ΕΥΡΙΠΙΔΑΡΙCΤΟΦΑΝΙΖΩΝ: An Unnoticed Euripidean Motif in Aristophanes

Enter the chorus of women, rushing to the rescue of their endangered colleagues:

How different is the entry of these women from that of the old men. The old men entered to the steady but laboured tread of iambic tetrameters catalectic: 254 χώρει, Δράκηϲ, ἡγοῦ βάδην, εἰ καὶ τὸν ὦμον ἀλγεῖϲ (– – ⏑ – | – – ⏑ – | – – ⏑ – | ⏑ – –). [4] The women rush in to the more tripping rhythm of iambo-choriambics: 319 λιγνὺν δοκῶ μοι καθορᾶν καὶ καπνόν, ὦ γυναῖκεϲ (– – ⏑ – | – ⏑ ⏑ – | – ⏑ ⏑ – | ⏑ – –). And there is a change in the linguistic register. Not the penny-plain language of the prosy dotards but the vocabulary of poetry: 319 λιγνύϲ (Aeschylus and Sophocles), [5] 324 ὑπό τ᾽ ἀνέμων ἀργαλέων [6] (echoing Homer Iliad 13.795 οἱ δ᾽ ἴϲαν ἀργαλέων ἀνέμων ἀτάλαντοι ἀέλληι), 326 ὑϲτερόπουϲ “with belated step” (like the Euripidean ὀπιϲθόπουϲ and ὑϲτέρωι ποδί, “with laggard step,” and the Aeschylean ὑϲτερόποινοϲ, “with belated vengeance”), [7] 327 κνεφαῖοϲ (Hipponax and tragedy), [8] 329 πάταγοϲ (epic, lyric and tragedy), [9] 332 ἁρπαλέωϲ (epic, elegy and lyric), [10] and later at 344 χρυϲολόφα (Anacreon and Bacchylides). [11]

I begin with Hippolytus 121–130:

Here again is a spring. The women of Aristophanes use the spring to fill their pitchers. The friend of the women in Euripides uses it to do her laundry. Another mundane activity, but expressed in the language of high poetry. This sets the time and scene for the arrival of momentous news. “From there it was (that is, from the woman laundering her linen at the spring) that news first came to me of my mistress.” News arrives in both passages. In Lysistrata the news is the cause of the mundane activity described: the women fill their pitchers because of the news they have heard. In Hippolytus the mundane activity is a prelude to the arrival of news.

There is a similar scenario in the Helen 179–184:

Again a mundane activity, described in highly-coloured language, sets the time and scene for something heard by the chorus. In Hippolytus the verb describing that activity is the imperfect κατέβαλλε. In Helen it is the periphrastic ἔτυχον . . . θάλπουϲα, “I happened to be drying,” which is equivalent to an imperfect. In both passages an aorist verb (ἦλθε, ἔκλυον) marks a new, sudden, decisive event.

A third passage, from the Hecuba (923–932; cf. Appendix). Differently from the preceding passages, this is sung by the chorus not as it enters but in its final choral ode. The captive Trojan women recall the night when Troy fell. There was singing and dancing and feasting in the city, because the Greek fleet had departed. Now it is deep into the night. The singer describes her husband, lying in bed, his spear hung upon a peg on the wall. Then she describes herself:

A mundane activity again: a woman doing her hair, gazing into a mirror, before she goes to bed. And this activity, introduced again by an imperfect verb, ἐρρυθμιζόμαν, because it is still ongoing, is brought to a stop, as it was in Helen, by a sudden cry, expressed by an aorist verb (ἀνὰ … ἔμολε). [16]

Into this pattern fits a passage from the Troades (542–557), which captures the same moment. The Wooden Horse has been wheeled into Troy:

Here we have innocent merriment rather than mundane domestic activity. But the pattern is the same. Imperfect verbs (ἐκτύπει, ἄειρον, ἔμελπον, ἐμελπόμαν) again set the time and scene, and a sudden cry, again expressed by an aorist (κατέϲχε), brings all to a close. [19]

Finally one more passage of Aristophanes. In the Frogs Aeschylus concocts a parody of Euripidean lyrics. Here is one section of it, in which an old woman sings of the loss of her pet cockerel (1346–1355):

The same pattern again. A mundane domestic activity, [20] still ongoing, expressed by the equivalent of an imperfect verb—the periphrasis προϲέχουϲ᾽ ἔτυχον is like ἔτυχον … θάλπουϲα in Helen. It is cut short by a sudden event, expressed in the aorist. And anadiplosis, a notable feature of Euripidean lyric style, is laid on thick. [21] Aristophanes has recognised a typical Euripidean motif, and he has decorated that motif with a typical feature of Euripidean style.

The passage is conventionally punctuated (as I myself punctuated it in 1984) with a comma at the end of 925. This leaves ἐπιδέμνιοϲ ὡϲ πέϲοιμ᾽ ἐϲ εὐνάν to mean “so as to fall onto the bed (ἐπιδέμνιοϲ) into bed (ἐϲ εὐνάν),” a pleonasm which commentators struggle to justify. Collard 1991:107 translates “onto the bed, upon its coverings,” making a distinction (as Hermann had done) [23] between δέμνιον “(the structure of the) bed” and εὐνάν “bedding.” [24] Others make distinctions no less fine and no more compelling (“on the cushions of my couch” (Tierney 1946:111), “on the cushions of our bed” (Davie 1998:72), “on my bed’s coverlet” (Morwood 2000:26), or find merit in the pleonasm (“for emphasis, conveying the narrator’s sense of pleasurable anticipation” (Gregory 1999:157)). Hermann compared Bacchae 1111–1112 χαμαιπετὴϲ (χαμαιριφὴϲ Murray e Chr. Pat. 1430) | πίπτει πρὸϲ οὖδαϲ. But “groundward-falling (or groundward-flung) to the earth” is less remarkable that “onto the bed into bed.” And in Andromache 104 ἄγαγετ᾽ εὐναίαν εἰϲ θαλάμουϲ Ἑλέναν (“took to be bedded into the bridal chamber”), compared “for the redundancy” by Battezzato 2018:199, there is no redundancy, since θάλαμοι is not synonymous with εὐνή. Others evade the pleonasm by ignoring it: “to fall into bed” (Kovacs 1995:483), “um dann aufs Bett niederzusinken” (Matthiessen 2010:207). [25]