its very characters—including the messenger. As James Barrett (2002: xvi) has noted, the generic absence of an authoritative narrative voice in tragedy renders all tragic speech ‘suspect,’ marking it as a ‘rhetorical creation’. For him this is especially the case with the tragic messenger: ‘How it is that this figure manages to speak with a voice that, on the whole, has gone unquestioned and unexamined by critics? . . . Why have so many critics taken this form of speech to be fundamentally nonrhetorical?’ (Barrett 2002: xvi, 19) Thus ‘to the extent that we treat the tragic angelia as simply a functional device we miss the inherently problematic status of such a device in this context’ (15).38 I find Barrett’s suspicions and insights about tragic messengers perfectly apposite to Seven, a play that consists almost entirely of reported action.39 To ignore the implications of this fact is to miss an opportunity that Aeschylus provides us. We have just seen in the previous episode how Eteocles responds to distressing behavior (regardless ofwhether it is gendered): He asserts control and reaffirms it with dubious claims about the gods. Could we not imagine that the scout, who would presumably be someone Eteocles trusted (and thus someone familiar with Eteocles’ disposition as ruler), might know better than to upset him or, since Eteocles is clearly a control freak, give him the impression that the scene beyond the walls is beyond his control? Given this, why would we unproblematically assume that what the scout reports is a transparent account of the truth?40 Eteocles happens to be the only one who would have any evidence for the veracity of the report, and he dies in the battle, a rather convenient outcome for the scout if indeed his intentions were less than pure. Perhaps we needn’t go this far,41 but to not ask after the scout’s reliability is no less an interpretive choice than presuming it. To avoid this question, in other words, is to initiate our inquiry into the shield scene by limiting, even prejudicing, the scope of interpretive possibility. And it is this originary limiting, I would argue, that leads us inevitably down that familiar path to familiar conclusions about Eteocles’ power to do things with words (for which, honestly, we have no evidence whatsoever—more on that further on) and, ultimately and disappointingly, to the claim that no amount of interpretation can override the force of a curse or fate. Instead of getting swept down that path right from the beginning, we may wonder instead whether the scout understands Eteocles’ tendency toward simple figuration (playing one sign against its opposite) and stages a scene to let him think he is outfiguring the enemy.42 Too bad it results in his death (or not).

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An ancillary concern: if the scout has somehow misremembered which shield devices are on which warrior’s shield, would this in any way affect Eteocles’ pairing and semiotic troping? If it turns out that, say, Eteoclus’ shield does not ‘cry out in written syllables that not even Ares can throw him off the wall’ (βοᾶι δὲ χοὖτος γραμμάτων ἐν ξυλλαβαῖς/ὡς οὐδ’ ἂν Ἄρης σφ’ ἐκβάλοι πυργωμάτων, 468–69) but, rather, has a sphinx carrying a Theban in its talons (so Parthenopaeus’ shield), will the positioning of Megareus, a descendant of the Sown Men (and therefore related to Ares), be efficacious against Eteoclus?43 Likewise for Hippomedon (Typhon) and Hyperbius (Zeus). As Isabelle Torrance (2007) points out, the semiotic character of the shields in this scene is ‘striking’: No other poetic shields are specifically inscribed . . . in this way . . . There is no doubt that all the shields were in fact designed (by Aeschylus) specifically for the assault on Thebes. Nowhere else, for example, would the figure of the Sphinx carrying a Theban be such a threatening insult to the citizens. (84) Torrance does not ask, however, whether the correspondence between the image on the shield and the warrior brandishing it hasn’t been skewed in some way either by mistake or by design. As she notes a few pages earlier, ‘by the early fourth century the concept of swapping shields to fool the enemy could be successfully employed because of such identifying symbols’ (Torrance 2007: 68). Is it possible that the Argive attackers have at any point switched their shields, or could they have in the time that passes between Eteocles’ interpretations? Would this have any effect on the kledonomancy? How ultimately would we know? Let’s assume despite these reservations that the scout has given a proper account of the shield devices and that the Argives did not swap them. The next question that comes to mind is: Is Eteocles a good choice for interpreter? As we have already seen in the official proclamation with which he opens the play and in his interactions with the chorus, he has a particular view of the world (and of himself) that doesn’t entirely accord with the perspective of others, especially the chorus who will strenuously and vainly disagree with him at the end of the episode. So from the beginning we are shown that his perspective is only partial, not just the Truth. (As he himself says at the very beginning, he’s just ὅστις, ‘some guy,’ 2.) Eteocles has also shown, as we discussed previously, a tendency to believe that the gods conform to his own idiosyncratic piety, so we are far from being able to say with any conviction that he is the right man for the job. In this regard we are encouraged to ponder whether his response to the scout’s descriptions will suffice for the circumstances. To privilege his point of view either because it is ‘masculine’ and/or ‘rational’ or simply because he is the leader of the people is to impose yet another limitation on our hermeneutic possibilities. Why

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wouldn’t Tiresias have been called in to do the interpretation (cf. ll.25–27 with n.16 earlier)?44 If we believe that Eteocles suits the task, then are we to imagine he truly believes he is ‘doing’ something by reading the signs and ‘turning’ them? Is Eteocles the kind of interpreter who thinks the pairing of opposing signs cancels them out? Perhaps we’ll never know what he ‘truly’ thinks (and scholars, as we noted in the Introduction, are very coy about this idea anyway). But whether we can truly answer that question is immaterial to the fact that Aeschylus stages Eteocles’ performance and so impels us to consider it: Do we happen to believe he’s earnest in his efforts? Are we then the kind of interpreters who happen to believe that Eteocles is ‘doing’ something by reading the signs and ‘turning’ them? Are we the kind of people who happen to think the pairing of opposing signs cancels them out? Judging from the critical literature, it seems we are. These questions are meaningful because they get at our investment in the performance and in the character of Eteocles, and this investment will impose its own hermeneutic prejudices, perhaps even prearrange conclusions about the efficacy of Eteocles’ kledonomancy (whether it is ultimately powerless against fate). As previously, let’s assume Aeschylus creates a compelling image of Eteocles’ ingenuousness. How then are we to judge his responses? The scout and the chorus seem to offer no resistance, although that’s not necessarily a reason to think they agree with his readings (cf. the chorus at the end of the scene). This may explain why their response in each case is to pray for success, not to affirm his correctness: ἐπεύχομαι δὴ τὰ μὲν εὐτυχεῖν, ἰώ/πρόμαχ’ ἐμῶν δόμων, τοῖσι δὲ δυστυχεῖν (481–82, et al.).45 Given what we know of Eteocles up to this point—his self-seriousness, his idiosyncratic piety, his machismo—should we not assume his readings are similarly self-revealing, that they are for the most part reflections of his own take on the world?— that is, not first and foremost (or not at all) true or performative effects on the world. His interpretation and counter-figuration is rather black and white—not necessarily because the Greek world (and especially that of tragedy) was particularly fond of polarities,46 but because Aeschylus wants us to see that Eteocles interprets and counter-figures in rather black-and-white style. His limited perspective, his prejudice, is on view here. If we are to insist on the value of polarities, it is only to the extent that they are a construction, a reduction of the world. But if, on the other hand, we are to insist on the value of polarities as a meaningful expression of the nature of things, then is the ingenuousness Eteocles’ or our own?47 The upshot here is that we have no way of knowing that Eteocles’ reading of the shields, his performative performance, has anything to do with the outcome of the battle. The messenger says nothing other than that the first six warriors were victorious (799, more further on). This might give us reason to think Eteocles was successful, but then again we were told early on that the arrangement of the Argives was the result of chance, and the issue remains controversial when the Theban warriors themselves were in

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fact chosen. Maybe then there’s nothing performative in Eteocles’ words at all—other than a performance of self, of his ethical makeup. Now, it may seem slightly misguided to respond to magical—or in our case mythical or tragic—realism with objections about what Aeschylus could or could not do in a tragedy. To be sure, such a move is essentially wrongheaded. But to claim the opposite—that these magical effects can and in fact do occur in the world of tragedy (i.e., what scholars simply assume is the case about performative utterance)—and to claim it as an objective fact (or as a constative statement) without balking is no less wrongheaded. So the question arises: Why are we so invested in one side of this wrongheadedness, and why don’t we recognize it as wrongheaded in the first place? To not ask whether our perception of the world and its organization is all there is (is limited, biased, etc.), then, is to fall prey to the same type of misperception as Eteocles. We certainly don’t want to imagine we’re just like him, do we? Of course if we are going to presume a performative power to Eteocles’ words anyway, then we have to wonder how the magic that underwrites Eteocles’ kledonomancy works, because some kind of magical operation or transference has to be at play. The belief implicit in most of the critical literature is that it is ‘sympathetic’ in nature, that its effects are traced through the ‘secret sympathy’ between magical words and human bodies.49 How, though, does this happen? As Derek Collins (2008) notes, ‘the sympathetic relationship between my magical action and its intended effect implies that the effects must be transferred or communicated to my victim at a different point in space and a later point in time’ (15). Is a god or demon responsible for the ethereal transfer of energy (as in normal magic spells)? (Would it be the same god or demon, by the way, executing Oedipus’ curse on his sons?) Why then aren’t the usual suspects of curses and binding spells—Hermes, Hecate, Eros, Persephone—prominent figures in tragedy?50 Do the theological mechanics of kledonomancy differ from those of cursing (or even a proper prayer)? Can a wish or a bad intention have a magical effect? Would the gods and demons discriminate between them?51 If so how do they choose? If not how are we to conceive of this transference of energy? Is the energy itself physical or immaterial? Is it even an energy? These questions multiply ad infinitum. I raise them not to stress our hermeneutics to the point of absurdity but rather to show that the simple assumption of magical effects elides too many important and unanswerable concerns. To assume the effect is magical looks like so much naked opportunism. It looks a lot like Eteocles, in fact. Perhaps it would be better to see the magic behind kledonomancy not literally but rather in ethical or psychological terms. The work of Jack Winkler and Collins illuminates this issue. Writing specifically about agogai, those melodramatic and intricate love spells collected in the Papyri Graeci Magici (PGM),52 Winkler (1990) notes that what is most revealing is not the ‘pre-scientific belief (such as the power of “sympathetic magic”) that may be

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extrapolated from the procedures but rather . . . their rhetoric, drama, and social psychology’ (86). As he pithily puts it: Between the agent and the victim . . . there is a curious transference. The rite assigns the role of calm and masterful control to the performer and imagines the victim’s scene as one of passionate inner torment. But if we think about the reality of the situation, the intended victim is in all likelihood sleeping peacefully, blissfully ignorant of what some love-struck lunatic is doing on his roof, while the man himself, if he is fixated on this particular woman, is really suffering in that unfortunate and desperate state known as eros. The spells direct that the woman’s mind be wholly occupied with thoughts of the lover: from the evidence of the ritual we can say rather that the lover himself is already powerfully preoccupied with thoughts of the victim. (87) By Winkler’s (1990) reading the practice of erotic magic reveals rather the intense ‘psychodrama’ of a ‘lovesick man alone with his feelings and about to enter the powerful underworld of his own psyche’ and thus entails ‘selfdramatization, suicidal intensity, and masking procedures’ (93). Obviously, in Seven there is little to nothing that we could call erotic magic, but the socalled magical operation of kledonomancy that Eteocles deploys surely rests on the same type of transferential procedure. Critics seem to assume there is a practical reality to this cause-and-effect movement in the play, to the deployment of signs and countersigns. I think, however, that it reveals more of the psychodrama that Winkler speaks of here, a psychodrama enacted not only by Eteocles but also by the scout, the chorus and even us. Just like the ‘love-struck lunatic’ performing black rites in the middle of the night, we have no way of determining whether the intended effects are visited on the ‘blissfully ignorant’ victim. What we do have, on the other hand, is a revealing dramatization of a man (and his supporters and critics) so enthralled to his hatred of his brother and to his problematic claim on the throne that he believes—if you believe scholars—that he is effectively performing a magical rite. Perhaps this is what Aeschylus means to expose: the deadly and self-destructive effect of enthrallment to hatred and desperation. What does it mean that we are complicit? Regardless of whether this psychological aspect of magic can be detected or its depth measured in the mind of a protagonist, we see that there is nevertheless a social effect to its deployment. As Collins (2008) explains, ‘magic is always effective only within a social context whose network of relationships defines it and gives it meaning. Indeed, magic is quite unthinkable outside a social context’ (6). Let me quote at length the anecdote Collins provides to explain this social phenomenon. Imagine that you are coming home after work or school, just as you typically would. It has been an ordinary day and nothing particularly

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unusual has happened. When you get to your door, you find a small package sitting on the doorstep. You assume the package was delivered for you, so you open it and inside you find a bloody chicken heart with a nail stabbed through it. Sickening as that is, you realize the heart has been cut in half and inside the incision there is a sliver of paper, folded in half. You carefully pull the paper out, unfold it, and find it has your name written on it. Tucked in the paper’s fold there are some fingernails and hair—your fingernails and hair. Since you are not superstitious, or are but would never admit it, the rational side of your brain takes over. The whole thing, you say, is ridiculous—some stupid trick. Who would have done this? And then you start thinking: if it isn’t a gag, does someone really hate me? Why didn’t they just tell me they hated me rather than doing this? Even if it is a gag, what exactly are they trying to say? Did they think I would believe it or that it would have some effect on me? Did they think it would work, even if I don’t? Who do I know that would believe in such nonsense, or go through such elaborate measures even as a joke? (6) As Collins concludes, this example . . . is not meant to suggest that magic is ‘real’ in the sense that its operation has a physical impact on the world. It is meant to suggest that magic is fundamentally a form of communication—and that communication . . . can indeed impact the behavior of others. (6) In this regard the questions Collins raises in the second paragraph, especially those concerning conviction, are apposite to our analysis of the play: Does the scout or the chorus think that Eteocles believes what he is doing with kledonomancy is effective? Do we think the scout or the chorus believes Eteocles (believes he) is doing something with words? Do we believe Eteocles (believes he) is doing something with words? In fact, that last question, as elusive or silly as it might seem to the cold-eyed objectivism of philology, is all we really can answer for sure (yes). Our response to Eteocles’ behavior in the shield scene is thus more revealing of our desires and ethics than the simple question of whether the magic is real or causal. And that is alright because ‘if a magical act changes someone’s behavior, then it has exerted a causal effect’ (Collins 2008: 6).53 We should keep in mind of course that social effects are different from physical effects, a distinction that seems to have been elided in critical literature on the play. Now that we’ve considered the mechanics and framework of the shield scene, let us turn to some questions aroused by the complicated semiotics of the warriors and their shields.

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Is the description of Melanippus as ‘one who hates boastful words’ (στυγοῦνθ’ ὑπέρφρονας λόγους, 410) generic, or does it specifically relate (as we might expect) to the description of Tydeus? Because the scout mentions nothing of boasts on Tydeus’ part: in his thirst for blood he groans (βρέμει, 378), hisses like a snake (ὡς δράκων βοᾶι, 381), shouts the war cry (ἀυτών, 384) and lashes (θείνει, 382) the seer Amphiaraus with reproaches. We could with Eteocles certainly call such behavior ὑπέρφρονας, but λόγους? This we might identify as Eteocles’ first act of performative interpretation: to turn Tydeus’ raving into a discourse that Melanippus opposes and overturns. Can he do so? Consider Eteocles’ ambiguous language (400–6): καὶ νύκτα ταύτην ἣν λέγεις ἐπ’ ἀσπίδος ἄστροισι μαρμαίρουσαν οὐρανοῦ κυρεῖν, τάχ’ ἂν γένοιτο μάντις ἁνοία τινί· εἰ γὰρ θανόντι νὺξ ἐπ’ ὀφθαλμοῖς πέσοι, τῶι τοι φέροντι σῆμ’ ὑπέρκομπον τόδε γένοιτ’ ἂν ὀρθῶς ἐνδίκως τ’ ἐπώνυμον, καὐτὸς κατ’ αὐτοῦ τὴν ὕβριν μαντεύσεται. As for this ‘night’ you speak of on his shield sparkling with the stars of heaven, perhaps the cluelessness of it might turn out to be prophetic for someone. For if the night should fall upon this man’s eyes in death, then this outrageous symbol would turn out to be rightly and justly named for the one carrying it. And he himself will have prophesied his own hubris all by himself. Is the εἰ γὰρ clause an explanatory conditional—clarifying the potentially prophetic nature of the night emblem—or a remote wish (‘Would that the night fall . . . ’)? Can Eteocles prevent the one from sliding into the other? Would the grammatical ambivalence audible in his announcement possibly undermine the effect he’s looking for? How would we know? Can each warrior simply be identified with his shield? For example, is the man carrying a torch on Capaneus’ shield and declaring he will burn the city immediately correspondent or reducible to Capaneus himself?54 Eteocles certainly seems to believe in a one-to-one relationship, that there is an inherent sympathy, but could that image be more figurative?55 Likewise for Eteoclus, whose shield depicts a man scaling an enemy fortification and claiming (in an inscription) that not even Ares will stop him. Why, we may wonder, if the city on Eteoclus’ shield is presumed to be Thebes, would Eteocles claim in response that Megareus will capture not only the two men (Eteoclus himself and his arrogant avatar) but also the city? Is Megareus then a friend or an enemy, a ‘sown’ Theban or an Argive implant? So can Eteoclus, and Capaneus before him, really be said to be identical to the figures on their shields? This reduction of warrior to device is yet another revealing performative moment, yet it betrays Eteocles when he needs it most to be certain.

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What about the Sphinx on Parthenopaeus’ shield with ‘one of the Cadmeans’ (543) in its claws? Despite being a ‘common ornamental figure [that] appears several times on the shields depicted on vases’ (Hutchinson 1985: 106), a Sphinx seems more obviously between these words (so Torrance)— what other city in mythological literature faced a bird-like monster? But could it figure anything else? As Hutchinson (1985) points out, ‘the Greeks most likely associated the Oriental creature with death before they confined her to the Theban legend’ (128 ad 539–44, with references).56 We obviously cannot ask Parthenopaeus’ opinion about the image57 and thus we have to trust the messenger, which we’ve already established is a tricky matter. His identification of the image as the Sphinx and the human in its claws as a Theban, however, amid all of these speculations looks potentially suspect. There are no words on Parthenopaeus’ shield to identify this man. Would we then call it a descriptive or a performative utterance by the scout, this transforming the man into a Theban? In either case the identification, right or wrong, does at least provide momentum: It spurs Eteocles to assign Actor in opposition, whose bitter blows (561) will cause the Sphinx to ‘blame the bearer of the shield’ (560). But if the figure isn’t really the Sphinx—either as the maker of the shield knows it, or Parthenopaeus, or the scout, or Eteocles or we know it—how much force do Eteocles’ final words in the matter (‘God willing, I would make these things come true,’ 562) carry?58 The scout in this instance knows exactly what to say to rile Eteocles up. What about Amphiaraus’ blank shield: Does it signify as the scout claims that he ‘wishes not to seem the best (in battle) but rather to be the best’ (592)?59 Could it also point to the vanity and opportunism of reducing a human to a device? There is nothing to which Amphiaraus here can be reduced—no hybristic humanoid, no monster, no god in drag. In this regard his shield is more like a mirror: What you see refracted in it is your own shallow tendency to equate a shield with its bearer, your desire to reduce a human to a device, which makes killing him a much less morally complicated act.60 If we are to assume that there is a relationship between shield-bearer and device, what about the inscriptions? Is the relationship between the images on the shields and their inscriptions constative or performative? That is, does Eteocles (and do we) believe the inscriptions are factual statements about the world (and which—the world within the shield or without?), or that they will perform their truth on his world unless he out-figures them? Could the inscriptions be apotropaics or projections; that is, traces of uncertainty and insecurity?61 For example, is it meaningful that the figure of Dike on Polynices’ shield ‘claims’ she is Dike (ἄρ’ εἶναί φησιν, 646)? One line prior the scout called her ‘some woman’ (γυνή τις), suggesting perhaps that he is not so convinced.62 This doubt is well reflected in the violently defensive response of Eteocles (658–71),63 who claims that Justice has never favored Polynices, neither when he was a child, a young man, nor at the first ‘accumulation’ (ξυλλογῆι) of his beard. To him this is nothing but ‘Justice with a fake name’

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(ψευδώνυμος Δίκη, 670–71). So her claim must be a lie. Why, though, would we trust that Eteocles’ claim on Justice is any more just (ἐνδικώτερος, 673)? If we ascribe anything like a traditional theology to the play, are we to imagine that Dike herself doesn’t have a say in whether she stands by the image on the shield, by Polynices whose shield claims her tutelage or by Eteocles who denies Polynices’ claim but then self-servingly makes his own? Is the scout—and are we—then really justified in doubting her claim? Whatever the case, it is clear that Eteocles believes his brother’s shield is a constative statement (thus the defensiveness) and sets out to prove otherwise, only not with performative words but with a sword. Ultimately Dike’s assertion, whether dissimulating, genuine, defensively programmatic or anything else in between, knocks Eteocles out of kledonomantic semiotics mode and (back?) into fatalistic curse mode.

DEPARTURE AND AFTERMATH: VICTORY? We have now reached that point in the play that has intrigued so many critics, when in the face of his brother Eteocles pitches aside his cool control for a bone-deep fatalism. At first, though, he doesn’t seem as fatally commited as he ends up being. After initially exclaiming, ‘Now indeed my father’s curses come to pass!’ (656), he immediately follows with the calm assertion, ‘It would be unseemly of me to make a scene weeping, and I don’t want to create even more reasons to lament’ (657–58). Although he raises the possibility that his meeting with Polynices is predetermined, he nevertheless maintains a sense of control and balance: ‘I have faith that Justice is on my side and I will stand against him myself’ (672–73). Eteocles takes responsibility for the decision to face his brother, a move underscored by the combination of a middle-voice verb (ξυστήσομαι) and an intensifying pronoun (αὐτός). He makes this decision looking toward an open future, not an inexorable past. But Eteocles does eventually give in to his fatalism. In his exchange with the chorus he claims things like, ‘A god surely presses this thing on’ (689), ‘My father’s hateful, dreadful curse clings to me’ (695–96) and ‘Oedipus’ curse made the spirit rage’ (709). It is the chorus of Theban women, the very ones he had just excoriated for their frightened superstition, that tries (and fails) to convince him otherwise: He could give offerings to the gods to avert this outcome (700–701), the malign spirit inflaming his passion could change its mind and come with ‘gentler breath’ (705–8) or he could simply not go (714). The women very clearly believe Eteocles has a choice64; that he refuses to listen to them (‘You cannot escape god-given misfortunes,’ 719) does not prove he is right (or that we’re right in affirming his refusal to listen). It shows only that his obtuse fatalism runs deep, all the way down to death in fact. Freedom for Eteocles means nothing more than the freedom to kill. That Aeschylus dramatizes the exchange with such desperation

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shows his insight into the deadly force of human conviction. That is why Seven, after all, is a tragedy and not something else. But in his fatal haste to meet his brother, has Eteocles, as one scholar claimed, simply forgotten his power to do things with words (Cameron 1970: 118)? Is it possible he knew all along that symbols and words have no real performative value, that pairing opposites does not cancel or turn a threat, that ambiguity in signs runs deeper than simple polarity?65 Is his shield hermeneutics, like his opening monologue, just an obligation, the way he’s supposed to act (confident, self-serious) before his desperate people? To answer the question I posed earlier, we certainly cannot know, and we absolutely should not assume, that Eteocles’ performance was right or effective in the way scholars claim.66 What we can say, though, is that Aeschylus stages an elaborate act of miscommunication born out of love and fear and contrary expectation, each character guessing and affirming and reacting. This might help to explain Eteocles’ response to his brother’s shield: He doesn’t describe his own. And the reason Eteocles stops short here is not because ‘signs have become fates’ (Benardete 1967: 14) but because interpretation has become moot. The only interpretation that matters in this moment is the (mis)indentification of brother and enemy. We come to the end, in other words, with the realization that performative interpretation has nothing to do with the simple desire of two brothers to murder one another, and the lengths to which they will go to justify what ultimately amounts to death and destruction for their city, their loved ones and selves.67 So the only thing overdetermining the ‘inevitable’ course the brothers are on is their mutual murderous desire, a desire they attempt to sublimate by invoking their father’s curse.68 It is telling, I think, that only after Eteocles departs, determined to fight his brother, does the chorus relate the story of the family curse (720–91). Because this curse is nowhere invoked outright (likewise for Laius’ oracle),69 scholars assume it would have been mentioned at some point in the Oedipus, though even this conjecture offers little reassurance. Why would the chorus need to go to such lengths here if we’re all already familiar with the background?70 What matters is less the content than the timing. The chorus’ invocation of this narrative is not just a simple account of the truth of the matter—a dawning anagnorisis—or a nod toward something we already knew. After all they just tried to convince Eteocles that things don’t have to turn out the way he assumes. Only after he’s threatened, frightened and bullied them—after, that is, he’s shown himself utterly unmoved by their appeals—does the chorus say the Geschlechterfluch (generational curse) must be responsible.71 It is the only way they can make sense of his stolid inflexibility, his outrageous and hysterical behavior toward them in particular. ‘It seems as if talk about the curse or the demon of the house is likely to come in at points when agents, sufferers, or, for that matter, bystanders sense a need for unusually emphatic formulations. It answers psychological needs rather than strictly etiological considerations’ (Rosenmeyer 1982: 298). In

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other words it’s a rationalization that mistakenly—and tragically—validates his fatalism. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re right or that Aeschylus is raising the curtain for us to see the bigger forces at work. Rather, it is the move from one type of confusion and terror to one type of certainty and explanation that Aeschylus gives us here. What is salient in the chorus’ words is the retrospection—and the retrojection. Thus even if we were primed by the Oedipus for this revelation, the circumstances of the chorus’ narrative should caution us not to assume that the two plays offered us the same information. Unsurprisingly by now, the same retrospective retrojection is on view in the messenger’s report of the outcome of the battle. He too offers a curiously tidy and convenient explanation of the resolution of the conflict: It was Apollo (800–802)! Apparently everyone in this city has a stake in this claim. That in itself would be compelling if it weren’t for the fact that Seven is a tragedy. Should we consider the outcome a ‘victory’ for Thebes as the messenger reports? Is this yet another performative utterance, a euphemism, a projection, a fear?72 Think about it: Eteocles gets himself and several of his comrades killed—unnecessarily—and brings his city to the brink of destruction; Polynices and most of his comrades die gruesome deaths73; what remains of the family is left in the hands of Creon, whose unceremonious and tone-deaf first move is to criminalize Polynices and lionize Eteocles (who may have been responsible for the civil war in the first place); the two young daughters of Oedipus, Antigone and Ismene, are thrust into a nightmare of a political and familial situation, and one of them immediately becomes a subversive74; and we for our part are happy to conclude with Eteocles that fate sure is a bitch. Here Aeschylus is brilliant in diagnosing our complacency: We are the fatalists, not him. We are the ones who masochistically desire the dooming influence of curse and Erinys, not him. We ultimately are the Eteocleses (and Oedipuses and Laiuses), the kind of people who could visit pain and sorrow on our families, friends and fellow citizens all the while claiming—just knowing—we had no choice.75 Aeschylus simultaneously exposes and skewers our knowingness. In short it strikes me as odd that Aeschylus would stage a play whose takeaway is that we’re all doomed in some way or other and there’s nothing we can do about it. Surely there were people in Seven’s original audience, as well as in subsequent audiences (whether dramatic, philosophical or literary critical), who left comfortably or uncomfortably with that message—just as there are today. But by the same token there surely must have been others who felt that Eteocles’ fixation on the fatal machinery of his life was itself a bit myopic, that his perspective was not just the truth and may well have enabled and facilitated the hellish experience they just witnessed. (Some might even have put the big picture together that Thebes suffered generation after generation because of the respective myopic fixations of its Labdacid leaders, not because the gods had it out for them.) This was in fact the very opinion of the chorus of the play.76 It is right there in the text. So what then

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does it mean that we continue to take Eteocles’ word for the truth of the matter and ignore the chorus’ countervailing perspective? There is probably any number of reasons for that preference, and ultimately only our therapists can really account for them. But it is worth thinking about since it reveals the extent to which our own desires and identifications are invested in the characters of drama. We must always be wary of the fine line between a conjecture and a projection.77 So, while we have convinced ourselves that a tidy deterministic momentum regulates the play, Aeschylus shows Thebans fighting for their lives and dying, sometimes gruesomely, many times undeservedly, for things they intimately believe in (whether right or wrong), the results of which they cannot know beforehand. Are we to call their commitments vanities and illusions because they do not ‘know’ what we supposedly know? By now do we really know these things anymore?78 The play, exposes our ‘knowingness’ as a symptom of (and penchant for) tragic overreach. We kill because we think we know best. In this regard we are just like Eteocles. And if we come to the same conclusion as he does, then we ought to wonder whether we too are capable of tragedy, of enacting our own sublime monstrosity and calling it necessity, of murdering our kin and bringing our city to the brink of destruction in the name of a dubious and self-justifying cause. That, and not the ultimate vanity of human freedom,79 is the play’s true and arresting ethical dimension.

NOTES 1. Many trilogies were produced that did not have an overarching thematic continuity. In fact, most of what does remain seems to suggest that the term trilogy was applied to any series of three plays produced together. See Garvie (1986: xxvi, xxxv with n. 81; 2010: 69) and Sommerstein (2010a: 7 n.18, with reference esp. to Gantz 1979 and 1980). See also Sommerstein (2010a: 209–23) on the limits of spectator knowledge. 2. W. R. Johnson (2005), in his introduction to Lombardo’s translation of the Aeneid, eloquently captures the sense of this tension: One thing Juno clearly represents in the Aeneid is fortune . . . As a poetic concept she stands for—and in the poem’s narrative she produces—accidents, contingencies, bad luck. She utterly opposes the ordinances of providential fate and contrives whenever possible to derail them—the more violently the better. In contrast, Jupiter represents, in an ambiguous, not wholly satisfying fashion, the power of providential fate, the justice and benevolence that supply the foundations for whatever is decent in the human condition . . . The power of Juno’s fortune cannot triumph over the power of Jupiter’s fate, but . . . Jupiter’s fate cannot truly restrain the powers of darkness that Juno and her tamperings with fortune can unleash. One can argue . . . that all the accidents and contingencies, all the rotten, wretched luck that she invents, are . . . no more than ‘partial evils’ that contribute to and are eventually gathered into a ‘universal good.’ But it is equally plausible that the bad contingencies are as real as they are prevalent and powerful, and that

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3. See the introductions of Hutchinson (1985) and Lupas and Petre (1982). Cf. Gantz (1982: 19ff.). 4. Cf. Stehle (2005), Torrance (2007: 9–63 passim), Sewell-Rutter (2007: 136– 71), Kyriakou (2011: 37–64). Regrettably, I have taken this position myself (Rader 2009a: 55) but have since revised it (Rader 2009b). 5. See Burnett (1973: 344 n.8), Thalmann (1978: 146–49) and Vernant (1990) for decent accounts of the scholarly debate, as well as Zeitlin ([1982] 2009: 115–19) for a sensitive discussion (and dismantling) of the Opfertod theory, which Moreau (2008) has recently tried to revive. Cf. variously Wolff (1958), Patzer (1958), Schadewalt (1961), von Fritz (1962), Lesky (1961); see also Dawe (1963), Podlecki (1964), Kirkwood (1969), Otis (1963), Golden (1964), Cameron (1971) and Vernant (1990: 35–37). Vernant famously used this textual moment as the basis for his theory of the tragic subject as caught between ethos and daimon (see the Introduction of this volume). Martha Nussbaum (1986) tells us that Eteocles ‘may be to some extent to blame for the genesis of the constraining circumstances, though it is clear that forces and coincidences beyond his control are the main governing items,’ and later that ‘the guilt of the family works itself out here through accessible features of the agent’s own nature’ (39, 44, my emphasis). See Gantz (1982: 16 n.63) on critics (for and against) who believe the curse of Oedipus is the overriding concern of Aeschylus. 6. Cf. Lloyd-Jones ([1962] 2007: 71), Rosenmeyer (1982: 227; cf. 297), Hutchinson (1985: xxxi), Mikalson (1991: 50), Williams (1993: 136), Goward (1999: 72–74), Said (2005: 226), Mastronarde (2005: 323), Lawrence (2006–2007), Berman (2007: 163–65), Parker (2009: 129–30) and Allison (2009). 7. Cf. Hutchinson (1985): ‘It would be rash to assume that the form of an oracle will necessarily remain the same from the first play of a trilogy to the third . . . Since, however, there is such stress in the Septem on Laius’ disobedience, it is not quite unreasonable to infer that Apollo’s prediction in the first play was not absolute, but conditional’ (xxvii–xxvix). 8. Solmsen (1937) offered the first major exposition of this determinist view. Although most scholars no longer take such a rigid or literal view, things have not really changed all that much in the time since. See, for example, Parker (2009: 129–30). Even if we grant that Laius’ warning and Oedipus’ curse were in Parker’s judgment ‘uncontested facts’ for Seven, the question remains whether facticity alone necessarily has a deterministic effect on the action of the play. 9. This deterministic reading Zeitlin ([1982] 2009: 6) had already articulated in her tour de force Under the Sign of the Shield. There she argued that a ‘genealogical imperative’ ran through the house of Laius, asserting itself generationally through acts of repetition and reenactment. Eteocles and Polynices ‘condense the acts of the preceding generations: first, in the mutual desire to expel the other from the city, as Laios expelled Oedipus, and second, in their slaughter of one another’ (8). From Zeitlin’s perspective this ‘negative’ genealogical imperative ‘regulates the text from its beginning to the end’ (21; cf. 30) and thus ‘must inevitably defeat Eteokles’ claim to moral and personal identity’ (22). 10. It is revealing, I think, that Zeitlin ([1982] 2009) refers vaguely to Eteocles and Polynices as ‘not indistinguishable from each other’ (6). If they can be

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distinguished—is that what she is saying here?—what are the distinctions and why do they matter? 11. See Introduction. 12. This hermeneutic move (one might say ‘reflex’ or ‘straitjacket’) is particularly notable in criticism of the Oedipus Tyrannus (OT)—see Ahl (1991: esp. 1–20). 13. See Nussbaum, note 5. Cf Zeitlin (2009): In Aeschylean drama, nothing can come into existence before its name has been uttered . . . Language is therefore action, and action is language through which the ‘genealogical imperative’ of the accursed family at last asserts itself. Eteokles will create a text that claims linguistic competence in the ‘langue’ (i.e., the public language of civic values), which will ensure the victory of Thebes over Argos, but through which his own ‘parole will “speak itself,” the language upon which his personal identity rests, and which once discovered in its signification, will constitute the language of curse and oracle.’ (24, my emphasis) 14. See the judicious remarks of Sommerstein (2010a): ‘Greek play titles . . . were primarily designed for advance publicity—sometimes to inform the audience about the content of the play, and sometimes to keep them guessing, often wrongly, not only before the performance but for some time after it had begun’ (25, cf. 15). Lech (2008) believes a revival of Seven may have taken place sometime between the staging of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (in which the title does not appear) and Frogs (in which it does). 15. See Hutchinson (1985: xxx) on the strange shape of the Oresteia, which deals only with two generations. In fact, this tension militates against us reducing the play or the myth to the level of discourse versus character. Cf. Goldhill on Barthes from the Introduction. 16. Dawson (1970: ad loc) reads this as a somewhat sarcastic appellation, a possibility sustained by μεγίστην (28), one of whose implications may be that the Argives have already carried out a number of attacks. 17. See Berman (2007: 149–77, esp. 156–65, with notes and references) for discussion of sortition. While he does not insist on it, Berman maintains that the ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’ aspects of sortition are ‘never entirely differentiated’ (176). According to him, as much as the drawing of lots might signify randomness, ‘Apollo’s will operates through the sortition of the Argive captains, and Eteocles realizes this and the futility of fighting against it’ (164–65). Cf. too Vidal-Naquet (1990: 298) and Rosenmeyer (1982: 298) for similar sentiments. But how could we possibly know if Apollo’s or Zeus’ will is working through the sortition? As Berman (2007) himself states, ‘the Olympians would not go so far as to start a civil war because of tensions inherent in a division of estate’ (177). 18. See most recently Stehle (2005). Contrast the less deterministic view of Burnett (1973), who argued that a peaceful mediation of the brothers’ conflict was manifest in the dream Eteocles alludes to at lines 710–11, effectively mitigating the power of the curse. Cf. also Gantz (1982: 22). On this strange dream see Hutchinson (1985: xxvii). 19. Contrast the assumption of spectator knowledge in Dawson (1970: ad loc)— ‘This brief reference [to the Erinys] would tend to keep the audience alert for subsequent developments’—with the circumspection of Hutchinson (1985: ad loc): ‘Eteocles mistakenly supposes that the curse is fulfilled simply with the present conflict of arms. Yet if this error is to be the basic fact of the play, it must be explicitly spelt out. No audience could grasp the point’ (my emphasis). 20. Cf. Dawson (1970: ad loc): ‘The behavior of the Chorus comes in sharp contrast to the statesman-like, rational attitude of Eteocles.’

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21. Byrne (2002) suggests that the choral odes, in particular the parodos, ‘create . . . a subtle impression of similarity between Eteocles and the chorus of women so that the women’s fear of rape prefigures and predicts the emotional collapse and death of Eteocles’ (14). Foley (2001) notes that the relationship between the language of the odes and funerary lament ‘serves to anticipate and liken the role of the disruptive chorus here to its later role in lamenting the brothers’ (47 n.94). 22. A topic I have addressed myself (Rader 2009a). Caldwell (1973) offers the most systematic (psycho)analysis of Eteocles’ aversion to the women by locating it in his genealogical background. The traces of such ideas may also be found in Finley (1955) and Bacon (1964). Cf. also Zeitlin (2009: 15–19; 1990) and Benardete (1967). 23. See Bacon (1964: 30), Burnett (1973: 348) and Foley (2001: 46, esp. n.92). More important for our analysis further on, Cameron (1970: 100) reads Eteocles’ reaction to the chorus as a distinctive hypersensitivity toward the proper use of language in avoiding ill omens. 24. See Vernant (1990: 40) on Eteocles’ prescriptions for the chorus’ ololyge, as well as Vidal-Naquet (1990: 281), who cites the useful discussion of Deubner (1947). Graf’s (1984) remarks on the role of women in warfare are apt: ‘The prayer for the besieged town was the only thing left to the womenfolk . . . Women stood aside and acted only in emergencies, by throwing stones or by praying, preferably silently’ (246, my emphasis). 25. Pace Vernant (1990): For the Head of State [Eteocles], the emotive frenzy of the women not only stands for disorder, cowardice, ‘wildness,’ but also contains an element of impiety. True impiety presupposes wisdom and discipline . . . ; it is addressed to gods whose distance from humans it recognizes instead of seeking, as does the women’s religion, to overcome it. (40) Cf. Giordano-Zecharya (2006). 26. Caldwell (1973: 216–17) claims that Eteocles’ ‘deep-rooted fear of women’ is directly related to Oedipus’ curse. 27. Cf. Hutchinson (1985): That speech is a prayer delivered in solitude; the staging emphasizes the position of Eteocles as son of Oedipus . . . With Eteocles, we see a ruler separated from his people by his special connection with the Erinys . . . The words of the prayer and the harangue reinforce this view of the staging. (41–42 ad loc) I find this a rather complicated explanation of Eteocles’ solitude—all just to mark him as a child of Oedipus, and a cursed one at that? 28. Dawson (1970: 58 ad loc) contends that the absence of the dochmiac meter in the ode is evidence that the women are ‘somewhat calmer.’ Gagarin (1975), however, notes the difficulty of discerning the ‘emotional tone’ of the dochmiac meter in Seven since it is ‘the earliest surviving play to make extended use of the meter, which Aeschylus may have created’ (213; cf. 152, esp. n.2). 29. See the useful note that Berman (2007: 41 n.4 with bibliographical references) provides on the complicated question of how and when the Theban warriors were chosen. The issue involves the varying tenses and moods Eteocles uses in describing the assignments, to say nothing of the assumption that the whole affair has been predetermined by the gods or a curse. 30. Cf. Zeitlin ([1982] 2009): ‘Words, once uttered, can be rearranged, reinterpreted, and accepted by another in their new meaning so as to function as an

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31.

32.

33. 34.

35.

36. 37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

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irrevocable omen, which not only predicts future events, but actually has the power to effect what it predicts’ (28). See also Peradotto (1969) and Stehle (2005). Very basically, Austin distinguishes between ‘constative’ or ‘illocutionary’ utterances, those that simply describe the world (e.g., ‘John and Jane are getting married’), and ‘performative’ or ‘perlocutionary,’ which affect and effect the world (‘John and Jane, I pronounce you man and wife’). An easy way to distinguish these categories of speech within the play would be to say the scout’s description of the enemy shields is constative while Eteocles’ interpretation of the shields is performative—or so we like to think. Some notable practitioners of speech-act theory include Cameron (1970), Zeitlin ([1982] 2009), Stehle (2005) and, most recently, Fletcher (2012). Cf. the nuanced discussion of performative utterance in Collins (2008), whom I discuss more fully further on. Ritschl (1858), Fraenkel (1957), Cameron (1971), Benardete (1967), Winnington-Ingram (1977, an incredibly useful review article), Vidal-Naquet (1990) and, of course, Zeitlin ([1982] 2009). For reasons I have outlined earlier and that I will elaborate in the coming section, I disagree with Vidal-Naquet (1990), who could be said to be representative of the orthodox view of the shield scene, that ‘there is one thing that Eteocles—up to line 653—does not know but Zeus and the poet who is his interpreter do: It is that the network of emblems that appears to announce the fall of Thebes foretells not only its salvation but also disaster for the house of the Labdacids and the deaths of Eteocles and Polynices’ (284). ‘Typhon has been found as a real device; it must be A. who first makes the device a symbol of godlessness’ (Hutchinson 1985: 106). See Berman (2007: 54–72, esp. 61–63 for Hippomedon) for an informative discussion of actual shields and their depictions on vases (illustrations on pp. 77–86). Cf. Zeitlin’s ([1982] 2009: 123–27) tenfold schema of relationships between the warriors. Cf. Berman (2007): ‘Aeschylus has elevated the blazon above the level of artifact to that of an explicitly interpreted figurative symbol. The shields of the seven are as far removed from the shield of Achilles as they are from those painted on vases’ (73). Barrett restricts his analysis of Aeschylus to Persians (see 23–55), an understandable choice since that play makes rich use of its narrativity. But he also provides a useful appendix of messenger speeches in all extant tragedy (223–24). Cf. Goward (1999). See also the excellent essay of Scodel (2010) on ‘ignorant narrators,’ especially her typology of ‘self-interested’ and ‘limited’ narrators (424–25). There is a proper, as it were, messenger speech at lines 792–821, recounting (even if with a curious lack of detail—see Hutchinson 1985: ad loc) the outcome of the battle and, most important of all, the mutual fratricide. It is unclear, though, whether we are to imagine the messenger is the same person as the scout: see Lupas and Petre (1982: ad loc). Cf. Berman (2007): ‘The scout is responsible for this interpretation of the motivation behind curse and oracle. He has also been the medium though which Eteocles, and thus the audience, heard of the sortition of Argive captains and the events surrounding the Argive assignment of gates. But his interpretation is not idiosyncratic’ (164). I am unsure how we can judge the scout’s interpretation as ‘not idiosyncratic,’ but even if it was not, that does not make it any less an interpretation. See, for example, Ahl (1991), who suggested memorably of the OT that a Theban cabal had framed Oedipus for the death of Laius.

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42. Consider the revealing similarity of Donald Rumsfeld’s relationship with George W. Bush: The Decision Points Bush bears little relation to the George W. Bush of memory. The DPB is always poring over reports; GWB insisted on oneparagraph summaries, usually delivered orally. (Rumsfeld, who knew his man, presented his daily reports with shiny colour covers that had a stirring combat photo accompanied by an inspirational line from the Bible.) (Weinberger 2001) 43. See Cameron (1970: 103) on the shaky connection between Ares and Megareus. 44. Presumably Oedipus would have been well suited for this task. One wonders whether his native intelligence, his acuity in the face of an ominous riddle-spewing monster, passed down to his children. Judging from the tragic tradition—including Oedipus’ own eponymous play, one in which he displays an equal measure of self-sabotaging ‘knowingness’—we may have reason to doubt it. 45. Some version of this type of prayer accompanies the first six Thebans, as does the scout’s introduction of the following warrior. 46. See Zeitlin (1990: esp.144–45, 163–64). 47. This, as it were, linguistic manicheanism is thus prevalent among both characters and critics. But the construction of opposites is still a construction, not a transparent recognition of the ways things are. As Derrida long ago showed, within any semiotic system it is the relationship, the space, between all possible signifiers that enables any single momentary meaning. Language does not function via simple polarities but via radial relations. Thus to separate ‘descriptive’ statements from ‘performative’ is itself ‘doing things with words.’ How then do we distinguish constative symbol from performative kledon? Can we prevent constative symbols from becoming performative kledones? For a lively debate on this issue, see the exchange between Derrida and Searle in Limited Inc. 48. Gantz (1982) saw to the heart of this matter: Given the mixture of tenses [in Eteocles’ gate assignments] the matter was not of great importance to the playwright. This position becomes more obvious if we accept the fact that either way Eteokles can change the assignments; there is ample time for this while he argues with the women. The point is rather that he does not now wish to change the assignments; what we must ask is why. (16 n.62) 49. The term ‘sympathetic magic’ was coined by James Frazer in The Golden Bough, who identified two principal elements, ‘homeopathic’ and ‘contagious’ magic: ‘First, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and, second, that things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed’ (1917: 52, quoted in Collins 2008: 14). See Collins (2008: 1–26, esp. 14–17). 50. Stehle (2005) offers the most systematic attempt to draw a connection between the curse of Oedipus in this play and actual curse tablets. This connection, however, is shaky. First, very few of the 1,700 tablets found to date can reliably be placed in the early fifth century BCE. As Christopher Faraone remarks in an interview for the University of Chicago’s Fathom Archive, the earliest editors of the tablets dated them to the post-classical era on the erroneous assumption that ‘during the classical period (the time of the so-called “Greek miracle”) the Athenians were very rational and only “reverted” to more primitive modes of religion after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE’

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(see http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/1/777777122300/). However, ‘clear indications in the spelling, the handwriting and the names of the people being cursed [suggest] that these texts should in fact be dated to at least the time of Plato and probably even earlier.’ Second, the correlation of the tablets with tragic curses is misleading: We know from Greek tragedy and a couple of other sources that the Greeks had a very simple curse for people. They could just pray to a god to destroy someone completely: ‘Destroy so-and-so and his entire household.’ This is what I would call the nuclear bomb of curses, just a complete eradication of somebody. But none of all the classical curse tablets from Athens call for the complete destruction of the victim. This may be because in most ancient cultures, and the Athenian one in particular, there was a strong scruple against killing a member of one’s own city. Collins (2008: 65–66) notes that the earliest tablets listed only the names of the intended victim and included neither a verb of binding—let alone destruction— nor the name of the god responsible for carrying out the curse, features that became more prevalent in later tablets (on this development see Eidinow 2007). Finally, Stehle conflates the experience of theater and fiction with an act of popular religion. Watching a play in which characters call down curses and inscribing a curse tablet are two fundamentally different things (cf. Rosenmeyer 1982: 267). 51. See the refreshingly commonsensical aside of Gantz (1982): It is I think a general principle of Greek curses that the imprecation must have some justification before the gods will put it into effect; otherwise what would prevent every man from wreaking destruction upon his enemies. In the actual literature we rarely see even a request for a curse that does not have some merit. (19 n.73) 52. See the wonderful collection and translation of the PGM (as well as the demotic Egyptian spells) by Betz (1997). On ‘binding’ magic and the telling assortment of figurines and voodoo dolls that occasionally accompany it, see Gager (1999: 3–41 and esp. 78–115) and Collins (2008: 64–103). 53. See Collins’ (2008: 21–24) informative discussion of the work of Stanley Tambiah and ‘persuasive’ magic, which draws on the philosophy of language proposed by John Austin. 54. Hutchinson (1985) believes so: ‘A. wishes the figures to embody as vividly as possible the aspirations of each hero’ (106). 55. Following the messenger of Euripides’ Phoenissae, who identifies the shield of Tydeus as bearing ‘the Titan Prometheus carrying a torch as if to set fire to the town’ (1112), some critics have also connected this figure on Capaneus’ shield with Prometheus (e.g., Lupas and Petre 1982: ad loc). I tend to agree with Berman (2007: 44) that the relevance of this shield device to the dramatic purpose of the play would be ‘hopelessly confused’ by reference to Prometheus. On the other hand, could the problematic and populist figure from mythology be relevant to the narrative in another sense? Prometheus, as we know from both Hesiod and Prometheus Bound (as we saw in the previous chapter), was presumptuous and underhanded and caused more harm than good in stealing fire from the gods. Are we to imagine perhaps that Capaneus is here being figured as a promethean type of character in his reckless self-regard? He infamously boasted that not even Zeus could stop his attack on the walls of Thebes—which did not turn out well for him. See the references in Berman (2007: 44–46, 51), who believes Capaneus’ character has been confused with

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56. 57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

Inherited Guilt in Seven against Thebes the figure on the next Argive warrior Eteoclus’ shield, who makes a similar boast about Ares. Hutchinson adds: ‘A bird with a man in its claws is also found as an emblem . . . Certainly the Sphinx was shown in this position on works of art.’ Did he even make it himself? If not then who did—and why? If he didn’t fashion it, would he even understand it? Did the fabricator explain the significance to him? Would he assume it was appropriate for the attack on Thebes? Are we to assume that the same smith made all of the shields? If so why was he chosen? Was he, an Argive (?), familiar with the mythological tradition, or rather recent history, of Thebes? Apparently irrelevant but important questions keep multiplying. Note the curious switch between the indicative (μέμψεται) and optative (τἂν ἀληθεύσαιμ’). Why the sudden change from (implied) certainty to potential? As Hutchinson (1985: ad loc) explains, τἂν ἀληθεύσαιμ’ cannot be a wish ‘accompanied by the genitive absolute . . . θεοῦ θέλοντος and the like are stock phrases: θεῶν θελόντων is evidently treated as forming a closely-bound word-group, which ἄν may follow.’ Vidal-Naquet (1990) has suggested it ‘provides the key to the pattern [of the shields] as a whole’ to the extent that it shifts our attention to the ‘realm of ambiguous signs’ (290–91). I do not, however, follow him in assuming, with Moreau (1976: 164), that Amphiaraus is ‘the author’s mouthpiece’ simply by virtue of being a seer (Vidal-Naquet 1990: 481 n.59). Cf. the perceptive remarks of Zeitlin ([1982] 2009): ‘Amphiaraos suggests that identity might be located elsewhere than in iconic signs and symbols, and undermines the assumption that the surface of the shield is adequate to the essence of its bearer or to the prediction of the future’ (79). Pace Hutchinson (1985): To use the devices in this way was bold; but the meanings with which they are invested are all, for Greek spectators, natural and direct. Some scholars superimpose on the sequence complex and devious structures deriving from the concerns of anthropology. These seem to me to spoil the scene and strain the text . . . Simplicity is not always inferior to complexity. (106).

62. Cf. Lupas and Petre (1982: ad loc), Benardete (1967: 29). 63. Cf. Lupas and Petre (1982: 207 ad 649–52). 64. Gagarin (1976: 160–61). Cf. Parker (2009): ‘Perhaps then the chorus in Septem were not being wholly unrealistic when they suggested to Eteocles that “the black-clad Erinys will leave your house, when the gods receive sacrifice” (699–701). Mechanisms for getting free of elasteroi existed’ (142). This is certainly right but not because of any realism or correspondence in ritual purification between the world of the play and the Athenian world without. It’s a question, rather, of the chorus’ belief that Eteocles needn’t be as fatalistic as he’s suddenly become. 65. Cf. Eteocles’ initial response to the description of Tydeus’ shield: ‘Symbols don’t have the power to wound (ἑλκοποιά). Crests and bells have no bite without a spear’ (398–99). Zeitlin ([1982] 2009) claims that Eteocles has failed to recognize that even the kledonomantic reply is available for the status of kledon . . . He is also a potential receiver of his own message. The master troper cannot prevent the palintropic drift of his own utterances from working as a kledon against him and his name . . . Once the sign is seized as a kledon, it loses its determinacy and gains instead a dynamic power to determine the future. (29)

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66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

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Zeitlin calls this the ‘basic instability and ambiguity of language,’ but what she has really identified is a semiotic balance. As I noted earlier (note 47), language drifts more than just back and forth (‘palintropic’); it runs in all directions—to infinity, as Foucault once wrote—which means one cannot control the status of a kledon. Cf. Goward (1999): ‘[Eteocles’] words predict the outcome of the contests and so point to future fulfillment’ (73). Berman (2007: 50; cf. 26 with n.1) helpfully reminds us that the play avoids the question of the provenance of the conflict between the brothers. Cf. Long (1986). Cf. the subtle distinction Vernant (1990: 70, cf. 75) tries to draw between internal and external constraint with Williams’ (1993) discussion of immediate versus deferred fatalism (see Introduction). Hutchinson (1985: xxxix) and Berman (2007: 160) both acknowledge the indirection of the curse’s invocation—the oratio obliqua—but don’t ask whether such indirection has any implications. Cf. Hutchinson: ‘Unless the audience learned of . . . events [between Oedipus and Septem] through some special device (such as prophecy), it can have known of them only through previous familiarity with the myth. The distinction between such a source of knowledge and disclosures within the drama is for Greek tragedy fundamental’ (1985: xxx). Cf. Käppel (1998: 9–20), Föllinger (2003, 2009), Sewell-Rutter (2007: 136– 71) and Bees (2009: 73–110). Contrast Rosenmeyer (1982): [I]n the plays in which the curse on the house is activated—Agamemnon, Seven, Libation-Bearers—its full revelation comes late, and it is tempting to regard its use by the poet in the same light as belated explanations, to emphasize its function as a trope, a means of reverberating the suffering, rather than as a guiding principle of myth. (297, cf. 250)

72. Foley (2001: 50 n.110) notes the chorus’ unease about the continued pollution of the city even after the brothers’ deaths. 73. Tydeus, one of the fiercest of the Argive attackers, even ate the brains of Melanippus (Statius, Theb. 8.751ff., Apollodorus 3.6.8)! 74. Verses 1005–78 are widely believed to be an interpolation added sometime after the production of Sophocles’ Antigone and/or Euripides’ Phoenissae, possibly as part of a revival. Lloyd-Jones (1959) and Vidal-Naquet (1990) make compelling cases for their authenticity, but cf. Dawe (1967, 1978), Fraenkel (1964), Brown (1976), Cameron (1968), Orwin (1980: 193), WinningtonIngram (1983: 19 n.6), Hutchinson (1985: 209–11 ad loc) and Barrett (2007). 75. See the brilliant essay of Lear (1998) on ‘knowingness.’ Consider, for example, his remarks on an audience’s pity for Oedipus, which could just as easily apply to Eteocles: We can feel compassion for Oedipus because he is so human: we can see ourselves reflected in his puffed-up self-importance. But pity also requires a sense of distance. We can see the absurdity in Oedipus’ movement of thought, in a way which he cannot . . . When we pity Oedipus, we can indulge the illusion that we know how things really are. It is Oedipus, not we, who is stuck with the partial and distorted perspective. Being in the audience, it is as though we are looking on the world from an absolute perspective. (199) 76. Eagleton (2003: 110) is one of the few to recognize this important detail. Contrast Steiner (2008), whose idea of ‘absolute tragedy’ (which he considers Seven

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to exemplify) includes ‘Calvinist predestination, the seemingly inexplicable lottery of programmed damnation . . . [and] men and women whom the gods torture and kill “for their sport,” for whom there is no intercession with compensatory justice’ (34, 40). Eagleton’s (2008a: 344–46) response in the same volume has no kind words for Steiner’s typology. 77. Lear (1998) continues insightfully: Then comes the second punch. There comes a moment when we recognize that our pity rests on illusion, the illusion that we know absolutely. But we don’t. On this occasion we may well be right that Oedipus is making some disastrous mistakes in his thinking and in his emotional life, but overall we are not fundamentally better off than he is. We each must rely on our own sense of what is reasonable and unreasonable . . . We have to give up the illusion of an absolutely independent perspective from which to check how well our reasoning is going—and this should encourage a certain humility. The luxurious sense of distance required for pity vanishes. And fear becomes real. Precisely because of our humility, we too may bring down catastrophe. (199) Pace Goward (1999: 25, 48). 78. For this reason I share Eagleton’s (2003: 1–22) frustrations with modern theories of tragedy, which proceed under the impression that the theory is more important than the tragedy. 79. Pace Williams (1993): The play represents to us an outcome, together with such things as failed attempts to prevent it, with such power and in such a chain of significance as to kill speculation about alternatives. By compelling our attention and directing our fears to what it presents as actual, tragedy may leave us with no thought, and no need of a thought, about anything else. The general condition with fiction is that, beyond a certain point, there are no interesting or realistic questions about alternatives to the action. (146)

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The Necessity of Agamemnon

In any study of Aeschylus all roads naturally lead to the Oresteia. And in a study especially devoted to theology, determinism and the boundaries of human freedom we cannot but end with this trilogy. Perhaps because it survives intact as a trilogy, its perspective on and illustration of these issues is necessarily more complex; we have here witness to the lives and afterlives of human decisions in a way we have yet to experience in the individual, untrilogized plays we’ve examined up to this point. If Prometheus Bound (PV) raised the question of the limits of a god’s freedom and left the answer, frustratingly and tantalizingly, to our critical imagination, and if Seven against Thebes (Seven) raised and perhaps conclusively answered the issue of the tragedy a cursed life can visit on a family and a city, then the Oresteia will provide us a vision of the seemingly deterministic forces that trace out over the course of many human lives in many different directions. Inherited guilt, Geschlechterfluch, teleology, existentialism—these are the Oresteia.1 As we noted in the previous chapter, however, the force and logic of a trilogy can disorient, even disable, our hermeneutic faculties. An apparently teleological momentum among the first, second and third plays—plays whose stories have lives of their own and thus with which we are likely to be intimately familiar—sometimes gives answers where perhaps we would be better to ask further questions. This was particularly the case with the Prometheus and Labdacid trilogies, which although lost nevertheless played their spectral roles in scholarly discussions of the respective surviving play. Based on assumptions about those lost plays—Zeus’ reconciliation with Prometheus, for example, or the curse of Oedipus against his sons—we many times fall prey to the seduction of either retrofitting these assumptions into surviving plays that come prior (as in the case of PV) or projecting them onto those that come after (as in the case of Seven). While this practice appears harmless, it actually hampers the evolution of our criticism significantly. Starting with the end in mind, no matter how sensitive our critical sensibilities, blinds us to the weird and fascinating fits and starts of the plays themselves, the misdirections and misunderstandings that complicate, sideshadow or subvert what we think we know about a play. As I’ve tried to show in the previous chapters, what we ‘know’ about PV and Seven, what

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‘everyone already knows’—that Zeus is subject to a fate greater than he is willing to acknowledge, that Eteocles is subject to a fate more gruesome than he can avoid—are the very things the plays themselves put into question. The plays themselves then, we might say, diagnose the projection of our prejudices and desires even as we seek to elucidate their own. So it goes in the following chapters on the Oresteia as well—even despite our fortuitous possession of an entire trilogy. That is to say, even though we ‘know’ a number of things about the trilogy, I will be reading and interacting with the plays as if they were individual, like PV and Seven. This will be reflected most immediately by the separation of the plays into two chapters, this first on Agamemnon alone and the next on Choephoroi and Eumenides together. This is essentially and most obviously because Agamemnon is considerably longer than the others and thus requires more space and more time to dig into its complexities. My individuation of the plays will subsequently and consequently be evident in my unwillingness to ‘retrobode’ episodes or events with later episodes or events either within plays (e.g., reading Agamemnon’s death back into his act of treading on the tapestries Clytemnestra lays before him) or between them (e.g., reading Apollo’s validation of Orestes’ matricide in Eumenides back to Orestes’ invocation of Apollo’s oracle at the beginning of Choephoroi).2 Agamemnon in particular—and this holds for Aeschylean tragedy more generally—is too rich and complex to look for or to retrospectively apply any one overarching momentum or teleology. To make these plays fit or work together in the service of some systematic ‘Aeschylean theology’—again, even despite the fact that they have come to us as such—gives us a false sense of hermeneutic security. This is especially the case with the issues of theology and human freedom we have been examining in this book. Hence one of the questions we will need to ask ourselves in the course of this discussion is whether what we traditionally know about trilogies either pertains to the Oresteia or holds in and of itself as an understanding of trilogies.3 At the risk of coming off as unnecessarily polemical, but concomitantly so as to provide an originary point of reference for our analysis further on, I want to start with what we can confidently identify as the orthodox reading of the trilogy: We may say that in the Oresteia Zeus and the Olympians are partisans of the Atreids and opponents of their enemies, whether Trojans or Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. They want Paris and Troy punished; they do not want Agamemnon murdered; they want Orestes to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus and do not want him to suffer punishment for doing so. Whereas the Atreids are leagued with the newer gods, the Olympians, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus are leagued with the older gods, the chthonians, represented by the Erinyes and ruled by the Moerae . . . Agamemnon is a victim of the Curse that punishes him for his father’s crime . . . To say that Zeus is Agamemnon’s partisan is not to say that

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Agamemnon is free of hamartia and guilt in the world of men. His fault is lack of compassion and fellow-feeling, which leads to deeds of hybris and moral blindness. He was guilty of sacrificing his daughter, Iphigeneia; by this deed he incurred Clytemnestra’s hatred, so that she leagued herself with the Thyestid Aegisthus (who represents the curse that demands expiation of Atreus’ crime) and killed him. Agamemnon is truly a tragic hero; be we must not suppose that the hero’s fault is necessarily an offense against Zeus or that Zeus wills his catastrophe. Zeus is a divine Agamemnon. (Fontenrose 1971: 106–7)4 This was written in 1971, although it could have come from a century prior when Wecklein and Verall, and subsequently Wilamowitz-Moellendorf and Mazon, composed their editions of the Oresteia. And this despite the fact that subsequent readers and editors—Denniston and Page, Kitto, Dodds, Lloyd-Jones, Lebeck, Zeitlin, Peradotto (the list goes on)—had in the intervening years offered substantial critiques of such literalism. And despite the thrilling critical advances we have continued to witness in the study of the Oresteia in the years since—and here I’m thinking particularly of the work of Goldhill, Griffith, Foley and Wohl—I am surprised to find readings like this still in currency. I have no illusions that my own foray will unstick the orthodoxy any better than those thrilling ones did, but I would like to believe that it will pay homage and due diligence to them all the same.

WATCHMAN ‘This simple man’s feelings, his fear of his mistress and affection for his master, are delicately portrayed in a brief space . . . In the whole of extant Greek Tragedy there are few characters of such brief appearance so memorably drawn.’ So begin Denniston and Page (1957: 65) in their commentary on Agamemnon. It is hard not to agree with the sentiment.5 In a mere forty lines the watchman sets out the fundamental elements of the play we are about to witness: Agamemnon’s return is imminent if not at least hoped for, either Clytemnestra or Aegisthus has posted the watchman to announce the signal fire and thence Agamemnon’s arrival, things have not been ‘honorably managed’ in the house in Agamemnon’s absence. With regard to the remainder, however, the watchman will famously hold his tongue (36). In the world of Greek tragedy, though, a world that circulates canonical mythological stories as its lifeblood, suspense is never absolute. We know this story. We know these people. Whatever variants developed in the inevitable evolution of such stories, we know Agamemnon and Clytemnestra and Aegisthus and Orestes and so on. By the fourth century Aristotle could state that the best tragedies played and replayed the lives of a few (in)famous families (and that a select few would know the stories in their detail—Poet. 1451b24–26),

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and Antiphanes could brilliantly joke that a tragic poet had only to mention a character’s name and the entire crowd would immediately know the whole story (Poetry frag. 189, PCG II). Oresteia: Tragic dilemmas! Human sacrifice! Skull-splitting! Matricide and tyrannicide! Pus-oozing hellhounds! Justice? Certain things we can apparently take for granted in our spectatorship of Agamemnon: Agamemnon will have sacrificed his daughter Iphigeneia to appease Artemis and ultimately to launch his stalled expedition; Clytemnestra will have taken her revenge by the play’s end for this very sacrifice; and Aegisthus will have conspired with Clytemnestra for his own opportunistic reasons. In the subsequent plays Orestes will have returned to enact his own vengeance and subsequently will have been hounded for it by the Furies; ultimately he will have been acquitted by a jury of his peers in a new court established by Athena. So far, so familiar. But the comfort and ease with which we deploy those future perfects might well also distract us from the fact that the trilogy, and especially Agamemnon, dramatizes—we might even say symptomatizes— the question and the problem of knowledge. Who knows what when, how and to what effect: These are the very questions underpinning the trilogy. Inasmuch as we know this story and these people, then, we become part of its enactment of the consequences of knowingness. This much the watchman himself implies in a few sly lines before disappearing (37–39): οἶκος δ’ αὐτός, εἰ φθογγὴν λάβοι, σαφέστατ’ ἂν λέξειεν· ὡς ἑκὼν ἐγὼ μαθοῦσιν αὐδῶ κοὐ μαθοῦσι λήθομαι The house itself, were it to find voice, might speak very plainly; as far as I am concerned, I am deliberately speaking to those who know—and for those who do not, I am deliberately forgetting. As Sommerstein (2008) notes, ‘The theatre audience, knowing the story well, will understand that he is alluding to the adultery of Clytaemestra and Aegisthus’ (6–7 n.7). Yes, of course we know. But that knowledge is at this point a presumption the play has yet to corroborate, so we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, because doing so risks overdetermining (and thus undermining) our experience and our interpretation. So the play from its very opening seems to be asking a very basic question: Do we really know this story and these people? Let’s start with the watchman. As Denniston and Page point out, we know from the Odyssey (4.524ff.)6 that Aegisthus posted a ‘hired spy’ to warn of Agamemnon’s return, but here the watchman is clearly a ‘loyal servant’ of his master. He cryptically but (by most critical standards) pointedly signals to Clytemnestra’s unfeminine behavior (γυναικὸς ἀνδρόβουλον ἐλπίζον κέαρ, 11), the

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disarray of household management (18–19) and the joy he will experience in simply clasping Agamemnon’s hand (34–35). The watchman is thus already a different person than we might have expected. This being the case, and in light of what we previously discussed, it is worth considering the tenor and disposition of his opening. Leaving aside for the moment the strange issue (and coinage) of ἀνδρόβουλον, what could it mean that the house, now a source of fear and grief for the watchman, is not as admirably managed as it had been formerly? Would a watchman have any special insight into the proper functioning of a royal house—other than the types of opinions the servant class might be expected to have about its masters and mistresses? As we already see from his opening lines (1–3), the watchman expresses utter displeasure at his assigned duties. Are we not to imagine that such displeasure might have some bearing on his opinion of the management of the house? Or are we simply to assume that a woman should not be responsible for the management of the house and that, in the particular case of Clytemnestra, shady things are afoot in her heart?7 We can only make this latter assumption, I think, if we’ve already read the end of the story (Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon) back into her intentions—intentions supposed by the watchman; that is, not necessarily those presented by Clytemnestra herself. But without that supposition what is there to suggest something suspect about a heart that is ἀνδρόβουλον? Apart from the topsy-turvy gender implications, we might think that in the absence of her husband Clytemnestra is trying to manage the house like a man would, in which case an ἀνδρόβουλον κέαρ would be required and possibly even beneficial.8 What, though, of this heart’s expectations (ἐλπίζον)? Can we be sure it involves only regicide?9 The watchman’s sneering tone certainly gives this impression. Even if that were the only possibility for ἐλπίζον, who are we to say that a women who has seen her child brutally slaughtered, who has witnessed the abject destruction of all hope, shouldn’t laser-focus her expectation to her own brutal act of slaughter? I don’t want to suggest that this is the only possibility; rather, I prefer to leave that hope and expectation unresolved partly because it’s already presented as such since it comes from the mouth of someone other than Clytemnestra herself,10 and partly because to resolve that hope and expectation so early in our experience of the play is to unnecessarily straitjacket our expectations of the characters, the plot and even Aeschylus himself. Coming back then to our watchman’s departing salvo, we might ask: What is the substance of σαφέστατ’, and are we sure it accords strictly with the ‘truth’ as we conceive of it? Given what we’ve just discussed, the superlative strikes me as deceptively assured. The watchman very clearly means that the house would corroborate his judgment. But why would the personified house be presumed to take his, or rather Agamemnon’s, side and not Clytemnestra’s?11 If we are making assumptions based on our knowledge of the story, then presumably the loss Clytemnestra suffered at her husband’s

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hands would also figure in the house’s judgment of its tenants. In that case wouldn’t her wily ἀνδρόβουλον κέαρ be a source of empathetic pride for the personified house? In short, the watchman projects his own prejudices on the house itself— and subsequently on the tradition we’ve received—and then forces closure on it with an unwarranted superlative adjective. Thus, in his coquettish phrase μαθοῦσιν αὐδῶ κοὐ μαθοῦσι λήθομαι hides a clever suppression: Who is really in the know and who isn’t? It’s like a wry wink on Aeschylus’ part (cf. Wians 2009). We have been put in the position of thinking we know the disposition of the house but have also been exposed to the prejudices of a jaundiced complainer. Is he really in the know?12 We might then balk a bit at Sommerstein’s suggestion that we all just immediately get the allusion.

CHORAL PARODOS After the opening monologue of the watchman the chorus enters to deliver its long, complex and famous parodos. Let me begin with some of its opening words: ‘It is the tenth year now since the Atreidae have prosecuted their war against Priam . . . They uttered from their hearts a great cry for war like birds of prey grieving for their lost children’ (40–54). What a strange and untimely simile to begin with! If we are all presumed to know this story—and here I hope readers understand that I want to maintain the tension between what we all already know and the play’s engagement with and manipulation of that knowledge—why would the chorus put us in the thought of parents grieving over lost children? Clytemnestra, as we all know, was robbed of her child by one of these Atreid vultures.13 This glorious-sounding simile undermines from the outset both the chorus’ judgment and our impression of the great leader(s), if not at least introducing the possibility that there will be a disjunction between the chorus’ involvement in the story and the story as we might know it.14 Their judgment, as we will presently see, comes into play explicitly in the claim to have the authority to narrate the ‘auspicious’ beginning of the expedition (κύριός εἰμι θροεῖν ὅδιον κράτος αἴσιον ἀνδρῶν / ἐκτελέων, 104–5). But given their own revealingly inauspicious start we may have reason to consider two possible scenarios: (1) that their authority is suspect and will only amount to a partial (and thus prejudiced) account of the expedition’s history; and/or (2) that, precisely because of their partiality and prejudicial investment in this history, their authority consists in normatively shaping the narrative in one particular and important way: so as to suppress and erase the memory of Iphigeneia and to revise her mother’s justifiable rage. If there is one thing we can trace through the course of the trilogy, it is the systematic and total erasure of Iphigeneia, who starts as a mere nameless memory and ends up as a specter in the machinery of Athenian democracy.15

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And if we are to imagine the chorus actively and normatively constructing the tradition that will become our canonical story, then their inauspicious start may well also reflect a narratological insouciance, a taunt almost: This is our story to tell. We have the authority to tell it. We are the ones to determine what an auspicious figuration is and what is not. We can start this story in this way and it will provide the same closure. Do you think you have the authority to tell it differently? We are off to a difficult start here in this opening choral scene—and Aeschylus wants us to know it. We are put in the position of having to determine for ourselves whether, why and how we will accompany this chorus of elders in their authoritative account. They go on (55–71): ὕπατος δ’ ἀίων ἤ τις Ἀπόλλων ἢ Πὰν ἢ Ζεὺς οἰωνόθροον γόον ὀξυ βόαν τῶν δε μετοίκων, ὑστερόποινον πέμπει παραβᾶσιν Ἐρινύν· οὕτω δ’ Ἀτρέως παῖδας ὁ κρείσσων ἐπ’ Ἀλεξάνδρωι πέμπει ξένιος Ζεὺς πολυάνορος ἀμφὶ γυναικός, πολλὰ παλαίσματα καὶ γυιοβαρῆ, γόνατος κονίαισιν ἐρειδομένου διακναιομένης τ’ ἐν προτελείοις κάμακος, θήσων Δαναοῖσιν Τρωσί θ’ ὁμοίως. ἔστι δ’ ὅπηι νῦν ἔστι, τελεῖται δ’ ἐς τὸ πεπρωμένον· οὔθ’ ὑποκαίων οὔτ’ ἀπολείβων ἀπύρων ἱερῶν ὀργὰς ἀτενεῖς παραθέλξει From on high some Apollo, some Pan, some Zeus hears the loud, piercing cry of his realm’s inhabitants and sends an Erinys to exact belated punishment upon the sinners. So the mighty one, Zeus the protector of guest-frienship, sends the sons of Atreus after Alexander on behalf of the man-hoarding woman, to bring struggles both numerous and limb-wearying—knees fixed in dust, spearshafts shattered in prenuptial rites, imposing them upon both Greeks and Trojans alike. It is where it is now, it is being fulfilled according to what was ordained. And neither by the burning of flames nor the pouring out of fireless libations will one charm off that incessant anger. We might be surprised at the inclusion of either Pan or Apollo in this trinity,16 but what stands out here is the lack of precision: not only could

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it be either Zeus, Pan or Apollo sending an Erinys against ‘transgressors’ (παραβᾶσιν), but also ‘some’ (τις) Zeus, Pan or Apollo. This lack of clarity seems innocuous, but the move the chorus makes from this position of imprecision is telling. The οὕτω of line 60 has to carry a lot of weight if it is meant to bridge the distance between confusion and outright comparison (‘and so in this same way’). First, we’re to accept the chorus’ assertion that one of these three gods sends an Erinys against generic transgressors; then that this same god, this time identified as Zeus Xenios, sent an Erinys against the Trojans for this very reason.17 The chorus simply asserts that this is the case and that therefore the war will turn out as it has been, in their minds, ‘destined’ (τελεῖται δ’ ἐς τὸ πεπρωμένον, 68). For this reason they assert that nothing—neither sacrifices nor libations—will assuage the gods’ ὀργὰς ἀτενεῖς (69–71), a rather delimiting (even if apparently natural; cf. Fraenkel 1950: ad loc) claim on what the gods are willing and not willing to accept as absolution. But these are the very men who previously could not identify which god was behind the sending of the Atreidae. Why then should we trust what they say about the gods’ openness to sacrifice? We are probably justified in suspecting that the chorus has a particular reason for claiming the gods avenge transgression and refuse compensation: they themselves feel they have been transgressed against and so they themselves would not accept compensation. Ergo, Zeus Xenios has sent the Atreidae to punish the Trojans. Let’s come back again then to the question of the chorus’ authority. To avow as they do here that their authority (κύριός εἰμι, 104) consists of their inborn age (σύμφυτος αἰών, 106) and its concomitant persuasiveness (Πειθώ, 106) is to claim that wisdom and effective storytelling, not necessarily objective truth, govern their narrative.18 Because if truth and not just prejudice were currently on display, the chorus would have to account for their inconsistency on sacrifice. They claimed earlier that nothing sways the insatiable wrath of the gods (at least not the ones they’ve identified as prosecuting this just war) but then, in their evocation of Clytemnestra as healer and counselor, admit that her votive offerings do indeed inspire optimism: ‘Because of the sacrifices, gentle Hope manifests herself, and wards off our insatiable worries and the grief that eats at our inward soul’ (101–3). Couple this with their repetition of the phrase τὸ δ’ εὖ νικάτω (121, 138, 159, 217, 255), which seems to imply hesitation and uncertainty, and we may wonder whether the chorus is truly κύριος.19 We could certainly treat such phrasing as a simple form of piety—they don’t want to presume too much about the gods’ intentions (although they’ve already been doing that anyway)—but it also plays into the general atmosphere of confusion that Aeschylus is building up. We have acknowledgments of ignorance twinned with self-confident assertions, a particularly revealing psychology of character and narrative development. To whom, then, are these men persuasive? And where exactly do we stand on these matters, we who happen to not be in the know but who feel we know this story anyway?

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The trouble for the Greeks—and for the chorus as narrator—begins at Aulis. The Achaeans see two birds of omen, eagles, devouring a pregnant hare. Calchas the seer steps in (123–39): κεδνὸς δὲ στρατόμαντις ἰδὼν δύο λήμασι δισσοὺς Ἀτρεΐδας μαχίμους ἐδάη λαγοδαίτας, πομποὺς ἀρχᾶς, οὕτω δ’ εἶπε τεράιζων· ‘χρόνωι μὲν ἀγρεῖ Πριάμου πόλιν ἅδε κέλευθος, πάντα δὲ πύργων κτήνη πρόσθετα δημιοπληθῆ Μοῖρα λαπάξει πρὸς τὸ βίαιον· οἶον μή τις ἄγα θεόθεν κνεφάσηι προτυπὲν στόμιον μέγα Τροίας στρατωθέν· οἴκτωι γὰρ ἐπίφθονος Ἄρτεμις ἁγνὰ πτανοῖσιν κυσὶ πατρὸς αὐτότοκον πρὸ λόχου μογερὰν πτάκα θυομένοισιν· στυγεῖ δὲ δεῖπνον αἰετῶν.’ αἴλινον αἴλινον εἰπέ, τὸ δ’ εὖ νικάτω And the trusty prophet seeing the portent recognized the warlike sons of Atreus—two of them, twain in their dispositions—in the harebanqueteers, the escorts of the expedition, and so said in interpretation: ‘In time this voyage will hunt down the city of Priam, and Moira will viciously plunder the entirety of the common stock laid out before the walls. Only let no resentment from the gods darken the great mouth-bit of Troy, the mustered army, struck before striking. For holy Artemis out of pity holds a grudge against the winged hounds of her father that slaughter the pitiful cowering animal, unborn children and all. She abhors the feast of the eagles.’ Cry woe woe, but let the good prevail. Calchas sees something in the ravenous eagles that bears a resemblance to the ravenous ‘desires’ of the Atreidae, perhaps nothing more.20 But has he made the right connection?21 We’re left without an answer.22 Presumably we are meant to trust a seer like Calchas, but Greek literature is rife with misunderstood communication between gods and humans (even assuming this is a type of communication happening here).23 Whatever the case, the confusion is elided with another load-bearing οὕτω (125), bridging yet again the distance between the unknown and the similar and ordaining his interpretation as κεδνός.24 The chorus casts no doubt on this; in fact, they go on to offer a direct quotation in which Calchas invokes Moira (130), a further fatal element in the mix.25 Calchas fears, however, that the omen may cause further trouble—ἄγα θεόθεν (131)—but this doesn’t prompt him to revise his interpretation of it; rather, he jumps to the conclusion that Artemis has a problem with the eagles devouring the hares. In a way, then, Calchas assumes Artemis possesses the same hermeneutic skill as he does, that she connects the twin

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eagles with the Atreidae and will thus punish them. She may well begrudge Zeus’ winged hounds for what they are doing, but can we be so sure she begrudges them for what they represent (if anything at all)?26 The chorus— again, the body narrating—simply accepts Calchas’ figurations. They continue in the following epode (140–59): ‘τόσον περ εὔφρων ἁ καλὰ δρόσοις ἀέπτοις μαλερῶν λεόντων πάντων τ’ ἀγρονόμων φιλομάστοις θηρῶν ὀβρικάλοισι τερπνά, τούτων αἰτεῖ ξύμβολα κρᾶναι, δεξιὰ μὲν κατάμομφα δὲ φάσματα· ἰήιον δὲ καλέω Παιᾶνα, μή τινας ἀντιπνόους Δαναοῖς χρονίας ἐχενῆιδας ἀπλοίας τεύξηι σπευδομένα θυσίαν ἑτέραν ἄνομόν τιν’ ἄδαιτον, νεικέων τέκτονα σύμφυτον, οὐ δεισήνορα· μίμνει γὰρ φοβερὰ παλίνορτος οἰκονόμος δολία, μνάμων Μῆνις τεκνόποινος.’ So kindly is the beautiful goddess to the unfledged young of mighty lions, so pleasant to the suckling pups of all wild beasts: She demands the fulfilment of these signs, portents both auspicious and blameworthy. So I call upon the Healer: don’t allow her to impose upon the Greeks any ill-blowing winds that will hold their expedition at bay for a long time, demanding another sacrifice—this time without music or feast—a strife-dealer born of the same blood that fears no man. For a frightful beguiler awaits at home, arising later, a mindful Wrath to avenge a child. Despite his fear of Artemis’ grudge, Calchas is nevertheless sure she assents to the fulfillment of the ξύμβολα.27 But if Artemis feels pity for innocent young and grudges the eagles’ feast, why would she give her consent to the expedition or to the destruction of Troy?28 Again, Calchas presumes that he and Artemis are on the same page with regard to the ξύμβολα, but perhaps what are ξύμβολα to him (which necessarily are both δεξιά and κατάμομφα—that is, ambiguous) are a different type of language for her. Gods only communicate through symbols with humans. Divine signs are excessive, though, and cannot be perfectly mapped into the symbolic framework of comprehension and interpretation. The indivisible remainder, generally speaking, always leads to trouble.29 Add to this the fact that, etymologically but also practically, a ξύμ-βολον is for humans a random fallout (> συμβάλλειν) of events. A ξύμβολον is thus a symbol of contingency and chance, and thus to ascribe a purpose—especially one so loaded as the anger of a god—is to stake a particularly risky proposal.30

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So, given what we ‘know’ is coming (Agamemnon’s dilemma), Calchas offers what can only be described as a curiously self-actualizing, even if apotropaic, prayer: Let Artemis not demand a second sacrifice (146–55). Fred Ahl (1991) has raised this question in particular of Tiresias in the OT: ‘Is prophecy in such cases proof of the seer’s foreknowledge of subsequent actions, or is it the cause of what follows?’ (88). We could hardly find a more apposite circumstance than this here. For if we are primed for the possibility that Artemis will demand another sacrifice, then the call for a second sacrifice later will inevitably lead us to think Artemis demands it.31 But does Aeschylus give us that much certainty? I’m not so sure.32 What of the rather menacing vision Calchas has of the ‘frightful beguiler waiting at home, arising later, a mindful Wrath to avenge a child’ (154–55)? Seers are wont to say vatic things, but one would think an ominous warning like this might raise a concerned eyebrow on the part of the Atreidae.33 When neither the leaders of the expedition nor the body responsible for this authoritative account bother to inquire about this cryptic yet clearly ill-omened child-avenging Wrath—in a moment of child sacrifice—we have to suspect their capacity for authoritative knowledge. Aeschylus has put these disjunctions, these disappointments of knowledge, this disinterest in knowledge on display for us. Hereafter intervenes the famous Zeus hymn (160–66, 174–78): Ζεὺς ὅστις ποτ’ ἐστίν, εἰ τόδ’ αὐτῶι φίλον κεκλημένωι, τοῦτό νιν προσεννέπω· οὐκ ἔχω προσεικάσαι πάντ’ ἐπισταθμώμενος πλὴν Διός, εἰ τὸ μάταν ἀπὸ φροντίδος ἄχθος χρὴ βαλεῖν ἐτητύμως Ζῆνα δέ τις προφρόνως ἐπινίκια κλάζων τεύξεται φρενῶν τὸ πᾶν, τὸν φρονεῖν βροτοὺς ὁδώσαντα, τὸν πάθει μάθος θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν Zeus, whoever he may be, if it pleases him to be called this name, then I will call him this. I have no way to compare him, weighing everything toether, except to Zeus, if it is necessary to truly throw off the vain burden of anxiety . . . He who graciously shouts out cries of victory to Zeus shall strike everything when it comes to wisdom, for Zeus set mortals on the path to wisdom by establishing that learning by suffering held authority. The chorus clearly illustrates, either out of reverence or simple ignorance, that they know nothing of Zeus, not even his name.34 They have nothing to

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compare him to; he is a tautology.35 So their solution is: simply call him by a good name and you will achieve your heart’s desire.36 This is a rather primitive and opportunistic, if understandable, vision of the gods that the chorus displays.37 And it would seem to conflict with their earlier assertion that nothing, not prayers or libations, sways the god who sends an Erinys against a transgressor. So, given the perspective on the world and the gods we’ve been getting from the chorus—from their normative description of Calchas’ prophecies (which they will affirm yet again at the end of the parodos) to their inconsistent belief in the malleability of the gods—are we to take their statement about πάθει μάθος, and in particular Zeus’ role as the mastermind of that sensibility, as anything more than a guess at or self-serving justification of the human condition (cf. Dover 1973: 63)? There is something sententiously tragic, and even tragically sententious, in this description that underscores the chorus’ aggrieved sense of entitlement and desire for vengeance.38 Are we to accept their account as authoritative simply on the basis of their assertion?39 We are told that Agamemnon ‘blamed no prophet’ (μάντιν οὔτινα ψέγων, 186) when his soldiers were stranded in Aulis. Are we to see this as a judgment of his leadership?40 Perhaps he finds no fault with Calchas because he believes him and therefore feels there’s nothing to do about it.41 According to Calchas, however, ‘another remedy’ is required (193–204): πνοαὶ δ’ ἀπὸ Στρυμόνος μολοῦσαι κακόσχολοι, νήστιδες, δύσορμοι, βροτῶν ἄλαι, ναῶν καὶ πεισμάτων ἀφειδεῖς, παλιμμήκη χρόνον τιθεῖσαι τρίβωι κατέξαινον ἄνθος Ἀργείων· ἐπεὶ δὲ καὶ πικροῦ χείματος ἄλλο μῆχαρ βριθύτερον πρόμοισιν μάντις ἔκλαγξεν προφέρων Ἄρτεμιν, ὥστε χθόνα βάκτροις ἐπικρούσαντας Ἀτρείδας δάκρυ μὴ κατασχεῖν Winds came down from the Strymon bringing unwelcome furlough, starving them, disrupting their anchorage, causing men to wander afar, sparing neither ship nor cable, stretching out the time twice-over, and wore down with its menace the flower of the Argives. And then the prophet cried out another remedy for the bitter storm, this one more grievous for the leaders, proffering Artemis as cause, so that the sons of Atreus struck the ground with their staffs and could no longer hold back their tears. Fraenkel (1950: ad loc) quotes Paley here: ‘It is implied that some remedies had been recommended, tried, and found to fail, before this last and

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terrible resource was enjoined.’ ἄλλο implies options, a number of choices (not one of two like ἕτερος—see θυσίαν ἑτέραν, 149), any one of which might work.42 In that case the only thing that makes this remedy βριθύτερον, other than the fact that Agamemnon and the rest take it on face value as the only viable option, is that Calchas proffers Artemis as cause.43 Remember, however, that we’ve been prepared for this possibility already: Calchas earlier prayed that Artemis not demand another sacrifice (150)—here he fulfills it for her all by himself. And without his having claimed that Artemis would be the one to strand the Greeks, even if in an apotropaic prayer, this προφέρων carries no more authority than a guess.44 Calchas in this scene, not Artemis, effectively overdetermines the bad luck of the Greeks by narrowing the scope of possible meanings for their stranding.45 Agamemnon, we know, accepts Calchas’ words, definitely not blaming him (where he might have, for limiting the possible meanings of their stranding) and not asking him whether there might be another way (205–17): ἄναξ δ’ ὁ πρέσβυς τόδ’ εἶπε φωνῶν ‘βαρεῖα μὲν κὴρ τὸ μὴ πιθέσθαι, βαρεῖα δ’ εἰ τέκνον δαΐξω, δόμων ἄγαλμα, μιαίνων παρθενοσφάγοισιν ῥείθροις πατρώιους χέρας πέλας βωμοῦ· τί τῶνδ’ ἄνευ κακῶν; πῶς λιπόναυς γένωμαι ξυμμαχίας ἁμαρτών; παυσανέμου γὰρ θυσίας παρθενίου θ’ αἵματος ὀργᾶι περιόργωι σφ’ ἐπιθυμεῖν θέμις. εὖ γὰρ εἴη.’ And the elder leader said this in response: ‘Grievous is the doom for not obeying, grievous is the doom if I slaughter my child, the joy of my house, polluting these paternal hands with streams of maiden’s blood so close to the altar. Which of these options comes free of sin? How could I desert my ship and turn my back on my allies? It’s right that they passionately desire the sacrifice of a virgin whose blood will end the winds. May it all turn out well.’ Agamemnon accepts the constraints imposed on his situation not by the gods but by Calchas, a fact reflected in his presentation of his dilemma: There are now only two options (μὲν . . . δ’—what happened to ἄλλο?), both of which are equally terrible. Either he deserts his fleet and fails his alliance or slaughters his daughter. But are these really his only two options?46 Would seeking yet another way out, an ἄλλο μῆχαρ, be in any way a failure to his allies, evidence of his unfitness for command?47

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What matters most here is that Agamemnon believes his choices are constrained to these two options, which is why he invokes some perverted sense of θέμις to justify his decision (214–17).48 Apparently, however, he is not entirely convinced (εὖ γὰρ εἴη).49 If you think about it, though, this claim on ‘what is right’ isn’t entirely irrational or perverted: Given the selfimposed constraints of his circumstances, the rules about right and wrong take on a new logic. But we aren’t meant to accept Agamemnon’s limited perspective50; rather, we are to see how he confronts the maddening undecideability of an awful situation, how he acts and reacts in circumstances that present to his mind two dreadful options. Simply put, he gambles. We are meant to see not divine imposition but how the world of ethical choice is circumscribed—perverted, we might say—by reducing choice to dilemma,51 a μὲν . . . δ’ construction.52 Now the chorus’ assertion that Agamemnon put on the ‘yoke-strap of Necessity’ makes a bit more sense (218–27): ἐπεὶ δ’ ἀνάγκας ἔδυ λέπαδνον φρενὸς πνέων δυσσεβῆ τροπαίαν ἄναγνον ἀνίερον, τόθεν τὸ παντότολμον φρονεῖν μετέγνω· βροτοὺς θρασύνει γὰρ αἰσχρόμητις τάλαινα παρακοπὰ πρωτοπήμων· ἔτλα δ’ οὖν θυτὴρ γενέσθαι θυγατρός, γυναικοποίνων πολέμων ἀρωγὰν καὶ προτέλεια ναῶν And when he donned the yoke-strap of Necessity, blowing within his mind in the direction of the impious, the impure, the ungodly, then he brought himself to contemplate the most reckless. For the ill-scheming wretched infatuation, originator of suffering, makes men bold. He went so far as to become his own daughter’s sacrificer, to facilitate the woman-made war and to initiate the rites of the ships. Agamemnon was ‘forced’ by both the circumstances of his limited options and his belief that his options were limited.53 If he is unwilling to blame a seer for the situation, he is certainly not going to blame a god for it.54 The chorus calls this a reversal of mind that led him to recklessness (221), an ‘infatuation’ (παρακοπά), but it is clear that this decision of Agamemnon’s proceeds directly from the only conclusions he can draw from Calchas’ interpretation. From the chorus’ perspective, to be sure, it’s unbelievable, but they have the hermeneutic and intellectual comfort of more than ten years’ distance.55 Thus their invocation of the ‘yoke-strap of Necessity’ is less a statement of fact than a confused and horrified guess (cf. Parker 2009: 139). How else to describe his behavior except to say he ‘had to do it’?56

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We learn as the ode progresses that Agamemnon would indeed have been seen as a traitor had he not sacrificed Iphigeneia (228–37): λιτὰς δὲ καὶ κληδόνας πατρώιους παρ’ οὐδὲν αἰῶνα παρθένει όντ’ ἔθεντο φιλόμαχοι βραβῆς· φράσεν δ’ ἀόζοις πατὴρ μετ’ εὐχὰν δίκαν χιμαίρας ὕπερθε βωμοῦ πέπλοισι περιπετῆ παντὶ θυμῶι προνωπῆ λαβεῖν ἀέρδην στόματός τε καλλιπρώιρου φυλακᾶι κατασχεῖν φθόγγον ἀραῖον οἴκοις She pleaded and called upon her father but all for nothing. The bloodthirsty commanders didn’t give a damn for them or her virgin years. After a prayer her father told his attendants to seize her and lift her with all their strength and courage high above the altar like some goat, face down, her clothes falling all around her, and to gag her beautiful mouth so that she couldn’t curse his house. The ‘war-loving commanders’ count her prayers and cries for nothing.57 Agamemnon then descends into an anodyne ritualism, even going so far as to gag his daughter to check a curse. But he shows too much faith in this technocratic solution to cover the fact that an innocent human is the victim (cf. μιαίνων, 209).58 What kind of rednecked theology is this in which the gods can’t distinguish between a propitious and an unpropitious sacrifice, especially one involving the anathema of human sacrifice?59 Wouldn’t they know the difference between a cow and a young woman?60 Whatever our position, it is intriguing that Agamemnon would need to fear the curses of his daughter if he felt, following the advice of Calchas, that the sacrifice was divinely mandated. That’s what I would call a hedge, and that hedge means something: Agamemnon isn’t sure (cf. τί τῶνδ’ ἄνευ κακῶν, 211), a fact that gives new force to his prayer εὖ γὰρ εἴη. He knows his anodyne ritualism is a farce61; he’s simply going through the motions on a vague and vain hope it will catch.62 But can the power of a curse be checked simply by muffling it? The description of Iphigeneia striking each of the sacrificers with her eyes (240–43) seems to point toward a nonverbal type of communication, a language that the Argives do not, or simply will not, recognize but one that the gods may well speak. If, as I suggested earlier, Artemis doesn’t need ξύμβολα to communicate her pain and anger, then perhaps she doesn’t need a curse to be vociferated—she can hear it emanating from the incredulous expression of betrayal on Iphigeneia’s face and in her tears.63 Although ‘the girl cannot make language work for her’ (Fletcher 2012: 35), would Artemis or any

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of the other gods fail to act on that curse or to intervene because of a silly human linguistic discrimination?64 We might pause here to reexamine Artemis’ place in this gauzy episode. Following on the view of the chorus I’ve been offering here, can we be so certain that Artemis’ responsibility for the sacrifice of Iphigeneia is as crude and uncomplicated as it is presented by the elders? Scholars have long debated the issue.65 The earliest narrative of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia comes from the Cypria, a lost poem of the epic cycle that treated the runup and first nine years of the Trojan War.66 Although lost, the details of this poem are usefully summarized in Proclus’Chrestomathy. There we learn that Agamemnon boasted he was greater than Artemis after successfully hunting a deer, and that in anger she prevented the Greek host from sailing by sending adverse winds (104.12–14 [Allen]). Proclus does not say that Artemis then demanded the sacrifice, only that Calchas ‘told them of the goddess’ wrath and ordered them to sacrifice her.’ We are told a bit further on that Artemis substituted a deer for Iphigeneia at the last second. As we might well expect from a (prose) summary composed almost a full millennium after its source material, there is a big question mark at the very beginning of the episode about the provenance of this demand. Assuming it was in fact Artemis who demanded the sacrifice, why would she later substitute a deer on the altar? The analogy sometimes invoked of the Abraham and Isaac episode of Genesis is not entirely apposite (for a number of obvious theological reasons),67 but in this case we might agree that it is apposite in the sense that God has other things on his (or her) mind than an actual human sacrifice. For the God of Genesis it is to make Abraham prove that his faith is genuine—he never really intends to let Abraham go through with the sacrifice. Likewise, and in light of this, for Artemis we might speculate that in demanding a human sacrifice she is making a show of Agamemnon’s moral compass. Will he actually go through with it? Is his faith that cynically literal?68 Quite the show it is. The kind of man who could brag that he was greater than a god for something as trivial as hunting a deer, we see here, is exactly the kind of man who could prove himself willing to sacrifice his own daughter for the sake of a dubious war. He even dressed it up as a wedding, a particularly cruel twist of the knife for a young woman, and ironic for a man whose nominal pretext for war was the sanctity of his brother’s marriage.69 Artemis never intends to let Iphigeneia be slaughtered at the hands of the atrocious Greeks. She simply wants to show that Agamemnon is as callous and opportunistic in the pursuit of his goals as we all already suspected he was. And he proves Artemis right, which is why she ended up saving Iphigeneia—because she witnessed in his and his men’s bloodthirsty eyes an insensitivity so depraved that they could ignore her desperate pleas and, when finally she had been gagged, her looks of terror and bewilderment. Artemis saved her ultimately because she had to: she actually cared about this young girl’s life, a fact that is brought dramatically into relief in this sordid episode of the play.70

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Aeschylus of course does not betray any knowledge of this alternate tradition.71 We are meant to understand that Iphigeneia is really killed, that the winds subsequently abated and that Agamemnon and the Greeks departed for Troy. But given what we’ve seen thus far, surely we are to ask whether and to what extent Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigeneia fulfills Calchas’ prophecy. In one sense, to be sure, it is an exact fulfillment: Calchas said it was necessary and Agamemnon did it. But this has little bearing on (1) whether Calchas was right in the first place—the equation of Calchas with Artemis is suspect, one we are not meant to take entirely seriously, especially since the chorus also fails to ‘blame’ the seer for his interpretation—and, perhaps more intriguingly, (2) whether the chorus was even present at Aulis in the first place (248–57): τὰ δ’ ἔνθεν οὔτ’ εἶδον οὔτ’ ἐννέπω· τέχναι δὲ Κάλχαντος οὐκ ἄκραντοι. What happened next I did not see and I will not tell. But the prophecies of Calchas do not go unfulfilled. The chorus strangely claims they neither saw what happened nor will tell of it, a rather self-contradictory statement (how can you refuse to tell what you didn’t see?). Since the men of the chorus stayed behind during the war (perhaps because they were already too old—cf. lines 72–82), they are unlikely to have mustered at Aulis with the troops.72 If this is the case and the phrase οὔτ’ εἶδον is a shameless admission of their absence, then how much of the ode they’ve just delivered can we trust to be authoritative and reliable?73 Wouldn’t this cast suspicion on their motives for telling the story the way they do?74 Alternatively, the phrase οὔτ’ ἐννέπω might suggest their presence. So were they at Aulis but did not watch the actual sacrifice? In which case they did not then, and do not now, count themselves among those βραβῆς cheering for Iphigeneia’s blood? Or did they in fact watch the sacrifice but now refuse to relive it? Do they have something to hide—that they did, and still do, count themselves among those cheering βραβῆς, that they too desired (ἐπιθυμεῖν) her death (and that the σφ’is really reflexive), that perhaps Agamemnon’s invocation of θέμις, his insipid rationale, was really their own? If anything this moment, this brilliantly hypocritical phrasing (and possible projection), shows up the distinction and tension between momentarity and memory75 and forces us to question the chorus’ subsequent baldy self-justifying assertion that Calchas’ τέχναιdo not go unfulfilled (249; cf. Dover 1973: 62). The ‘what follows’ (τὰ δ’ ἔνθεν) is not just a ‘euphemistic reference to the actual slaying of Iphigeneia.’76 A purposefully vague substantivized adverb (‘the things after that’), it alone traces the vanishing of the chorus’ unlawful desires and their complicity in the vanishing of Iphigeneia’s memory.77

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But do the winds then change? They had to have at some point, obviously, because the Greeks eventually departed for Troy. But when exactly did they turn favorable? Here Aeschylus is silent—but not without purpose. We are invited to ask, in light of this supposedly authoritative narrative that often and without reservation just announces the relationship between causes and effects, whether now the relationship between the death of Iphigeneia and the change in the winds can be viewed as causal.78 Did the winds change simply because of the sacrifice, or is this the type of tragic logic that the play, by my reading at least, is symptomatizing by putting it all in the mouths of men we can’t be sure we can really trust? To follow up on my previous reading of Artemis’ motivations, perhaps the causal chain of events inaugurated by the sacrifice of Iphigeneia does not come to rest so simply and predictably in the expedition—because the Greeks now triumphantly but foolishly believe they have been vindicated in their choice and that they have the imprimatur of the gods for the war—but in the child-avenging wrath of Agamemnon’s wife (154–55), a forcibly bereaved mother. Calchas himself had hinted as much, but apparently nobody was listening.79

SIGNAL FIRE AND ITS AFTERMATH Clytemnestra’s proper entrance into the play now occurs; her titanic character and ambitions will severally impress, annoy and frighten the chorus of old men we have up to this point been examining. As we will see, she will attempt with some success to offer herself as a competing voice of authority in this story we all know so well. This authority she puts on spectacular display first and explicitly with the revelation of the signal fires announcing the destruction of Troy (281–316), a speech precipitated by the chorus’ inability to believe her claim that Troy had indeed been taken (268, 272, 274, 276; cf. 475–87). The question remains, however, whether this voice and this authority of hers will be enough to disrupt or displace the traditional story we have witnessed being constructed by the chorus before our very eyes. Their initial hesitation does not inspire confidence. For all her joy at the prospect of the war coming to an end, of her soldiers’ newfound freedom to sleep peacefully at night even in strangers’ beds (334–37), Clytemnestra has her concerns (338–50): εἰ δ’ εὐσεβοῦσι τοὺς πολισσούχους θεοὺς τοὺς τῆς ἁλούσης γῆς θ’ ἱδρύματα, οὔ τἂν ἑλόντες αὖθις ἀνθαλοῖεν ἄν· ἔρως δὲ μή τις πρότερον ἐμπίπτηι στρατῶι πορθεῖν ἃ μὴ χρή, κέρδεσιν νικωμένους· δεῖ γὰρ πρὸς οἴκους νοστίμου σωτηρίας, κάμψαι διαύλου θάτερον κῶλον πάλιν. θεοῖς δ’ ἀναμπλάκητος εἰ μόλοι στρατός,

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παρήγορον τὸ πῆμα τῶν ὀλωλότων γένοιτ’ ἄν, εἰ πρόσπαια μὴ τύχοι κακά. τοιαῦτά τοι γυναικὸς ἐξ ἐμοῦ κλύεις· τὸ δ’ εὖ κρατοίη μὴ διχορρόπως ἰδεῖν· πολλῶν γὰρ ἐσθλῶν τὴν ὄνησιν εἱλόμην If they show respect to the gods that protect the city and to the captured land’s foundations, they might not be killed themselves in turn for having captured it. Hopefully no desire comes over the army first to plunder things they shouldn’t touch, won over to their want of prizes. For they still have to get home safe and sound, to turn back on the second leg of the course. If in the eyes of the gods the army returns unsinning, then our grief for the dead will suffice to console—so long as no evil unexpectedly strikes. At any rate these are the types of thing you hear a woman say, especially me. May the good prevail equally for all to see. I have chosen this blessing over many others. Rather forebodingly Clytemnestra hopes the Greeks haven’t offended the gods in their post-victory glee. Is this piety or ironic hope? Some read a supreme cynicism in these words.80 Fair enough, but we may wonder whether her solicitousness isn’t at least a bit genuine—after all, given the appalling lengths to which the Greeks were willing to go simply to attend the war, Clytemnestra is, perhaps beyond all others, acutely aware that they are likely to have committed further hybristic and offensive acts against the gods.81 Whether she relishes that likelihood can only be inferred, though the assumption that she does would figure nicely in her justification for taking vengeance eventually: This guy offended the gods by sacrificing my daughter and he has offended them again by despoiling their sanctuaries. He’s begging to be killed and the gods will thank me for it when the demon of the house allies with me in his murder. Whatever the case the harm done to the dead, the pain they suffer, is in her opinion enough to get the gods’ attention.82 Already we can see, despite any presumed malicious intentions on her part, that Clytemnestra has a more expansive view of the gods and their involvement in human affairs than the chorus (she understands that even the Trojans have gods looking out for them), whose aggrieved sense of entitlement and subliminal fantasies about taking part in the war could only cloud their judgment. It strikes me as ironic and revealing then that Aeschylus gives the scene back over to the chorus to reflect on these new developments. After praising Clytemnestra for having spoken like a sensible man (κατ’ ἄνδρα σώφρον’, 351),83 they claim to be preparing to ‘address the gods in an appropriate manner [eu]’ (353). While this phrase certainly means ‘appropriate to the reward unexpectedly granted’ (χάρις . . . οὐκ ἄτιμος, 354), it also suggests the type of response you would expect them to make; that is, short-sighted and self-justifying. In this regard they don’t disappoint (355–84). The

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chorus assumes that Zeus in his role as protector of hospitality (362–63) has brought this ruin on the Trojans, a blow they think can be easily traced (ἐξιχνεῦσαι, 368)—Zeus has acted as he ordained (369)! Men likewise claim that the gods have no concern for the hybris of mortals, but in their opinion this is impiety (369–73), evident in the very outcome they’ve just endorsed. The circularity and opportunism of these reflections notwithstanding, we have to wonder whether the chorus connects the hybris of the Greeks themselves (e.g., the slaughter of Iphigeneia, the destruction of Troy, the despoliation of the city’s temples) to any potential retribution from the gods.84 As is appropriate to this body of men and this circumstance, they don’t. Apparently belated justice and self-targeting vengeance only apply to other people. And in their brooding philosophy of wealth, envy and excess they unwittingly call to mind Iphigeneia: ‘There is no defense against surfeit of wealth for a man who has kicked the great altar of Justice into oblivion’ (381–84). Even if in a self-congratulatory metaphor, do these men really want to invoke the violent stomping of the altar of Justice after having just spoken of the altar on which Iphigeneia was sacrificed? As previously (after proclaiming about the gods’ susceptibility to prayers, then backing off the proclamation in response to Clytemnestra’s offerings), the chorus is willing to betray its contradictions. In the antistrophe that follows (385–402) they wax moralistically on the seductions and dangers of Ἄτη: a man tempted to ruin not only corrupts himself but also brings unbearable harm on his community. As a result ‘none of the gods hears his prayers, and Justice destroys the man who is involved with these things. Such was Paris . . .’ (396–99). We’ve witnessed such priggish sanctimony already and so shouldn’t be surprised that the chorus slips back into it here. Later, though, in the third antistrophe an uncertainty insinuates itself within their certitude (459–74): μένει δ’ ἀκοῦσαί τί μου μέριμνα νυκτηρεφές· τῶν πολυκτόνων γὰρ οὐκ ἄσκοποι θεοί, κελαιναὶ δ’ Ἐρινύες χρόνωι τυχηρὸν ὄντ’ ἄνευ δίκας παλιντυχεῖ τριβᾶι βίου τιθεῖσ’ ἀμαυρόν, ἐν δ’ ἀίστοις τελέθοντος οὔτις ἀλκά· τὸ δ’ ὑπερκόπως κλύειν εὖ βαρύ· βάλλεται γὰρ ὄσσοις Διόθεν κεραυνός. κρίνω δ’ ἄφθονον ὄλβον· μήτ’ εἴην πτολιπόρθης, μήτ’ οὖν αὐτὸς ἁλοὺς ὑπ’ ἄλλωι βίον κατίδοιμι

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Something remains, lurking in the night, an anxiety to hear. The gods do not fail to see the perpetrators of mass murder, and in time the black Erinyes hide way the man whose luck came at the expense of justice, turning his fortune back and wearing out his life. And in the land of the dead there is no safety. Hearing excessive praise comes at a cost, for a lightning bolt is cast from the eyes of Zeus. I choose the kind of prosperity that brings no envy: I don’t want to be a sacker of cities, I don’t want to see myself captured, my life subject to another man. Apparently the gods are not unaware of and not unconcerned about those who ‘kill many’ (τῶν πολυκτόνων)—the Erinyes eventually find and persecute (even beyond death) anyone who transgresses against justice. The chorus thus seems to be tempering its good cheer to suspect the Greeks’ homecoming might not be as unproblematic as they have assumed (apropos of their supposed sanction from Zeus Xenios).85 Steadily it dawns on them that the gods are really inscrutable, that there is still an unbridgeable distance between their world and ours that cannot necessarily be crossed by prematurely fulsome prayers or sacrifices or libations. This inscrutability, this distance, is the μέριμνα (460) that persists.86 In the face of this apparent realization, their preference for ἄφθονον ὄλβον (471) is a contradiction in terms—it requires no commitment, no possibility of offense. They don’t want to be like Agamemnon (πτολιπόρθης, 472) but neither do they want to be subject to another. Say what one will about Agamemnon, but at least he made a decision. It was a questionable one based on a murky and selfjustifying faith, to be sure, but it was a decision all the same. The chorus, on the other hand, would rather inhabit the safe space of historical remoteness and reflective inaction (cf. Gantz 1983: 80), a fact cleverly illustrated by Aeschylus in their subsequent self-division at lines 475–87. The Greeks may have reason to be thankful they were not at Aulis.87 We ought not be surprised that the chorus thinks susceptibility to flashy news is the penchant of women (483–84), but, following on their creeping worry about the gods, they also acknowledge the possibility that Agamemnon’s return could be a deception sent from above (475–87). Again, then, the chorus seems to be acknowledging the distance between humans and gods. How, they ask, can one determine if a report like this is ἐτήτυμος (477, 491–92)? As they continue, the line between truth and illusion, this time with reference to the world of dreams, gets more blurry. Fortunately for them the herald who is presently arriving will dispel the ambiguity and do so without the uncertain signs of fire and smoke. The herald’s appearance, however, produces more ambiguity (493–502): κήρυκ’ ἀπ’ ἀκτῆς τόνδ’ ὁρῶ κατάσκιον κλάδοις ἐλαίας· μαρτυρεῖ δέ μοι κάσις πηλοῦ ξύνουρος διψία κόνις τάδε, ὡς οὔτ’ ἄναυδος οὔτε σοι δαίων φλόγα

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The Necessity of Agamemnon ὕλης ὀρείας σημανεῖ καπνῶι πυρός· ἀλλ’ ἢ τὸ χαίρειν μᾶλλον ἐκβάξει λέγων· τὸν ἀντίον δὲ τοῖσδ’ ἀποστέργω λόγον· εὖ γὰρ πρὸς εὖ φανεῖσι προσθήκη πέλοι. ὅστις τάδ’ ἄλλως τῆιδ’ ἐπεύχεται πόλει, αὐτὸς φρενῶν καρποῖτο τὴν ἁμαρτίαν. I see a messenger coming this way from the shore, his head shaded by olive branches. The thirsty dust he kicks up, sister and cohabitator of mud, bears witness that he will give a sign neither voicelessly with the smoke of fire nor (as in your case) by burning a flame. On the contrary he will either exclaim the need for rejoicing or—well, the opposite I’m loathe to say. Only let this additional news complement the previous in a good way. Whoever prays otherwise for this city, may he reap the reward of his mind’s sins.

Prior to this they had dismissed ambiguity as silly and womanly, but here their fear that the herald might not have good news creates a sort of psychotic fugue: As evidence of their utter inability to process ambiguity they cannot even say what the opposite of τὸ χαίρειν is.88 Instead they prescribe the nature of the news and effectively curse the person who prays ‘otherwise’ (ἄλλως), whatever that means. To their minds such prayers are hamartia. So, as much as the chorus acknowledges ambiguity in the relations between gods and humans in our world, it cannot tolerate ambiguity.

HERALD AND BEYOND We saw in the previous chapter how problematic a messenger speech can be. As James Barrett showed, we have to keep in mind that a herald is no less a character in the story—that is, no less committed to or situated in narratological prejudice—than Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. The same concerns hold here too, especially since, unlike the watchman at the opening of the play, this herald has presumably attended Agamemnon throughout the war.89 We may have reason then to wonder about his allegiances. His account is harrowing (555–66). In the course of his long introductory invocation of the gods in gratitude, the herald acknowledges in particular the contradictory roles Apollo played in the war: Although he caused much harm to the Greeks, he is now called on to be their healer and savior (509–13).90 The herald then, rather more explicitly than the chorus, understands how fickle gods can be—you cannot count on them to consistently support one cause. And given all the problematic things we have learned about these Greeks thus far, can we be so sure that they have the continued (and unvarying) support of any of the gods? And like the chorus, only less explicitly, the herald then reveals that his piety is simply pro forma: for all his theological

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generalizations (cf. also 553–54) he cannot but extol Agamemnon as the light-bearing angel of goodwill (522–28): ἥκει γὰρ ὑμῖν φῶς ἐν εὐφρόνηι φέρων καὶ τοῖσδ’ ἅπασι κοινὸν Ἀγαμέμνων ἄναξ. ἀλλ’ εὖ νιν ἀσπάσασθε, καὶ γὰρ οὖν πρέπει, Τροίαν κατασκάψαντα τοῦ δικηφόρου Διὸς μακέλληι, τῆι κατείργασται πέδον. βωμοὶ δ’ ἄιστοι καὶ θεῶν ἱδρύματα, καὶ σπέρμα πάσης ἐξαπόλλυται χθονός He has come, lord Agamemnon, bringing light in a time of darkness for one and all alike. Give him a proper welcome, the kind he is owed for having razed Troy to its foundations with the mattock of vengeful Zeus, the tool of that land’s thorough destruction. Their gods’ altars and abodes can no longer be seen, and the seed of the entire land has perished. This rather hyperbolic proclamation presumes a sympathetic audience, one that the chorus is happy to provide him (538–46, 583–86); in fact, they share the view that Zeus facilitated the destruction of Troy (cf. 580–82).91 Alternatively, given all we’ve seen up to this point, we cannot but ask whether the sympathies of the audience can be assumed. The herald’s exclamations also serve to normatively project a view of the king, potentially in light of—that is, apotropaically—the transgressions we suspect he has committed against the gods. These can only be suspicions, of course, but they have been earned, in which case the herald’s projection is an attempt to cover things up. For if the σπέρμα that has been destroyed connotes the Trojan population (528), and if as the chorus previously reckoned (461–74) the gods are wary of the destruction of human life, then this boast of the herald’s potentially carries darker and more foreboding undertones.92 Clytemnestra, however, doesn’t need to hear the rest of the story from the herald: What she hasn’t already put together from the signal fire and the subsequent auspicious cries of triumph throughout the city (587–97) she will learn from Agamemnon himself (598–99). Behind this dismissal, we may assume, is an impatience for the herald’s excessively deferential version of Agamemnon’s victory. That much she can hear from her husband, although if we’re feeling charitable he might not be as sanguine as the herald. We may also wonder whether she suspects that others things have happened that the herald might have left out. For he describes only the living conditions of the army during the war and the storms that wrecked it after. Why no mention of the war itself, which did after all last ten years? Is that even the herald’s job? Are we to expect that Agamemnon would have filled in the gaps, or that he would have filled in those gaps in a truthful and potentially unself-flattering way? In any event Clytemnestra apparently has no interest

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in the myth-making hagiography of Agamemnon because she knows firsthand what he is capable of. To dismiss the herald’s story then is to show her intimate knowledge of Agamemnon’s character. Ten years of grueling war, of which we only get a glimpse, are not likely to have refined his sensitivities.93 Clytemnestra is steeling herself for the return of a much more callous and jaded man. In this light, her effusive declarations about the city’s passion (ἐράσμιον, 605) for Agamemnon’s return (vis-à-vis ll.445–60) and her outrageous claims of fidelity seem almost purposefully and comically hyperbolic (605–14): ἥκειν ὅπως τάχιστ’ ἐράσμιον πόλει· γυναῖκα πιστὴν δ’ ἐν δόμοις εὕροι μολὼν οἵανπερ οὖν ἔλειπε, δωμάτων κύνα ἐσθλὴν ἐκείνωι, πολεμίαν τοῖς δύσφροσιν, καὶ τἄλλ’ ὁμοίαν πάντα, σημαντήριον οὐδὲν διαφθείρασαν ἐν μήκει χρόνου· οὐδ’ οἶδα τέρψιν οὐδ’ ἐπίψογον φάτιν ἄλλου πρὸς ἀνδρὸς μᾶλλον ἢ χαλκοῦ βαφάς. τοιόσδ’ ὁ κόμπος, τῆς ἀληθείας γέμων, οὐκ αἰσχρὸς ὡς γυναικὶ γενναίαι λακεῖν Tell him to hurry—his city passionately awaits him. And when he arrives let him discover a wife at home as faithful as the one he left behind, a watchdog of the house, good for him and hateful to those harboring ill will, likewise loyal in all other ways, having broken no seal in the long expanse of time. Indeed I know neither pleasure nor the blameworthy repute of another man any more than I do the tempering of bronze. That’s my boast, freighted as it is with truth, and it’s in no way unbecoming of a noble woman to proclaim it. It is as if Clytemnestra is flaunting her transgressions, acknowledging and simultaneously scoffing at the likelihood that everyone knows what has been happening in Agamemnon’s absence. For a woman as savvy as her it seems odd that she’d be unaware of the confessions echoing behind her obstreperous denials, the defensiveness behind her declarations. I suspect Clytemnestra is playing the chorus—and us too, who think we know better than she does what she’s saying and thinking. How can we be so sure that, for a while at least, her claims to fidelity to and solicitude for her husband weren’t genuine? Presumably she didn’t immediately take up with Aegisthus after Agamemnon’s departure, which would imply an affair concurrent with her marriage. That seems unlikely. How unlikely is it, though, that the murder of her daughter didn’t change her opinion permanently, that after Agamemnon went there she could no longer suffer the thought of being his wife? If he was willing, she might be thinking, to sacrifice a blood relation so callously, what’s to say he wouldn’t just as readily find an excuse to sacrifice

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a non-blood relation such as his wife the next time a dubious cause (like another war) arises?94 All of this is to say simply: We cannot assume that Clytemnestra’s eventual affair with Aegisthus happened terribly quickly and we certainly cannot write it back into her relationship with Agamemnon retrospectively as if she were preternaturally disposed to cheat and kill. Following this declaration the chorus makes a claim on the doubleness of Clytemnestra’s language: To those in the know her speech is revealingly fitting (μανθάνοντί σοι / τοροῖσιν ἑρμηνεῦσιν εὐπρεπῆ λόγον, 616). But what is the substance of εὐπρεπῆ—‘fair’ or ‘conspicuous’? Who is this μανθάνοντί σοι—the herald? Us? And what is the substance of this learning/knowledge? Like the watchman at the beginning, the chorus claims a specific knowledge (in a vague way of course) and at the same time coopts our perspective, enlisting us on their side without having necessarily earned it. They seem to understand intuitively that the storm that caused the loss of Menelaus was sent by the gods in anger (634–35), and thus that at any moment the good favor of the gods can change. As in the parodos this insight does not lead them to reevaluate their confidence about the gods’ unconditional support for the destruction of Troy.95 After some initial hesitation (with regard to piety and auspicious silence) the herald in his final speech corroborates this suspicion about divine involvement. At 650–52 he claims that Fire and Sea conspired together to wreck the Argive fleet—no mention, in other words, of the traditional cause of the Greek misfortune, the seizure of Cassandra (see Sommerstein 2008: 77 n.136). This is an intriguing omission and suggests that Aeschylus is making a point about the herald’s reliability (as he had previously with the announcement of Agamemnon’s arrival): The herald has shown himself to be sensitive to auspicious silence (636–49), so his claim that two abstract forces of nature were responsible seems either daft or deliberately omissive. In claiming that Tyche saved his ship (664) the herald shows he’s capable of recognizing the hand of the divine (even if Tyche is a rather abstract divinity). That said, are we to think that this man—who has witnessed the destruction of Troy and the despoliation of its temples (which he was, as we recall, notoriously silent about) and who also likely witnessed the travesty of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice—does not suspect the real cause of the storm? Is his unwillingness to acknowledge what he really knows to be the cause just a manifestation of the propitious silence he began his speech by invoking (636–37)? We may wonder whether the herald simply doesn’t want to remind the city and its people that their glorious victory and the return of their vaunted king are tainted, that they may eventually be harboring people whom the gods have painted targets on. It’s never good to be a city in which polluted criminals hide out (cf. 773–81). The herald departs leaving us more questions than he’s answered. In the final choral ode before the arrival of Agamemnon the chorus meditates on Helen (681–716). They begin by asking which god gave her such an apposite name (‘Destroyer’)—it must be one they cannot see. So we start

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with uncertainty (which is typical), but by the end of the strophe they have identified this god as Eris (698), recapitulating the movement from uncertainty to certainty that by now we are intimately familiar with in this body of men. At 704 they again identify Zeus as the cause of the Menis destroying the city of Troy (cf. 748). Apparently they think the Trojan War was purely about Helen (709–16),96 a fact that the Iliad rather upends. But what else are we to expect from a group of men who never took part in the first place, who were left at home projecting fantasies about the righteousness of the Greek cause, probably also nursing tales about their own erstwhile martial exploits. They’re chicken hawks, and like all chicken hawks they take the most sanctimonious and jingoistic positions.97 This characterization is of course necessarily present in the chorus’ famous metaphor of the lion in the house (717–36). The men very clearly mean the parable to indict Helen and the Trojans, but given their questionable hermeneutics it’s likely that they are missing the true irony that it just as easily implicates the character of Agamemnon.98 If we are to assume despite the somewhat opaque language that this lion killed not only its master’s flocks but also members of the family (732–34), then aren’t we squarely back within the realm of Agamemnon’s destruction of Iphigeneia? We end the ode ultimately with the third god of the evil Trinity, Ate (cf. also the Erinyes at 749). These are exactly the kinds of abstract and disembodied concepts you would expect a group of moralizing and self-righteous chicken hawks to invoke. Apparently it’s more noble—and thus more self-affirming—to parrot such platitudes than it is to acknowledge that in war it’s human hands that kill and human bodies that die (though cf. 804)—and, prior to that, human hands killing human bodies to facilitate it.99 There appears to be a furtive ill-will among the Argives, however, and the chorus feels it is necessary to reveal as much to Agamemnon (788–809), who has presently arrived. Apparently the various disaffections of his people might lead to displays of false fidelity (cf. Agamemnon’s reiteration of the point at 830ff.). We may wonder whether these people share the same grievances against the Atreidae as the chorus (i.e., Helen—cf. 799ff.). Or could their grievances also include the destruction of Iphigeneia? From what we are about to hear from the chorus it would seem that all people have the same disaffection. But perhaps Clytemnestra isn’t the only person in Argos who feels the way she does. For this reason the chorus ends its speech by encouraging Agamemnon to inquire into each and every person as to their feelings and their fidelity (807). This strikes me as fascistic, an impression that Agamemnon doesn’t exactly dispel (again, cf. 830ff.). Are we to imagine that all Argives will be as (superficially and non-offensively) honest as the chorus of elders? What about the women and mothers in the city? Would Agamemnon particularly care? Apparently not (again, cf. 830ff.). But the chorus has its grievances too: they didn’t approve of Agamemnon previously because he acted on behalf of Helen (799ff.; cf. the very prominent position of Ἑλένης ἕνεκ’at 800). What about Iphigeneia? Is it more

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likely that they mention Helen exclusively because they have just spoken of her? In a way this makes sense because, as they claim in the parodos, they may never have actually seen the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, so she would necessarily not be a concern for them now. Plus, they threw all of their long-distance support behind Calchas’ proffering of Artemis as demanding the sacrifice; thus, they see Iphigeneia’s death as just another piece of the larger god-given puzzle and, hence, have no reason to mention her again. She was simply a part of the pre-war (and prenuptial) rites—just one among many others presumably—and so to incorporate her into their kid-gloved indictment of Agamemnon would essentially be the same as incorporating any of the other rituals. Ten years hence that seems unlikely.100 But as Clytemnestra’s morbid fixation shows, the others’ forgetfulness of Iphigeneia is deliberate; for this reason her memory is deliberate. This raises the question of whether in fact the chorus is here suppressing any mention of Iphigeneia. Because they were just meditating about lions in houses and violence breeding violence—unless they’re daft or sociopathic (either of which is certainly possible), how could they not be thinking of her when they mention the very beginning of the war?

AGAMEMNON HIMSELF Agamemnon certainly gives the image of being a pious man (810ff.), offering thanks to the gods for their help in the war and claiming they were the ones to demand Troy’s destruction. This is of course the exact same connection the chorus made at the opening of the play and is thus similarly suspect. Right from the start then Aeschylus shows his piety is rather opportunistic and self-affirming. Agamemnon even picks up the lion metaphor (827–28): Apparently the Argive elites are fond of such analogies, and we may consequently wonder whether the chorus had picked it up from Agamemnon himself.101 Agamemnon shows little self-awareness when he acknowledges the chorus’ warning that certain Argives might not be happy with him; in fact, he self-importantly assumes that the platitudes about the envy of the successful are true (832–40). We are only a few lines into his return and already we can see the kind of person he is (self-important, unself-aware). Nothing has changed, as much as we might have hoped the war and his subsequent tribulations had leavened his callousness.102 Perhaps the chorus realizes this and uses their platitudinous rhetoric to distract Agamemnon from the fact that they too were among the Argives who held him to blame originally. Agamemnon cuts a figure of level-headed authority: He will hold assemblies and discuss any lingering issues (844–50): τὰ δ’ ἄλλα πρὸς πόλιν τε καὶ θεοὺς κοινοὺς ἀγῶνας θέντες ἐν πανηγύρει

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The Necessity of Agamemnon βουλευσόμεσθα· καὶ τὸ μὲν καλῶς ἔχον ὅπως χρονίζον εὖ μενεῖ βουλευτέον, ὅτωι δὲ καὶ δεῖ φαρμάκων παιωνίων, ἤτοι κέαντες ἢ τεμόντες εὐφρόνως πειρασόμεσθα πῆμ’ ἀποστρέψαι νόσου Anything else that pertains to the city and its gods we’ll discuss in public assemblies. We must also consider how to make sure the good things remain as long as possible. Whatever requires healing remedies, we will try to stem the pain of the disease by cautery or careful cutting.

But there is something almost defensive (and thus revealing) about the necessity (βουλευτέον, 847) of thinking on how to keep things καλῶς as long as possible. And in the surgical metaphor he employs to shore up this point he mentions yet again the act of cutting, only this time it has to be εὐφρόνως (849). Agamemnon ends the speech with the same kind of vague wish he used to end his hesitations about killing Iphigeneia (νίκη δ’, ἐπείπερ ἕσπετ’, ἐμπέδως μένοι, 854), with language that recalls the chorus’ own repetitions of τὸ δ’ εὖ νικάτω. In Clytemnestra’s initial response she takes the same hyperbolic tone as she had previously, effusively declaring her feelings of despair and joy (855–903). She even claims she tried to hang herself a number of times. I think this is another wink-wink moment, an effort to flaunt her behavior in the face of a chorus and a man who probably already (and with good reason) suspect otherwise. That said, as we noted earlier, who’s to say given the tragedies she’s suffered at her husband’s hands that she never in fact tried to kill herself? It’s too easy and too convenient to assume, whether positively or negatively, that Clytemnestra is just a calculating bitch. As much as the play—or at least the men in it—wants us to forget her role as a forcibly bereaved mother, we cannot take that away from her.103 To do so would be to take the side of the very chorus, and also of Agamemnon, who desperately want to believe the war’s preludes and ramifications have found peaceful resolution.104 In the world of tragedy, and in the world of this tragedy in particular, that cannot and will not happen.

CARPET SCENE In the spirit of all this hyperbole and grandiosity Clytemnestra makes perhaps her most hyperbolic and grandiose gesture—calling for expensive tapestries to be laid before Agamemnon’s feet. Agamemnon tries to present himself as a modest man in response: He objects to treading on the tapestries because such pampering is (1) womanly (918–19; cf. 940) and (2) barbarian; that is, the kind of behavior to elicit divine φθόνος (921, 947). Only after the sexual and ethnic prelude does he mention the gods and the proper

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place for mortals to tread. In classical literature, though, no god ever walks on tapestries and no god ever demands it. In fact, Agamemnon makes no claim here that only gods should walk on tapestries; rather, he says that ‘one should honor the gods with these things’ (922), presumably meaning that these are the types of gifts one typically gives them in honor of something. So it is a moot point whether Agamemnon should or should not walk on them. He momentarily balks at the extravagant waste, but his pious humility is transparent (cf. 928–30: ‘A man should be called fortunate only when he has finished his life in the prosperity that all desire. If I am one who will act consistently on these principles, I have nothing to fear’). Why, after all, would walking on tapestries bring the evil eye after he’d already sacrificed his daughter, destroyed a city and then committed atrocities against its temples? He’s afraid of offending the gods now? For him to speak of hubris and human modesty is pure cynicism. Clytemnestra ultimately convinces him to walk on the tapestries with a human example: Wouldn’t King Priam do this very thing if he were victorious?105 Eventually Agamemnon gives in—for reasons that are mostly inscrutable to us.106 But we do not need him to outwardly declare his reasons in order to see that the act reflects the kind of man he is: proud, exasperated and thus manipulable, and quick to (be convinced to) destroy valuables. Without the use of clunky expository dialogue Aeschylus subtly illustrates the contours of character in this scene—Agamemnon’s false modesty and hence his gullibility, Clytemestra’s emotional manipulation skillfully stripping away his pretensions of piety. For all his worry about reputation before his people (φήμη γε μέντοι δημόθρους μέγα σθένει, 938) Agamemnon really does desire such womanly and foreign adulation.107 Are we to think that any of this behavior, especially Agamemnon’s, has cosmic or theological dimensions?108 According to most of the scholarly literature, yes it does.109 But for all the buildup and suspense this scene is supposed to evoke, none of the characters makes much of the act. Clytemnestra may have used the tapestries to prove her negative impression of Agamemnon (he’s willing to waste wealth just like he wasted his daughter), but she does not call on the act as a justification for murdering him. That falls squarely and solely on the slaughter of Iphigeneia. The chorus, which has just shown itself capable of judgment, says nothing of it and neither does Cassandra, who has legitimate insight into the gods’ world. Why after all would the gods care if Agamemnon walked on his own tapestries? Can we not imagine that Aeschylus’ Zeus, an ever remote figure, knew the difference between the destruction of household wealth and the destruction of human bodies?110 The theological and religious language only picks up again with Clytemnestra’s quick parting salvo (973–74): Ζεῦ Ζεῦ τέλειε, τὰς ἐμὰς εὐχὰς τέλει· μέλοι δέ τοί σοι τῶνπερ ἂν μέλληις τελεῖν

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The Necessity of Agamemnon Zeus, Zeus—you are the fulfiller, so fulfill my prayers! Whatever you care to fulfill, just take the care to fulfill it!

This is a conspicuously vague prayer to Zeus since we don’t exactly know its substance. It is also, perhaps more importantly and revealingly for our purposes, a clever way of yoking whatever plan she sees fit with a divinely ordained outcome. Like everyone else in the play, it seems, Clytemnestra is no stranger to opportunistically writing her malicious machinations into the cosmos. Apropos of all this conspicuous discoursing between Agamemnon and Clytemnestra—the tension is hard to miss, no matter how we imagine it happening—the chorus has a bad feeling in its gut even though the good news, Agamemnon’s return, is before their eyes (975–1033). Are they concerned because of what they’ve just witnessed between the king and queen? Because they’re having second thoughts about their king and the justice of his cause? Because they’ve just watched him walk on his tapestry and see that act as conspicuously destructive consumption? Because they suspect Clytemnestra is up to something? It’s hard to know, and perhaps that is the point—we just don’t know. Thus to claim that their worry is foreboding (or that it corroborates the hybris of Agamemnon’s treading) simply by the fact that it precedes Agamemnon’s death risks overdetermining the scene.111

CASSANDRA We have perhaps no better witness to the mystery of the gods and their relationship to our world than Cassandra, whose brief but evocative presence in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon reveals and conceals in equal measure.112 Coupling her clairvoyance and lack of self-confidence with the chorus’s mix of confusion and self-confidence, we get a particularly ripe episode of human ignorance and divine inscrutability, to my mind a perfect Aeschylean move. Her scene opens, famously, with a seeming lack of communication: She’s all guttural noises and screams. Cassandra’s problem, of course, is not language per se, a fact that is rather lost on the chorus (cf. 1047) and Clytemnestra (1060–61), both of whom assume at least initially that she simply doesn’t understand their words. The chorus even illogically claims she needs an interpreter while comparing her to a newly caught beast (1062–63). In their pity, though, they encourage her to willingly don the yoke of necessity (1069–71), in this instance—unlike their scandalously aporetic use of the phrase in the opening choral ode (218)—clearly meaning the physical fact of her new servitude. This reasoning speaks much to the chorus’ conception of the gods as masters pure and simple (hence πάθει μάθος). More importantly, their understanding of the gods’ relationship with mortals is belied by Cassandra, who knows that there can be a more personal intimacy, even

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if it is ultimately rejected. And it is the possibility, and ultimately the tragic impossibility, of this intimacy that Cassandra embodies. So when at first Cassandra can only shriek out Apollo’s name and decry his malice, the chorus resorts, unsurprisingly and perhaps inevitably, to tsktsking the propriety of her language—she should not be invoking his name in the context of grief (1074–75, 1078–79, 1119–24). They seem to have an idea of what’s proper and what’s not in religious supplication, but this sense of propriety illustrates rather their misunderstanding of her relationship with Apollo, which is personal, not religious. Accordingly, they note only that ‘her mantic skill persists even in her slave’s mind’ (μένει τὸ θεῖον δουλίαι περ ἐν φρενί, 1084). The word they use, τὸ θεῖον, is fittingly bland and antiseptic, an impersonal abstraction for their impersonal conception. At best it merely resides (μένει) in her, at worst it took possession of her (ἤδη τέχναισιν ἐνθέοις ἡιρημένη, 1209). As they note, Cassandra is indeed on the verge of prophesying about her own misfortunes (1083), but what echoes behind and around her vatic language is a kind of guilt, a self-recriminating shame that hides as much as it reveals a relationship she can never quite communicate and one the chorus will never understand anyway (cf. Mazzoldi 2002). It is not that the chorus is unfamiliar with Cassandra’s prophetic craft, however; they just want nothing to do with it. When she finally descends to intelligible if enigmatic language (cf. 1183), the chorus claims they’re not looking for any prophets (1099). This is a telling defensiveness given their craven acceptance of Calchas’ prophecies earlier in the play.113 In the context of the scene as a whole (1105–6, 1112–13, 1130–35, 1162–63, 1242–45) the chorus’ allergy to prophets appears to be a symptom of their distaste for the ambiguity they peddle (cf. 1134–35)—even the oracle at Delphi delivers its responses in Greek (like Cassandra), but it is still hard to understand (1251–55). As a result they disavow the possibility of any good outcome from oracles and the purveyors of vatic knowledge. But we may wonder still about this attempt of theirs to shut Cassandra down before she even has a chance to speak her mind. Does the chorus believe prophets are responsible for the sorry state of the house and the city? Do these elders perhaps regret their support for Calchas’ solution in Aulis? Can we suppose that it has something to do with Cassandra being a woman prophet (Brault 2009: 198ff.)? The elders’ demand for unambiguous clarity now! is rather revealingly upended in their interaction with Cassandra, who personifies the knowledge that clairvoyance translates through personal communion with the god—even if as a human she cannot fully grasp it. The power of prophecy is a gift in recognition of this communion,114 not just a force for which she provides foundation and medium (like, e.g., the Pythia115). For a body of men who believes that τὸ θεῖον simply inhabits a seer, this lesson is not likely to be learned. The mix of demands for clarity and expressions of confusion throughout the episode might reasonably reflect the mystery endemic to the mantic arts,116 or it could reasonably enough be our first hint of the

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curse that Cassandra is famous for (cf. 1239–41, 1270–72).117 In light of this, in response to the chorus’ amazement at her familiarity with the family history of the house (1199–1201), Cassandra initiates the backstory of her prophetic ability by confirming that Apollo gave her the capability to know such things (1202). The story she spins is intriguing and merits closer attention. At first Cassandra consented to Apollo’s advances but then later reneged (ξυναινέσασα Λοξίαν ἐψευσάμην, 1208).118 The chorus does not follow up, though, on her claim of ‘cheating’ Apollo; they assume simply (and unsurprisingly) that Apollo would have punished her in response (1211). Generously read, this could speak to their familiarity with a mythological canon of ill-begotten relationships between gods and humans or, more likely given the framework I described earlier, a rather limited understanding of the possible relationships a human can have with a god. For the chorus of elders, ungraced as they are, there can only be punishment from the gods. Thus they miss an opportunity here to query her confession of guilt. What did the relationship between Cassandra and Apollo consist of? Or how at least did she conceive of it? As the abundant stories from mythology attest, as a mortal she was presumably in no position to refuse his advances, however aggressive or gentle he came to her.119 But we don’t get that link in the chain of events of her story. The chorus asks instead whether she was already possessed of her mantic skill prior to Apollo’s advances (1209), a chronology she confirms (1210).120 If that is the case—that is, if her power was not a gift from Apollo in anticipation of their relationship—where then did she get it?121 Could she have gotten it from another god, for example, Zeus or Hera or Athena? Presumably any one of them could give her such a power, but what would be their rationale for doing so? Whatever the provenance it seems Cassandra, even prior to her engagement to Apollo, had some communion with the gods and their world. Perhaps because of this special insight she (fore)sees the problematic inequality between gods and mortals and thus recognizes that a relationship with Apollo, no matter how graced, cannot but end badly.122 We’ll never know, of course and unfortunately, but Aeschylus stages the scene cleverly and conspicuously to suggest that Cassandra may be veiling her private shame—her tragic and now too late realization that she missed an incredible opportunity—in the conspicuous act of her martyrdom. Because, as she goes on to explain, after she cheated Apollo her communication with her people stopped (1212). To her mind her now un-clairvoyance is the price she pays for a shattered promise. Are we to believe then that prior to her relationship with Apollo (when she was possibly already prophetic), and/ or prior to the moment she reneged on her promise, Cassandra persuasively prophesied among the Trojans? That at least is the chain of causality she claims, though the fact that the chorus then contradicts her (‘To us at least your prophesies sound believable,’ 1213)—even if this is likely because they think it’s simply a matter of speaking clear Greek—might suggest that the

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reason for her people’s mistrust was something other than she would like to believe. What then does Cassandra have to hide? She lays all the blame for her present dire situation on Apollo (1269–78). But why after she spurned his courtship would she then be surprised that he stood to the side while she was mocked and made to beg as an itinerant priestess? Her personal connection lost, she too, like the chorus in the parodos, is left assuming the relationship between causes and effect: This is why I’ve been delivered to this deathly place. We might wonder whether Apollo needed to contrive such an elaborate punishment—first, make sure Troy falls; then, make sure Agamemnon is awarded (or perhaps decides himself to take) Cassandra; then, see to it that his wife takes up with a rival and they plot to assassinate not only Agamemnon but also any collateral he might have with him—instead of simply killing or maiming her outright (Fontenrose 1971: 108). What Cassandra cannot now see—or perhaps she can but doesn’t want to acknowledge it—is that Apollo’s abandonment is her punishment. They no longer have a special relationship; she’s just another Trojan prisoner of war, a woman that he used to love. Cassandra’s fate then is really no worse or more special than any other woman captive (e.g., Hecuba, Andromache, Polyxena). What made her special in her former life was not in fact her prophetic skill but the love she shared with Apollo. Should we not assume, in light of all the intimate divine interference in the war (Hera/ Athena/Thetis-Achilles, Aphrodite-Paris/Aeneas, Zeus-Sarpedon, etc.), that had Cassandra honored her promise Apollo would have saved her from the voracious clutches of Greek hands in the distribution of war prizes, in particular the grabby and greedy appetite of the one Greek we can be sure he didn’t like?123 How much of this lurks behind Cassandra’s interaction with the chorus is a question we’ll never really be able to answer. Ultimately, she says, it doesn’t make any difference whether she can persuade them of the truth of her prophecies because the future will come no matter what (1239–40). (It seems Cassandra has learned to ape the impersonal abstractions that the chorus likes.124) Cassandra knows that death awaits her behind the palace doors. Presumably the vivid visions and offensive odors she experiences have convinced her as much, though we may also wonder whether she needs her mantic skill to foresee and interpret all the odious signs pointing toward belated vengeance and murder. If she knows the family history as well as she seems, then surely she must know of Iphigeneia’s slaughter.125 Her dramatic lines about the feast of Thyestes, in fact, can and probably should be read as a reference to it, even if oblique (1219–24): παῖδες θανόντες ὡσπερεὶ πρὸς οὐ φίλων, χεῖρας κρεῶν πλήθοντες, οἰκείας βορᾶς, σὺν ἐντέροις τε σπλάγχν’, ἐποίκτιστον γέμος, πρέπουσ’ ἔχοντες, ὧν πατὴρ ἐγεύσατο.

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The Necessity of Agamemnon ἐκ τῶνδε ποινάς φημι βουλεύειν τινὰ λέοντ’ ἄναλκιν ἐν λέχει στρωφώμενον There they are, the dead children—done at the hands of those who should love them—filling their hands with the flesh that was their family’s feast, innards and guts, a disgusting grief—and their father tasted of it! For this I proclaim that someone is planning revenge, a cowardly lion turning tricks on the master’s bed.

If we hesitate even momentarily before treating the cannibalism literally— and this is an inspired mantic vision after all—then how could we not imagine this passage as referring to the sacrifice of Iphigeneia? She too is a dead child, one killed at the hands of one ‘not a φίλος’126—in this case a father who had abdicated his paternal responsibility and treated his daughter like an animal—whose gore presumably stained the hands of all involved in the sacrifice, sating in particular Agamemnon’s taste for blood.127 Vengeance is surely planned by Clytemnestra for this transgression, a possibility intriguingly and really only hidden by a textual problem.128 What in this does not speak to the travesty of Iphigeneia’s death?129 Coming back to my point though: regardless of whether her prophetic vision was persuasive, Cassandra had probably already figured out that disaster awaited Agamemnon and, by unfortunate proxy, her too. Even if her mini-history of Tantalid turpitude was purely in reference to the feast of Thyestes, she must have learned at some point—either during the long ten years of war or on her dreadful return to Argos on Agamemnon’s ship and in his bed130—of his past actions. Couple that with her intimate knowledge of the repercussions of infidelity and it is hard to believe she didn’t have an idea of what was in store for them on return.131 ‘Here prevision is, as it were, an extension of normal vision’ (Hammond 1965: 44). Why then would she go so determinedly to her death? This very question, in fact, is raised by the chorus, who note the bravery of her disposition in the face of her coming horrors (1296–98). Are they implying that she has another choice? Cassandra claims she has no escape (1299) and the chorus, as we might expect of a body enthralled with the necessities imposed on humans from the heavens, does not persist. But can we ask whether she actually does have an alternative? She goes in of her own will (1313; cf. 1289), but why couldn’t she simply spell it out for the chorus a bit more?132 Then perhaps the men, who will in the coming scene impotently deliberate their response to Agamemnon’s death, could have devised a proper plan of action. Why, furthermore, wouldn’t we assume that Cassandra might appreciate, in fact potentially wish to participate in, the murder of the murderer of her entire family and people? Did Clytemnestra perhaps waste a good ally? As I suggested earlier, Cassandra’s turn to such fatal language strikes me as a despondent recognition of the loss of her personal relationship with Apollo. And without the intimacy of their shared bond, her vision of

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the future—if that’s what it is—can only seem fixed and deterministic. She can see no way out, no alternative, because she has convinced herself that Apollo demands her death (1257, 1269ff). In this regard her theological rationalizations—guesses really—are not much different from Agamemnon’s and the chorus’. And so her defiant disrobing of her prophetic regalia (1264–70) cannot deliver her ‘deepest insight’ that she ‘is freed from Apollo’s presence’; there is no ‘enlightenment’ here, only blame (‘See, it is Apollo himself stripping me!’ 1269–70; Mitchell-Boyask 2006: 293). Everyone, it appears, gets reduced to invoking a self-sanctioned fatalism, even—in the case of Cassandra—those who should know better.133 We never hear in the end why Cassandra cheated Apollo. Perhaps the reason doesn’t matter. She carries her secret to the grave, unnecessarily.

THE DEATH OF AGAMEMNON AND ITS AFTERMATH Following Cassandra’s departure into the house the chorus fears that Agamemnon may have to atone for the bloodshed in his family line (1335–42): καὶ τῶιδε πόλιν μὲν ἑλεῖν ἔδοσαν μάκαρες Πριάμου, θεοτίμητος δ’ οἴκαδ’ ἱκάνει· νῦν δ’ εἰ προτέρων αἷμ’ ἀποτείσηι καὶ τοῖσι θανοῦσι θανὼν ἄλλων ποινὰς θανάτων ἐπικράνηι, τίς ἂν ἐξεύξαιτο βροτῶν ἀσινεῖ δαίμονι φῦναι τάδ’ ἀκούων To this man the gods granted the capture of the city of Priam, and he returns him honored by those gods. Now if he has to pay back the blood of his predecessors and by dying to fulfill for the dead the punishments of other deaths, who upon hearing such things could boast that he’d been born to a fate free of harm? So they’ve finally connected the pieces of the puzzle Cassandra laid out for them yet persist in their belief that Agamemnon’s destruction of Troy was sanctioned by the ‘blessed ones’ and that he comes home from Troy ‘honored by the gods’ (1336–37). They’ve learned a few things at least, but their allegiance to Agamemnon and their ideological commitment to the just cause of the Trojan War show just how limited they remain in their moral and theological discernment. This limitation is rather strikingly illustrated in the choral dialogue that follows the (presumed, on their part) death of Agamemnon. Here the men equivocate about the necessity of precise knowledge (1358–59, 1366–71):

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The Necessity of Agamemnon οὐκ οἶδα βουλῆς ἧστινος τυχὼν λέγω· τοῦ δρῶντός ἐστι καὶ τὸ βουλεῦσαι †πέρι† ἦ γὰρ τεκμηρίοισιν ἐξ οἰμωγμάτων μαντευσόμεσθα τἀνδρὸς ὡς ὀλωλότος; σάφ’ εἰδότας χρὴ τῶνδε μυθεῖσθαι πέρι, τὸ γὰρ τοπάζειν τοῦ σάφ’ εἰδέναι δίχα. ταύτην ἐπαινεῖν πάντοθεν πληθύνομαι, τρανῶς Ἀτρείδην εἰδέναι κυροῦνθ’ ὅπως. I don’t know which course of action I would propose. The responsibility for planning belongs to the doer . . . Is it the case that we are to divine the man’s death by the signs of his pitiful pleas? We have to know these things for certain and then talk it out because guessing is quite different from knowing for certain. I see it’s unanimous that we approve the following: to find out clearly how Agamemnon is fairing.

Such hesitation to act before knowing for sure is funny because they seem not to have shown such discrimination in the case of Iphigeneia’s death. Then the chorus simply didn’t care to know or to ask whether Calchas’ prophecies amounted to a precise understanding of the gods’ demands; they just assumed it was. Perhaps the difference has to do with context: in this case we are not in the world of inscrutable divine will but rather of human motivation. The aims may be uncertain—tyranny (1355)?—but the info needs to be solid. Or maybe the men have become a bit more skeptical in the years since the sacrifice? What’s disturbing of course is that their narration of the sacrifice wasn’t but a few hundred lines earlier! Apparently only certain things are worthy of their curiosity and careful deliberation. The triumphal entrance of Clytemnestra, of course, dispels all doubts: Agamemnon is clearly dead (1372–98). In her initial speech she only obliquely mentions the cause of her vengeance—a long-standing grievance (1378) and Agamemnon’s many crimes in their home (1397).135 Presumably she’s expecting the chorus—and us—to put the pieces together. She shouldn’t have to spell out the history that lies behind her vengeance, although we know from the Cassandra scene that the chorus will need such elaboration. As we noted previously in her first interaction with the men of the chorus, Clytemnestra probably suspects their unfading allegiance to Agamemnon and, perhaps more importantly, their unfading allegiance to the narrative they’ve constructed about the glorious, god-sanctioned expedition to Troy (which they just reiterated, after all). She’s feeling them out for even the most minuscule evidence of understanding, empathy or conscience—something the men refuse to give her. In her own opportunistic way, and surely in light of the chorus’ penchant for fatalistic religiosity, Clytemnestra says she added a final (and apparently unnecessary) blow to the corpse of Agamemnon in honor of Zeus of the underworld for the fulfillment of her prayer (1386–87; cf. 973–74). Rather

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like the men then—all of them, that is—she projects her malicious prayer to the heavens in the beginning and now retrojects the cause of its fulfillment, a very clever and self-justifying move. In response to the chorus’ (predictable) accusation that she has done violence to the community (1407–11), a community that will punish her in return, Clytemnestra finally and very effectively calls them on their hypocrisy (1412–21): νῦν μὲν δικάζεις ἐκ πόλεως φυγὴν ἐμοὶ καὶ μῖσος ἀστῶν δημόθρους τ’ ἔχειν ἀράς, οὐδὲν τότ’ ἀνδρὶ τῶιδ’ ἐναντίον φέρων, ὃς οὐ προτιμῶν, ὡσπερεὶ βοτοῦ μόρον, μήλων φλεόντων εὐπόκοις νομεύμασιν, ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ παῖδα, φιλτάτην ἐμοὶ ὠδῖν’, ἐπωιδὸν Θρηικίων ἀημάτων. οὐ τοῦτον ἐκ γῆς τῆσδε χρῆν σ’ ἀνδρηλατεῖν μιασμάτων ἄποιν’; ἐπήκοος δ’ ἐμῶν ἔργων δικαστὴς τραχὺς εἶ. Oh now you’ve determined that I win banishment from the city, the hatred of the community and public curses! You offered no obstruction back then to this man who set the destruction of his own daughter’s life below that of a beast—lower than any one of the shaggy hoards of sheep we’ve got—and sacrificed her! She was my favorite child and he treated her like a spell for Thracian winds. Shouldn’t you have banished him from this land for these ungodly crimes? No. But as a witness to my deeds you’re a harsh judge. The emphatic position of νῦν really penetrates. We get the first proper mention of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia since the parodos (187–247; cf. 1524–29, 1555–59), here spitefully invoked as a mere ‘magical charm’ (ἐπωιδὸν).136 In her role as the binding song of the winds Iphigeneia was treated not as a human—and not just as an animal (1415–16)—but purely as a means, a concatenation of verbs and direct objects. The irony now of course is that Iphigeneia’s sacrifice also bound Agamemnon to his own inescapable path, although here, as Clytemnestra reveals in her intensely personal account, there is nothing fatal to his death. Thus her choice of ἐπωιδὸν reveals the calculus of human desire, blindness and bloodlust that hides behind seemingly deterministic causes. As we saw in the previous chapter, there is no magic behind a binding song, just the unadulterated malice of wishful thinking. The chorus, fittingly, says nothing in response to Clytemnestra’s invocation of Iphigeneia. They refuse to even validate her justification: She must simply be crazy (1426–28). Either they are too sociopathically insensitive to her maternal concerns to acknowledge them or they are too savvy to acknowledge (and thus potentially justify) her aggressive self-defense. We

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know the chorus is capable of revealing criticism, but they never really own up to the injustice of Agamemnon’s decisions. They’ve fully internalized the story about Agamemnon, Iphigeneia and Artemis—the story they invented and have been peddling to themselves. That narrative is now a reality for the men of the chorus, it is now so wrapped up in their (chicken hawk) identities that it cannot be revised without a correspondingly terrifying self-revelation (we too could sanction the murder of our children!). Better ultimately to persist in the fantasy that ‘it is what it is’ and simply claim that Clytemnestra is a woman subject to fits of irrational passion. But their staid and consistent position throughout the episode is no less irrational for being built on a (self-) denial. Even sociopaths can be calm and collected (see Foley 2001: 203–4, 228). Clytemnestra invokes in response a truly terrifying trinity—Dike, Ate and Erinys—through whose aid (αἷσι?) she slaughtered Agamemnon (1431–33). Apparently Clytemnestra is familiar with Agamemnon’s reputation as a womanizer back in Troy (Χρυσηίδων μείλιγμα τῶν ὑπ’ Ἰλίωι, 1439), which perhaps explains her murder of Cassandra as well (1440–47): ἥ τ’ αἰχμάλωτος ἥδε καὶ τερασκόπος καὶ κοινόλεκτρος τοῦδε, θεσφατηλόγος, πιστὴ ξύνευνος, ναυτίλων δὲ σελμάτων ἰσοτριβής· ἄτιμα δ’ οὐκ ἐπραξάτην, ὁ μὲν γὰρ οὕτως, ἡ δέ τοι κύκνου δίκην τὸν ὕστατον μέλψασα θανάσιμον γόον κεῖται φιλήτωρ τοῦδ’· ἐμοὶ δ’ ἐπήγαγεν εὐνῆς παροψώνημα τῆς ἐμῆς χλιδῆς Alongside him lies this here captive, this portent-seer and omen-spewer, his bed-whore, his faithful bed-whore, this pole-stroker of the ship benches. They didn’t get an unjust reward, these two—that’s just the way you’d expect him, while she sang out her final death dirge like a swan and now lies next to her lover. To my luxuriant pleasure she added the dessert I needed for my feast. One wonders what Cassandra was singing before Clytemnestra struck her with the sword: Was it the same sort of vatic song that she’d sung to the chorus? Was she just another Chryseis to Clytemnestra, prophetic powers be damned? Was Cassandra saying something about Iphigeneia finally? Was Clytemnestra unpersuaded per the curse on Cassandra? Would Clytemnestra have listened—or cared to listen—in any event (especially the bit about Orestes’ return)? Like all others she only hears what she wants to hear, only comprehends as much as confirms her self-justifying judgment of the situation. Ultimately she’s just as opportunistic as everyone else—perhaps justifiably so137—but it’s hard not to get the impression that Aeschylus’ true concern in the play is this democracy of opportunism.138

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In a curious about-face the chorus claims that the death of Agamemnon is the product of Zeus’ will (1485–88), a rather self-defeating charge if, as they averred earlier, Zeus was responsible for Agamemnon’s expedition to Troy and subsequently his victory. Perhaps for them the death of Agamemnon is a now-real instantiation of their generic platitude of πάθει μάθος (cf. 1563–64). How, though, do they reckon with Zeus’ punishment of Agamemnon? Do they suppose that he was angered at the sacrifice of Iphigeneia? That he didn’t really support the Greek side in the war? That he disapproved of the wreck and ruin and despoliation of it all?139 Regardless of whether they can believe that Zeus is responsible for this outcome, some god is apparently involved. Hence their invocation of the δαίμων assailing the house (1468–74, 1481–82), an invocation that Clytemnestra confirms (1475) and will now claim to embody. We are prepared for this identification in the chorus’ claim that the δαίμων is standing over the body of Agamemnon (1472–73) at the very moment that Clytemnestra is standing over his corpse. So now—after all the invocations of an evil spirit besetting the house—it makes sense for Clytemnestra to claim affinity, or identity, with the ruinous ἀλάστωρ of the house of Atreus (1497–1504).140 Whether she believes it genuinely or is just following through with the metaphor the chorus has introduced in their bewilderment is up for grabs.141 I happen to like the idea of her simply seizing on the chorus’ astonished incredulity and using it against them. If that’s the case, and if the chorus’ literal-mindedness and confusion have been an issue in the play, then their immediate response that she’s trying to dodge responsibility for the murder (1505–8)—that the ἀλάστωρ could have been an accomplice—further shows up their silliness and opportunism. Clytemnestra basically plays them for fools and they subsequently prove her right.142 The elders simply cannot give up their belief that Agamemnon was a hero (1538–50). Apparently they have heard very little that Clytemnestra has just been saying to them (in particular about justifiable vengeance for Iphigeneia’s death, 1523–29143). They simply refuse to acknowledge her justification, a fact that is symptomatic of a generic male unwillingness to listen to a woman in this story (the Greeks’ failure to understand Helen’s departure with Paris, Agamemnon and his men’s refusal to heed Iphigeneia’s cries and curses, the chorus’ initial hesitation to believe in Clytemnestra’s dreams and their subsequent inability to hear Cassandra’s warnings).144 Apparently, the only way that they’ll ever hear Clytemnestra is when she ventriloquizes (or is ventriloquized by) the δαίμων, though as the case of Cassandra shows not even this is terribly effective at getting through to them.145 However, Clytemnestra won’t let them forget. She responds intriguingly (1552–59): πρὸς ἡμῶν κάππεσε κάτθανε, καὶ καταθάψομεν, οὐχ ὑπὸ κλαυθμῶν τῶν ἐξοἴκων,

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The Necessity of Agamemnon ἀλλ’ Ἰφιγένειά νιν ἀσπασίως (1555) θυγάτηρ, ὡς χρή, πατέρ’ ἀντιάσασα πρὸς ὠκύπορον πόρθμευμ’ ἀχέων περὶ χεῖρα βαλοῦσα φιλήσει By our hands he fell and died and so we shall be the ones to bury him— there will be no mourning from those outside the family. Rather Iphigeneia, his daughter, will happily meet her father at the swift ferry of grief—as is right—and throw her arms around him and kiss him.

The phrase πρὸς ἡμῶν is striking: Does it anticipate the arrival of Aegisthus, or is Clytemnestra claiming that her belated vengeance on behalf of Iphigeneia makes them (i.e., Clytemnestra and Iphigeneia) accomplices in the murder? It’s far likelier the former, I suppose,146 although I’m hard pressed to give up the possibility of the latter with all the talk of Iphigeneia of late. What disturbs me about this possibility, however, is that Clytemnestra claims Iphigeneia will greet her father in the underworld with a hug and a kiss. Are we to imagine that Clytemnestra thinks Iphigeneia’s soul will bear no grudge against her father? How is that ‘proper’ (ὡς χρή, 1556)?147 Whatever the case, the chorus seems to acknowledge finally that Clytemnestra has a point (1560–64). Yet again a silent Iphigeneia may be on their mind. Too bad they can’t just say her name.

AEGISTHUS AND FINALE With the entrance of Aegisthus in the final scene Aeschylus puts the finishing touches on his portrait of the tragic opportunism of deterministic claims—in this case with the curse of Thyestes against Agamemnon’s father, Atreus. Aegisthus storms in triumphantly with a sort-of blasphemous prayer of victory (1577–82). He is now the final character to make dubious claims on the gods. Not that his story and his justification for murder aren’t at first glance legitimate: Atreus murdered Aegisthus’ siblings and then served them up as food to Thyestes himself (1591–97)! A truly abhorrent and impious act, one for which Thyestes perhaps righteously calls down a curse on the race of Pleisthenes (1602). For this reason (ἐκ τῶνδε, 1603), he claims, Agamemnon has been slaughtered.148 We may, however, have reason to doubt Aegisthus— like all characters in this play—because he left out a somewhat crucial detail: Thyestes’ seduction of Atreus’ wife. Not that this warrants the depraved response by Atreus, but it does cast an illuminating light on Aegisthus’ rhetorical sanctimony. In response to the chorus’ charge that he will pay for his misdeeds (1612–16), Aegisthus pulls rank: You are all a bunch of chicken hawks and have always been (1617–24). Which is certainly the truth, but it would

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pack more punch if he were actually a figure of sympathy and magnanimity and not just the appallingly bitchy opportunist that he is here. It is a shame that not even Aegisthus can bother to mention Iphigeneia’s name; he’s too wrapped up in his own revenge. One wonders whether the brutality suffered by his young siblings might have brought him closer to the experiences of Iphigeneia and hence closer to Clytemnestra in her grief. Unfortunately we’ll never get to know that side of Aegisthus. Clytemnestra ultimately is the one to shelter him from such revelations, shutting down the petulant contest of will between Aegisthus and the chorus, who descend into a stereotypically gendered discourse of action and plotting (1625ff.). By now Clytemnestra’s tone has changed (1654–61): She strikes a chord of conciliation and twice addresses the elders with terms of honor (1654, 1657).149 Apparently now the δαίμων has dispossessed her (1659–61): She speaks as a victim of the house’s evil spirit. ‘Such,’ she says, ‘are the words of a woman, if anyone sees fit to learn from them’ (1661), an ironic way to bring closure to a play whose men have systematically refused to learn.150

NOTES 1. See, for example, Peradotto (2007): ‘A preoccupation with the chain of cause and effect, with responsibility, dominates this kind of tragic composition and forces it to strip away chance, the fortuitous, the coincidental, leaving only a perception of naked law’ (211); cf. Rosenmeyer (1982: 224–25). The list of scholars who assume a fatalistic framework in the play is dauntingly long: cf. Kitto ([1956] 1960), Deniston and Page (1957), Dodds (1960), LloydJones ([1962] 2007), Lesky ([1966] 2007), Greene (1968), Fontenrose (1971), Edwards (1977), Nussbaum (2001), Foley (2001: 203 n.4), and so on. 2. Cf., for example, Hammond (1965): Aeschylus does not mention anything like ‘the curse’ [of Thyestes] until the Agamemnon is two-thirds done! . . . One cannot reverse the sequence on the stage as readily as one can read back a motive in a written text . . . I do not find the mention of this curse so vivid that it illumines the whole motivation of all that has preceded with a new light. (42–43) See further Gantz (1983): ‘[Cassandra] reminds us of the pattern of bloodshed in this house, but that is not the same thing as establishing a divinely ordained compulsion to further disaster’ (71 n.19). Pace Fletcher (2012: 38). 3. Cf. Chiasson (1988): The ancient mythological horror of the Atreid house culminates, remarkably, in celebration of Athenian achievement and potential. As the trilogy ends and the Eumenides depart in procession, therefore, we can only marvel at the dynamism of Aeschylus’ dramatic vision—at the distance in space, time, mood, and thought that separates the end of the Oresteia from its beginning. (21) To assume then that its stirring vision of human progress and justice—if that’s what it really offers—is in any way foreshadowed in the first two plays can only be treated with suspicion.

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4. In a well-known essay arguing (against Lloyd-Jones [1962] 2007) that Aeschylus recognizes human freedom even despite the limitations imposed by Moira, Hammond comes essentially to the same conclusion about the role of the gods in the Oresteia as Fontenrose. I’m unsure, though, how to reconcile the belief that everything in the trilogy is ‘overseen by Zeus, but it has come about without any infringement of the free will of the agents’ (Hammond 1965: 50; cf. 52). Although this view seems to jive with Lesky’s idea of double motivation—perhaps with the slight but interesting distinction Hammond makes about the limits of human apportionment (cf. 53)—a free will ‘overseen’ by the gods is not really free. 5. Fraenkel (1950: 25–26) comes to a similar conclusion. 6. Remember, though, that this is Menelaus’ report to Telemachus of Proteus’ report to him: The many layers of narrative prevent us from knowing what comes from Proteus’ mouth—and he’s not exactly a consistent fellow, right? Who’s to say his storytelling isn’t as shifty as his corporeal form?—and what comes from Menelaus’ mouth. Plus there’s already the discrepancy in the number of people treacherously killed by Aegisthus—was it, as Homer has Menelaus has Proeteus say, Agamemnon’s entire retinue or just Agamemnon and Cassandra? 7. Cf. Fraenkel (1950 ad 19 s.v. διαπονουμένου). 8. Cf. Frankel (1950): ‘The oxymoron . . . impresses the hearer’s mind from the outset with one of the principal features of Clytemnestra’s character’ (ad loc). He does not, however, specify what this feature is. 9. As Fraenkel (1950: ad loc) notes, we would normally expect a direct object to follow a participle like this. 10. Foley (2001) notes that the trilogy attests to the ‘impossibility of imagining a Greek wife and mother as a moral agent acting autonomously in her own interest’ (201–2). 11. Are we to assume for that matter that the watchman supported Agamemnon’s questionable decision to sacrifice his daughter? Would he have been old enough ten years prior to this moment to have any opinion on the issue in the first place? What then is the reason for his loyalty to Agamemnon? 12. Was the watchman then given this job because he was loyal or because he was a trouble maker? Does he have some history with Clytemnestra and Aegisthus? Fraenkel (1950: ad loc) notes the mystery—and difficult dramaturgy—of these μαθόντες but still claims that ‘there is no question of rhetoric here . . . all is perfectly natural.’ 13. Cf. Fraenkel (1950): ‘Naturally it occurs to no one that the Atridae have lost children, but one near and dear has been torn from them, as from the birds, and that is the point here’ (ad 50 s.v. παίδων; cf. ad 59 s.v. παραβᾶσιν). 14. Dover (1973: 61) reads ‘caution, doubt and ambivalence’ in the chorus. See Gantz (1983: 66 n.5) on the critics who believe the chorus is possessed of a ‘wisdom and attachment’ that the play does not corroborate. Cf. Peradotto’s (2007) disappointment with criticism of the parodos up to his time: A misunderstanding of the oblique, oracular terms in which this scene is written will seriously compromise even the most careful reading of the rest of the trilogy, and vitiate its poetic logic . . . The most literal and, for that reason, misleading interpretations of this scene have been proposed by critics whose attitude toward the intellectual merit of poetic drama is, to say the least, disconcerting . . . By a literalism in the reading of poetic texts which calls itself objectivity, but which proves especially impotent before a passage whose fabric is as multilayered and symbolic as the one under discussion. (212, 214) For an example of this literalism cf. Lloyd-Jones ([1962] 2007: 60).

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15. Unless, that is, her rage and betrayal are preserved by the Eumenides—more further on and in chapter 4. 16. So Fraenkel (1950: ad loc). 17. Many critics follow this reasoning: Deniston and Page (1957: xxvi), Kitto ([1956] 1960: 6), Jones (1962: 75, 78). Hammond (1965), however, makes an interesting discrimination here: When [critics say] that Zeus ordered the expedition . . . [they put] the initiative on Zeus in a way in which the Chorus does not; for the Chorus sees an analogy between the Erinys sent by a god to punish the robbers of the vultures’ nest and the Atreidae sent by Zeus to avenge the rape of Helen. It does not follow that the god or Erinys appeared to those who punished the robbers or that Zeus appeared to the Atreidae. We are not even told that Apollo urged the Atreidae to go by uttering an oracle, as he did later to Orestes. (46 n.12)

18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

Cf. also Gantz (1983: 72, 75) and especially Peradotto (2007): ‘The statement “Zeus sent the Atreidae . . . ” is a religious interpretation of the chorus, not an empirical description . . . Zeus Xenios permits, justifies, supports the war, but nothing in the text suggests that he obliges’ (230). Technically, nothing in the text suggests Zeus ‘permits, justifies, supports’ the war either. See further Parker (2009): ‘Gods have long memories, and Troy could have been punished in a way that did not involve the murder of a daughter by her father’ (133). In this vein cf. Dover (1973: 65). Cf. Fraenkel (1950: ad loc): ‘He who tells a tale that can be trusted, and hands on a true story for all time to come, falls not short in merit, in short at all, of him who did the deed.’ Cf. Griffith (2009b: 42). See Bers (1997: 25–44) on the varying use of oratio recta and oratio obliqua in Aeschylus. See Parker (2009: 134, esp. n.19) and Goward (1999: 48). Fraenkel (1950) notes that ‘in Aeschylus . . . the far more common meaning [of λῆμα] is courage’ (ad 115). Cf. Lesky ([1966] 2007): ‘Without difficulty Calchas interprets the omen to signify the capture of Troy by the two Atreidae and the destruction of its possessions’ (16, my emphasis). To Bers (1997) the chorus’ claim on the correspondence of the eagles with the Atreidae, which comes just prior to Calchas’oratio recta, ‘leav[es] it unclear, though not a matter to arouse the audience’s curiosity, whether Calchas is to be imagined as beginning his pronouncement by explaining the correspondence’ (31, my emphasis). See Gould (1985: 22–23) and Bremer (1994: 8–12) on the systematic inscrutability of divine communication. Griffith (2009a) notes the personal stakes in oracular consultation: Everyone was aware . . . that it could make a crucial difference who chose the moment and mode of mantic consultation, who asked the question, what their past connection and possible future relationship might be with the oracle or prophet, which ‘interpreter’ of the god’s signs you trusted, out of the several who might be available, and what the god’s or the mantis’ own previously recognized agenda might be. (481, cf. 491, 497)

24. I am aware this οὕτω also looks forward to the quotation, but it is meant to bridge thought and word (although cf. Fraenkel [1950: ad 615] on the unexpected use of οὕτως in the phrase οὕτως εἶπε). Degener (2001: 65–66) reads the choral repetition of τὸ δ’ εὖ νικάτω as a ‘punctuated, veiled critique’ of Calchas’ authority. Cf. Zak (1995: 71).

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25. Consider the varying uses of oratio recta throughout the ode. Calchas is given space for OR initially but not, importantly, when he prescribes the sacrifice of Iphigeneia (Bers 1997: 31–34). 26. Critics have questioned the nature of Artemis’ objection to the symbolism of the hare: see Gantz (1982: 73) for discussion. 27. For the meaning and force of αἰτεῖ . . . κρᾶναι see further on, notes 32–34 and 70. 28. Fraenkel (1950: ad 158ff.) notes the ‘bold stroke’ of Aeschylus in keeping the traditional story of Artemis’ anger but eliminating Agamemnon’s transgression against her. Clinton (1988: 6, 8) argues that Artemis’ role as ‘mistress of bloody sacrifices’—‘She had the power to destroy women [in her Brauronian instantiation], just as she had the power to destroy animals, and she would do it completely without reason or warning’—makes her seemingly unexpected anger apposite. Peradotto (2007: 223) and Bowie (1993: 20–21) see a similar dynamic. Cf. also the insightful remarks of Gould (1985) on Greek religion in general: ‘Contact and communication with divinity may be contact with the alien and subversive and may involve, not the maintenance, but the subversion of social normality’ (22). 29. Here I am drawing on the deeply insightful work of Gould (1985) on the nature of Greek religion. Clinton (1988: 11) also notes the mismapping of human and divine views of symbolism. 30. See Degener (2001) on the ‘radical threat of disjunction’ intrinsic to this term: ‘That which is “symbolically” “thrown together” is also prone to coming apart’ (64). 31. Hence Sommerstein’s (2008: 19) translation of ξύμβολα as ‘counterpart.’ Degener (2001: 72) reads the carpet scene as the ‘other sacrifice,’ the ‘recompense for Iphigeneia’s sacrifice’ (‘opposing halves guaranteeing a contractual relationship’; 91). Perhaps this is why Calchas’ invocation of Apollo (146) to prevent Artemis falls on deaf ears—because Apollo knows it’s not really his sister making the demand. On this issue see Fraenkel (1950: ad 144). 32. I find Degener’s (2001) radical re-reading compelling: Artemis ceases to be the subject of αἰτεῖ, and thus is no longer to be seen as demanding the sacrifice. Instead, the ξύμβολα, ‘symbols,’ in the nominative plural, govern not only the third person singular of the finite form αἰτεῖ, but τεύξηι as well, and finally, in the crowning moment of this grammatical exercise in exceptions to the rules, govern what may now be read as the neuter plural, σπευδόμενα, of the participle by virtue of the paleographic undeterminability of the Doric ΣΠΕΥΔΟΜΕΝΑ . . . In a rhetorical tour de force, Aeschylus presents Artemis as if she is demanding the sacrifice, while simultaneously revealing in the ambiguous dexia what amounts to a diametrically opposed significance. (69–70; but cf. the qualifications at 73–74) 33. Sommerstein (2008) overindulges the accessibility of this language: In Calchas’ oracular words—unintelligible to his original hearers, and mostly also to the Elders now, but easily interpretable by the audience—the coming sacrifice of Iphigeneia is half-identified with the wrath it will generate, which in turn is half-identified with the person . . . in whom that wrath will reside. (19 n.33, emphasis added) Fraenkel (1950 ad loc) rejects the idea that we are to connect this wrath with Clytemnestra. 34. Cf. Fraenkel (1950): In the early stages of religious thought a great expenditure of pious foresight and sometime actual cunning is considered necessary in order to prevent a

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daemon or a god . . . from using some malicious device so as not to comply with the wishes of the mortal who prays to him and to evade the magic or almost magic compulsion of his worship and his prayer. To know the name of the daemon is to acquire power over him; the exhaustive enumeration, or if that is impossible the summarizing, of all his names . . . is therefore necessary for the prayer to take effect. (ad 160) 35. Consider the clever way Aeschylus visually and aurally represents the slipperiness of this tautology: Zeus becomes πλὴν Διός, that is to say, he becomes someone or something else when you try to pin him down. He is his own exception. See Smith (1980) for a thoroughgoing examination of this ode, in particular the problematic semantics of both προσεικάσαι and πάθει μάθος. Cf. Bergson (1967) and Weglage (1991). 36. Cf Degener (2001): Given the chorus’ agnosticism, ὅστις need not conform to a conventional assumption of anthropomorphism. For as Greek attributes gender to all classes of objects, this ‘masculine’ indefinite need not be translated in the personified sense of ‘whoever’ but could just as well be rendered as ‘whatever,’ particularly as here the signified of the name in itself in question. (75 n.32) 37. Parker (2009) is right to note that the hymn is ‘not a theological statement’ but rather holds a ‘carefully-crafted place within the chorus’ narration’ (137, with reference to Rosenmeyer 1955 in n.34). I suspect that Parker means this is not a theological statement by Aeschylus. For the chorus, however, it is very much a theological truth claim. 38. Rosenmeyer (1955) sees effective drama in the positioning of the Zeus hymn: The great ‘abstract’ discussion of Zeus . . . has a very important dramatic function. The recapitulation of the developments at Aulis is momentarily interrupted, at the point of Agamemnon’s hopeless decision, to evoke a false picture of security in Zeus, and to underscore the enigma of the universal order, while at the same time holding out such make-believe panacaeas as sophrosyne and the like. After this, the action proceeds with greater poignancy, with a more massive sense of frustration and disaster than would have been possible without this intercalation of the divine metaphor blown up to its most deceiving proportions. (256; cf. 1982: 279) See also the perceptive judgment of Zak (1995): The hymn provides a theological rationalization of the necessity of the narrative dilemma and climax, making sense of the action subsequently recited that otherwise could only trouble the chorus’ thoughts . . . Through the ‘hymn’ Aeschylus deftly conveys his awareness that, given the moving limit of man’s insight, our theology is always as much a reflection of ourselves as of the gods it attempts to pay homage to, as much an uncertain human creation of personal meaning as a gift of the gods themselves. (81, 83) Wohl (1998) shrewdly notes the ‘epistemological and economic’ dimensions: If Zeus is accepted as a universal equivalent, then value is inherent and can be known: the play’s obsessive calculation of worth, its accounting of the war’s profits and losses, its questioning of the value of olbos or a tapestry or a life, can yield definite and stable answers . . . The alternative to Helen’s unstable universe, then, would seem to be the fixed and fetishized aristocratic cosmos ruled by Zeus. (91; cf. also 96–97 on the disturbing image of Ares as money-changer of bodies)

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39. Degener (2001) is a bit more open minded about the ἄχθος the chorus invokes here: The burden, or anxiety, can neither be conceived of as inconsequential nor even vague . . . The anxiety is not that of the past that is realized simply in the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, but instead is that which persists into the present. If the prophecy finally meant simply what both Agamemnon and the tradition have supposed, namely that the full extent of the evil caveat of Calchas prophecy was limited to the sacrifice of Iphigeneia and that once that heinous deed had been carried out the worst was over, then there would no longer be grounds for present anxiety . . . The sacrifice was not cathartic. (79–80) Fraenkel (1950: ad loc) offers a more traditional understanding: recognize Zeus as supreme. 40. See Dover’s (1973) judicious remarks: Agamemnon took the course which most people with Greek values and presuppositions would have felt bound to regard as dictated by honour, justice, piety and the overriding obligation to subordinate one’s own life and the lives of one’s dependents to the common good . . . It is, in my submission, important that neither he nor anyone else could be certain—as certain as one would wish to be before killing one’s own child—that his seer had interpreted the will of the gods correctly, and this dimension seems to me emphasised by the terms in which the chorus tell the story. (65–66; cf.63–64) I would query only Dover’s repeated invocation of the natural (cf. 63 n.9)—if what Agamemnon did, however complex his moral calculation, conforms to what anyone apparently would do in such a situation, then why is this a tragedy? In fact this is most certainly not the kind of situation a fifth-century Greek (or anyone else outside a tragedy) would have generally found himself in, so the invocation of a normative response misses the point that the scene Aeschylus dramatizes, from problem to solution to effect, is completely unnatural (cf. Fraenkel 1950 ad 206: ‘something utterly unnatural and horrible’). 41. If Iliad 1 has any bearing here, we may wonder whether the relationship between Agamemnon and Calchas is already strained (cf. Fraenkel 1950: ad loc and ad 202ff.). Cf. Degener (2001): Why would Aeschylus have gone to such pains to present the chorus’ suspicions of Calchas if not to alert his readers to attend to the sophisticated rhetorical complexities found in the substance of the prophecy itself? The point is not to follow the tragic path of Agamemnon’s undoing, that is, not to fail to impugn . . . the words of the prophet. (67) 42. Cf. Nussbaum (2001): Agamemnon is allowed to choose: that is to say, he knows what he is doing; he is neither ignorant or the situation nor physically compelled; nothing forces him to choose one course rather than the other. But he is under necessity in that his alternatives include no very desirable options. There appears to be no incompatibility between choice and necessity here—unless one takes the ascription of choice to imply that the agent is free to do anything at all. On the contrary, the situation seems to describe quite precisely a kind of interaction between external constraint and personal choice that is found to one degree or another in any ordinary situation of choice. For a choice is always a choice among possible alternatives; and it is a rare agent for whom everything is possible. (34–35)

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In the world of choice, however, it is almost never the case that our options are either two or everything. ‘Alternatives’ does not have to connote two possibilities. 43. Cf. Sommerstein (2008): This seems to imply that at first Calchas had refrained from stating that Artemis was responsible for the adverse winds and that the fleet could not sail for Troy unless Iphigeneia was sacrificed; the sacrifice will then be called ‘another remedy’ in contrast to rememdies that had already been tried without success (such as, say, animal sacrifices to the wing-god Boreas). (24 n.45) 44. Fraenkel (1950: ad loc) notes that the more common technical meaning of this verb is ‘“make known” an oracle.’ 45. As Bers (1997: 33) notes, in this very disturbing moment we might have expected the chorus to turn back to OR if only to validate Calchas’ claim. Egan (2007) argues that lines 104–248 are to be imagined as part of Calchas’ prophecy. 46. Cf. Gantz (1983): I do not deny the implications of the word λιπόναυς; what I question is Agamemnon’s application of it to himself . . . Whom is he deserting? How can a man be λιπόναυς to his own expedition, especially one from which he and Menelaos alone stand to profit? Remember too that the winds simply prevent the army from sailing to Troy; despite references to the aggravating conditions, the troops may presumably return home at any time that Agamemnon will let them. (76–77 n.39; cf. also 1982: 12–13 with n.51) Contra Deniston and Page (1957: ad loc), Fraenkel (1950: ad loc), Lloyd-Jones ([1962] 2007), Lesky ([1966] 2007) and Rivier (1968), who treat λιπόναυς as conclusive of the necessity for Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter. 47. See Zak (1995: 67). Sommerstein (2008) notes that ‘in fact it is, and was, neither cowardly nor criminal for a commander to abandon or discontinue a military enterprise when its aims clearly cannot be fulfilled except at ruinous material or moral cost’ (24–25 n.46). We should take this to heart. But this also mistakes the world within the play for the (Athenian) world in which the play was produced. For Agamemnon, that is, the legality or ethics of abandoning his expedition is moot because he is not Athenian. 48. The identity of this σφ’, if it isn’t a mistaken correction of περιόργως, remains controversial: it could be Artemis, the chieftains or even Calchas. Cf. Fraenkel (1950: ad 215ff. s.v. ἐπιθυμεῖν—‘The absence of a definite subject is intentional’), Ewans (1975), Winnington-Ingram (1983: 85 n.16), Clinton (1988: 12 with n.29), Dover (1973: 64 n.13), West (1990: 178), Wohl (1998: 74–75— ‘The lack of clear attribution generalizes the sadism, so that it adheres to all the perpetrators of the act and its witnesses. The sacrifice becomes not only an incestuous penetration, but also a sort of gang rape’), Degener (2001). See the perceptive remarks of Gantz (1983): [Agamemnon] would like to picture [the army] as eager for the sacrifice. The point of the subjectless ἐπιθυμεῖν . . . is that Agamemnon wishes to infer that the army wants the sacrifice but cannot explicitly say what he knows is not true; thus he leaves the matter vague, hoping we will fill in the army’s name rather than his own. A great many critics have indeed done this by treating Bamberger’s σφ’at 216 as if it were a received part of the text . . . I would agree that Agamemnon might have said [that Artemis is the one desiring the sacrifice—following Ewans], but not that we need to believe him. (76 n.36)

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49. As Bers astutely points out (1997: 34 with n.18 esp.), the use of γάρ here, which on its face seems affirmative or explanatory, in fact elipts Agamemnon’s rationale. We don’t know his reasoning and yet we get his conclusion all the same (cf. Fraenkel 1950: ad loc). And since it is the chorus who narrates Agamemnon’s moment of clarity—even if it is in OR—his fears and doubts may well just be narrative effects added retrospectively to give him some indication of a human heart. 50. As lots of really smart people have (like Denniston and Page, Martha Nussbaum and Bernard Williams). Others reject the appropriateness of the term θέμις: Fraenkel (1950: ad loc), Hammond (1965), Peradotto (2007: 233), Neitzel (1978, 1979) and Parker (2009: 132). 51. Hence even Nussbaum’s (2001) sophisticated premise is flawed from the outset: ‘We are considering situations, then, in which a person must choose to do (have) either one thing or another. Because of the way the world has arranged things, he or she cannot do (have) both’ (27). To start with a dilemma—the reduction of the world of contingency to binary—is to fall prey to the same logic that destroys tragic protagonists, who indeed feel that it is either this or that. But that doesn’t mean they’re right. Rather, tragedy explores the implications and causes of their binary readings of the world. 52. Cf. Gantz (1983): Nothing in the omen forces him to sail, nor is there any guarantee that success in this venture will be desirable . . . The omen tells Agamemnon that he can (not must) carry out his intended expedition and that if he does so he will triumph; Artemis tells him that first he must slay Iphigeneia. That, bluntly put, is his choice. We may perhaps call such a choice a dilemma, since it involves for Agamemnon two unpleasant alternatives, but it is not quite the impossible situation which some scholars have described . . . What is the divine punishment threatened at Aulis if Agamemnon decides not to become the eagles? (75, 74) Gantz notes Tsagarakis’ (1979) comparison of this moment with Odysseus in Thrinacia ‘to suggest that Agamemnon should have asked the gods for further assistance’ (75 n.34). Zak (1995: 69) comes to a similar conclusion. 53. Cf. Zak (1995): Faced with what he prematurely assumes are his only options . . . Agamemnon does not feel as if he has any freedom of movement at all, let alone that he and his gods might proceed in concert toward the greater good that festival celebrates. [He is] a prisoner of his own primitive and unquestioning theology. (41) 54. See Hammond (1965: 48 n.18) and Dover (1973: 65) on the commonplace meaning of ἀνάγκη. Cf. Fraenkel (1950: ad loc). 55. Cf. Dover (1973): ‘Greek emotive language . . . was normally indifferent to any distinction between a cruel, wicked or reckless act committed by a manifestly insane person and a comparable act committed by those whose behaviour did not other otherwise afford comprehensive evidence of insanity’ (66). 56. See the brilliant remarks of Gantz (1983): [Agamemnon’s] determination to sail counts heavily with the elders, who themselves want desperately to believe in this expedition and in Zeus’ mandate of it. What they cannot believe is the gods’ sanctioning of the slaughter of Iphigeneia . . . Small wonder then that this chorus is confused. What we must realize, however, is that their confusion arises not from the contemplation of contrasting divine commands, but rather from the conflict between

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what they wish to suppose and what they see to be fact. Thus the ‘Hymn to Zeus’ of the parodos, whether theologically enlightened or not, is not so much a statement of faith in divine power as it is a cry of despair from men who are not yet ready to understand the workings of justice. Having weighed all aspects of the crisis . . . and found it a vain burden . . . they would here gladly abandon their attempts at judgment and return all such responsibility to Zeus. The hymn, plus their repeated refrain of τὸ δ’ εὖ νικάτω in the first three stanzas of the parodos and their appeal to Dike at the ode’s close, comprise together a fervent prayer that the gods may somehow supply justice where they themselves cannot. (77–78) We might ask whether this confusion and disapproval of the chorus are really just retrospective narratological effects. Peradotto got close to this understanding (2007: 229, contrast Nussbaum 2001: 41). I only query the sharpness of the distinction Peradotto draws between narrative and interpretation. 57. Cf. Wohl (1998): The decision to sacrifice his daughter . . . would seem to be a reaffirmation of Agamemnon’s allegiance to his allies (summakhoi), a reconfirmation of the homosocial bonds of aristocratic, male society, and the sacrifice itself the enabling factor for the war, the greatest of male-bonding experiences. (70) 58. See further on, note 137. 59. And what for that matter would it say about the types of gods the Greeks chose to worship? See Zak (1995): If Aeschylean theophany were merely the brute manifestation of transcendent power—not the order of creation and its creator—human beings, as Blake argued, would have to be deluded or self-hypnotized to worship such an abomination . . . Only when sacrificial offerings are not bitter necessities endured by oppressed men but the unconstrained gifts of free men lavished by the celebrants in emulation of divine benefaction and benevolence can such offerings ever hope to be pleasing to gods we would wish to worship. (40–41) Cf. Kitto ([1956] 1960: 6). 60. And wouldn’t they also know who was really responsible for the sacrifice? Pace Peradotto (2007): ‘Even granting the possibility of Iphigeneia’s sacrifice by the other commanders, why does Agamemnon choose to do it himself when he might, if others did the deed, escape blood guilt?’ (233 n.60, citing Thompson). Wohl (1998) reads this callous indifference as a matter of class: ‘[Iphigeneia] is only one of many precious and irreplaceable objects, agalmata, that are squandered . . . by aristocrats who seem not to know the difference or not to care’ (59). Cf. Lebeck (1971: 83) and Wohl (1998: 223 n.90) on the difficulty of παντὶ θυμῶι (233)—does this refer to Iphigeneia herself, to Agamemnon or to all present? Fraenkel (1950: ad loc) believes it simply goes with λαβεῖν ἀέρδην. 61. I follow Hammond (1965) in thinking the words Aeschylus puts in Agamemnon’s mouth ‘form a soliloquy of deep psychological insight’ (47), though to my mind that insight consists in revealing Agamemnon’s cynicism, not the experience born of his world- and war-weariness. Nussbaum (2001) reads something like sociopathy in this moment of ‘peculiar optimism’: ‘We are invited to witness the monstrous ease with which . . . boundaries are broken down’ (36–38). Rosenmeyer (1982), however, believes the psychological view ‘rings false because it narrows down the fated act of the sacrifice to the nervous obsession of a lone man.’ His view, like Hammond’s, is a more expansive version of double motivation:

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The Necessity of Agamemnon If we accept everything that is in the text, Agamemnon’s action arises out of a continuum of agencies, in which the king takes his place side by side with Artemis and with the curse upon his house. To put it differently: in Aeschylean drama, the metaphysical and the natural, the physical and the spiritual, necessity and chance, compulsion and the criminal will are in close proximity. (Rosenmeyer 1982: 273; cf. 301–2)

62. Hammond (1965: 46) implies, apropos of Artemis’ ‘independent action’ in sending the adverse wind, that ‘in a polytheistic world, where Zeus is not omnipotent,’ and where ‘Artemis is no servant of Zeus,’ different gods could make different (and contradictory) demands. 63. Fraenkel (1950) quotes Murray approvingly here: ‘Not a spoken curse—which would make the passage hideous—but the mere crying of a murdered daughter, which necessarily involves an ἀρά’ (ad 236). 64. Fletcher (2012: 35–69) offers the most recent reading of the performative utterance (horkos in particular) in the play but, like other practitioners of speech-act theory (cf. the previous chapter on Seven), applies it too literally. 65. Cf., for example, Deniston and Page (1957: ad loc), Whallon (1961), Clinton (1988: 3), Parker (2005: 240, ‘In the case of Iphigeneia there is never any doubt that it is Artemis who demands her death or seems to,’ my emphasis: ‘Artemis seems to demand’ and ‘never any doubt that Artemis demands’ contradict one another rather radically) and Widzisz (2012: 26). Consider the peculiarity of line 144 again: ‘She demands to fulfill a counterpart to this.’ Does this even work grammatically? See the discussion and scholarly survey of Fraenkel (1950: ad loc) who, in noting that the use of αἰτεῖν with an infinitive but without an accusative ‘seems never to occur at all,’ cautiously but not conclusively claims that αἰτεῖ may be incorrect. Dover (1973: 61–62) seems to be the only critic to argue that Artemis might not have been angry and that Calchas could have been in error. As should be obvious by now, I find this view compelling. Gantz (1983), however, raises an equally compelling objection: Seers in real life may well be wrong . . . but when was a seer ever mistaken in a story? And are we to believe that the adverse winds have no cause at all? Then too, if Agamemnon is really uncertain of Artemis’ anger, why does he not say so? (73 n.27) But cf. Gantz’s (1982) earlier judgment: The portent simply predicts for the Atreidae what they may be certain will happen if they go to Troy; it does not, if it is like most omens, create any obligation among those to whom it appears. In other words, it indicates a conditional outcome rather than a requirement. Still less is there reason to suppose a command from Artemis; whatever the sources of her anger, she imposes a condition on the sailing, not an absolute demand. (12) In this vein cf. also Wohl (1998), who brilliantly reads this scene as a ‘transaction without transactors’ and Iphigeneia as a ‘fetishized commodity’ (68–69 with nn. 49–51 in particular). 66. Other versions of the story may be found in Soph. El. 566–73 and Apollod. Epit. 3.21, 2.10. These versions as well as Proclus’ are discussed by Brulé (1987: 180–82) and Dowden (1989: 9–19). 67. See, for example, Nussbaum (2001: 35). Cf., however, Lloyd-Jones ([1962] 2007): ‘Aeschylean justice . . . had more in common with the ancient Hebrew justice that demanded eye for eye and tooth for tooth than with the exalted conceptions attributed to the poet by modern theorists’ (57). Sartre’s ([1946] 2007) perspective is instructively hesitant:

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Any sane person may wonder first whether it is truly an angel, and second, whether I am really Abraham. What proof do I have? . . . Or if I hear voices, what proof is there that they come from heaven and not from hell, or from my own subconscious, or some pathological condition? What proof is there that they are intended for me? . . . If a voice speaks to me, it is always I who must decide whether or not this is the voice of an angel; if I regard a certain course of action as good, it is I who will choose to say that it is good, rather than bad. (26) 68. Cf. Peradotto (2007): Like the lion in the parable, Agamemnon has inherited his father’s predatory and teknophonous ethos, an ethos incidentally which is quite consistent with the portrayal of Agamemnon in the literary tradition. It is this ethos that Artemis chiefly hates; it is this ethos that is the source of all three acts symbolized by the portent of the eagles . . . In his decision to sacrifice Iphigeneia and pursue the war for Helen Agamemnon suffers no external coercion. As we have tried to demonstrate, his choice depends less upon Zeus or Artemis than upon the kind of man he is, his ethos. (237, 235; cf. 242) See also Zak (1995: 50 with notes 40, 65). 69. Let me note here—and quote at some length—Wohl’s (1998) bold and astoundingly perceptive read of the threat of Iphigeneia’s burgeoning sexuality, which (in the eyes of the men in the play) could have turned her into another Helen: The erotics of the sacrifice are as much a part of the chorus’s narrative as they are inherent in the act itself; the sadism of the chorus becomes indistinguishable from that of the philomakhoi brabes. By attributing desire, however vaguely, to the brabes, the chorus can project and deny its own vicarious interest in the scene, but its vehemence in denying its participation (even as witnesses) in the murder itself merely reinforces the impression that the narrative has something to hide . . . Thus the text’s lack of determination as to the subject of the desire allows for concentric rings of denial and deferral. The desire that diffuses outward in concentric circles from the act itself implicates and ever-expanding audience: the brabes, the chorus, and finally the Athenian spectator. That same inadmissible erotics is then denied by its deflection back toward the center of the circle, as he audience projects its desire onto the chorus, and the chorus onto the brabes and Agamemnon. The final stage of this cycle of disavowal (and this is what makes the scene thinkable) is the projection of the eroticism onto the object of desire itself, Iphigeneia . . . The break in the narrative [ad 248–29] . . . closes off the space around her and keeps her a virgin: to describe the sacrifice would be to deflower her. Yet, while the break in the narrative effects the objectification, it also points to the artificiality, the imaginary quality, of the construct. (75–76, 79) 70. See Nussbaum’s (2001) intriguing judgment: Agamemnon knows that Iphigeneia is his child all through, if by this we mean that he has the correct beliefs, can answer many questions about her truly, etc. But because in his emotions, his imagination and his behavior he does not acknowledge the tie, we want to join the Chorus in saying that his state is less one of knowledge than one of delusion. He doesn’t really know that she is his daughter. (45–46) 71. Dover (1973: 62); see also Lloyd-Jones (1983), Seaford (1989: 91) and Widzisz (2012: 26 n. 8).

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72. Although, cf. the prescriptive view of Fraenkel (1950: ad loc): τὰ δ’ ἔνθεν κτλ. indicates that the Elders have themselves experienced in Aulis the events which they have so far been telling. Naturally the spectator has no right—and if he is the kind of spectator for whom Aeschylus wrote, no reason—to inquire why the old men followed the expedition from Argos as far as Aulis. 73. Griffith (2009b) maintains that this admission ‘reinject[s] a crucial element of poetic indeterminacy into the narrative. We are reminded that Iphigeneia may not after all have been killed’ (43). 74. See again Degener’s (2001) bold suggestion: While line 248 . . . is, on one level, the most powerful expression of the apotropaic gestures of the chorus that punctuated the prophecy of Calchas and that shared in expressing, to a certain degree, a tacit, if skeptical, complicity in the call for an homophonous prayer for the best, it was not finally possible to turn away, to avert the gaze from the graphic horror of the sacrifice. The ambiguity arises in the morphology of εἶδον, at once first person singular and third person plural, which simultaneously reveals and conceals the taboo event . . . When the phenomenological progress of the line is considered . . . it is clear that initially εἶδον must be assumed to the host at Aulis, since the scene at Aulis has just been described . . . The reason they did not see is because they were blinded, having been struck by the stigmatizing shafts of Iphigeneia’s active . . . gaze. (90) 75. Cf. Rosenmeyer (1982): The sacrifice, and the decision to perform it, are at several removes from dramatic immediacy. We must distinguish among what is enacted on the stage, what a character reports about himself as having been enacted (or being on the point of enactment), what is reported by a messenger, what is reported by the chorus, and what is referred to by the chorus or other incidentally, outside of a context devoted to reporting. One may quarrel about the precise details of this scheme of vanishing immediacy. (224; cf. 305) 76. So Sommerstein (2008: 29n.56); cf. Fraenkel (1950: ad loc, n. 2, approvingly citing Ferrari on the phrase also including the consequences of the sacrifice). 77. Cf. Wohl (1998): ‘Attention is drawn to the issues of authority and veracity, and we are reminded that this narrative, whether based on eye-witness reports or reported accounts, is the chorus’s fantasy’ (79). 78. Pace Widzisz (2012: 28 n. 15). 79. Before we move along, let me ask a question that will anticipate some confusion in the latter two plays of the Oresteia: Why don’t the Erinyes show up right then and there after Agamemnon’s thugatrocide like they do after Orestes’ matricide? There is probably a number of practical, dramaturgical and narratological reasons for their absence. Could we imagine that perhaps they do appear, that they’re responsible for Agamemnon’s many subsequent follies, both those we know from the Iliad and those Clytemnestra is just about to apotropaically (or not) imagine? Perhaps their seeming absence is a structural element of the chorus’ narrative (whereas in Choephori the action takes place in real time in a proper episode). In which case the chorus is either ignorant (how could they not imagine that Iphigeneia’s slaughter might bring on the Erinyes?) or incredibly savvy (remember: they’re the ones with the self-proclaimed authority to tell this story). In either case we are certainly left wondering about the motives of these men.

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80. Cf. Fraenkel (1950: ad 350, ‘without prejudice to that which she secretly intends and plans’; also ad 354, p.183, esp. n. 2) and Fontenrose (1971): Clytemnestra insincerely hopes that the victorious Achaeans respect . . . the gods of Troy and their sanctuaries, and that they do not through greed destroy or plunder what they ought not. She, of course, does not mind that Agamemnon offend the gods; but she wants to speak the right thoughts in public, and probably does not want angry gods to anticipate her. (78) 81. Foley (2001) argues that Clytemnestra’s concern for the defeated Trojans ‘represents a female perspective on the fall of Troy . . . whereas the messenger stresses the suffering of the Greek army and the joy of victory’ (209, with reference to Gagarin 1976: 93–94). 82. Again, Sommerstein (2008) overindulges our knowingness: The Elders will take this to mean either the pain felt by the spirits of Greek and Trojan dead who have been left unburied, or . . . the pain of Greek families who have lost kinsmen in the war; the audience will perceive that by ‘the dead’ Clytaemestra means primarily Iphigeneia, and that she intends to make sure that an ‘unexpected stroke of evil fate’ does occur. (42 n.77) 83. So are we now still so certain that Clytemnestra’s ἀνδρόβουλον κέαρ is really such a terrible thing? 84. Gantz (1983: 79 n.46, with reference to Lebeck) believes the langage of 371 (ἀθίκτων χάρις), 384 (βώμον) and 394 (ποταν ὸνὄρνιν) could conjure images of Agamemnon’s transgressions. 85. Fraenkel (1950: ad loc) disapproves of De Sanctis’ similar conclusion but concedes that the gods’ anger represents the ‘irreconcilable contradictions’ affecting the lives of heroes in Aeschylus. 86. Pace Sommerstein (2008): ‘A veiled reference to the possibility of a coup d’état and/or an assassination attempt against one or both of the Atreidae’ (54 n.99). 87. As Gantz (1983) notes, the chorus offers ‘not even the slightest lamentation for the lost fleet . . . what one would think to be the general stock-in-trade of tragedy’ (80 n.49). 88. Sommerstein (2008): This should mean that he brings good news. At first sight this makes it surprising that the chorus-leader is still sceptical; but good news is not necessarily news of victory—for all the Elders yet know, the Herald might be reporting nothing more than the safe return of the army. It will be a long time before he does in fact confirm the message of the beacon. (56–57 n. 102) 89. Widzisz (2012: 45) reads the herald’s narrative of the Greek camp in Troy in connection with the watchman, both of whom are figures of liminality. 90. Rather like the chorus called on Apollo to counteract Artemis in the parodos— to similar effect? 91. The editorial excision of 527—‘and the altars and the abodes of the gods have disappeared’—removes, however, the acknowledgment of Agamemnon’s transgressions against the gods. See Sommerstein (2008): The line interrupts the metaphor of the ‘mattock of Zeus’ which works over the ground (526) and destroys the seed in the soil (528) . . . We do not need 527 to tell us that the army has behaved as badly as was feared in 338–344—we knew that already . . . The line was probably added by a producer or actor for a revival in the late fifth century. (61 n.112)

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92. Scodel (2008) uses the herald’s speech, in particular lines 572–82, as a springboard to a discussion of how characters in the play try to regulate speech and, more importantly for our purposes, ‘social memory.’ 93. Or perhaps it did? The Iliad suggests in moments that Agamemnon has taken a much less sanguine view of the war and its effects, although we may certainly wonder whether the ultimate victory and the postwar transgressions contributed to a recrudescence of his character. We’ll never know, for better or worse; Clytemnestra simply assumes he hasn’t changed. 94. Cf. Zak (1995): ‘For her the resumption of her marital duties as Agamemnon’s wife will be the metaphorical equivalence of a Trojan woman’s being forced to feed and share the bed of the very man who murdered her child and husband’ (48). 95. Cf. Sommerstein (2008: 95 n.171) on the Pleiades and the stormy season. 96. See 341–42, 527–28, 819–820, 1462–67 with 126–30; cf. Wohl (1998: 87 with n.21) and Foley (2001: 215–16). 97. See Wohl (1998) on Helen never getting to speak for herself: ‘She is denied, by the vagaries of textual transmission [ad 714–46] if not by Aeschylus himself, even this moment of subjectivity’ (93 with n.39). By Wohl’s reading Helen, like Iphigeneia, has to bear the weight of all the men’s commodity fetishization (cf. 99). 98. See, famously, Knox (1952) who believed it implicates all the men in the family; cf. Nappa (1994). Wohl (1998: 77) reads in the ode an implication of Iphigeneia’s destructive sexuality. 99. The chorus rejects the wisdom that misfortune springs from good fortune in favor of bad reaping bad (749–72). This wisdom they connect naturally with the destruction at Troy and the lion in the house (Helen). But it could just as equally apply to the Greeks as well, right? What explains the storm after their victory? What could it mean that the newly born hubris that arose from the old ‘resembles’ its parents (772)? See Wohl (1998: 88–89) on the aristocratic sensibility wrapped in this seemingly democratic message. 100. Like inquiring about the coin toss that began a Superbowl ten years later: no one remembers and no one cares. 101. This too throws a revealing light on their reflections—are they just parroting his sanctimonious platitudes throughout? If so why? 102. Strangely, he says nothing of the shipwreck that the herald just gruesomely detailed. Perhaps for good reason too—he’s accompanied by the very woman whose rape is traditionally seen as its cause. One wonders then whether Agamemnon suspects as much about the storm; if so, we could read his uberpious prelude as a defense against any further punishment. 103. Some read Clytemnestra’s reference to an absent child (ἐκ τῶνδέ τοι παῖς ἐνθάδ’ οὐ παραστατεῖ, 877) as an ambiguous (or) sly reference to Iphigeneia. See Winnington-Ingram (1983: 105 with n.25) and Mitchell-Boyask (2006: 281). 104. In the course of her response, though, Clytemnestra makes a sly comment about the nature of men: They kick each other when they’re down (881–85). This, she tells us, came from the mouth of Stophius, who has been harboring the young Orestes in his father’s absence and who apparently understands that a king’s departure could inspire anarchy and evil council. Apart from the generality of the statement it is worth wondering whether he too has heard about Agamemnon’s actions (from Orestes perhaps?) and can therefore imagine how the people Agamemnon left behind might be harboring ill will toward him. These are the words of Clytemnestra, of course, and so we have to be wary of her focalizations and manipulations, but that certainly shouldn’t prevent us from believing it contains a kernel of truth. After all, it is presented as a matter of common knowledge (ὥς τι σύγγονον, 884).

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105. Agamemnon of course agrees, though we may well ask whether Priam would in fact have done such a thing. The Iliad showed Priam to be nothing like the man Agamemnon is, and he certainly didn’t perpetrate the same shameful actions. 106. See, generally, Meridor (1987) and Konishi (1989) for Agamemnon’s reasons for yielding. Clytemnestra also gets him to admit he would have done so if ‘someone with good knowledge’ had prescribed such action in a moment of fearful prayer. As Sommerstein (2008) notes: In a critical situation it was common to vow that, in return for immediate divine assistance, one would later give up a precious possession by sacrifice, dedication or otherwise . . . Clytaemestra is not suggesting that Agamemnon has actually made any such vow; she is trying to persuade him that there are some circumstances in which it would not be improper to act as she is asking him to do. (107 n.195) In a note on the ‘someone with good knowledge’ line (n.196) Sommerstein adds parenthetically ‘(such as Calchas),’ although apropos of our previous analysis we may wonder whether Calchas is really an ‘authoritative interpreter of the divine will.’ Whatever the case, it is clear here in this admission that Agamemnon will destroy anything precious a seer tells him to. 107. See the perceptive remarks of Rosenmeyer (1982): ‘What the playwright does with Agamemnon and his crimson materials is shockingly precise because little in the tradition prepares us for the conclusion that there is something wrong with a conqueror being accorded near-divine honors’ (287). 108. Crane (1993: 121) provides an excellent overview of scholarly responses. 109. See, for example, Widzisz (2012: 52 n.124 [p. 92], 57) and Garvie (2011: 485) in response to my own claim (Rader 2011) that Agamemnon’s behavior is but a ‘symptom . . . of his personality’ and that ‘the carpet is just a prop in service of that exposition.’ In this vein see also (Dover 1987: 158): It may indeed be true that when Agamemnon decides to walk on the tapestries Aeschylus is not making a claim about hybris as a theological principle. His audience hardly needed to be taught that hybris is a bad thing . . . This is to ignore the dramatic context, in which the king appears on cue as the Chorus finishes its ode on the dangers of hybris, and we know that he is doomed. So he commits his act of hybris, the man yielding to the persuasion of the woman, as he walks over the red fabrics, the symbol of shed blood, to his death. (158) Cairns (2005) bridges this divide: Though [Clytemnestra’s persuasion of Agamemnon] is an event of purely symbolic importance, that importance lies precisely in what it tells us about Agamemnon’s sense of how his honor relates to that of others; Clytemnestra’s perverted epinician induces him to behave in a way that affronts both gods and men, her purpose not to dispel but to attract resentment at his hubris. (315) 110. Unless this scene is a ‘potlatch,’ the anthropological term for the conspicuous destruction of wealth (see Mauss 1990). Crane (1993) reads the tapestry scene in these very terms. As Clytemnestra points out (958–65), the sea produces an inexhaustible amount of purple dye and, besides, they’re rich anyway. It is Clytemnestra then who cynically makes the treading of the tapestry explicitly an issue of money and exchange value, leading us to wonder if we’re meant to connect this hubristic act of Agamemnon’s with his earlier atrocity. The connection

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certainly seems viable (see Scodel 1996; Conacher 1987: 38 and n.71; Lebeck 1971: 74–79; Dover 1987: 154; Crane 1993: 121; esp. Wohl 1998: 86–87). 111. The chorus here turns to a nautical metaphor of wealth: too much causes a ship to founder and only a judicious casting away of ballast prevents a wreck. If, as is clear from Clytemnestra’s money talk, we are to see a correspondence between the goods in this metaphor and the house of Agamemnon, then is the chorus saying that Iphigeneia and the tapestry had to be destroyed to rescue the good fortunes of the house? They’ve never outright condemned the sacrifice, so perhaps they were among those φιλόμαχοι βραβῆς (or fantasized about being among them) who thirsted for blood in Aulis prior to the expedition. If this is the case, then even when they’re expressing worry the chorus of old men cannot help but recapitulate the masculine values and commitments we’ve seen so vividly symptomatized in the play. Cf. Sommerstein (2008): [The ship] represents in metaphor a house that has become excessively rich (cf. 376ff.) and is saved from disaster by giving up part of its possessions: the family may for a while be in straitened circumstances, but a few good harvests (1014–16) can set things aright. (118 n.216)

112. 113. 114.

115.

116.

A few good harvests—like sexual procreation; that is, the production of new children to replace the old? See the recent article of Mitchell-Boyask (2006: esp. 270 n.2) for an excellent overview of scholarly treatments of the Cassandra scene. Unless, as I suggested earlier (with reference to Degener), the chorus really distrusts Calchas. Degener (2001) sees Calchas’s role as ‘precisely the inverse of Cassandra’s. Calchas is the false prophet that everyone trusted’ (77, cf. 82). As Apollo explains to Hermes in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (532–37), no one else is to have the privilege of knowing Zeus’ mind except him. This gift he has sworn to protect. Graf (2009: 54–56) notes that Apollo’s dominion in the realm of divination is ‘not easy to explain.’ In her one moment of non-inspired speech (Eumenides 1–63)—in fact it’s her only real appearance as a literary character per se—the Pythia says nothing about herself as a personal or willful agent (let alone a love interest for Apollo—see Debnar 2010: 132; but cf. Sissa 1990: 51–52 and Wohl 1998: 240 n.48 on the perception among later sources, in particular Plut. de Pyth. Orac. 405c, that she was penetrated by Apollo’s πνεῦμα). She gives only a brief history of divine supervision of Delphi, culminating in Apollo for whom she ‘prophesies as the god guides me’ (μαντεύομαι γὰρ ὡς ἂν ἡγῆται θεός, 33). As Heiden (2005) shows, Tiresias’s interaction with Oedipus in OT illustrates the difference between prophecy as personal communion (also with Apollo) and prophecy as impersonal knowledge of the future. Even Cassandra is unsure why Apollo—was it Apollo in fact?—has brought her to Agamemnon’s home (1136). Or is it to be imagined as Apollo’s house (so Mitchell-Boyask 2006: 274ff.)? Contrast Debnar (2010): Cassandra, however, does not ask ‘To what’—in the sense of ‘whose’— house she has been brought, but ‘To what kind of [ποίαν] house?’ (1087). Her question may be rhetorical, and her correction (1090–92) of the Chorus’ mistaken response precludes the house of Apollo. (132 n.20)

117. Although, as Gantz (1983) notes, her curse ‘is not definitely known to have existed before the time of this play, nor does Aischylos say that she cannot persuade anyone, only that she has not’ (82 n.53). 118. Given the tension in Attic Greek between a verb’s tense and its aspect, the juxtaposition of this participle and indicative is perplexing. How are we to

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construe their relationship? ‘After I had given my consent, then later I cheated him’ (temporal) or ‘After giving my consent once and for all [i.e., after working through my ambivalence], then later I cheated him’ (aspectual)? Would it matter either way? Perhaps fittingly, Apollo stands astride the tension. 119. Consider her intriguing and possibly self-contradictory description of Apollo as ‘a wrestler breathing grace strongly upon me’ (ἀλλ’ ἦν παλαιστὴς κάρτ’ ἐμοὶ πνέων χάριν, 1206). See Debnar (2010: esp. 132–33) on the shadowy sexual status of Cassandra and Graf (2009: 103–29, esp. 103–6) on Apollo’s ritual connection to young, inexperienced men, one of whose unfortunate roles was ‘hapless lover.’ Mitchell-Boyask (2006) expounds on the significance of this role of Apollo’s in tragedy: The presence of Apollo, the eternal unmarried ephebe, as an agent of sexual aggression against young women in tragic drama is clearly a negative paradigm as he disrupts the development of these maidens and shelters the ephebes who commit violence against women, both young and old. (272)

120.

121. 122.

123.

124.

Debnar (2010: 132 n.27) notes the difficulty of determining the force of the dative ἐμοὶ (upon me? for me? to my (dis)advantage?). Mitchell-Boyask (2006), like many others (cf., e.g., Frankel 1950: ad loc and Denniston and Page 1957: ad loc), however, believes Cassandra’s use of the term παλαιστής suggests an ‘invisible assault’; for him Apollo is the ‘rapist of Cassandra (whether actual or notional)’ (273)—though presumably the distinction between an actual and a notional rape is one even a fifth-century audience could make. ἤδη πολίταις πάντ’ ἐθέσπιζον πάθη (‘I was already prophesying to my compatriots all their coming sorrows’). Or does she mean in between the time Apollo gave her the power of prophecy and later returned to consummate their relationship? In light of note 118, yet again the tense and aspect of ἤδη . . . ἐθέσπιζον in relation to ἤδη . . . ἡιρημένη is confusing. In English—and potentially even in Greek—a pluperfect would have clarified the issue. Most later authors follow the story, perhaps first mentioned in the lost Cypria, that Cassandra was given her power by Apollo. There is, however, a strange alternate tradition that she and her brother Helenus gained their prophetic abilities as children after having their ears and eyes licked by snakes in the temple of Apollo Thymbraeus (Eustathius ad Iliad 6.76; Tzetzes ad Lycophron, Alexandra 347). Or maybe that’s what Apollo as the god of prophecy saw in her—something to share, an intimate secret between them? She characterizes him in violent, or at least agonistic, terms, but perhaps his desire is more equitable? Cf. Aphrodite’s subtly threatening attempt to allay Anchises’ fear over their sexual encounter in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (192–238). The relationship between Calypso and Odysseus also comes to mind. Can she offer him the immortality she promises if he stays (Odyssey 5.135–36, 208–9)? That is, does she have the power as a minor deity to give such a gift (or is living off the human-ontological grid on her island like immortality?) and, more importantly, is she allowed to do so? One wonders whether, if she had simply apologized, Apollo would have forgiven (and potentially even saved) her. We know from Herodotus’ tale of Croesus that Apollo was capable of forgiveness. Even after Croesus had insultingly tested Apollo’s oracle for its accuracy, had opportunistically misinterpreted its warning about challenging the Persian empire and had even blamed the god for his misinformation after losing the battle—even after all that—Apollo was willing to save his life. But this doesn’t mean the confusion has cleared. As Cassandra continues to prophesy not so ambiguously about the traumatic past of the house and the

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The Necessity of Agamemnon machinations of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, the chorus still has trouble putting the pieces together. The feast of Thyestes—check. The remainder—not so much. It’s intriguing that they can make certain metaphorical connections but not others, prompting us to wonder whether they are suppressing any fear for their master. Because even after Cassandra descends to spelling it out for them literally—Agamemnon is about to get killed! (1246)—they ask after the man who will commit the murder (1251, 1253). Cf. Conacher (1987): This accords with Apollo’s punishment of Cassandra (1212), though it is odd that the Chorus do follow Cassandra’s prophecies about her own death (1162–63, 1295ff, 1321). Perhaps in the case of the unapprehended prophecies about Agamemnon’s death, the poet is exploiting penalty to Cassandra in order to assist in the conventional non-participation of the Chorus in the action. (71–72 n.83; cf. also 47)

125. Conacher (1987: 45 with n.87) claims Cassandra’s ‘omission’ of Iphigeneia shows her loyalty to Agamemnon. Mitchell-Boyask (2006: 280–85, with references) convincingly draws out the similarities between Cassandra and Iphigeneia as brides and victims of Apollo (cf. Wohl 1998: 107ff.; Doyle 2008), although his claim that Apollo ‘does nothing’ (284) to stop the sacrifice of Iphigeneia when Calchas calls on him to ward off Artemis’ anger (cf. Clinton 1988: 13) is both tendentious and misses an important point: that Artemis didn’t actually demand the sacrifice. Hence Calchas’ invocation of Apollo is ineffective because it is misdirected. 126. πρὸς οὐ φίλων (‘by those who should love her but don’t’) is West’s conjecture, whereas manuscript f (the ancestor of GF(E)Tr) has πρὸς τῶν φίλων (‘by those who should love her’). See Sommerstein (2008): ‘ὡσπερεὶ . . . betrays Cassandra’s knowledge—which the audience share—that the children were in fact killed by a φίλος’ (147 n.261). 127. One wonders whether the sacrifice of Iphigeneia followed typical ritual protocol. Was the blood from her slit throat collected and used as libation? Was her fat wrapped round her bones and burned in offering to the gods? Did the men in fact feast on her flesh? One shudders to imagine the likelihood. Burkert (1987: 180–82) argues that representations of human sacrifice reflect the fact that uneaten sacrifices were uncommon (only before battles and at the burial of the dead) and thus susceptible to mythological exaggeration. Cf. Henrichs (1981), Dowden (1989: 35–37) and esp. Pucci (1993) on human sacrifice. 128. The conjectures replacing λέοντ’ ἄναλκιν with λύκον at 1224, as Sommerstein (2008: 147 n.263) suggests, likely correct a mistaken retroapplication of 1258– 59 (αὕτη δίπους λέαινα συγκοιμωμένη / λύκωι, λέοντος εὐγενοῦς ἀπουσίαι—‘Here is the double-footed lioness who sleeps with the wolf in the absence of the noble lion’). Obviously στρωφώμενον (translated earlier as ‘turning tricks’) would suggest a male lion/wolf, but it certainly wouldn’t be beyond Aeschylus’ ability either to describe a woman as a male animal or to bend the rules of grammatical gender if he so wanted. While I don’t object to the correction on text-critical grounds, the change from lion to wolf may also destroy an insight of Aeschylus’: the connection of this allusion to the metaphor of the lion in the house (717–36). Apparently there are many deceptive and destructive beasts in this household, not just Helen and Agamemnon but also Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. 129. Cf. also 1235 where Cassandra refers to Clytemnestra as a ‘mother raging out of hell’ (θυίουσαν Ἅιδου μητέρ’—Sommerstein [2008]: ‘This may be taken to refer to Clytaemestra as the avenger of Iphigeneia’ [149 n.268].). I find it striking that the word θυίω (‘to rage,’ and hence sometimes θύω) so closely and sometimes exactly echoes the word for sacrifice. We have here in a sense a

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132.

133.

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mother separated from her sacrificed daughter by death, a fact rather arrestingly conveyed by the word choice and order. By Wohl’s (1998) tour de force reading, Cassandra’s own misogyny prevents her from speaking Iphigeneia’s name directly. ‘She might uncover the bedrock of cruelty and repression beneath the fantasy of the loyal, virginal, and forgiving daughter. But rather than lamenting the sufferings of Iphigeneia, Cassandra merely replicates them in her own person; rather than exposing the logic of fetishism, Cassandra denies and, with her death, reproduces it.’ (116 with n.52) As early as Euripides, Agamemnon was imagined to have had sex with Cassandra before arriving home in Argos—indeed before leaving Troy (Hecuba 120–22, 127–29, 826–29). See Debnar (2010: 133–36). The same may be said perhaps about her prophecy of Orestes’ return (1280–85). If her communication with the gods has been corrupted, we may wonder whether her claim that the gods have ‘sworn a great oath’ about Orestes’ revenge—why would they do such a thing?—has been misinterpreted or skewed. Fletcher (2012: 40 n.11) notes the difficulty of construing ἐκ θεῶν as ‘by the gods’ but subsequently claims that the ‘speech act of Orestes [at Choe. 901] is explicitly supported by divine powers’ (41). Consider what Aegisthus says in his opening speech: ‘[Atreus] spared me, my wretched father’s third child, and banished me along with him even though I was just an infant in swaddling clothes. But Justice brought me back and now I’m grown. I’m the one who laid hands on this man—even if from a distance’ (1605–8). Was Cassandra really seeing Aegisthus in her vision? She did just describe the sacrilegious feast of Thyestes after all. Not that she doesn’t try—‘It’s Agamemnon’s corpse you’re about to behold— that’s what I’m saying’ (Ἀγαμέμνονός σέ φημ’ ἐπόψεσθαι μόρον, 1246). One could read the chorus’ inability to process this warning as the final instantiation of Cassandra’s curse (and hence the final impetus to her dejected resolution to die), but in fact the chorus is only confused about which man intends to kill Agamemnon (τίνος πρὸς ἀνδρὸς τοῦτ’ ἄχος πορσύνεται, 1251). Cassandra’s justifiably derisive reply—‘Christ, you’re so far afield from my prophecies’ (1253)—unfortunately does not clarify her earlier cryptic claims about the shewolf/lion Clytemnestra. Pace Goldhill (1984): With Cassandra’s accurate language . . . with her knowledge to predict accurately came (and this is one of the greatest ironies of the trilogy, essential to any discussion of ‘free will’ in the Oresteia) only a recognition of the inevitability of the future. Knowledge of the future constitutes a lack of free will. (88)

Cf. Griffith (2009b: 46). 134. Hence the confusion among scholars whether προτέρων αἷμ’ includes the feast of Thyestes and the slaughter of Iphigeneia. See, e.g., the summary of Gantz (1982: 14 with n.53). 135. Winnington-Ingram (1983), following Snell (1928: 122), believes that in addition to the slaughter of Iphigeneia and the affair with Aegisthus, Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon was motivated by her ‘jealousy . . . of his status as a man’ and hence represents ‘a blow struck for her personal liberty’ (105 with n.29). Sommerstein ([1996] 2010b: 325) coyly characterizes this as ‘wishful thinking.’ 136. See Foley (2001): For Clytemnestra, Iphigeneia is viewed, in contrast to standard patriarchal views, as her child by right of her birth pains . . . The public concerns that the chorus views in Agamemnon’s choice—Paris’ violation of Zeus’ laws of

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137. Pace Fletcher (2012), Clytemnestra’s opportunism in no way means she has not experienced ‘agonizing deliberations’ about her act, nor ‘diminishes her status “as a serious moral agent”’ (42, citing Foley approvingly). She has been stewing on her husband’s brutal murder of their daughter for more than ten years—do we really want to claim that her grief and anger during that time, to say nothing of her nascent connection to Aegisthus (one built on shared trauma and actual love), inspired no agony or deliberation? To distinguish between her act of murder and Orestes’ is certainly a worthy scholarly exercise, but to exonerate Orestes entirely is intellectually and morally bankrupt. Not even the trilogy goes that far. Hall (2009) makes a similar claim about Deianeira; contrast Goldhill (2009, in the same volume as Hall) on silent deliberation in tragedy. 138. Wohl (1998) connects the deaths of Iphigeneia and Cassandra: Clytemnestra’s murder of this innocent girl reenacts the sacrifice of Iphigeneia and replicates the sadism of her death: if the Greek elders longed for virgin blood, Clytemnestra delights in the slaughter of Agamemnon’s lover . . . She displays on stage the virginal body that the chorus scarcely dares to imagine in the Parodos. (107) 139. See the insightful remarks of Foley (2001): It is a mark of their confusion that the chorus finally seems to concede that Zeus’ justice is at work even with Clytemnestra—a woman—as the perpetrator. Yet it is ironically exactly at this moment when Clytemnestra faces the possibility that the cycle of revenge may make her its next victim, and Aegisthus appears on stage to lay claim to the deed (and the Alastor’s motives) himself. (228; cf. 222–23) 140. Later on (1569ff) she claims that she is willing to make a pact with the δαίμων of the Pleisthenids that her murder of Agamemnon will suffice so long as the curse leaves the family. Foley (2001) claims that this is Clytemnestra’s attempt at ‘buying the goodwill of [the] divinity’ (227). Cf. Fletcher (2012: 51—‘a business contract with a supernatural force’). Both of these claims overdramatize the actions of Clytemnestra, who desperately and fearfully hopes that her justification will fly in the eyes of the gods. She is striking out defensively for an approval she cannot be sure to win. 141. See Foley (2001: 218 with ns. 63–66) for discussion of scholarship on this identification. 142. Cf. Foley (2001): ‘Clytemnestra’s representation of her act outside this passage suggests strongly that she does not refer to the Alastor in order to deny that she performed the deed or that she may be liable to punishment for it’ (221 with n.75 especially on O’Daly 1985). Pace Fletcher (2012: 44). 143. Lines 1526–27 are highly uncertain—see the most recent edition by Sommerstein (2008 ad loc), who tentatively follows Wilamowitz’s emendation of a proposed lacuna at 1527 (πολύκλαυτον Ἰφ. ). Sommerstein notes in his translation that this likely refers to the story (probably originating in the Cypria) that Agamemnon tricked Iphigeneia into coming to Aulis with the promise of marriage to Achilles—a version of which may have been staged in Aeschylus’ own Iphigeneia ‘as other versions of it certainly were in Sophocles’ Iphigeneia (cf. Sophocles fr. 305) and Euripides’ Iphigeneia at Aulis’ (Sommerstein 2008: 187 n.322). Foley (2001) offers another compelling

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144. 145.

146. 147.

148. 149. 150.

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explanation of the textual problem: ‘Agamemnon presumably did not tell Clytemnestra why Iphigeneia was brought to Aulis. His deception of her need not have taken the form of a promise of marriage and therefore needs no elaboration at this point’ (226). Or rather symptomatic of their ‘fetishization of women as commodities,’ which ‘results in the objectification of Agamemnon himself’ (Wohl 1998: 99). Foley (2001) connects the divine support Clytemnestra claims for herself here with Orestes’ similar claim in Choephoroi but notes that ‘the claim receives neither certain external validation after the fact nor the validation of prophecy in advance’ (205). Others do too; see Denniston and Page (1957: ad loc) Hammond (1965) believes this statement by Clytemnestra is ‘inspired not by love for Iphigeneia but by hatred for Agamemnon’ (44). But that still doesn’t expiate the strangeness of her belief in Iphigeneia’s forgiveness, does it? Wohl (1998) reads a subversive sarcasm: Clytemnestra’s tone ‘deconstructs the agalmatization of Iphigeneia, revealing the perversion behind this fantasy of filial loyalty, and the unbearable cost of its maintenance’ (107). Although the precise nature of ἐκ τῶνδε is difficult: Does he mean ‘as a result of this atrocious behavior by Atreus’ or ‘as a result of the curse he called down upon the race of Pleisthenes,’ or both perhaps? Though cf. 1656—Clytemnestra doesn’t want them to get blood on their hands now? Foley (2001), however, reads in these lines a process of refeminization, although playing the wife remains more role than reality for Clytemnestra to the end . . . The words ring differently from her earlier challenges to the chorus on the subject of female speech in that they apparently accommodate without deliberate deception to a traditional female social role. (228–29 with nn.95 and 96 on scholarly reactions to Clytemnestra’s change of temperament; cf. 212) See also her incisive final remarks on the many unanswered questions and unprobed contradictions in the play (Foley 2001: 233).

4

Fatal Aftermaths Libation-Bearers and Eumenides

LIBATION-BEARERS Clytemnestra’s final gloating words over the corpse of Agamemnon invoked the vengeful memory of Iphigeneia: Now this man’s daughter can greet him in the underworld with a loving embrace (1551–59). Whatever we may think of that image—I find it disturbing myself—the memory of Iphigeneia, in particular Clytemnestra’s deliberate and incessant recollection of her loss, permeates the play as well as the trilogy. The sacrifice of Iphigeneia and its subsequent manipulation by the various rationalizing discourses of men in Agamemnon retains its relevance for Libation-Bearers, which takes as its focus the return of Orestes to avenge his father. Perhaps predictably, though perhaps also for complex reasons that we will presently explore, Orestes takes up the masculine mantle of erasing his sister from the record. He is very much his father’s son.1 This much becomes clear from his opening words (1–21). Fragmentary in the extreme for the first ten or so lines,2 Orestes’ speech nevertheless provides some clue to his character and the direction his values and familial commitments will take him. We hear a predictable boilerplate about revenge, betrayal and the treacherous nature of womankind. Once the text gets more sound and legible, Orestes surmises that the procession of blackclad women he sees is present to propitiate his dead father’s spirit and the gods below (14–16). Thus he starts from the assumption—perhaps not entirely unjustified—that anything ill that might be besetting the house (13) is a consequence, however belated or indirect, of his father’s murder and also that the gods have lent their support to his and Agamemnon’s cause. Hence his call to Hermes in the first line and Zeus a bit further on to stand at his side as allies and ‘protect his paternal powers’ (1). We are clearly back in the realm of inscrutable divine presence in human affairs. As in the previous play, and most certainly purposely, such inscrutability does nothing to stem the confidence and opportunism of characters making tragic decisions.3 Like all the men we have met thus far in the trilogy, then, Orestes has nothing to say about his dead sister. She has fallen through the cracks of his duty

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and self-image—in this case quite literally with our damaged text—although there’s no reason to believe that Orestes’ return and plans for revenge have anything to do with his sister in the first place. Nowhere else in the play does he betray the slightest concern for Iphigeneia. We may wonder whether the passage of so much time has blunted his feelings or whether he was too young at the time of the sacrifice to understand his father’s rationale for killing her. Recall that Clytemnestra had sent him away into the protection of Strophius because she feared for his life in the absence of Agamemnon; Orestes must have been very young then. And if these opening words of his are any indication of the extent to which he idolizes his father in the present moment, how could we not expect him to have done so as a child? In the choral parodos that immediate follows Orestes’ entrance (23–83) we hear confirmation of Orestes’ suspicion about the procession: as a result of a terror-inducing dream the women of the chorus have been sent by Clytemnestra to expiate the grave of Agamemnon (33–41). τορὸς γὰρ ὀρθόθριξ δόμων ὀνειρόμαντις ἐξ ὕπνου κότον πνέων ἀωρόνυκτον ἀμβόαμαμυχόθεν ἔλακε περὶ φόβωι, γυναικείοισιν ἐν δώμασιν βαρὺς πίτνων· κριταί τῶνδ’ ὀνειράτων θεόθεν ἔλακον ὑπέγγυοι μέμφεσθαι τοὺς γᾶς νέρθεν περιθύμως τοῖς κτανοῦσί τ’ ἐγκοτεῖν A clear dream prophecy, exhaling wrath in sleep, putting the house’s hair on end, shrieked out a cry of terror in the depths of the night within the chambers, falling heavy on the women’s quarters. Interpreters of this dream, under oath to the gods, proclaimed that inhabitants of the underworld wholeheartedly disapproved of and were wrathful at the killers. As clear (τορός, 33) as this dream-portent seemed to interpreters—and they were willing to swear oaths to the validity of their interpretation (39)—a number of important questions arise. First and foremost, who are these women of the chorus (see McCall 1990)? We learn in some of their very first words that throughout their lives grief has accompanied them (26–27), and near the end of the parodos they reveal that they were brought to Argos as slaves while still in their father’s house (i.e., when still unmarried). They note at another point that they’re old (παλαιά, 171), so presumably they have been servants to the royal family for quite some time. This might explain their claim at the end of the parodos that their grief is the result of the ‘senseless sufferings of my masters’ (ματαίοισι δεσποτᾶν / τύχαις, 82–83).

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But what accounts for their seemingly unconditional support for Agamemnon, or at least the Agamemnon discourse that everyone who is not Clytemnestra fetishizes (cf. 152–63)? One would think that their former maiden status might provide at least some entrée to an identification with Iphigeneia—after all they do invoke the cursedness of the man ‘who violates the maiden’s quarters’ (θιγόντι δ’ οὔτι νυμφικῶν ἑδωλίων / ἄκος, 71). But their curious and studious avoidance of the issue is troubling. Has everyone forgotten about the murder that started it all? Clytemnestra’s dream—at least as it is first offered to us by a group of women hostile to her sensibilities—may give us a hint (see Hame 2004). Most identify the content of the dream with the vengeful rumblings of the murdered Agamemnon (44–53, 66–70).4 But given Clytemnestra’s role as the sole remainder and reminder of Iphigeneia’s legacy, perhaps the dream that makes her hair stand on end involves her daughter as well? If Agamemnon’s ghost can demand retribution, why couldn’t hers? What would account for a differential eschatology in which an offending man but not a victimized girl could issue demands from beyond the grave? The responses among the characters are symptomatic of their general denial of Iphigeneia’s existence. Can we though so easily rule out Iphigeneia’s presence in Clytemnestra’s dream? If we are willing to entertain this possibility, then perhaps her ghost is indignant on account of the fact that everyone has neglected her unjust death. In this regard we may have reason to doubt that she reunited with and kissed her father in the underworld; maybe she has been haunting even his dead soul.5 Who then are these κριταὶ τῶνδ’ ὀνειράτων (38)? Did they have an opinion about which of τοὺς γᾶς νέρθεν (40) were responsible? Was it a human ghost, a demon or a god (cf. 125)? The evidence of the trilogy thus far (and here I am thinking of Calchas) would, perhaps unsurprisingly, suggest they invoked Agamemnon’s name. But we’re in this mess in the first place specifically because such κριταί made grievous errors in judgment (both moral and practical). The memory obliteration continues of course with the entrance of Electra, who pleads with the chorus to reveal the correct way to deliver offerings to the tomb and shade of Agamemnon (84–105). δμωιαὶ γυναῖκες, δωμάτων εὐθήμονες, ἐπεὶ πάρεστε τῆσδε προστροπῆς ἐμοὶ πομποί, γένεσθε τῶνδε σύμβουλοι πέρι· τί φῶ χέουσα τάσδε κηδείους χοάς; πῶς εὔφρον’ εἴπω; πῶς κατεύξωμαι πατρί; πότερα λέγουσα παρὰ φίλης φίλωι φέρειν γυναικὸς ἀνδρί, τῆς ἐμῆς μητρὸς πάρα; (90) ἢ τοῦτο φάσκω τοὖπος, ὡς νόμος βροτοῖς, (93) ἴσ’ ἀντιδοῦναι τοῖσι πέμπουσιν τάδε στέφη, δόσιν γε τῶν κακῶν ἐπαξίαν

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ἢ σῖγ’ ἀτίμως, ὥσπερ οὖν ἀπώλετο πατήρ, τάδ’ ἐκχέασα, γάποτον χύσιν, στείχω, καθάρμαθ’ ὥς τις ἐκπέμψας, πάλιν δικοῦσα τεῦχος ἀστρόφοισιν ὄμμασιν; (99) τῶνδ’ οὐ πάρεστι θάρσος, οὐδ’ ἔχω τί φῶ (91) χέουσα τόνδε πελανὸν ἐν τύμβωι πατρός. (92) τῆσδ’ ἔστε βουλῆς, ὦ φίλαι, μεταίτιαι· (100) κοινὸν γὰρ ἔχθος ἐν δόμοις νομίζομεν. μὴ κεύθετ’ ἔνδον καρδίας φόβωι τινός· τὸ μόρσιμον γὰρ τόν τ’ ἐλεύθερον μένει καὶ τὸν πρὸς ἄλλης δεσποτούμενον χερός. λέγοις ἂν εἴ τι τῶνδ’ ἔχεις ὑπέρτερον. Servant women, keepers of the house, since you are present to be my escorts for this act of supplication, be my advisors in these matters. What am I to say as I pour these mournful libations? How am I to speak mindfully? How should I pray to my father? Should I say that I bring them from a loving wife to her dear husband—when in fact they come from my mother? Or should I say this, as is custom among men, that he honorably repay those who sent him these honors, as it were a worthy return for their sins. Or should I pour them in silence, dishonorably— which is how my father perished of course—a draught for the thirsty earth, and leave like someone throwing away a purification vessel, hurling the jar the behind me while holding my eyes front and center? I’m not so bold to do that and yet I’m at a loss what to say as I pour this offering at the tomb of my father. Oh friends, help me with this decision, for we share the same hatred in the house. Do not bury it within in your heart in fear of another. Fate awaits both the free man and the one who has been enslaved to another. So speak if you have any better suggestions than my own. The volume of options Electra enumerates, in particular the caution and circumspection she displays with regard to offerings to the dead, suggests that the dead can be a volatile bunch (see Johnston 1999). Electra very clearly shares the view that her father’s murder was a crime (κακῶν, 95), further evidence from the outset that the shade of Iphigeneia has been wiped from memory. One wonders whether Iphigeneia even has a tomb, let alone whether she receives libations. Like Orestes, then, Electra shows herself to be entirely her father’s daughter, offering no empathy, no imagination of what it might have been like to be in her sister’s shoes (or fake wedding dress). And like Orestes too, if we are willing at least to give her an ounce of charity, perhaps it would be too much to ask of another young woman to weigh and judge the moral complexities of an inhuman(e) father. The chorus, seemingly drawing on those reserves of hatred and commitment that they share with Electra, advises her to pray that ‘someone come

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against them, god or man’ (ἐλθεῖν τιν’ αὐτοῖς δαίμον’ ἢ βροτῶν τινα, 119). In her inexperience, however, Electra cannot parse the deliberately vague language: Do they mean a judge (δικαστήν) or avenger (δικηφόρον) (120)? As if to wipe away the abstractions, the chorus says simply ‘a killer for a killer’ (ἀνταποκτενεῖ, 121), an answer that Electra is unsure about (καὶ ταῦτά μοὐστὶν εὐσεβῆ θεῶν πάρα, 122) but one that they rather blithely corroborate (πῶς δ’ οὔ, τὸν ἐχθρὸν ἀνταμείβεσθαι κακοῖς, 123). These are scheming servants. Electra’s prayer thus bears the marks of the chorus’ influence (139–48): κατεύχομαί σοι, καὶ σὺ κλῦθί μου, πάτερ, αὐτῆι τέ μοι δὸς σωφρονεστέραν πολὺ μητρὸς γενέσθαι χεῖρά τ’ εὐσεβεστέραν. ἡμῖν μὲν εὐχὰς τάσδε, τοῖς δ’ ἐναντίοις λέγω φανῆναι σοῦ, πάτερ, τιμάορον, καὶ τοὺς κτανόντας ἀντικατθανεῖν δίκηι. ταῦτ’ ἐν μέσωι τίθημι τῆς καλῆς ἀρᾶς, κείνοις λέγουσα τήνδε τὴν κακὴν ἀράν· ἡμῖν δὲ πομπὸς ἴσθι τῶν ἐσθλῶν ἄνω σὺν θεοῖσι καὶ γῆι καὶ δίκηι νικηφόρωι. I pray to you, father—and please hear me—that you grant me the ability to be far more virtuous than mother and to possess a hand for action far more righteous. These are my prayers for us. As for our enemies, father, I ask that you manifest an avenger for yourself, and that the killers meet their own deaths with justice. I place this last in the middle of my prayer for good, proclaiming this prayer for ill only for those enemies of ours. Be a provider of blessings from below, taking your league with the gods and Earth and victory-bringing Justice. She repeats almost verbatim their invocation of the powers below (τοὺς γῆς τ’ ἔνερθε δαίμονιας, 125; cf. 40), and in that instance we have to wonder whether the lack of specificity is meaningful. Are there no spirits, either human or divine, that harbor ill will toward Orestes, Electra and the like for their failure to address, let alone acknowledge, the murder of Iphigeneia? In fact, the somewhat fearful tenor of the prayers of the pro-Agamemnon faction seems to suggest that the spirit of Agamemnon himself might not have changed his mind about the decision. Did he then reunite with his daughter in the underworld? Ultimately that is a matter of eschatological speculation. We are left, for better or worse, with the impressions of the survivors who are making a bald show of their prejudices. And absent Agamemnon’s personal testimony—again we must bear in mind that Clytemnestra’s dream has been delivered by an antipathetic chorus, one that is more than willing to impute to her the most malign intentions, and one that finds a willing and manipulable ear in Electra—it is hard not to read in these characters’ words a projection of their own grudges all the way down into the underworld.6

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In light of this we might reconsider Electra’s admission to the chorus that the prayer she is composing with their help is primarily about ‘me and you’ (ἐμοί τε καὶ σοί τἄρ’ ἐπεύξομαι τάδε, 112) and then about Orestes (μέμνησ’ Ὀρέστου, κεἰ θυραῖός ἐσθ’ ὅμως, 115).7 This reveals a frustrating and scary reality about the dead: minus a proper and personal katabasis there is no way to know (1) that your prayer will actually reach them,8 because the gods to whom you are praying to deliver the message are themselves fickle agents9; (2) that the intended receiver is actually willing to receive it; (3) that the intended receiver, if he or she is in fact willing to receive it, will do anything in response; (4) that the intended receiver, if he or she is in fact willing to do something in response, has the power to do so10; or (5) that the intended receiver, if he or she in fact has the power to do something in response, will simply do what you ask and not what he or she wants. So in the end all that the religious language accomplishes is more mystery with regard to religion. What sticks, though, are those ethical datives—and the ethics of the characters that they reveal. This grand speech of Electra’s then seems more like an elaborate set-piece by Aeschylus to show up her petty and shallow opportunism (to say nothing of the chorus). So are we to trust her characterizations of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus as luxuriating in the fruits of Agamemnon’s labor (οἱ δ’ ὑπερκόπως / ἐν τοῖσι σοῖς πόνοισι χλίουσιν μέγα, 136–37), or of herself as a slave sold by Clytemnestra in exchange for a new husband (132–35; cf. 444ff.)?11 If we recall Clytemnestra’s reverent intervention in the conflict between Aegisthus and the chorus at the end of the previous play (1654–61), it is hard to imagine her turning into the wealth-devouring slave driver Electra makes her out to be. Then again the previous play did show us the force of Clytemnestra’s passion and the lengths to which she would go to sublimate it; for this reason it is possible she could have become the wealth-devouring slave driver Electra describes in her prayer. Alternately, and perhaps more charitably, Clytemnestra might in fact have banished Electra and treated her like a slave because she realized early on that her daughter would never be an ally in her crusade to honor and remember Iphigeneia. Why would Clytemnestra not suspect Electra with her almost irrational cathexis to her father? Electra in fact immediately corroborates Clytemnestra’s suspicions when she finds the lock of Orestes’ hair (189–91): ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ μήν νιν ἡ κτανοῦσ’ ἐκείρατο, ἐμή γε μήτηρ, οὐδαμῶς ἐπώνυμον φρόνημα παισὶ δύσθεον πεπαμένη. The killer certainly couldn’t have cut this off—my mother—she doesn’t deserve the name, possessed as she is of a mind ungodly toward her children. Electra presumes that her mother hates and mistreats her out of simple malice; she cannot imagine why Clytemnestra might have become inimical

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to her. As if to prove this very lack of empathy, just a few lines later she asserts that whoever the lock of hair came from—preferably her kin—would ultimately join in the honoring of Agamemnon’s tomb (199–200). With the sudden revelation of Orestes, the cynical religious rationalizing picks up momentum.12 His very first words exhort Electra to remind the gods of the prayers they have already accomplished for her in his arrival (212–13)—‘with the implication that consistency required the god to grant the present prayer likewise’ (Sommerstein 2008: 38 n.41). However formulaic such a request might be theologically (da quia dedisti), as we noted earlier with regard to the powers below, expecting the fulfillment of prayers from the powers above was also a gamble. Nevertheless, this statement by Orestes reveals the sort of relationship he imagines exists between himself and the gods, one of demand and immediate fulfillment.13 When she finally accepts that this man is Orestes, Electra insists on the necessity of addressing him as father, mother and brother (238–45): ὦ τερπνὸν ὄμμα τέσσαρας μοίρας ἔχον ἐμοί, προσαυδᾶν δ’ ἔστ’ ἀναγκαίως ἔχον πατέρα σε, καὶ τὸ μητρὸς ἐς σέ μοι ῥέπει στέργηθρον, ἡ δὲ πανδίκως ἐχθαίρεται, καὶ τῆς τυθείσης νηλεῶς ὁμοσπόρου· πιστὸς δ’ ἀδελφὸς ἦσθ’ ἐμοὶ σέβας φέρων· μόνον Κράτος τε καὶ Δίκη σὺν τῶι τρίτωι πάντων μεγίστωι Ζηνὶ συγγένοιτό μοι. Delightful eye fulfilling four roles for me! It is my duty to address you as father, and the love I owe mother falls to you—she is my enemy absolutely and justifiably—as well as the love I owe to our sister so ruthlessly slaughtered. You were my faithful brother and you showed me respect. Only let Power and Justice and Zeus as third, mightiest of them all, stand by my side. Electra mentions her sister Iphigeneia, even the fact that she was sacrificed, yet still refuses to say her name. Intriguing and disturbing how this admission of her sister’s sacrifice does not figure in her moral calculus. So Electra has not forgotten about her sister, she has just rendered the cause of her death shadowy and vague. She is colonizing Iphigeneia’s thoughts and memories, erasing them from within and from without. But by what authority is she appropriating her sister’s identity? Is it really a surprise that Orestes says nothing in response about Iphigenia? Instead he makes some bold claims on Zeus (255–61): καίτοι θυτῆρος καί σε τιμῶντος μέγα πατρὸς νεοσσοὺς τούσδ’ ἀποφθείρας πόθεν ἕξεις ὁμοίας χειρὸς εὔθοινον γέρας;

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οὔτ’ αἰετοῦ γένεθλ’ ἀποφθείρας πάλιν πέμπειν ἔχοις ἂν σήματ’ εὐπιθῆ βροτοῖς, οὔτ’ ἀρχικός σοιπᾶς ὅδ’ αὐανθεὶς πυθμὴν βωμοῖς ἀρήξει βουθύτοις ἐν ἤμασιν. If you destroy us, the young of our father, a man who sacrificed and honored your greatly, where will you then get your sumptuous feast of honor? From a hand like his? If you destroy the brood of the eagle, you won’t be able to send compelling signs to mortals; if this royal root grows no more, it will no longer administer to your altar on days for sacrificing oxen. Agamemnon honored Zeus with sacrifices (here, unlike Electra, using at least a personal noun—θυτῆρος—cf. θυτήρ at Ag. 224), so if he does not restore Agamemnon’s house, Zeus’ altars and signs will be ignored. A strange and revealing quid pro quo Orestes demands here! Does he really believe he can strong-arm Zeus in this way, ‘putting pressure on the god as if he were a member of [his own] moral universe’ (Rosenmeyer 1982: 265)?14 Orestes, it would appear, equates the functioning of all oracles with the success of his house. Whatever we (or the gods) may think about his peremptory and presumptuous behavior,15 at the very least it suggests he has already determined to do what he thinks must be done and is now seeking justification (or, better, cover). Following his theological prelude about Zeus’ obligation, Orestes offers one of the baldest illustrations (and endorsements) of deterministic divine influence in human affairs (269–305). He describes in vivid detail for his sister and the chorus Apollo’s injunction at the oracle: Unless he punishes those responsible for Agamemnon’s death in the exact same way he was killed, he himself will pay the penalty (273–77): εἰ μὴ μέτειμι τοῦ πατρὸς τοὺς αἰτίους τρόπον τὸν αὐτόν, ἀνταποκτεῖναι λέγων· αὐτὸν δ’ ἔφασκε τῆι φίληι ψυχῆι τάδε τείσειν μ’ ἔχοντα πολλὰ δυστερπῆ κακά, ἀποχρημάτοισι ζημίαις ταυρούμενον· [I stand to suffer] if I fail to visit those guilty of killing my father with vengeance in the exact same way—he told me to kill them in turn. He insisted that I myself would pay for it with my own soul, terrible punishments galore, savaged by penalties no money can cover. The imagistic description that follows is rather complex and ambiguous in its metaphorical detail: hostility from the powers below, leprous flesheating ulcers, white hair growth, persecution from the Erinyes, pollution in the eyes of friends and community (278–94).16 The Erinyes from whom he stands to suffer punishment are described as ‘arising from a father’s blood’

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(ἐκ τῶν πατρώιων αἱμάτων, 284); that is, he avoids any claim about a mother’s potential avengers.17 But we may wonder why they have not appeared already at the murder of Agamemnon (to say nothing of Iphigeneia’s Erinyes). Do the Erinyes have some say about the execution of their duties, like whom they are to hound and when? When we meet them in Eumenides, they are fairly stubborn about the necessity of their attacks, though even this is inconsistent with their lack of appearance in the earlier plays. After stating that he could not possibly disobey such oracles (297), Orestes says he did not need them in the first place because several desires converged to compel him toward revenge (298–304): κεἰ μὴ πέποιθα, τοὖργόν ἐστ’ ἐργαστέον· πολλοὶ γὰρ εἰς ἓν συμπίτνουσιν ἵμεροι, θεοῦ τ’ ἐφετμαὶ καὶ πατρὸς πένθος μέγα, καὶ πρὸς πιέζει χρημάτων ἀχηνία, τὸ μὴ πολίτας εὐκλεεστάτους βροτῶν, Τροίας ἀναστατῆρας εὐδόξωι φρενί, δυοῖν γυναικοῖν ὧδ’ ὑπηκόους πέλειν· Even if I wasn’t persuaded by the oracle, the deed has to be done. For many desires converge to this very same end: the commands of the god and my great grief for my father, lack of money presses down upon me too, as does the fact that my citizens, the most famous of all mortals, sackers of Troy with glorious heart, have to suffer the indignity of being subject to two women. In that case the oracles function less like divine commands than supplements to his personal desire—he had already made his decision to murder Aegisthus and Clytemnestra long before he arrived in Delphi. And given his previous precipitate speech about the gods owing him, this invocation of the oracles, even as one among many other pressures, has less importance here than we think.18 In the long intervening choral ode (306–513), in which Electra, Orestes and the chorus exchange laments, prayers and revenge fantasies,19 and in which no one questions Agamemnon’s good graces, a number of revealing claims are made. The chorus invokes a law that blood spilled demands more blood, that murder calls forth the Erinyes to bring ruin on ruin (400–404).20 Have they any thought, though, of Iphigeneia’s or Agamemnon’s Erinyes? Obviously not, and in fact the more important question is: Will they feel this way about the automatic and determinate provocation of the Erinyes when Orestes himself subsequently faces their persecution? (not really).21 It seems as if everyone invokes the Erinyes for their own reasons and justifications. But do the Erinyes comply? Eumenides of course would suggest otherwise. Orestes for his part expresses the wish (εἰ γάρ) that Agamemnon had died a hero in Troy, which by his reading would have provided compensation in

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honor and respect to the remaining family for his loss (345–54). But even if that had happened, do we really have reason to believe that Clytemnestra’s anger and sense of betrayal would have been assuaged? Orestes (like the chorus and Electra, cf. 355–72) misses that point: For him the issue is treacherous women and their womanly seducers undermining the natural order. In other words, it is a fantasy, a projection, which I suppose is to be expected of a young man with nary an experience of a proper man’s responsibilities (war, household management, a glorious death). Orestes fetishizes the traditional masculine code and its values because he has yet to partake of them. And like the chorus of Agamemnon, who at least had the experience of age on their side, he is a chicken hawk. Orestes is thus susceptible to the seductions of the chorus’ provocation, who capitalize on the heightened emotions of the long exchange to enjoin a move toward action (510–13). Here we get a proper description of the dream that the chorus briefly (but cunningly) mentioned in the opening scene (526–53). There is much to unpack in this exchange, so let’s proceed slowly and methodically so as to get at the nuances. First, the chorus claims that Clytemnestra dreamed she gave birth to a snake, appending as if in afterthought ‘as she herself says’(τεκεῖν δράκοντ’ ἔδοξεν, ὡς αὐτὴ λέγει, 527). The position of αὐτή seeks to undo the curious placement of the thought—this was what she herself said. The chorus almost forgets that they need to convince Orestes that this really was Clytemnestra’s dream. The subsequent disposition of pronouns referring to Clytemnestra, however, betrays no such carelessness: ‘She herself offered her breast to the snake in her dream’ (αὐτὴ προσέσχε μαστὸν ἐν τὠνείρατι, 531); ‘She awoke from her dream screaming’ (ἡ δ’ ἐξ ὕπνου κέκλαγγεν ἐπτοημένη, 535).22 I stress the mechanics of delayed and excessive emphasis here for two reasons: (1) as we noted earlier, we have reason to distrust the chorus of women for their outright antipathy to Clytemnestra and so we may well wonder whether they have made the dream up whole cloth23; and (2) in consequence of this possibility it is worth recalling that Orestes had already used the metaphor of a snake’s murderous ways to enjoin Zeus’ alliance—‘Behold the orphan brood of the eagle father, killed in the twists and coils of the deadly viper’ (ἰδοῦ δὲ γένναν εὖνιν αἰετοῦ πατρὸς / θανόντος ἐν πλεκταῖσι καὶ σπειράμασιν/ δεινῆς ἐχίδνης 247–49).24 Is it possible that the chorus has simply recycled Orestes’ own imagistic fantasy? They have been party to—and facilitators of—the malevolent revenge talk during the previous scene. It is hard not to think that they have seized on a clever motivational image to spur Orestes on. As he himself says, ‘This vision couldn’t have been for nothing’ (οὔτοι μάταιον ἂν τόδ’ ὄψανον πέλοι, 534). We can almost see the gears turning in Orestes’ head (540–50): ἀλλ’ εὔχομαι γῆι τῆιδε καὶ πατρὸς τάφωι τοὔνειρον εἶναι τοῦτ’ ἐμοὶ τελεσφόρον. κρίνω δέ τοί νιν ὥστε συγκόλλως ἔχειν·

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Libation-Bearers and Eumenides εἰ γὰρ τὸν αὐτὸν χῶρον ἐκλιπὼν ἐμοὶ οὕφις †επᾶσα σπαργανηπλείζετο† καὶ μαστὸν ἀμφέχασκ’ ἐμὸν θρεπτήριον θρόμβωι τ’ ἔμειξεν αἵματος φίλον γάλα, ἡ δ’ ἀμφὶ τάρβει τῶιδ’ ἐπώιμωξεν πάθει, δεῖ τοί νιν, ὡς ἔθρεψεν ἔκπαγλον τέρας, θανεῖν βιαίως· ἐκδρακοντωθεὶς δ’ ἐγὼ κτείνω νιν, ὡς τοὔνειρον ἐννέπει τόδε Well, I pray to this very earth and to the tomb of my father that this dream find fulfillment in me. I interpret it in such a way that it all fits together perfectly. For if the snake emerged from the same place I did and wrapped itself in my swaddling clothes, if it wrapped its jaws around the breast that nursed me and mixed the loving milk with a drop of blood, and if she cried out in fear at this experience, then she must die, and violently—since she reared this outrageous portent. I have become the snake and I am the one to kill her, just like this dream declares.

Orestes offers what can only be considered a rather literalist interpretation, putting the pieces together, as he admits, in such a way as to make it all work (κρινῶ δέ τοί νιν ὥστε συγκόλλως ἔχειν, 542). But work with what? With what will his interpretation be ‘glued’ together (συγ-κολλάω)?25 All of his interpretation if prefaced by an ‘if,’ specifically and perhaps revealingly an εἰ γάρ (543). He very clearly expects the γάρ to explain his particular reading, but from where we sit it cannot but impel us to wonder whether he is indulging in a bit of fantasy here. If only the snake emerged from the same place as me! If only it swaddled itself in my very clothes! If only it sucked on the breast that nurtured me! If only it polluted her loving milk with blood! But for Orestes these are clearly not just fantasies; by line 548 he has already reached his conclusion. His transformation into the snake is complete—and through and through at that (ἐκ δρακοντωθείς, 549)—and he must therefore (δεῖ τοί, 548) kill Clytemnestra ‘as this dream proclaims’ (550). But like Calchas in the previous chapter, that ὡς traces as it unsuccessfully attempts to hide the distance Orestes has traveled from εἰ γάρ, from wish to conclusion. The chorus cannily accepts Orestes’ interpretation (τερασκόπον δὴ τῶνδέ σ’ αἱροῦμαι πέρι, 551), as if they hadn’t skillfully led him to this very conclusion.26 In order to force closure on it they then move on by fiat (γένοιτο δ’ οὕτως, 552), a clever move that convinces Orestes to move forward—which he had intended to do all along anyway—without asking whether they should perhaps consult a proper interpreter. As complex as the narratological and ethical mechanics were in the parodos of the previous play, at least Agamemnon entrusted the divine interpretation to a seer before running a sword through a family member. Orestes exercises no such scruples, partly because the chorus has been steadily and compellingly plying his revenge fantasy but also because he is not the complete man that Agamemnon was (for better or worse).

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Hence when he lays out his plan for tricking Clytemnestra and Aegisthus (554–84), he reiterates his claim on Apollo’s commitment, calling him a μάντις ἀψευδὴς τὸ πρίν (559).27 Two questions arise in regard to this appellation and chronology. First, had Orestes consulted the oracle at some prior point on an unrelated issue, the result of which turned out to be true, hence this claim? Or is he simply referring to the prophecy that he just recounted to Electra and the chorus, the one with the gruesome depictions of punishment should he fail to follow through with revenge (cf. Goward 1999: 67)? If that is the case—otherwise, when and why else would he have visited the oracle?—then this claim here gains its effectiveness by dint of being circular: Apollo told me I have to kill my mother in vengeance and I now have a plan to do so, ergo Apollo has never been a false prophet to me.28 As we noted previously, Orestes offered a range of reasons to take vengeance outside of the oracle’s demands, but if the instruction of the oracle dovetails with your personal desire, how could it ever not be true?29 Thus the fulfillment of the prophecy becomes a simple tautology. But if Greek literature teaches anything, it is that oracles never simply confirm what you desire (e.g., Croesus) or what you think you already know (e.g., Oedipus). Hence, the second question: Did Orestes misunderstand the oracle he received? To him it is clear that the god has confirmed his desire for revenge, but that reveals less about the oracle than it does about his opportunistic reading of the gods’ involvement in our lives (they want what we want). The fact, as we shall see later in the play, that the Erinyes immediately come after him would seem to belie that shallow opportunism, or at least to illustrate a rather banal and obvious point: There is more than one god on Olympus (and beyond) and they do not all share the same values. When we shift scenes to the house of Agamemnon, we should perhaps not be surprised that Orestes’ plan does not unfold as easily as he’d expected. When, for example, he tells the doorkeeper to fetch someone with authority from within the house (663), he almost immediately betrays himself by first suggesting ‘the woman who runs the place’ (γυνή γ’ ἄπαρχος, 664).30 He quickly corrects himself: ‘But a man would be more fitting’ (ἄνδρα δ’ εὐπρεπέστερον). Then he has to explain away his potential overfamiliarity, to distract whoever might be listening from thinking he knows more about the house than he should as a stranger from Phocis. Hence his move to a quip about shame in conversations between men and women (666–67),31 an observation that Clytemnestra appears to corroborate (εἰ δ’ ἄλλο πρᾶξαι δεῖ τι βουλιώτερον/ἀνδρῶν τόδ’ ἐστὶν ἔργον, οἷς κοινώσομεν, 672–73). Consider the way Orestes-in-disguise describes the death of Orestes: a metic; that is, not only a foreign resident who enjoyed a number of privileges but also a ‘permanent and perpetual alien’(μέτοικον, εἰς τὸ πᾶν ἀεὶ ξένον, 684). This we will need to keep in mind later when he accuses his mother of selling him off to make way for Aegisthus. For the time being, though, this self-description, coupled with his fake words of praise for the dead Orestes— that he is a ‘well wept-over man’ (ἀνδρὸς εὖ κεκλαυμένου, 687)—conveys the

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disconnect between the untried and self-important boy he is and the man he wants to be. The lie has its effect, though perhaps not the one Orestes was expecting (691–99): οἲ ‘γώ, κατ’ ἄκρας †ἐνπᾶς† ὡς πορθούμεθα. ὦ δυσπάλαιστε τῶνδε δωμάτων Ἀρά, ὡς πόλλ’ ἐπωπᾶις κἀκποδὼν εὖ κείμενα· τόξοις πρόσωθεν εὐσκόποις χειρουμένη φίλων ἀποψιλοῖς με τὴν παναθλίαν. καὶ νῦν Ὀρέστης, ἦν γὰρ εὐβούλως ἔχων, ἔξω κομίζων ὀλεθρίου πηλοῦ πόδα νῦν δ’ ἥπερ ἐν δόμοισι βακχείας κακῆς ἰατρὸς ἐλπὶς ἦν, προδοῦσαν ἔγγραφε Ah, we are completely destroyed, top to bottom! Curse of this house, ineluctable, you kept your eye on many things even when they were secure and remote. Subduing me from afar with your well-aimed arrows, you strip me of my loved ones in my agony. And now Orestes too! He was shrewd to keep his distance from the deathly mire. But now the hope he offered as cure for the revelry of the curse in this house, count it now as betrayal. What prevents us, I wonder, from imagining that Clytemnestra’s proclamations of sadness and ruin are genuine (cf. βουλευσόμεσθα τῆσδε συμφορᾶς πέρι, 718)? Have we no sympathy to give her? She blames the curse for Orestes’ death, who might have been the ἰατρὸς ἐλπίς (699) of its revelrous attack on the house and who wisely kept clear of the mess at home. Perhaps Clytemnestra genuinely believed Orestes could, with the passage of time, come to accept her justification for killing Agamemnon; that he could countenance the new arrangement of the household. That is naïve for a number of reasons—not least assuming that a son could accept his father’s killer as his new king and father—but especially because she has as of yet no experience of Orestes’ spectacular and sociopathic single-mindedness, his utter lack of concern for his sister Iphigeneia (one wonders about his concern for Electra, in fact) and thus for the possibility of a woman’s justice. Much as Clytemnestra hoped to shield Orestes from the ugliness of the house, or to prevent him from becoming his father, Orestes has nevertheless succeeded in doing just that.32 Cilissa,33 Orestes’ old nurse and attendant, certainly cannot credit Clytemnestra with anything like proper grief (737–43): θέτο σκυθρωπῶν πένθος ὀμμάτων, γέλων κεύθουσ’ ἐπ’ ἔργοις διαπεπραγμένοις καλῶς κείνηι, δόμοις δὲ τοῖσδε παγκάκως ἔχειν,

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φήμης ὕφ’, ἧς ἤγγειλαν οἱ ξένοι τορῶς. ἦ δὴ κλύων ἐκεῖνος εὐφρανεῖ νόον εὖτ’ ἂν πύθηται μῦθον . . . She certainly put a sad face on, hiding her laughter and joy at this fortunate turn of events—fortunate for her, that is, but thoroughly awful for the house because of the report that the strangers clearly delivered. He too will delight in his heart at hearing the story. She offers the by now predictable observation that Clytemnestra is laughing behind her tears. For Clytemnestra, Orestes’ death is apparently ‘good news.’ Why can’t Cilissa allow Clytemnestra her sorrow? She cuts a figure like the women of the chorus, who perhaps because they lack proper identities as women for being slaves have no empathy for other women. But her memories of Orestes—all of the κακά she had to endure while raising him (748–60)—do not exactly paint a flattering picture of him, and this certainly raises a question about her own unmitigated grief about his death. Her love is apparently the result of her suffering (χειροναξίας, 761) and her suffering, retrospectively and retroactively, is the proof of her love. But if Cilissa can love Orestes in these contradictory ways, why couldn’t Clytemnestra? Because Cilissa’s allegiances are clear: Ὀρέστην ἐξεθρεψάμην πατρί (762). The emphatic predicate position of πατρί spills the goods: She raised Orestes for his father.34 This probably reflects no more than the pervasiveness of a patriarchal concern for heredity (and perhaps prefigures Apollo’s notorious claims about maternity in the following play), but it is remarkable that Cilissa cannot be bothered to mention Clytemnestra in her role as mother. Has she always felt this way about Clytemnestra or, more broadly, about a woman’s or mother’s place in the gender hierarchy? Or has she changed her mind in the years since Orestes’ departure? Was she privy to Clytemnestra’s rationale for sending Orestes abroad? Did she have an opinion about the sacrifice of Iphigeneia and Clytemnestra’s subsequent murder of Agamemnon? From the view we get of her character here, ever so briefly, I have a hard time imagining Cilissa did not always harbor suspicions of Clytemnestra.35 If that is the case, we may wonder whether Clytemnestra for her part harbored suspicions of Cilissa’s theratrophic machinations on behalf of Agamemnon, knowing she could never undo the slow-burning influence of a boy’s heritage and obligation to his father.36 We might speculate that this is one of the reasons Clytemnestra sent Orestes away in the first place. Aegisthus receives even less charity than Clytemnestra despite the fact that he displays what we might consider an uncharacteristic magnanimity (838–43): ἥκω μὲν οὐκ ἄκλητος ἀλλ’ ὑπάγγελος· νέαν φάτιν δὲ πεύθομαι λέγειν τινὰς ξένους μολόντας οὐδαμῶς ἐφίμερον,

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Libation-Bearers and Eumenides μόρον γ’ Ὀρέστου· καὶ τόδ’ ἂν φέρειν δόμοις γένοιτ’ ἂν ἄχθος †δειματοσταγὲς† φόνωι τῶι πρόσθεν ἑλκαίνουσι καὶ δεδηγμένοις I’m here because a messenger called for me. I just heard that some strangers have come to give us news that we never hoped to hear—that Orestes is dead. For us this would be a fresh grief, one that drips fearfully with blood, while we’re still festering from the previous wounds.

We noted in the previous chapter that Aegisthus could not but succumb to vanity and arrogance in his murder of Agamemnon even though his family history had the potential to make him a sympathetic character. There he came off petty and cowardly—a feat of remarkable self-sabotage to make himself more odious than Agamemnon. Here, however, we are treated to a fleeting glimpse of the man he had (or might have) in the intervening years become. So, as with the previous grief-stricken response of Clytemnestra, can we again refuse to imagine that Aegisthus—whether rightly or wrongly, cluelessly or not—might legitimately be upset by the news that Orestes is dead?37 He does not disavow the consequences of his past actions—the impact of Agamemnon’s murder on the house (842–43)—and makes no niggling claims about his family history or his aggrieved sense of justice. He finally acts the part of a proper man, a role he fell short of the last time we saw him. But this for better or worse will really be the last time we see him.38 In the final dramatic confrontation between Orestes and Clytemnestra all the strands of characterization—from sociopathic self-fashioning to theological rationalizing—come together in one explosive moment. Clytemnestra has figured it all out: Just as she and Aegisthus killed Agamemnon by deception, so they stand to perish themselves (δόλοις ὀλούμεθ’ ὥσπερ οὖν ἐκτείναμεν, 888)—unless she can defend herself with a man-killing ax (889)! The death of Aegisthus has clearly struck her (οἲ ‘γώ, τέθνηκας, φίλτατ’ Αἰγίσθου βία, 893), and how not when he was the only person to actually return her love in kind? But Orestes cannot fathom it, showing little sensitivity to the relationship they shared (φιλεῖς τὸν ἄνδρα; τοιγὰρ ἐν ταὐτῶι τάφωι/ κείσηι· θανόντα δ’ οὔτι μὴ προδῶις ποτε, 894–95). As we noted earlier, he can certainly and justifiably choose not to accept it (cf. πατροκτονοῦσα γὰρ ξυνοικήσεις ἐμοί, 909), but not imagine that it is possible? From his limited viewpoint only the marriage between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon was legitimate (907; cf. 930). But when the time comes for action, Orestes finally realizes that his adolescent desire for revenge cannot provide everything he needs to get through with his plan. All of his tough talk up to this point runs up against the very reality of murdering his mother (Πυλάδη, τί δράσω; μητέρ’ αἰδεσθῶ κτανεῖν, 899). Here we get the one moment in which Orestes does not strike a pose of robotic certitude: He does have feelings (αἰδεσθῶ) for Clytemnestra.39 Which leads one to wonder—now that we finally have cause to take a more

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charitable view of Orestes—whether he does in fact have feelings for or about his dead sister Iphigeneia? Perhaps he too felt that her sacrifice was sacrilege? It is a shame, then, that this glimpse of his humanity proves so transient. Because he has been running his mouth about vengeance for so long now that, like Hector before the Trojan walls (Iliad 22.114–25), the shame would really consist in him not following through with the murder. This moment then offers a brilliant illustration of sociopathic self-policing: Orestes’ humanity is revealed only to be systematically stamped out (903–4). Pylades40 is the one to check this intimate impulse of Orestes’ (900–902): ποῦ δαὶ τὸ λοιπὸν Λοξίου μαντεύματα τὰ πυθόχρηστα, πιστά τ’ εὐορκώματα; ἅπαντας ἐχθροὺς τῶν θεῶν ἡγοῦ πλέον. What then will become of Loxias’ oracles at Delphi and faithful oaths in the future? Better to have all men your enemies than the gods. What he does not say is that Orestes was commanded to carry out the murder, only that the authority of the oracles will be in doubt if he does not. We have heard this kind of language before: This is essentially the same gamut Orestes had earlier postulated to Zeus (and later to his father’s shade). And it is an effective ploy on Pylades’ part because Orestes is already convinced that Apollo has given him a command.41 Clytemnestra certainly cannot recall that humanity of Orestes’, but she can try to offer counterpoint and nuance to his self-serving narrative. In response to his claim about marital propriety (ὃν δὲ χρῆν φιλεῖν στυγεῖς, 907) and to show that his whole worldview is misguided, she emphatically reminds Orestes that she was the one, not Cilissa, who raised him: ἐγώ σ’ ἔθρεψα, σὺν δὲ γηράναι θέλω (908; cf. the active voice here). Orestes for his part only picks up the second half of her statement (again, πατροκτονοῦσα γὰρ ξυνοικήσεις ἐμοί, 909); that is, he does not acknowledge Clytemnestra’s affirmation of maternal responsibility and love. Since Clytemnesta cannot penetrate Orestes’ coldness with her familial invocations, her move to the metaphysical comes as no surprise (910–12): Κλ. Ορ. Κλ. Cly: Or: Cly:

ἡ Μοῖρα τούτων, ὦ τέκνον, παραιτία. καὶ τόνδε τοίνυν Μοῖρ’ ἐπόρσυνεν μόρον. οὐδὲν σεβίζηι γενεθλίους ἀράς, τέκνον; Fate had a hand in these things too, my child. Then Fate has also arranged your death. Do you care at all for a parent’s curses, child?

Her second point in particular finally gives voice to a question I have been troubled by all along—what about a parent’s, especially a mother’s,

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curse? Up to this point the ethical language employed by Orestes, Electra and the chorus involved only the necessity of avoiding a father’s Erinyes. Here, however, Clytemnestra reminds us that she too has the power to inflict suffering from beyond the grave—which certainly gives life as well to the possibility that Iphigeneia herself may have let fly some curses against the men in her family (even though gagged in her final moments). As opportunistic (and perhaps desperate) as Clytemnestra comes off here, though, she has realized that appealing to Orestes on terms of endearment, intimacy and the complexities of familial obligation (sometimes the ones you love are the ones you in fact hate—cf. 907, ironically) is pointless. So she resorts to a fatal causality, one that ought to—and does in fact—resonate with his sense of divinely ordained purpose (though not in the way she thinks; 911). Unfortunately, Orestes has already co-opted the narrative of predestination for his own actions.42 Apparently Orestes, like Electra, has it in his head that he too was cast out of the house into slavery (913–17; cf. 132–35)43—contradicting himself from earlier when he said he enjoyed metic status (684)—a claim that Clytemnestra unsuccessfully attempts to gainsay. ‘No, actually we were trying to protect you and thus sent you to a friend and ally’(οὔτοι σ’ ἀπέρριψ’ εἰς δόμους δορυξένους, 914). Orestes of course believes it was a financial transaction: I was sold into slavery for the price of your freedom to cuckold my father (915). It is a wonder that Orestes feels shame about mentioning Aegisthus’ name (αἰσχύνομαί σοι τοῦτ’ ὀνειδίσαι σαφῶς, 917); he has been fairly frank about the affair since the beginning of the exchange with his mother. This revelation of feelings of shame, however, comes off tinny and rather priggish, not indicative of a human being struggling with moral complexity—as if it were simply a high-minded formality (‘I wouldn’t deign to voice . . . ’). Clytemnestra comes back cleverly (μὴ ἀλλ’ εἴφ’ ὁμοίως καὶ πατρὸς τοῦ σοῦ μάτας, 918). In response to Orestes’ priggish silence in the previous line these μάτας seem to mean Agamemnon’s various affairs with women.44 But could it also more generally refer to Agamemnon’s follies, including his slaughter of Iphigeneia?45 This would be the perfect moment—in an exchange over the intricacies of familial responsibility—for Clytemnestra to remind Orestes about his sister. But she does not confront him with it directly. Why not? Perhaps she has already figured out that he has mulishly cathected to his father, that a million invocations of her slaughtered girl would not budge him. Perhaps she has now finally realized that the memory of Iphigeneia has been systematically effaced from the family history. So why bother anymore? Orestes in any event rejects Clytemnestra’s legitimate extrusion along typical gender lines (μὴ ἔλεγχε τὸν πονοῦντ’ ἔσω καθημένη, 919; cf. Foley 2001: 231), which just goes to show that Clytemnestra was right not to bring it up in the first place. Unfortunately, Clytemnestra drops the topic altogether in favor of a woman’s needs (ἄλγος γυναιξὶν ἀνδρὸς εἴργεσθαι, τέκνον, 920).

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Eventually she recognizes that her argument is moot (ἔοικα θρηνεῖν ζῶσα πρὸς τύμβον μάτην, 926) and we are treated to another allusion to the snake dream (928–29): οἲ ‘γώ, τεκοῦσα τόνδ’ ὄφιν ἐθρεψάμην· ἦ κάρτα μάντις οὑξ ὀνειράτων φόβος. Damn, look at this snake I gave life and love to! That fear I had of my dreams was truly prophetic. Perhaps now we can put to rest our suspicion about the provenance of this dream? Perhaps not. Consider that our single manuscript of the play (M) assigns the second line to Orestes, not Clytemnestra, an ascription with potentially meaningful consequences. If the line properly belongs to Clytemnestra, then the implication is clear: ‘Clytaemestra knew already that her dream portended evil, but only now does she understand its full significance.’46 But if it belongs to Orestes, then the first line is less an allusion to her dream than a powerful judgment: Look at this snake I gave life and love to! That acidic insight loses its force (and ultimately becomes a self-condemnation) if we assign her the second line, because if Orestes says it then it proves once again the opportunism of his interpretation (‘That’s right, the fear you felt from your dream turned out to be prophetic’). We may have no way to settle the matter—for better or worse—but the chorus certainly believes that the dream has found its proper fulfilment (931– 71). In the aftermath of the murder—and after a very premature victory ode by the chorus (ἐπολολύξατ’, 942; cf. 1044–47)—Orestes spends a long time fetishizing the contraption, the robe, that ensnared Agamemnon (973–1006), wondering about the proper terminology to define it, as if the object had a life of its own. But as we are now accustomed to expect, he completely ignores the nexus of complications attached to it: deceit, justice, murder, revenge, his father, his mother and, ultimately, his dead sister (see Foley 2001: 231). The robe is to be visible to the father ‘who sees all things’ (ὁ πάντ’ ἐποπτεύων τάδε / Ἥλιος, 984–85), presumably Zeus (cf. Sommerstein 2008: 339 n.193), in the hopes that he will bear witness at some future trial that Orestes was justified in killing his mother (987–89). Is Orestes tacitly admitting that his imperviously justifiable deed might in fact be a bit more ambiguous than originally presumed, hence the likelihood of a trial? Is Aeschylus simply foreshadowing the famous trial scene in the final play of the trilogy? Has Orestes deluded himself into thinking Zeus is ultimately responsible for his murders? Thinking back on his presumptuous prayer to Zeus earlier in the play (246–63), we might answer in the affirmative—he has closed the loop himself. Consider as well the language he uses to condemn Clytemnestra (992–94): . . . τέκνων ἤνεγκ’ ὑπὸ ζώνην βάρος, φίλον τέως νῦν δ’ ἐχθρόν, ὡς φαίνει, δάκος, τί σοι δοκεῖ; μύραινά γ’ εἴτ’ ἔχιδν’ ἔφυ

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Libation-Bearers and Eumenides She bore the weight of Agamemnon’s children under her girdle, a weight once dear but now, as it turns out, a hostile biting creature.47 How does she look to you? She was born an eel, a viper.

Snake imagery is taking over: Clytemnestra’s children, once near and dear, have become a ‘hostile snake’; she herself has turned into a viper (or eel). As we’ve just seen, though, these images also come at the expense of Orestes’ own characterization. How can he glory in the same imagery he uses to condemn his mother? We may wonder, given the imminent phantasmatic arrival of the Furies, whether this schizophrenia of his already bears witness to the plague he stands to suffer (1022–25). Hence his final and desperately defensive claim of justification (1026–33). As if to prove his innocence he intends to go to Delphi wrapped in purificatory garb in order to flee the pollution. Whatever he might have thought about his innocence prior to this moment, however many times he exultantly (or apotropaically) exclaimed his god-sanctioned righteousness, he now directly sees and experiences the terrifying presence of the divine (1048–50): ἆἆ σμοιαὶ γυναῖκες αἵδε Γοργόνων δίκην φαιοχίτωνες καὶ πεπλεκτανημέναι πυκνοῖς δράκουσιν· οὐκέτ’ ἂν μείναιμ’ ἐγώ Ah, these women are repulsive48—like Gorgons—wearing dark garments and thick-set braids of serpents. I can no longer remain here. This vision of the Furies has brought the snake imagery full circle, and we may now understand what all those snake dreams were about: Clytemnestra’s furious hellhounds are born!49 Iphigeneia might finally win an advocate.50

EUMENIDES The opening of Eumenides stresses the virtue of choice (1–33), a theme that will be important for the play and will in fact set it apart from the previous two plays. In her mini-history of the Delphic oracle, the Pythia notes the succession of female gods who held sway before Apollo: Gaia, Themis, Phoebe.51 She intimates that each of these goddesses was allotted this prophetic role with her predecessor’s consent (λάχει, θελούσης, οὐδὲ πρὸς βίαν τινός, 5)—although Gaia, as we know from Hesiod, seemed to have the power preternaturally—and an allotment is to a certain extent a measure of arbitrariness. The transmission of prophetic power happens through birth (through relatives) but not out of necessity so much as honorary giving (hence θελούσης). This is especially the case for Apollo, who was accepted

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by both the ‘road-making children of Hephaestus’ (πέμπουσι δ’ αὐτὸν καὶ σεβίζουσιν μέγα / κελευθοποιοὶ παῖδες Ἡφαίστου, 12–13) and the people of Athens. We are told, either strangely or perhaps expectedly given what we have just heard about allotment, that Zeus put the craft of prophecy into Apollo’s mind (τέχνης δέ νιν Ζεὺς ἔνθεον κτίσας φρένα, 17), yet another act of unnecessary charity. Whereas Phoebe had provided him with the abode, Zeus granted the capacity (τέχνης).52 The Pythia wraps up this prelude with a final emphasis on allotment (κεἰ πάρ’ Ἑλλήνων τινές / ἴτων πάλωι λαχόντες, ὡς νομίζεται, 31–32), claiming that she prophesies only as the god guides her (μαντεύομαι γὰρ ὡς ἂν ἡγῆται θεός, 33), a statement that underlines the relationship one is expected to cultivate with a prophetic god. She herself reserves judgment in her role as priestess. The Pythia’s humility and acceptance of her role, however, do not prevent her from making judgments on the horrifying scene within the temple (40–63): ὁρῶ δ’ ἐπ’ ὀμφαλῶι μὲν ἄνδρα θεομυσῆ ἕδραν ἔχοντα προστρόπαιον, αἵματι στάζοντα χεῖρας, καὶ νεοσπαδὲς ξίφος ἔχοντ’, ἐλαίας θ’ ὑψιγέννητον κλάδον λήνει μεγίστωι σωφρόνως ἐστεμμένον, ἀργῆτι μαλλῶι· τῆιδε γὰρ τρανῶς ἐρῶ. πρόσθεν δὲ τἀνδρὸς τοῦδε θαυμαστὸς λόχος εὕδει γυναικῶν ἐν θρόνοισιν ἥμενος. οὔτοι γυναῖκας ἀλλὰ Γοργόνας λέγω· οὐδ’ αὖτε Γοργείοισιν εἰκάσω τύποις εἶδόν ποτ’ ἤδη Φινέως γεγραμμένας δεῖπνον φερούσας· ἄπτεροί γε μὴν ἰδεῖν αὗται μέλαιναί τ’, ἐς τὸ πᾶν βδελύκτροποι, ῥέγκουσι δ’ οὐ πλατοῖσι φυσιάμασιν, ἐκ δ’ ὀμμάτων λείβουσι δυσφιλῆ λίβα· καὶ κόσμος οὔτε πρὸς θεῶν ἀγάλματα φέρειν δίκαιος οὔτ’ ἐς ἀνθρώπων στέγας. τὸ φῦλον οὐκ ὄπωπα τῆσδ’ ὁμιλίας οὐδ’ ἥτις αἶα τοῦτ’ ἐπεύχεται γένος τρέφουσ’ ἀνατεὶ μὴ μεταστένειν πόνον. τἀντεῦθεν ἤδη τῶνδε δεσπότηι δόμων αὐτῶι μελέσθω Λοξίαι μεγασθενεῖ· ἰατρόμαντις δ’ ἐστὶ καὶ τερασκόπος καὶ τοῖσιν ἄλλοις δωμάτων καθάρσιος I saw a man—abominable in the eyes of the gods—sitting at the hearth for purification, his hands bloody and clutching a freshly drawn sword, wearing a high-grown branch of olive crowned thoughtfully with a length of wool with white fleece. (I’m trying to be as descriptive as possible here.)

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Libation-Bearers and Eumenides In front of this man, however, sat an unbelievable pack of women on chairs sleeping. Wait, no—they weren’t women, rather Gorgons. But I can’t exactly compare them to Gorgons either. Once I saw in a painting some women carrying off the food of Phineus. These women, though, don’t have any wings as far as I can tell, and they’re black, sickening through and through. The blasts coming from their direction bar any approach, and something unpleasant is dripping from their eyes. And their attire is appropriate neither in the presence of the gods’ images nor in the homes of men. I’ve never seen the tribe of this group and I can’t imagine any land bragging about having given them birth, which must have been painful and regrettable. At this point I leave it all in the hands of the master of this house, mighty Loxias. He is the healer and prophet and cleanser of homes for all others.

Orestes is described as ‘abominable/polluted in the eyes of the gods’ (θεομυσῆ, 40), though as she just said and as she reiterates at the end, she will let Apollo be the final arbiter (61–63). The bell cannot be unrung, though, and this question of Orestes’ guilt will of course permeate the play. It is important that our very first impression of him, one that likely carries over from the chaotic close of the previous play, is that he is properly polluted. The Pythia may well abstain from judging in her objectivity, but shock has let loose her sense of propriety. The mouthpiece of the very god defending the abominable man has already tipped the scales to his disadvantage. With regard to the Erinyes the Pythia shows less reservation, though ultimately she can only attest to their indescribability: They are like women but not really, like Gorgons but not really, like Harpies but not really. Their representation, rather like the values they represent, poses a problem for communication. So does their attire (κόσμος), which to Pythia’s mind does not suit a temple.53 Are we to imagine that this κόσμος has bigger implications than mere clothing? Is it entirely physical? How do we square this sense of propriety with her seeming acceptance of Orestes’ κόσμος (41–45)? However we square it, the Erinyes do not seem to observe the same rules about right and wrong when it comes to religious protocol. Here we get a preview of the conflict that the play will so memorably dramatize. When Apollo arrives,54 we see this conflict immediately corroborated (67–77): καὶ νῦν ἁλούσας τάσδε τὰς μάργους ὁρᾶις· ὕπνωι πεσοῦσαι δ’ αἱ κατάπτυστοι κόραι, γραῖαι παλαιαὶ παῖδες, αἷς οὐ μείγνυται θεῶν τις οὐδ’ ἄνθρωπος οὐδὲ θήρ ποτε, κακῶν δ’ ἕκατι κἀγένοντ’, ἐπεὶ κακὸν σκότον νέμονται Τάρταρόν θ’ ὑπὸ χθονός, μισήματ’ ἀνδρῶν καὶ θεῶν Ὀλυμπίων. ὅμως δὲ φεῦγε, μηδὲ μαλθακὸς γένηι·

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ἐλῶσι γάρ σε καὶ δι’ ἠπείρου μακρᾶς βιβῶντ’ ἀν’ αἰεὶ τὴν πλανοστιβῆ χθόνα ὑπέρ τε πόντον καὶ περιρρύτας πόλεις. Even now you can see these lunatics—they’re trapped. They’ve succumbed to sleep these despicable women, old yet arrested in their development: no one, neither god nor human nor beast, mixes with their company. They were bred for evil and they live in the evil darkness of Tartarus under the earth, despised by men and Olympians alike. So get out of here and don’t lose spirit. Because they will hound you all across the land as you wander your way over the earth and over the sea island cities. The conflict turns on the distinction between the preternatural and determinate dispensation the Erinyes believe they must defend and the more flexible exercise of judgment that Apollo invokes (64–66). Even while simultaneously spitting out his contempt for the Erinyes he acknowledges the reality of their rights and responsibilities (75–77). Their presence clearly illustrates the real consequences of kin murder: Murder is definitely a sin but not apparently if Apollo doesn’t think so. His emergence and reassurance of Orestes suggest he has the power to forgive and cleanse Orestes’ pollution; that is, Apollo is capable of making a judgment, of carrying out a duty or an obligation in a non-obligatory way depending on his will and thought. Alternatively, the Erinyes will throughout the course of the play claim the right to defend the natural order even if there is nothing natural about their own allotment (149–72); they will assume, in other words, that their lot is an unbending obligation, one that requires no exercise of judgment. Apollo’s presence here, however, shows that his view of flexibility in judgment has yet to catch hold in the new Olympian order of things. Apparently he was not able to entirely purify Orestes. He has to send him along to Athens and his sister Athena for a proper purification (79–80). There he will find judges and ‘charming words’ (θελκτηρίους μύθους) to acquit him (81–83)—not exactly a sterling claim on Orestes’ innocence if they have to invent a system whole-cloth to absolve him. Perhaps, though, these ‘charming words’ are less magical than revolutionary: argument, persuasion and reason will be the new inducements to judgment. For the time being Apollo appears content in believing this new system (at this point a fantasy), and in particular the guidance of Athena, will suffice. We for our part are left in the position of figuring out whether that belief is justified. Here likewise we are introduced to the sticky issue of Apollo’s involvement in Orestes’ matricide (καὶ γὰρ κτανεῖν σ’ ἔπεισα μητρῶιον δέμας, 84), the language of which will change in intriguing and revealing ways at different points throughout the play. At this early moment he says he ‘persuaded’ Orestes to kill his mother55; this invocation of persuasion, however, already puts him at odds with the picture Orestes so vividly portrayed in the previous

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play. There, we recall, persuasion played no part—Orestes was, he avowed, commanded. And why not make it a simple matter of duty? Because the woman Apollo persuaded Orestes to kill is here given but paltry redeeming characterization (94–139). Clytemnestra claims that she is dishonored and disgraced among the dead for what she did. It seems the justifications she invoked for her actions in the previous two plays did not suffice, though she did succeed at least in securing the support of the Erinyes (regardless of whether that was their choice). Has Clytemnestra been punished somehow in the underworld? Perhaps she has been spurned by her loved ones both dead and alive (παθοῦσα δ’ οὕτω δεινὰ πρὸς τῶν φιλτάτων, 100)? Has she not herself been reunited with Iphigeneia? Or, as she intimated in the previous play, has Iphigeneia, rather, been reunited with her father and thus turned against her mother? This would be the cruelest twist, that the daughter she so forcefully defended has in the end betrayed her as well.56 Or has she not been properly buried, hence she is disgraced to wander up on Earth?57 This fate would jive with the shameful treatment she receives from Orestes and Electra. Whatever the subtle shades of meaning she evinces, whatever pleading for her soul she righteously intones, the Clytemnestra we meet in this brief moment is much less sympathetic than the one we met in Choephoroi. Here she is shrill and bent on the harassment of Orestes (137–39).58 However justified she might be in our eyes to act this way, Clytemnestra simply cannot win in this world (or the next apparently). By now the memory of her justification—Iphigeneia—has been at best completely wiped and at worst seditiously coopted. In the ensuing conflict between the Erinyes and Apollo, the two positions I previously noted as dialectically emphatic, ineluctable inflexibility and discretionary inconsistency come into sharp contrast. However untoward the Erinyes have been described, their duties (as they invoke them) cannot just be ignored (150, 162–72)—even if they are couched in a complaint about the younger generation of gods. Apollo’s behavior not only exceeds the boundaries of justice but also (to their minds at least) pollutes his sanctuary (166–67). That may be up to him to determine, but what appears to be irreversible is their duty to persecute Orestes (174–77): καὶ τὸν οὐκ ἐκλύσεται, ὑπὸ δὲ γᾶν φυγὼν οὔποτ’ ἐλευθεροῦται, ποτιτρόπαιος ὢν δ’ ἕτερον ἐν κάραι μιάστορ’ εἶσιν οὗ πάσεται He won’t be able to free this man—he won’t get free even if he flees beneath the earth. Suppliant though he is, he’s on his way to a place where he’ll have yet another avenger on his back. This obligation in fact seems to enjoy the sympathy and validation of the underworld gods, perhaps even Hades himself (cf. 273). The Erinyes thus

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assume, despite Apollo’s intervention here, that other and important gods share their sense of right and wrong. Apollo for his part paints their sense of ancient duty as barbaric and regressive (179–97). The catalogue of gruesome behaviors he accuses them of endorsing comes off rather hyperbolic (186–92): ἀλλ’ οὗ καρανιστῆρες ὀφθαλμωρύχοι δίκαι σφαγαί τε, σπέρματός τ’ ἀποφθορᾶι παίδων κακοῦται χλοῦνις, ἠδ’ ἀκρωνίαι λευσμοί τε, καὶ μύζουσιν οἰκτισμὸν πολὺν ὑπὸ ῥάχιν παγέντες. ἆρ’ἀκούετε οἵας ἑορτῆς ἔστ’ἀπόπτυστοι θεοῖς στέργηθρ’ ἔχουσαι; Aren’t you better suited to the head-choppers and eye-gouging judgments and slaugthers, the eunuch further unmanned by the destruction of his chldren’s seed, extremity mutilation and stoning, men screaming in agony with their spines impaled—do you hear the kinds of festivities you hold dear that the gods find despicable? We may wonder whether Apollo characterizes the Erinyes this way only because they are pursuing one of his protégés: Has he felt this way before about some other criminal—a head chopper, say, or an extremity mutilator— for whom he is now no longer providing protection? His attempt to define the boundaries of the Erinyes’ duty, no matter how gruesomely or compelling imagistic, unsurprisingly comes up short. At any rate, that he has to perpetrate an end-run in Athens to circumvent their power would seem to suggest that he cannot just do what he pleases. As the chorus points out, Apollo is not partly but wholly to blame for the defilement of his own temple (οὐ μεταίτιος . . . παναίτιος, 198–200). The chorus thus seem to recognize shades of gray in their moral judgments, but concomitantly cannot see that Apollo is the one ultimately to determine whether his temple is defiled by a suppliant with blood on his hands. This the Erinyes, in their roles as guardians of an ancient order (παλαιγενεῖς μοίρας, 172), cannot fathom. They are incapable of recognizing the conceptualization of choice embodied by Apollo (τί τῶνδ’ ἐρεῖ τις δικαίως ἔχειν, 154). They want consistent punishment rather than inconsistent beneficence. Apollo, on the other hand, wants to defend the principle of non-consistency; that a god can be kind and beneficial if he or she wants to. But that insight will have to wait. For the time being the question revolves around his responsibility for Orestes’ matricide. Of course that issue is sticky. Consider the slippery language of the following exchange (202–3): Χο. ἔχρησας ὥστε τὸν ξένον μητροκτονεῖν; Απ. ἔχρησα ποινὰς τοῦ πατρὸς πέμψαι· τί μήν;

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Libation-Bearers and Eumenides Ch: Did your oracle respond in such a way as to make your friend kill his mother? Ap: I answered that he bring punishment for his father—what of it?

In their casting of the language, the Erinyes ask whether Apollo prophesied in such a way as to spur on Orestes. The ὥστε suggests that the matricide was the natural result of an (intentional?) oracular ambiguity. They stake no claim on, and perhaps are not terribly interested in, causality: The oracle simply resulted in Orestes’ murder of Clytemnestra. In his response Apollo drops the conjunction in favor of a (simple? complementary?) infinitive (πέμψαι), which is no less vague in its wording. This gives a new angle to his earlier claim to have persuaded Orestes. Whatever the inducement or level of causality, Apollo here only claims to have given an oracle to Orestes to ‘send punishment.’59 We might then wonder whether Orestes’ subsequent murder corresponded to his idea of sending punishment. Was Orestes, rather, to exercise judgment after hearing the oracle as opposed to simply taking orders (which is how he conceived of it in the previous play and how he reiterates it later, 465–67)? Now Apollo is stuck in the position of defending a lack of judgment, or an act of bad judgment, on Orestes’ part. Notice that Apollo nowhere mentions any of the punishments that Orestes invoked if he should refuse to take vengeance. It is a shame, then, that the chorus does not press for more specificity; they simply move on to Apollo’s approval of Orestes’ entrance into the temple while polluted (204–5). Apollo for his part completely disregards the very simple responsibility the Erinyes claim for themselves: to drive from their homes those who do violence against kin (210–12, 227). In fact all he can do is rail against how it offends his sense of what is right (marriage oaths) while invoking Zeus, Hera and Aphrodite on his side (214–16).60 His specious and potentially self-contradictory claim that marriage trumps oaths (217–18; see Sommerstein 2008: 383 n.63) again fails to acknowledge the Erinyes’ elementary dispensation as a fact. Apropos of which the Erinyes admit they have no choice: A mother’s blood ‘drives’ (ἄγει, 230) them. They can only be what they are (power without choice), punishers of blood, not people. They thus cut figures of necessity. This admission of inflexibility may perhaps be what leads Apollo to promote Athena as the solution to the problem of Orestes (79ff., 224); as a son of Zeus he perhaps recognizes in the daughter of Zeus yet another god sympathetic to the principle of choice and inconsistency. When we transition to Athens in the next scene, it is clear that the question of Orestes’ purification/pollution has not been entirely settled. Orestes of course believes that he has been purified because he has been received by others (235–43): ἄνασσ’ Ἀθάνα, Λοξίου κελεύμασιν ἥκω, δέχου δὲ πρευμενῶς ἀλάστορα, οὐ προστρόπαιον οὐδ’ ἀφοίβαντον χέρα,

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ἀλλ’ ἀμβλὺν ἤδη προστετριμμένον τε πρὸς ἄλλοισιν οἴκοις καὶ πορεύμασιν βροτῶν. ὁμοῖα χέρσον καὶ θάλασσαν ἐκπερῶν, σώιζων ἐφετμὰς Λοξίου χρηστηρίους, πρόσειμι δῶμα καὶ βρέτας τὸ σόν, θεά. αὐτοῦ φυλάσσων ἀναμένω τέλος δίκης Mighty Athena, I am here at the behest of Loxias—receive me kindly as the avenger I am, not a suppliant or a man with polluted hands, but one weak and worn out from visiting and traveling with other men. I’ve crossed land and sea alike, holding tight the oracular commands of Loxias, and I’ve come to your home and image, goddess. Here I will keep watch and await the finality of your judgment. He is convinced of his cleanliness and thus tells Athena how to receive him—as a righteous avenger, not a suppliant. ‘The very fact that Orestes has been able to travel with other men, and to stay under their roofs, without harm to them, is evidence that he is no longer under pollution’ (Sommerstein 2008: 386 n.67).61 Given all the opportunism we have witnessed in Orestes, however, can we be so sure he hasn’t fudged a few things? Presumably he would not lie to his potential savior, but how do we know that the people with whom he has traveled and lodged are free of harm? Orestes sounds more hopeful and desperate than confident.62 The continuous pursuit of the Erinyes would seem to suggest, in fact, that Orestes has not yet been purified, or that even if he had he was still not absolved of the crime in their eyes (254–75; Clinton 1988: 16, esp. n.36). They claim that Hades, the ultimate arbiter, is full of people like him (269–75), and Orestes is no different (cf. 299–306). As if to completely undermine Orestes’ confident assertions of innocence, the Erinyes move into their notorious binding song (307–96).63 Let’s take some time to consider the insight it gives us into their view of their elemental obligations. They start with a seemingly simple definition of duty: ‘straight justice’ (εὐθυδίκαιοι) consists in harming no one with clean hands, only those who are polluted (312–20). It is at the very least a claim to elementary consistency regardless of whether Orestes or Apollo or anyone else likes it. A bit further on they claim that Night, their mother, bore them as (or to be) a punishment for the living and the dead (321–24)—a clever move to make their allotment (cf. τοῦτο γὰρ λάχος διανταία / Μοῖρ’ ἐπέκλωσεν ἐμπέδως ἔχειν, 333–34) a genetic birthright (cf. γιγνομέναισι λάχη τάδ’ ἐφ’ ἁμὶν ἐκράνθη, 349). Whatever the confusion created by the Erinyes’ language of allotment,64 their responsibility to pursue kin bloodshed frees the Olympians from having to pursue criminals themselves (360–66): †σπευδόμεναι δ’ ἀφελεῖν τινα τᾶσδε μερίμνας θεῶν δ’ ἀτέλειαν ἐμαῖσι λιταῖς ἐπικραίνειν† μηδ’ εἰς ἄγκρισιν ἐλθεῖν· (363)

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Libation-Bearers and Eumenides Ζεὺς δ’ αἱμοσταγὲς ἀξιόμισον ἔθνος τόδε λέσχας (365) ἇς ἀπηξιώσατο We are eager to relieve the gods of this worry, and to see to it they have neither responsibility for prayers that come our way nor final decision. Zeus chooses to keep our foul, blood-dripping tribe away from his company.

The Erinyes keep the dirty work far from Mt. Olympus (cf. 350, 386). Unlike Apollo, Zeus keeps them at a distance but, crucially, does not encroach on their duties. Consider Athena’s bewilderment at their presence a bit further on (410–12): ὁμοῖαι δ’ οὐδενὶ σπαρτῶν γένει, οὔτ’ ἐν θεαῖσι πρὸς θεῶν ὁρώμεναι, οὔτ’ οὖν βροτείοις ἐμφερεῖς μορφώμασιν· You don’t look like any race of created beings—you couldn’t be counted among the goddesses by the gods, nor do you resemble mortals in your form. Apparently she has never really seen these creatures (even though she knows of them; 418), a fact that proves the Erinyes right in their invisible dispensation of bloody justice. But this may well be the problem after all, that justice is being dispensed bloodily in the dark, not publicly. With the arrival of Athena herself, however, the conflict takes a turn for the civil. In response to the Erinyes’ charge of matricide (424),65 she asks whether Orestes did it out of compulsion or out of fear of someone’s wrath (ἀλλ’ ἦ ‘ξ ἀνάγκης, ἤ τινος τρέων κότον, 426). She seems, in other words, to understand that motivation is a bit more complex than the Erinyes.66 The chorus, however, does not answer directly but rather asks a further rhetorical question in response: What kind of compulsion is so powerful as to drive one to commit matricide (427)? This is not exactly a dodge; rather, it fits with their perspective on the limits of human motivation and justice: nothing should be so strong as to drive one to commit matricide. In this case Athena is the one who evades an answer—for now at least (428). The difference is that even after she has called the Erinyes on their underhanded attempt to trap Orestes with the oath (429–32), they respect her authority because she, unlike Apollo, treated them with respect (433–35). Athena lets Orestes make his case, because apparently the question of his pollution has still not been settled (436–42). Hence her allusion to Ixion, who had similarly murdered a family member.67 Orestes takes the opportunity here to make his third claim on purification (443–53): ἄνασσ’ Ἀθάνα, πρῶτον ἐκ τῶν ὑστάτων τῶν σῶν ἐπῶν μέλημ’ ἀφαιρήσω μέγα·

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οὐκ εἰμὶ προστρόπαιος, οὐδ’ ἔχων μύσος πρὸς χειρὶ τἠμῆι τὸ σὸν ἐφεζόμην βρέτας. τεκμήριον δὲ τῶνδέ σοι λέξω μέγα· ἄφθογγον εἶναι τὸν παλαμναῖον νόμος, ἔστ’ ἂν πρὸς ἀνδρὸς αἵματος καθαρσίου σφαγαὶ καθαιμάξωσι νεοθηλοῦς βοτοῦ. πάλαι πρὸς ἄλλοις ταῦτ’ ἀφιερώμεθα οἴκοισι καὶ βοτοῖσι καὶ ῥυτοῖς πόροις. ταύτην μὲν οὕτω φροντίδ’ ἐκποδὼν λέγω Mighty Athena, let me begin from your final words and put aside a great concern. I’m not here as a suppliant in need of cleansing and I have not taken my place before your image with polluted hands. I have powerful proof of this which I’ll share with you: it is the law that a murderer must remain speechless until blood from the slaughter of a young animal has dripped over him at the hands of a man who can cleanse pollution. I have long since been cleansed in the homes of other men both by animal blood and flowing streams. So you can put this anxiety aside. One wonders now after all these defensive proclamations of innocence whether the anxiety Orestes mentions (μέλημ’, 444; φροντίδ’, 453) is Athena’s or really his own? Apart from the trust we give Orestes—and maybe we should grant him a modicum in the face of an actual god—perhaps the issue here has to do with the difference between the human idea of purification, for which elaborate rituals were established, and the immortal. Because it is obvious that the gods on hand (Erinyes and Athena) are not convinced he is clean yet.68 In his mini-history of travails Orestes offers a rather familiar picture (455–67). The treacherous death of heroic Agamemnon gets a mention (456–61), as does the malice of his ‘black-hearted’ (κελαινόφρων, 459) mother. Yet again—here recalling his spit-flecked interaction with his mother in the previous play—he labels himself an exile (φεύγων, 462). And after admitting to the matricide he yet again invokes the punishment he stood to suffer if he hadn’t ‘done something’ (ἔρξαιμι) to Clytemnestra and Aegisthus (466–67)—hence Apollo was responsible (ἐπαίτιος, 465; cf. 199– 200).69 There are several things of note here. First, Orestes says nothing about the murder of his sister Iphigeneia. By now that should be a surprise to no one. Still, that thoughtlessness helps to explain, second, his bratty unwillingness to imagine why his mother’s heart was black in the first place and hence why she committed the world-shattering atrocity he claims as his own impetus for murder. Third, and finally, and perhaps most revealingly, after exulting in his responsibility for the murder (ἔκτεινα τὴν τεκοῦσαν, οὐκ ἀρνήσομαι, 463) he saddles Apollo with the blame. Anyone other than level-headed and judicious Athena would have laughed this presumptuous man-boy out of court.

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Strangely, Athena claims that she cannot decide the matter herself (470–89)—not because she is ‘baffled’ (Sommerstein 1989: ad loc) but because she has respect for propriety and the offended justice of each side’s case.70 She already represents a new model of deliberation, of weighing the pros and cons of all sides before deciding to do something life altering, unlike either Orestes or Apollo. To this end Athena will choose men who are ἀμόμφους (475) to be judges, which, given the fact that this is the foundational moment of the court, must mean ‘not subject to blame for whatever decision they make’ rather than ‘morally or ethically pure’ (so Sommerstein 1989: ad loc). But how are we to know that a new body of judges will fare any better? We are assured (litotically) of the non-unjust minds of the jurors (ὅρκον περῶντας μηδέν’ ἐκδίκοις φρεσίν, 489): nothing to imply that they are just in their judgments, only that they will not sell their oaths down the river. Athena’s court is thus meant to achieve a lack of injustice, which could be non-justice but not injustice. When the action shifts to the Areopagus,71 the issue ultimately comes down to whether Orestes—or any suppliant—is properly purified.72 Apollo initiates his testimony by claiming that he purified Orestes, that he was the one responsible (576–81): καὶ μαρτυρήσων ἦλθον, ἔστι γὰρ νόμωι ἱκέτης ὅδ’ ἁνὴρ καὶ δόμων ἐφέστιος ἐμῶν, φόνου δὲ τῶιδ’ ἐγὼ καθάρσιος, καὶ ξυνδικήσων αὐτός. αἰτίαν δ’ ἔχω τῆς τοῦδε μητρὸς τοῦ φόνου. σὺ δ’ εἴσαγε ὅπως ἐπίσται τήνδε κύρωσον δίκην. I’m here to bear witness for this man, who is a lawful suppliant and visitor of my home—I am the one who purified him of the murder—and also to speak on his behalf myself. I’m responsible for the murder of this man’s mother. So you bring this case to trial and determine it whatever way you know best. What does it say, though, that no one else was sure Orestes had been purified? Is Apollo now changing his story given the circumstances? Is his claim of responsibility for the murder a post-hoc justification? That is, now that he has discovered that not even Athena is convinced of Orestes’ innocence, does he have to change his tune? The chorus wants to flesh this particular matter out with Orestes (585– 613). Consider the switch between the personal and impersonal in their initial exchange (593–94): Χο. πρὸς τοῦ δ’ ἐπείσθης καὶ τίνος βουλεύμασιν; Ορ. τοῖς τοῦδε θεσφάτοισι. μαρτυρεῖ δέ μοι. Ch: By whom were you persuaded? By whose counsel? Or: By this god’s oracle—he’s my witness.

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They employ Apollo’s language of persuasion (ἐπείσθης) to characterize the impetus behind Orestes’ actions. But where the chorus asks after the person responsible for persuading Orestes (πρὸς τοῦ . . . τίνος), surely having in mind the chain of personal causality Apollo just testified to, Orestes answers with the impersonal means (θεσφάτοισι). The chorus, however, will not let the personal issue go (595): ὁ μάντις ἐξηγεῖτό σοι μητροκτονεῖν; The prophet instructed you to kill your mother? ἐξηγεῖτό is ‘often used of religious experts expounding what is and what is not in accordance with divine law . . . hence the implication of its use here is “if you and Apollo are telling the truth, then divine law permits matricide!”’ (Sommerstein 1989: ad loc). Technically Orestes’ response is a dodge—‘Up to this point I have no fault to find with the outcome’ (καὶ δεῦρό γ’ ἀεὶ τὴν τύχην οὐ μέμφομαι. 596)—but the καὶ that begins the line seems to presume that the answer is yes (although γὰρ would have been more direct—cf. δυοῖν γὰρ εἶχε προσβολὰς μιασμάτοιν, 600)—‘That’s right, he did prophesy that I had to kill my mother. And up to this point . . . ’ The question of the personal begins to take its eventually notorious shape in the back and forth over the respective deaths of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra (598–606): Ορ. Χο. Ορ. Χο.

πέποιθ’, ἀρωγὰς δ’ ἐκ τάφου πέμπει πατήρ. νεκροῖσί νυν πέπισθι μητέρα κτανών. δυοῖν γὰρ εἶχε προσβολὰς μιασμάτοιν. πῶς δή; δίδαξον τοὺς δικάζοντας τάδε.

Ορ. Χο. Ορ. Χο. Ορ. Or: Ch: Or: Ch: Or: Ch: Or:

ἀνδροκτονοῦσα πατέρ’ ἐμὸν κατέκτανε. τί γάρ; σὺ μὲν ζῆις, ἡ δ’ ἐλευθέρα φόνωι. τί δ’ οὐκ ἐκείνην ζῶσαν ἤλαυνες φυγῆι; οὐκ ἦν ὅμαιμος φωτὸς ὃν κατέκτανεν. ἐγὼ δὲ μητρὸς τῆς ἐμῆς ἐν αἵματι; I have faith in Apollo, and my father will send help from the grave. Now you have faith in the dead—after you’ve killed your mother. That’s right, because she had the disease of two pollutions. How’s that? Explain this to your judges. She killed her husband and killed my father. And what of it? You’re alive, and your murder of her set her free. But why didn’t you drive her to flight and persecute her while she was alive?

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Libation-Bearers and Eumenides Ch: She didn’t share blood with the man she killed. Or: Well, do I really share my mother’s blood?

Apparently Orestes has confidence that his father can help from beyond the grave, either forgetting or simply disavowing the importance of the fact that Clytemnestra too lives among the dead. If your father can help from the underworld, they remind him, then your mother can surely harm from the underworld (599). But that is beside the point to Orestes, because once he has heard from the chorus that they only pursue bloodshed among kin (605), his only remaining move is to ask whether he really shares blood with his mother (606)—an opportunistic semi-dismissal of the personal. The question is so desperately audacious as to be almost beautiful, a fact registered in the scandalized disbelief of the chorus (607–8): πῶς γάρ σ’ ἔθρεψεν ἐντός, ὦ μιαιφόνε, ζώνης; ἀπεύχηι μητρὸς αἷμα φίλτατον; Damn right you are! How else did she nurture you within her womb, you murderer? Are you trying to disavow your mother’s blood, more yours than your own? This question Orestes does in fact dodge, instead turning to Apollo and asking about the justice of his action (609–13). Apollo for his part claims that every prophecy he gives comes at the behest of Zeus, hence Orestes’ justification rests on solid ethereal ground (616–21): οὐπώποτ’ εἶπον μαντικοῖσιν ἐν θρόνοις, οὐκ ἀνδρός, οὐ γυναικός, οὐ πόλεως πέρι, ὃ μὴ κελεύσαι Ζεὺς Ὀλυμπίων πατήρ. τὸ μὲν δίκαιον τοῦθ’ ὅσον σθένει μάθε. βουλῆι πιφαύσκω δ’ ὔμμ’ ἐπισπέσθαι πατρός. ὅρκος γὰρ οὔτι Ζηνὸς ἰσχύει πλέον. I have never said a word from my oracular seat—whether it concerns a man, a woman or a city—that Zeus, father of the Olympians, did not advise me to say. You better take to heart how strong this justification is. I urge you to recognize the counsel of our father, for no oath carries more strength than Zeus. Zeus, as noted earlier in reference to the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, gave access to his ‘will’ solely to Apollo, whose oracles are presumably then windows (even if opaque) into Zeus’ mind. In a way then Apollo here has implicated Zeus in the murder of Clytemnestra. If we follow the chain of causality invoked as early as the parodos of Agamemnon—that Zeus initiated the Trojan War to avenge Paris’ transgression of xenia—then this passing of the buck should not surprise us. As we discussed there, though,

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we cannot be certain that the chorus’ or Calchas’ claim on Zeus’ involvement in the war really carries any authority. And if that skepticism is even slightly justifiable, then Apollo’s rhetorical move here—he clearly wants it to be a trump card—has to be problematic.73 The chorus, however, justifiably asks whether Zeus really gave Apollo this command, especially one that bears no equilibrium (622–24): Ζεύς, ὡς λέγεις σύ, τόνδε χρησμὸν ὤπασε φράζειν Ὀρέστηι τῶιδε, τὸν πατρὸς φόνον πράξαντα μητρὸς μηδαμοῦ τιμὰς νέμειν; So by your reckoning it was Zeus who gave you this oracle to instruct Orestes with? That he should take no thought of his mother’s rights in avenging the death of his father? Rather like his protégé Apollo does not answer the question (i.e., he does not implicate Zeus in the prophecy74) but instead shifts the focus toward the honor he bestows on a king (625–28). The chorus believes they have caught Apollo in a contradiction—Zeus gives higher honor to a father than a mother but did violence to his own father (640–43)—but Apollo rightly distinguishes between a punishment (like imprisonment), which can be undone, and death, which cannot. That’s right, the chorus retorts, and yet here you are defending a man who dealt irrevocable death to his own mother (652–56). Apart from his belief that the fate of a scepter-bearing king matters more than a queen—a belief the Erinyes clearly do not share (and we may wonder how many others, including Zeus, do share it)—Apollo has found himself this time in a proper contradiction. Hence his infamous speech on maternity and paternity (657–61): καὶ τοῦτο λέξω, καὶ μάθ’ ὡς ὀρθῶς ἐρῶ· οὐκ ἔστι μήτηρ ἡ κεκλημένη τέκνου τοκεύς, τροφὸς δὲ κύματος νεοσπόρου· τίκτει δ’ ὁ θρώισκων, ἡ δ’ ἅπερ ξένωι ξένη ἔσωσεν ἔρνος, οἷσι μὴ βλάψηι θεός. I’ll say this and you better learn how rightly I speak: The one called the mother of a child is not in fact the parent—she is merely the nurse of the newly-sown embryo. It is rather the one who mounts who should be called the parent. She keeps the offspring safe—like a friend for a stranger—for those whom the god has not harmed the birth. Irrespective of the rather strange theory of reproduction that Apollo espouses here, what he does point out is that even a male cannot father a child without the gods’ approval (661). This would seem to remove the issue of biology from the discussion of reproduction—good or bad—and reintroduce the element of divine will and favor. To call the mother a host,

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whatever its connotations, is not so much a demotion of maternity as a promotion of a variegated sense of intimacy: A mother and a father have to choose to have a child and the gods have to choose to sanction it. The claim that the ‘one who mounts’ fathers the child (660) does not reflect biology or biological necessity, rather like there is no necessity connecting a child to a mother. This is good in terms of choice in that relations can be recognized that are not strictly by blood. Apollo would like the Erinyes, who see the mother in exclusively biological terms, to recognize this more expansive role to intimacy and relations. Thus Apollo’s invocation of Athena herself as an example of his theory (664–66) is technically correct: Athena was neither born from a womb nor born at all! She sprang fully formed from Zeus’ head and, despite her non-maternity and non-paternity, was immediately recognized by, and recognized in turn (cf. 738), Zeus as her father. Zeus’ role as her father in fact is just that, a role, one that he chooses to accept (which he did not necessarily have to do; cf. Hermes). To this end, Apollo says he sent Orestes to Athena specifically because she will recognize this nonbiological intimacy as legitimate—and will in turn legitimate it.75 Apollo thus seems to be arguing less for Orestes’ acquittal than against the Erinyes’ inability to consider other configurations of intimate commitment. Civilization requires these types of relationships. This is radically progressive and compelling, and it is too bad Apollo wraps it in insulting language. The chorus fail to respond (679–80). Perhaps they needn’t because they have a very clearly defined (and rigid) sense of biological maternity, one that we might not expect them to change even if Apollo’s argument is compelling. Instead they let Athena proceed to the vote. Athena for her part is certainly justified in claiming that no mother gave birth to her (734–40): ἐμὸν τόδ’ ἔργον, λοισθίαν κρῖναι δίκην· ψῆφον δ’ Ὀρέστηι τήνδ’ ἐγὼ προσθήσομαι· μήτηρ γὰρ οὔτις ἐστὶν ἥ μ’ ἐγείνατο, τὸ δ’ ἄρσεν αἰνῶ πάντα, πλὴν γάμου τυχεῖν, ἅπαντι θυμῶι, κάρτα δ’ εἰμὶ τοῦ πατρός. οὕτω γυναικὸς οὐ προτιμήσω μόρον ἄνδρα κτανούσης δωμάτων ἐπίσκοπον It is my job to make this final judgment. I shall cast my ballot for Orestes—because no woman gave birth to me. I prefer the male in all cases (except when it comes to marriage) and with all my heart. I am truly my father’s child. So I cannot put a higher value on the death of a woman who killed her husband, the guardian of the house. What she does not say is that she has no mother (as we know from Hesiod, her mother is Metis). Her preference for τὸ ἄρσεν, an arid abstraction or figuration of maleness, is just that, a preference, a choice (αἰνῶ). Thus

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when she claims that she is ‘entirely of my father’ (κάρτα δ’ εἰμὶ τοῦ πατρός), are we to assume, given what Apollo has just said about nonbiological relations and given what she has just said about non-maternity, that she simply means she is biologically of her father? I suspect not. She accepts Zeus as her father and it is the acceptance as such that matters most. She continues by litotically asserting (cf. Sommerstein 1989: ad loc) that she will not set the death of a wife at a higher value than the husband she has killed—since that husband plays the role of overseer of the house. This is less a comment on a husband’s biological maleness than the allotment—an agreement to sanction/represent something unnaturally and unnecessarily related to a person—he undertakes. And men, for better or worse, are the ones to hold the responsibility of the oversight of a household. What, though, leads Athena to establish that equal votes means acquittal (νικᾶι δ’ Ὀρέστης κἂν ἰσόψηφος κριθῆι, 741), that a split decision favors the defendant?76 In light of the emphasis placed on non-necessity and unnaturalness and choice in this scene, my suspicion is that it is simply a choice on her part. And, for better or worse, no one seems to object. The question remains unsettled, though, about the eventual split decision that results in Orestes’ acquittal—Athena is responsible (752–53).77 We may wonder then whether she had an intuition about the likely outcome of the judges’ votes and, given her choice of preference for ‘the male,’ threw in her vote for Orestes to anticipate them? Athena’s intervention, like it or not, is required to jumpstart the legal revolution; perhaps more insidiously, her vote undercuts its first revolutionary judgment of guilt. Are we to consider this a good or bad first precedent?78 Orestes certainly considers it a blessing (754–74), gratefully and graciously asserting the power of nonnatural and nonbiological relations: Argos and Athens will for eternity be allies. The chorus for their part view the outcome as a dire aberration of the ‘ancient laws’ (778–92, repeated verbatim at 808–22; 837–46, repeated verbatim 869–80). In response to their justifiable shock and outrage Athena claims that the evidence introduced on Orestes’ part originated with Zeus and that Apollo prophesied that he’d come to no harm (794–807). We have no way of knowing that Zeus sanctioned the matricide of Clytemnestra, but we also have no reason not to believe that Athena has voted in good faith. She provides closure, artificial or not, to the problem of cause or motivation. Ultimately, she seems to be saying, we will never be able to settle the issue of causality absolutely. The Erinyes, furthermore, are not to imagine that they have been slighted or dishonored because the establishment of the court opens a vision of the public good in which they will play an intimate role. Building on the discourse that she and Apollo initiated in the trial, Athena starts to impress on them the idea of new roles, new allotments—in this case an important new religious cult (804–7). Now the prayers they receive will no longer have to be apotropaic. This promise of new roles gets repeated a number of times throughout the remainder of the play (824–36, 848–68, 885–901), perhaps not only to

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indicate the obstinacy of the Erinyes but also, more importantly, to illustrate the patience and good will of Athena (cf. οὔτοι καμοῦμαί σοι λέγουσα τἀγαθά, 881), whose behavior toward her soon-to-be-former adversaries reveals real maturity and forethought (unlike Apollo, who has disappeared now that he has gotten the verdict he wanted and left Athena to clean up the mess; Parker 2009: 153). She embodies the new spirit of collaboration, she is the change she wants to effect in the Erinyes.79 So much so in fact that she tries to facilitate their role transition in a matter of two lines (κοίμα κελαινοῦ κύματος πικρὸν μένος / ὡς σεμνότιμος καὶ ξυνοικήτωρ ἐμοί, 832–33).80 Athena wants them to imagine (ὡς; cf. Sommerstein 1989: ad loc) they have a choice in the matter of their dispositions, that allotments are not rigid necessities, that their ‘defeat’ is minor compared to their victory. And the language she uses both to smooth their transition and to invoke the new principle of justice is persuasion (794, 826, 829, 885, 970). Persuasion requires the exercise of faith and the exercise of faith is an act of choice. Just as Athena has put her faith in Zeus (κἀγὼ πέποιθα Ζηνί, 826), has chosen to recognize him as her ‘father’—implying no necessity, no requirement (cf. Sommerstein 1989 ad 885)—so too can the Erinyes put their faith in her (σὺ δ’ εὐπιθὴς ἐμοὶ, 829). They can choose a new straight justice. The trick, as Athena knows (and tolerantly shows), is to get the Erinyes to acknowledge as much. And to acknowledge as much, irrespective of their so-called fidelity to ancestors and dispensations, is to accept that Zeus the Olympian is ultimately the one to privilege and vouchsafe this new form of communication, relation and intimacy. The Erinyes can have no safe harbor, no honor, in Athens without his blessing (see Winnington-Ingram 1983: 154–74). So Athena gives the Erinyes a number of choices (885–91), a fact that they have a rather difficult time processing (892–902), although that does not in the end dispossess them of their decision (916–26, 930–31). Bringing the play full circle, and in particular the language of allotment (which has now been restored to its perpetual indefinition), the Erinyes new dispensation will be to govern all human affairs (πάντα γὰρ αὗται τὰ κατ’ ἀνθρώπους/ ἔλαχον διέπειν, 930–31). Eumenides dramatizes the difficulty of processing an ethical problem within an entirely new—in fact invented—discursive system (law courts). Can the values of one be seamlessly transferred to the other? In one sense yes, as the play seems to bear out: creating a juridical process puts an end to the seemingly cyclical pattern of violence inherent to vendetta culture. What Athena has to convince the Erinyes of is the possibility that the response to decisions based on ethical dilemmas—or, as it were, apparent ethical dilemmas—needs to be as nuanced as the thinking/hoping/fearing that underwrites those decisions; that indeed some responses are better or worse than others given the situations. And the juridical process is to allow the possibility of changing one’s mind given all the evidence—something the Furies are not particularly adept at but that they ultimately accept. This, most of us would agree, is a good thing.

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Alternatively, such intervention and innovation unbalance the measurement of justice meted out in an eye-for-an-eye penal system. That balance consists fundamentally in limit and proportion: Punish only insofar as you have suffered (cf. Eagleton 2003: 140). This is not a perfect system, of course, because it relies on the rationalizations of humans who, by their very nature, can never be entirely transparent to themselves and who therefore tend to overstep that sense of limit and proportion (say, taking two lives in response to the loss of one). The Erinyes’ presence in this play, we might say in this regard, is to rebalance the machine of human justice, to put a stop to the human excess in this system (cf. 400–404). They are the ones who truly observe the limit and proportion, unlike their human counterparts.81 They are there to persecute Orestes and that’s that. No excess, no more violence. Hence their old-school vendettic justice is juxtaposed to the new Olympian version of collaborative, inconsistent justice and the new human system of arbitration. How are we to judge their relative merits?82 Vendetta culture itself is not necessarily barbaric, only its human interpretation. That is a rather big qualification, I admit, but it is no less problematic a qualification than the insouciant acceptance of Iphigeneia’s murder that provides foundation for the functioning of the courts. Part of the problem with the establishment of the ‘democratic’ or juridical process is that there is no comparable democratic or juridical process to determine whether the democratic and juridical process is just in the first place. And to call the newly imposed justice better is a wave of the wand, a judgment based on no judgment; it requires the effacement of its origins. This process is simply invented by Athena, who to her credit does a hell of a job convincing the otherwise implacable Erinyes of its virtues. Even though she is making it up entirely, we have to remember not to read the future, or present-day Athenian institutions back into the past, because at this moment her invention is as risky as a throw of the dice; that it turns out well, minus a few capital punishments and ostracisms, does not erase the gamble of the origin. But what does it say about this democratic justice that its foundational act is the acquittal of an admitted matricide?83 Perhaps this would explain the rather ambiguous inclusion of the Erinyes within the city’s cults, whose primordial violence we have no way of knowing has been fully erased.84 Enshrining them would seem then the ultimate recognition of the violent foundation of the law, a constant reminder that the titanic struggle that created it could erupt again at any moment. Athena thus preserves a kernel of their elemental passion and danger as a deterrent.85 You wouldn’t want to face the consequences of criminal behavior when the punishment is meted out by a pack of hellhounds. At the same time Athena (and by proxy Apollo and Zeus) can be fairly certain that the Erinyes will embrace their new expanded roles because they have been won over to the new values of collaboration that Athena and the Olympians represent. And one particularly important aspect of those values

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is the ability to have faith in others and their best intentions. There is nothing necessary in a faith like this, nothing to force the Erinyes to act right, because technically there is also nothing preventing the Erinyes from further persecuting Orestes after his acquittal. If this is the very thing the Olympians stand for—the faith, or the possibility of faith, between people who choose it in non-necessary and nonbiological intimacies (friendships, alliances)—then Athena has nothing to fear.86 What matters in this moment is the relationship being forged between Athena and the Erinyes, which itself serves as a microcosm of the relationship being forged between old gods and new. Their relationship will in fact become the founding precedent of the court and a model for all future juridical processes. For better or worse, justice will not be handed down from on high via puss-oozing hellhounds but, rather, by fallible but ultimately flexible (and hopefully just) human beings capable of both disagreeing and negotiating. After all, courts are not concerned with outcome so much as with procedure. This fact enshrines the effectiveness of the court in its ability to make a determination irrespective of the guilt or innocence of the parties. In this regard the play as a whole is exemplary to the extent that it concerns the establishment of the court itself, not just the particulars of this case (cf. 690–710). The court establishes not that mother-killers will be acquitted but that there is a possibility it could happen. The precedent thus has less to do with any individual judgment than with the existence of the court itself—the public good is a more important matter than guilt or innocence.87 One final thought: Is the esconcement of the Erinyes in Athenian cult also a way to preserve the memories of Iphigeneia and Clytemnestra?88 Has Athena despite herself (or perhaps even slyly) made them perpetual ghosts in the machinery of democracy? If we can choose to privilege one non-necessary, nonbiological relation (Athena/Apollo/Zeus and Orestes), then we also have the ability to not choose another (Iphigeneia and Clytemnestra). We may not like the outcome of that choice—we may have a variety of reasons to object morally—but what matters ultimately is the possibility of choice, not any one instantiation of it. Hence the acquittal of Orestes is less an endorsement of Orestes (or matricide) than an endorsement of the possibility of distinguishing innocence from guilt in complex and non-necessary ways. That does not mean, however, that the choices not made or the ramifications of the choices that were made have no value; those we have to imagine are preserved somewhere in institutional memory. They may well be waiting to greet us in the underworld with a kiss and a hug . . . or worse.

NOTES 1. Let us briefly recall the quotation with which I began the previous chapter, summarizing the orthodox reading of the trilogy: ‘[The Olympians] want

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4.

5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10.

11.

12.

13.

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Orestes to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus and do not want him to suffer punishment for doing so.’ As in the previous play we will most certainly have cause to examine this claim. On which see West (1985), Garvie (1986: ad loc) and Griffith (1987). Greene (1968: 129–31) is representative of the view that the play’s deterministic theological framework makes it ‘less a tragedy of character than . . . the Agamemnon.’ Cf. Peradotto (1969: 239), Fontenrose (1971: 85), Nussbaum ([1986] 2001: 41), Foley (2001: 205), Said (2005: 225) and Fletcher (2012: 15, 44). Cf. Sommerstein (2008: 217 n.14). Stesichorus’ lost two-book Oresteia also related a dream of Clytemnestra’s: τᾷδὲ δράκων ἐδόκησε μολεῖν κάρα βεβροτωμένος ἄκρον, ἐκ δ’ ἄρατοῦ βασιλεὺς Πλεισθενίδας ἐφανή (fr. 42 P). Scholars variously view the snake and the king respectively as Agamemnon and Orestes, but Garvie (1986) shows that it must refer entirely to Agamemnon— ‘ἐδόκησε describes the first impression, ἐφανή the final and true manifestation of the dead king’ (xx with n.34). In which case it is possible that the dream is indeed communicating Agamemnon’s demands, only their impetus is radically different than we have been led to believe. The chorus warns Electra and Orestes to be quiet so that no one who might favor Clytemnestra and Aegisthus might overhear them (264–68). But they do not caution them about improperly addressing the gods. This would go to underlining their prejudices. Cf. 142: ἡμῖν μὲν εὐχὰς τάσδε . . . Cf. the repeated emphasis on listening: κατεύχομαί σοι, καὶ σὺ κλῦθί μου, πάτερ (139); κλύε δέ μοι, σέβας, κλύ’, ὦ δέσποτ’ (157). Would they have no opinion on Agamemnon? Like Gaia, in particular, whom Electra invokes as mother and nurturer and ultimately receiver of all things (127–28)? Recall from the previous chapter that in magical operations daimones are responsible for the transfers of ethereal power. Taking, for example, the simultaneity of prayers and curses at 142–46: Electra presumes an easy resolution to the problem of mixing the two, but is it possible that the prayers and curses could get confused? If Electra is as worried as she claims to be about the correct ritual for her prayer (87ff.), then sandwiching a negative prayer into her otherwise positive words might prove problematic. Sommerstein (2008) explains: ‘Not so much because it would anger Clytaemestra in the unlikely event of her getting to know about it, as because it might anger Agamemnon if he misunderstood Electra’s contempt for the offerings as contempt for himself’ (223 n.24). Sommerstein (2008: 229 n.26) notes that ἀντίδουλος primarily refers to the fact that Electra has yet to be married despite her age. The chorus makes similar remarks about the rule and ‘hateful wedding’ of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus (623–30) in an ode dedicated to the evil passions of women (585–652). The picture of the wild beast that Orestes points out to Electra in order to identify himself (232) is, according to Sommerstein (2008: 242 n.46), a lion— ‘in view of the description of Orestes and Pylades as “twin lions” at 938.’ But what about that other lion metaphor, the famous one about destruction that everyone in the previous play simply assumed was Helen? Does Orestes now carry the burden of that imagery? Contrast Clinton (1988: 21, ‘direct command from a god’) with Gantz (1982): ‘Orestes is not so much ordered as simply informed of the results (from his father’s Erinys, not Apollo) should he fail to carry out vengeance’ (18 n.67; though cf. Gantz 1983: 74, ‘orders Orestes to kill his mother’).

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14. The chorus agrees with this tactic (789–92). See Mikalson (1991): ‘The metaphor [that Zeus is Orestes’ ally], however, does not so much define the relationship Orestes has with the god as it reveals his conception of his revenge for his father as a battle to be fought against enemies’ (52). Cf. Zak (1995: 41) and Rosenmeyer (1982: 260). 15. Cf. Orestes’ similar threat to his father’s shade: For in this way [i.e., only if you grant my prayers and restore me to the throne] the feasts that are customary among men will be made for you; otherwise you will be dishonored while others dine well, on the days when Earth receives savoury burnt sacrifices. (483–85, trans. Sommerstein 2008) 16. See Garvie (1986: xxxi n.68) for scholarship on Orestes’ guilt or innocence in carrying out Apollo’s oracle. 17. In fact, did Apollo not warn Orestes about his mother’s Furies? Could he have known? From Eumenides he would seem familiar with their (to his mind) odious responsibility. So why then would he hold it back from Orestes? This lends support to the possibility that Orestes has invented this narrative. Cf. Garvie (1986): ‘In fragment 40 P [of Stesichorus’ lost Oresteia] Apollo gives Orestes a bow with which to defend himself against the Erinyes, which suggests that the morality of the matricide was already seen as a problem’ (xxi with reference to Pemberton 1966). 18. Note that the end of Orestes’ speech (302–5) picks up Electra’s characterization of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus’ rule as preternaturally evil. As we will discuss further on, the portrayal even of Aegisthus later in the play offers a much different view of his character. Apart from the objections of Apollo (which are tricky in themselves) we may wonder whether in fact the Argives enjoy greater happiness and prosperity now that Clytemnestra has taken power. The chorus, who are not native Argives and who have already laid bare their mysterious prejudice against Clytemnestra, cannot be trusted to fairly represent the views of others. 19. This long lament/prayer/conjuration (esp. 489–509) feels like the scene of Darius’ necromancy in Persians—why wouldn’t Aeschylus just go for it here and bring the ghost of Agamemnon back? He would not, I imagine, be terribly unlike Darius in his self-importance. 20. Cf. 312–13: ‘In return for the bloody stroke let the punishment be a bloody stroke.’ As Sommerstein (2008) notes: ‘The chorus are presumably thinking of Clytaemestra, who actually struck the “bloody strokes”, but they do not make the payer’s identity (or even gender) explicit’ (252 n.70). 21. Cf. 649–52: τέκνον δ’ ἐπεισφέρει δόμοις / αἱμάτων παλαιτέρων / τίνειν μύσος χρόνῳ κλυτὰ / βυσσόφρων Ἐρινύς. 22. This second of course is the natural position for a change of subject (cf. 528/534, both of which have been offered as precedent to 535). 23. When we return to the snake dream later in the play (928–29), we will have reason to consider this issue in more detail with regard to the difficulties of line ascription. 24. Cf. Sommerstein (2008): ‘The relevance of this to Agamemnon, his wife and his children will be evident even before we learn that Clytaemestra in her dream had given birth to a snake, with which Orestes identifies himself’ (244 n.53). 25. Orestes’ use of τοί (‘of course,’ ‘as you know’) here is also revealing. He does not even pretend to interpret in a way that leaves room for ambiguity or complexity, assuming rather that the chorus will simply go along with his reading. Cf. δεῖ τοί (548). 26. For this reason I find the chorus’ subsequent fair-weather fidelity (872–74) both disturbing and revealing.

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27. Rosenmeyer (1982: 264) notes the curious absence of Apollo in the Great Exchange. 28. Clinton (1988) notes the ambiguous nature of this phrase: ‘Not quite so strong as to call him “a prophet who never deceives” or “a prophet who never will deceive.” Orestes’ expression reflects a scientific precision that leaves open the possibility of disappointment’ (16 n.35). 29. As Heiden (2005) shows, all answers from the oracle presume a personal relationship between the god and the visitor. 30. See Garvie ad loc for the variants of this coinage. Sommerstein’s (2008) (and Ahrens’ [1966]) γε would suggest a careless familiarity on Orestes’ part. 31. Which, as Sommerstein (2008) points out, was likely to occur between a man and woman ‘previously unknown to each other’ (297 n.141). 32. Cf. Zak (1995): Aeschylus intended a structural parallel between Orestes’ sacrilegious retribution and his mother’s, just as the son’s stalled balking at the sacrifice of a woman who is his own flesh and blood and, subsequently, his enabling assumption that the divine will (this time Apollo, not Artemis) demands a hideous crime to insure retribution clearly identify his behavior with his father’s at Aulis, whatever mitigating differences between the consciences of the two men. (42, with n.33 esp.) Edwards (1977: 30) does not accept this similarity. 33. Cilissa’s name, which probably denotes her origins in Cilicia, is ‘peculiar’ to Aeschylus (her name is Laodamia in Pherecydes and Stesichorus, Arsinoe in Pindar Py. 11.15ff.). We may wonder then whether Aeschylus has also innovated in her characterization—cf. Garvie (1986: xxiv with n.48 and ad 730–82). 34. The middle voice of ἐξεθρεψάμην might also hint at a sort of selfishness. I raised him for my own benefit—and ultimately for his father. Thus, even grammatically Clytemnestra is barred from her maternal love for Orestes. 35. Hence her willingness to go along with the revenge plan (781–82) despite the fact that the chorus has revealed nothing to her. Cilissa is questionable in her loyalty, it seems, and quick to take sides. 36. Cf: σὺ δὲ θαρσῶν, ὅταν ἥκῃ μέρος ἔργων / ἐπαύσας θροεούσᾳ / πρὸς σὲ τέκνον πατρός αὔδα (‘And you for your part take courage when the time comes for action. As she cries “My child!” you shout over her “My father’s child!”’ 826–29). 37. Was it perhaps his idea to send Orestes abroad to Strophius? 38. Who is this servant who laments the murder of Aegisthus but then claims Clytemnestra may well be felled by the hand of Justice (875–84)? Was he one of the original servants of the house; that is, of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon? In that case are we to imagine that his sympathies lie with the regicides? That he too was appalled by the behavior of Agamemnon prior to and perhaps even during and after the war? If so, then, are his final words concerning justice contradictory or simply gnomic (the punisher gets punished)? Or was he perhaps a new servant brought in from Aegisthus’ house, in which case he may have witnessed the atrocities committed against Aegisthus’ siblings by Atreus and thus become sympathetic to Aegisthus’ cause? This servant’s generic and functional appearance raises more questions than the space given to him can answer. 39. Cf. Garvie (1986): Until Clytaemestra bares her breast before him, we nowhere see him arguing over the rights and wrongs of matricide, he is nowhere presented as hesitant or reluctant, and even to suppose that he has constantly to overcome a secret repugnance towards what he has to do goes beyond the evidence of the text. (xxxii–xxxiii)

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Peradotto (1969) reads ‘a moral delicacy’ in Orestes’ hesitation, unlike Agamemnon’s ‘abrupt decision and brutal execution’ (240). Contrast Rosenmeyer’s (1982) thoughtful distinction: ‘Orestes does not exercise a moral resistance to Apollo’s orders; but Aeschylus’ drama does’ (269). Cf. Dover (1973): ‘Orestes brushes aside anything which might frustrate the act to which he is impelled . . . by a powerful combination of fear, hatred and shame’ (61). 40. The Nostoi, a poem in five books in the epic cycle attributed by Proclus to one Agias, introduced the character of Pylades to the previous iterations of the story—‘and perhaps therefore to Apollo’s intervention in the story’ (Garvie 1986: xiv). 41. See Rosenmeyer (1982: 304) and Clinton (1988: 21). As Sommerstein (2008) notes: It is not clear whether [the invocation of oaths] refers (i) to a sworn pledge by Apollo to protect Orestes if he carries out the revenge . . . or (ii) to a sworn undertaking by Orestes to do so, or (iii) to mutual oaths of fidelity between Orestes and Pylades (so the scholia). (327 n.177) Cf. Fletcher (2012): One might argue that an oath creates a social situation because mortals have agreed to believe that gods will punish an oath-breaker . . . In literature— tragedy and epic in particular—a different kind of convention holds, for the existence of the gods is never really in question . . . and their intolerance of oath-breakers is consistent and severe . . . [The oath] fixes people to a particular course of action that is always in the sightline of the gods who are controlling narrative force. (38; cf. 39–41, 45) 42. Cf. 924–27 where, in response to Clytemnestra’s warnings about a mother’s Furies, Orestes, seemingly commonsensically, counter-invokes his father’s Furies should he fail to follow through with matricide. The question remains why in fact the Furies did not show up either at the slaughter of Iphigeneia or of Agamemnon. That question, for better or worse, receives no satisfactory answer even in Eumenides. For the present moment what matters is that Orestes misunderstands how the Furies work. Clytemnestra could perhaps have spelled it out for him but does not—perhaps she doesn’t know either. 43. Garvie (1986: xxiv) suggests that Aeschylus’ version of Orestes being sent to Strophius is an innovation in the tradition. In other versions (e.g., Pindar Py. 11) he is rescued by his nurse at Agamemnon’s murder. I argue that this brings nuance to the characterization of Clytemnestra and her love for Orestes. See now Pontani (2007). 44. Cf. Sommerstein (2008: 329 n.181), and recall Clytemnestra’s appellation of Agamemnon in the previous play—‘seducer of Chryseises’ (Ag. 1439). 45. Not according to Garvie (1986: ad loc). 46. Garvie (1986: ad loc, cf. liv–lx), following Stanley and Page: ‘M’s authority in such matters counts for little . . . It is much more likely and effective that Clytaemestra herself should dwell upon the meaning of her dream.’ But effective for whom? 47. δάκος is Sommerstein’s (2008) conjecture for M’s κακόν (to which he references A.Y. Campbell’s δακόν)—‘recalling the snake of Clytaemestra’s dream’ (341 n.199). 48. Sommerstein (2008) follows West here in emending M’s δμωαί. 49. Garvie (1986: xxxvi–xxxvii). I hesitate, however, to follow Garvie in proclaiming Orestes’ ‘purity of spirit’ (xxxiv). 50. Not, unfortunately and unsurprisingly, if we believe the chorus. In their final ode (1063–76) they review the three waves of destruction afflicting the house

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51.

52. 53.

54. 55.

56. 57.

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of Atreus: (1) Thyestes’ filiophagy, (2) the murder of Agamemnon and (3) the matricide and hounding of Orestes. Cf. Garvie (1986: xxix) and Sailor and Culpepper-Stroup (1999). See Sommerstein (1989: ad loc): ‘Aesch.’s version is so well adapted to this play that it is likely to be his own creation’—noting the distinction between the Pythia’s account of Apollo’s assumption of the oracle, described as nonviolent (οὐδὲ πρὸς βίαν τινός, 5), and the traditional, more violent stories described in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, Pindar fr. 55 and Eur. IT 1234–83. Cf. Sourvinou-Inwood (1987). In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes Apollo tells Hermes that only he has been gifted the power to know Zeus’ mind (532–37). Sommerstein (1989: ad loc) notes that their dark clothing ‘would normally be worn only in sign of mourning, and would be very inauspicious to wear when entering a temple.’ But as the Pythia explains, it is not just temples, it is also unfitting for the homes of men (56). Apollo’s arrival seemingly out of nowhere is alleviated by the transposition, first suggested by Burges, of lines 85–87 between 63 and 64—see Sommerstein (1989: ad loc). μητρῶιον δέμας is a rather odd phrase. Clytemnestra, already from the previous two plays a woman shunted into many unwilling positions/identities, loses her very human personification to an adjective—she is reduced to a body bearing a maternal role. I find it hard to believe the phrase ‘adds dignity and solemnity to the utterance’ (Sommerstein 1989: ad loc). For the time being it at least anticipates Apollo’s infamously odd claims later in the play about a child’s essential alienation from a mother. Pace Sommerstein (1989: ad 95): ‘Clytaemestra, however, has no just cause to complain if she is ἄτιμος in Hades: it is the natural sequel . . . to her own ἀτίμωσις of Agamemnon . . . and his children.’ So Sommerstein (2008: 367 n.33). Consider in this vein her strange claim to be speaking τῆς ἐμῆς περὶ / ψυχῆς (114–15). Normally περὶ ψυχῆς would mean ‘for my life, with my life at stake’; but, with Clytaemestra already dead, the phrase is ambiguous between a metaphorical sense ‘on a matter of vital concern’ and a literal, but abnormal, sense ‘for my soul ’. (Sommerstein 2008: n.38; cf. 1989: ad loc)

58. See Mace (2002, 2004) on the connection between sleep and vengeance in the trilogy. 59. See Sommerstein (1989: ad loc) for the syntactical and hermeneutic difficulties of πέμψαι: ‘A copyist might very well have written πέμψαι for πέμψας [Heath’s conjecture] thinking (perhaps subconsciously) that an infinitive was required after ἔχρησα.’ Cf. Rosenmeyer (1982): ‘[Aeschylus] uses Apollo, as he uses most of his gods, to construct a web of impulses and motivations designed to hint at the moral confusion, and often perversity, of human affairs’ (270). 60. Funny these gods don’t bear witness for him. 61. Cf. Sommerstein (1989: ad loc). I wonder, though, whether this is an explanation of Orestes’ rhetoric or an endorsement of it? 62. He claims to have ‘saved’ (σώιζων) the oracular commands of Apollo, presumably meaning he held them close to heart. But this claim also jives well with Pylades’ encouragement to keep their authority intact. Does Orestes believe he singlehandedly preserved the validity of Apollo’s oracle? 63. Faraone (1985) reads the binding song in relation to judicial curse tablets, in particular those meant to affect the outcome of law cases. Although specific terminological resemblances would be unlikely, ‘the very fact that Aeschylus

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64.

65.

66. 67. 68. 69.

70.

71.

Libation-Bearers and Eumenides includes a binding curse in the story of the first murder trial and the aetiological founding of the court seems to suggest that curse and court were thought to have evolved simultaneously’ (154). Note, however, Faraone’s slip from binding song to binding curse. Prins (1991) reads the hymn in light of speech-act theory. Does Orestes count among those to whom αὐτουργίαι μάταιοι occur (336–37)? Cf. Sommerstein (2008): ‘This refers of course to the perpetrators of such murders, not the victims; the expression seems odd, but is hightly appropriate to Orestes, who through no fault of his own found himself in a situation where he had no alternative but to kill his mother’ (397 n.88; cf. Sommerstein 1989: ad loc). As we discussed in the previous chapter, Orestes certainly believed—and wanted to believe—he had no alternative, but the play put that perspective into question. The Erinyes have apparently expanded their duties to ‘mortal-killers’ (βροτοκτονοῦντας, 421), which they then requalify (φονεὺς γὰρ εἶναι μητρὸς ἠξιώσατο, 425). Is this really just a ‘substitution’ (so Sommerstein 1989: ad loc)? Or has she been tipped off by Apollo somehow? Has she somehow experienced a matricide with similar conditions before this? Or another justifiable murder? See Sommerstein (2008: 413 n.105): ‘Orestes evidently . . . detects in Athena’s words some concern as to whether he, like Ixion, is still under blood-pollution, as one would prima facie expect a suppliant homicide to be.’ On the complicated question of Orestes’ purification see Dyer (1969) and Sidwell (1996). Sommerstein (1989: ad loc) claims that the phrase ‘do something to those responsible’ means ‘kill,’ although nowhere does Apollo in fact specify that he wanted Orestes to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus (cf. 202–3: ‘send punishment’). She claims it would not be right for her to judge the case (οὐδὲ μὴν ἐμοὶ θέμις, 471), a strange claim even if she is right to say the cause is the wrath it might generate (472). See Sommerstein (2008): ‘Athena will incur the Furies’ wrath if she decides in Orestes’ favour, and the wrath of the betrayed suppliant (cf. 233–34) if she decides against him’ (417 n.113). Cf. Clinton (1988: 17). Why would—and where else has—the wrath of a mortal ever affect a god? It certainly implies a progressive relationship between humans and gods—who actually care that their dearest mortals hold them in high esteem—but the issue of necessity implied here is arresting. Would Athena and Apollo—and presumably any god who ‘betrayed’ a suppliant—be subject to punishment by, say, Zeus Hikesios? See Sommerstein’s (1989: ad loc) thoughtful remarks on the intervening choral ode (490–565): [The Erinyes] are now the embodiments of Justice, voicing moral sentiments that are both familiar and acceptable to the audience and some of which will presently be echoed almost word for word by Athena herself (cf. 690–9). Ever since his first appearance in the trilogy, the sympathies of the audience have been consistently and strongly with Orestes. Before the issues are at last heard and judged by Athena’s court, it is as well that we should be reminded that there is another side to the case. For whatever reason, with whatever justification, Orestes has killed his mother; and it is vital for human civilization that such acts should never come to be accepted as normal . . . The court that is shortly to sit in judgement will be deciding more than the fate of Orestes: it will be deciding the future of human society.

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72. Cf. ἱκέτης προσῆλθες καθαρὸς ἀβλαβὴς (474)—is this a proper description of Orestes or a generic status granted to suppliants? 73. Pace Parker (2009): We have to accept that Zeus wills the acquittal of Orestes and that Zeus’ will . . . settles the rights of the matter . . . Zeus’ support for the acquittal of Orestes (a truth within the play) is a precondition for the trilogy to reach the ending that it does. (158, 162) 74. As the jury proceeds to the vote, Apollo advises them to fear the oracles that came from him and from Zeus, to not render them fruitless (713–14). He thus seems to fear that a conviction would threaten the validity of his oracular pronouncements. At the same time, though, he is staking his final claim on being the cause of Orestes’ matricide. The chorus concludes that an acquittal will result in a polluted sanctuary/oracle (715–16), a judgment that Apollo surprisingly tries to rebut with the rather bad example of Ixion (717–18)! Again, the chorus seems not to notice (719–20, though cf. 441). 75. One of these new nonbiological yet still legitimate relations is friendship (πιστὸς, 670), alliance (σύμμαχον, 671), and the newly established court will honor nonbiological relations (672–73). Apollo walks the walk too with regard to his theory of non-necessary intimacy: He honored Admetus because he had given him reverence (725–26). The chorus cannot find an answer, instead falling back on the discourse of allotments (727–28). 76. Sommerstein (1989: ad loc) suggests that it is a simple aetiology for the widespread practice in Greece. But that is to read an end back into an origin (cf. Sommerstein 2010c). Gagarin (1975) comes to a similar conclusion but with more caution: Unlike other courts the Areopagus in classical times contained no specific number of jurors, for it was composed of all living former archons and the number of jurors would thus vary continually. From the beginning there must occasionally have been tie votes in this body when an even number of jurors voted, and for such situations the Athenians must surely have devised a rule. Thus by 458 B.C. it was probably a firmly established practice that an equal vote in the Areopagus resulted in acquittal. (126) Cf. Seaford (1995) and, more generally, Braun (1998). 77. Gagarin (1975: 121–22, 126–27); cf. Hester (1981). Winnington-Ingram (1983) argues ‘after much hesitation’ that Athena does not in fact cast a vote: The last thing Aeschylus should be doing is to encourage the audience to make calculations and observe that, if she votes, then there was a majority of the human jury for condemnation. If that was a point, it should have been made openly. And as a point it would disparage the vital effect of equal division. (125 n.110) 78. See the forceful remarks of Rosenmeyer (1955): The acquittal of Orestes and the conversion of the goddesses are but a pseudo-solution. That is all the tragedian, the poet, the non-theologian is prepared to give us. But precisely because it is, from the rational point of view, so unconvincing, it has to be buttressed with powerful references and, in part, to be cleverly argued in order to be accepted by the audience . . . God is piled upon god, and all sorts of conjuring devices, from binding chants to an institutional aition, are marshaled to see to it that the unlikely solution

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Libation-Bearers and Eumenides is driven home with the force of truth . . . The change of the Erinyes into Gracious Divinities is not a theological proposition, but a manipulation of religious ideas, and a very violent manipulation at that, toward dramatic and purely dramatic ends. Theologically speaking the whole business is not only unbelievable but crude. (258–59; cf. Rosenmeyer 1982: 272)

79. Cf. Zak (1995): Only [Athena in Eumenides] demonstrates a healthy fear that her acts of piety may be impious, a fear not for herself, but that in upholding what is sacred she may profane what is sacred. Throughout the rest of The Oresteia . . . Aeschylus repeatedly converts the problematic of piety into a frightful image for our most conscientious and apprehensive meditation, the looming specter of sacrilegious sacrifice, tainted or polluted offerings to the gods. (32) 80. Easterling (2008) is uncertain how or whether the Erinyes are actually transformed on stage, arguing instead that other facets of their complex and contradictory character come to the fore by the end of the play. 81. Here and only here I depart from Zak (1995) who, like others (e.g., Bowie 1993), believes that the Erinyes represent ‘a hopelessly tainted ancient worship and theology in which just retribution itself had simultaneously begotten new crime in each succeeding generation’ (33). 82. If, as Garvie (2009: 53) notes, the myth of the Tantalid curse had ‘no further manifestation’ than the acquittal of Orestes, then perhaps the vendetta paradigm might have brought itself to successful closure without the intervention of Athena. The Erinyes would have pursued Orestes to his death and that would be the end of it. Such a story, I suppose, would not have been as flattering to Athenian ingenuity. 83. See, paradigmatically and forcefully, Zeitlin (1978). 84. Athena too wants her citizens to retain a modicum of fear in their future dispensations of justice (697–99). Cf. Zak (1995: 48). 85. See the insightful remarks of Eagleton (2003): Order and transgression cannot be polar opposites, since the law is its own transgression. Its origin, as Edmund Burke knew, is bound to be lawless, since there is no law before the Law, and the establishment of the Law must therefore have been arbitrary and coercive. Conversely, the coercion of the Law requires a general consent to the institutions of authority. Civilized society for Burke is simply the process by which, over time, this violent origin or aboriginal crime becomes mercifully erased from human memory, so that illegitimacy modulates gradually into normality. Civility is just violence naturalized. At the source of any human history lies some primordial trespass or taboo-breaking, which has now been thrust judiciously into the political unconscious and cannot be dredged to daylight without risk of severe trauma. Those radicals who hark back to this illicit source would reopen the primal scene, uncover the father’s shame, snatch the veils of decency from the unavoidably tainted sources of social life and expose the unlovely phallus of the Law. (151, cf. 144–50; and Eagleton 2008: 340) See also Gould (1985: 21 and esp. 28). 86. Cf. Rosenmeyer (1982): In the first two plays of the Oresteia, the Furies are always on the side of justice and normalcy—and that means on the side of the Olympians and

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Zeus. It is only in the final play that, temporarily, because of the needs of the plot, they are converted into adversaries of the celestial legislators, and that is because the Olympians are, at that point, given a new function in addition to their role as patrons of domestic and clan stability: the guardianship of a rule of equity which supersedes the familiar line of justice. (281–82) 87. Parker (2009: 145). Revermann (2008) reads the play’s spatio-temporal dynamics (its ‘chronotopes’), in particular its ‘aetiological mode,’ as a validation of Athens’ democracy. 88. Porter (2005–2006) believes the play, despite its references to the prominence of marriage and children, seeks to ‘ignore and contain’ the issue of sexuality.

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Index

Achilles 2, 5, 121, 148 Aegisthus 15, 90–2, 112–13, 128–30, 146–8, 155, 158, 161, 163–4, 166, 177, 187–9, 192 agency 1, 4, 10–13, 27, 51, 130, 134 Ahl, F. 19, 81, 83, 99 Antiphanes 92 Aristotle: Poetics 9–13, 18–19, 56, 91 Artemis 3–4, 62, 66, 92, 97–106, 115, 126, 132, 135–9, 141, 146, 189 Barrett, J. see messenger speech binding song/spell 71, 85, 125, 175, 191–2, 193 Calchas 4, 97–106, 115, 119, 124, 131–2, 134–5, 138, 140, 143–4, 146, 152, 160 carpet scene 116–18, 132, 143 Cassandra 113, 117, 118–23, 124, 126–7, 129, 130, 144–8 character: controversy of, as person or subject 12–13, 19, 81; inaccessibility of 10, 13 Cilissa 162–3, 165, 189 Collins, D. see magic, as communication and/or psychodrama cultural poetics 135n47 curse 5–8, 11, 17, 34–5, 45, 52, 56, 68, 90–1, 103–4, 127, 165–6, 187; of Oedipus 57–9, 61–2, 65, 67, 71, 76–8, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84–5, 87, 89; of Thyestes 128, 129, 138, 148, 149, 162, 194 curse tablet see binding song/spell Cypria 104, 145, 148

death of God 1, 15, 20 determinism 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 24, 25, 30–2, 35, 44, 46, 59, 65, 79, 80, 89, 123, 125, 128, 157, 187; genealogical 58, 81; trilogy as 56–57, 59, 89 double motivation 5, 6, 17, 130, 137 dream of Clytemnestra 151–4, 159–60, 167–8, 187, 188, 190 Eagleton, T. 3, 16, 17, 18, 19–20, 46, 47, 49, 55, 87–8, 185, 194 ethics: drama as 10, 16, 56–9, 79 existentialism 14–15, 19, 20, 55, 89 fatalism 1, 5–8, 15–16, 17, 46, 57, 62, 65, 76, 78, 86, 87, 123, 124, 129 fate 1, 3–8, 16, 23, 24, 27, 32, 35, 39, 42, 43, 46, 51, 58, 68, 70, 77, 78, 79, 90, 137, 153, 165 Frazer, J. see magic, sympathetic freedom: condemned to 3, 15, 16, 17; free will 1–8, 14–20, 46–7, 55, 65, 76–9, 89, 90, 130, 134, 136, 147 Gantz, T. 79, 80, 81, 84, 85, 109, 129, 130, 131, 132, 135, 136, 138, 141, 144, 147, 187 Goldhill, S. 91, 147, 148; see also character, controversy of, as person or subject Heiden, B. 4, 18, 51, 55, 144, 189 Hesiod: Theogony 25–2, 47, 52 Homer: Iliad 1–2, 6, 18, 27, 28, 47 human sacrifice 92, 103, 104, 146

210

Index

inherited guilt 5, 6, 11, 56–88 Iphigeneia 3, 4, 5, 15, 91, 92, 94, 103–6, 108, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 121–2, 124–9, 132, 134–44, 146–49, 150–8, 162–3, 165–6, 168, 172, 177, 185–6, 190 kledonomanteia 65, 67, 69–73, 76, 86 knowingness 78–9, 84, 87, 92, 141

prospective experience of time 7, 35, 46–8, 76 Pythia 119, 144, 168–70, 191 retrospective experience of time 6–7, 16, 58–9, 78, 113, 136, 137, 163 Rosenmeyer, T. 8, 18, 19, 20, 24, 48, 50, 54, 55, 77, 80, 81, 85, 87, 129, 133, 137, 138, 140, 143, 157, 188, 189, 190, 191, 193, 194

magic 85, 125, 133, 171, 187; as communication and/or psychodrama 71–3; sympathetic 5, 71, 84 Mailer, N. see existentialism messenger speech: as rhetorical device 68, 83, 110

Sartre, J. P. see existentialism Shelley, P. B.; Prometheus Unbound 21, 49, 55 shield scene 9, 65–76, 83, 85, 86

necessity 3–7, 17, 18, 24, 27, 28, 30–1, 35–6, 38, 46–7, 58, 79, 102–3, 118, 134, 135, 138, 174, 182–4, 192

Vandvik, E. 22–3, 43, 45–6, 50, 52, 53, 54 Vernant, J. P. 5, 7, 12–13, 19, 80, 82, 87

omen of the eagles 5, 97–9, 131, 136, 138 performative utterance see kledonomanteia Proclus 190; Chrestomathy 104, 138 prophecy: as divine (mis) communication 97–9, 103–4, 119–21, 131, 132, 144, 145, 147, 157–8, 161, 180–1

theodicy 5, 22, 52 tragic humanism 9, 16

White, S. 22, 27, 33, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 54 Williams, B. 4, 6, 17, 18, 20, 80, 87, 88, 136 Winkler, J. see magic, as communication and/or psychodrama Zak, W. 9, 17, 131, 133, 135, 136, 137, 139, 142, 188, 189, 194 Zeitlin, F. 57–8, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 91, 194