Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece

Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece

. ] ean-Pierre Vernan t

Pierre Vidal-N aquet

ZONE

BOOKS

.

1990

NEW

YORK

Se.!) 'PA

© 1988 Urzone, Inc.

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First Paperback Edition, Revised Fifth Printing /996 No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a n'!trieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, includingelectroniC, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise (except for that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 ofthe U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the Publisher. Chapters 1-7 originaHy published in France as Mythe et Tragédie en Grece Ancienne. © 1972 by Librarie Fran~ois Maspero. Chapters 1-7 and 13 first published in the English language by The Harvester Press Limited, Brighton, England. © 1981 by The Harvester Press Limited. Chapters 8-17 originally published in France as Mythe et TraBédie en Grece Ancienne Deux. © 1986 by Editions La Découverte. Printed in the United States of America Distributed by The MIT Press, . Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Vernant, Jean-Pierre. [Mythe et tragédie en Gréce ancienne. English] Myth and tragedy / Jean-Pierre Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet: translated by Janet L1oyd. p. cm. Translatiqn of: Mythe et tragédie en Gréce ancienne. Bibliography: p. Ineludes indexo ISBN 0-942299-19-1 (pbk.) . l. Greek drama (Tragedy)-History and criticismo 2. Mythology, Greek, in Iiterature. l. Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, 1930- 11. Title. PA313I.V413 19 8 8 882 '.01 '-dCI9

87-34050 CIP

Contents

. i

Pre]aee to Volume 1 Pre]aee to Volume 11

~l

7

13

The HistoricaI Moment O] Tragedy in Greeee: Some o] the Sodaland PsyehologieaI Conditions 23

V·~ Tensions and Ambiguities in Greek Trag~dy

v~

lntimations o] the Will in Greek Tragedy

V·~

Oedipus Without the Complex

29

49

85

Ambiguity and ReversaI: On the Enigmatie Strueture o] Oedipus Rex 1 13

.vn ...,.E/

Hunting and Saerifiee in Aesehylus' Oresteia

VII

Sophocles' Philoctetes and the Ephebeia

VVIII IX

The God o] Tragie Fietion

~~~i~~~:~f

1111111111111111111

414827'

16 1

18 1

Features o] the Mask in Ancient Greeee

14 1

189

'Yrant: From Oedipus to Periander

2 O7

249

XIII

The ShieIds Of the

XIV

Oedipus in Athens

XV

XVI XVI I

Heroe~

273

3 O1

Oedipus Between Til'o eities: An Essa)' on Oedipus at Colonus 329 Oedipus in Vicenza and in Paris

36 1

The Masked Dion)'sus of Euripides' Bacchae Notes

415

Subject Index .

5 O7

Index of Textual References

523

38 1

Preface to Volume 1:::

This volume contains seven studies published in France and elsewhere. We have collected them together because they all belong to a research project on which we have been collaborating over the years and that owesits inspiratibn to the teaching ofLouis Gemet.\ Whilt exactly do we mean by Myth and TraBedy? Tragedies are - not, of course, myths. It can on the contrary be claimed that the tragic genre 'only emerges at the end of the sixth century, at the moment when the language of myth ceas es to have a hold on the political realities of the city. The tragic universe lies between two worlds, for at this date myth was seen as belonging both to a past age - but one still present in men's minds - and to the new values developed so rapidly by the city-state of Pisistratos, Cleisthenes, Themistocles, and Pericles. One of the original features of tragedy, indeed the very mainspring of its action, is this dual relationship with myth. In the tragic conflict the hero, the king, and the tyrant certainly still appear committed to the heroic and mythical . tradition, but the solution to the drama escapes them. It is never provided by the hero on his own; it always expresses the triumph of the collective values imposed by the new democratic city-state. In these circumstances, what does the task of the analyst ~'Myth

and Tragedy in Ancient Greece was or¡ginally published in France as two

volumes. The first volume was comprised of chapters 1-7,.and the second volume of chapters 8-17.

7

~

\h~

MYTH ANO TRAGEOY

involve? Most of the studies collected in this book are the product of what is generally known as structural analysis. However, it would be quite mistaken to confuse this type of reading with the decoding of !11yths in the strict sense of that termo The methóds of interpretation may be related but the purpose of the study is quite different. To be sure, the decoding of a myth first traces the articulations of the discourse - whether it be oral or written but its fundamental purpose is to break down the mythological account so as to pick out the primary elements in it and then set these beside those to be found in other versions of the same myth or in different collections of legends. The story initially considered, far from being complete in ltself or constituting a single whole, instead, in each of its episodes, opens out on to all the other texts that employ the same code system. And it is the keys to this system that must be discovered. In this way, for the student of myth, alI myths, whether rich or poor, belong to the same level and are of equal value from a heuristic point of view. No single one has the right to be given preference over the others and the only reason for the interpreter to singleit 'out is that, for reasons of convenience, he has chosen it as the mqdel or reference point to be used in his inquiry. Greek tragedies such as we have undertaken to study in these articles are quite different. They are written works, literary productions that were created at a particular time and in a particular place, and there is, strictly speaking, no paraIlel for any one of them. Sophocles' Oedipus Rex is not one version among others of the myth of Oedipus. The inquiry can only be fruitful if it takes into consideration, first and foremost, the meaning and intention of the drama that was acted in Athens in about 420 B.C. But what do we mean by meaning and intention? It goes without saying that our aim is not to discover what was going on in Sophocles' head as he wrote his play. The playwright left us no personal reflections nor any diary; had he done so they would have represented no .more than supplemeritary sources of evidence that weshould have had to submit to critical appraisallike any others. The intention 8

PREFACE TO VOLUME l.

werefer to is expressed through the work itself,in its structure,· its internal organization, and we have no way of reaching back from the work to its author. Similarly, although fully aware of the profoundly historical character of the Greek tragedies, we do not seek to explore the historical background, in the narrow sense· of the word, of each play. An admirable book has been written, retracing the history of Athens through the work of Euripides,2 but it is extremely doubtful whether a similar undertaking could - - - - - - - - , - - - - - - -_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _b_e_jJlstified for Aesch:xlus and Sophocles; such attemets that have been made in this direction do not seem to us to be cQnvincing. It is certainly legithnafe lo believe that the epidemic described at the beginning of Oedipus Rex owes someth~ng to the plague Athens suffered in 430, but at the same time one may point out that Sophocles h~d read the Iliad, which also contains a description of an epidemic that threatened an entire community. All things considered, the illumination that such a method can shed upon a work do es not amount to very mucho In fact, our analyses operateat very different levels. They stem both from the sociology of literature and from what one might call a historical anthropology. We do not claim to explain tragedy by reducing it to a number of social conditions. We attempt to grasp it in all its dimensions, as a phenomenon that is indissolubly social, aesthetic, and psychological. The problem does not consist in reducing one of these aspects to another but in understanding how they hinge together and combine to constitute a unique human achievement, a single invention to which there are three historical y another duality: chora! lyric as opposed to the dialogue form used by the protagonists of the drama, where the meter is more akin to prose: The heroic figures brought closerby the language of ordinary men not only come to life before the eyes of the spectators but furthei-more, through their discussionswith thé cnórusor with oiú~ another, they become the subjects of a debate. They are, in a way,

THE HISTORICAL MOMENT OF TRAGEDY IN GRE'ECE

under examinatio.n befo.re the publiCo In its so.ngs, the cho.rus fo.r its part, is less co.ncerned to.' glo.rify the exemplary virtues o.f the herb, as in the traditio.n o.f lyric in Simo.nides o.r Pindar, than to.' express anxiety and uncertainties abo.ut him. In the new framewo.rk o.f tragic interplay, then, the hero has ceased to. be a mo.del. He has beco.me, bo.th fo.r himself and fo.r o.thers, a problem. We think these preliminary remarks will make it easierto. fo.cus upo.n the terms in which the problem o.f tragedy is to. be po.sed. ' Greek tragedy appears as a histo.rical turn'ing po.int precisely lim______________________ ited-and-dated.~tis_horn,Jlo.-udshes,_and_degeneratesJn.Athens,, _ _ _ _ _ _ __ and all almo.st within the space o.f a hundred years. Why? It is no.t eno.ugh to. no.te that tragedy is an expressio.n o.f a torn co.nsdo.usness, an awareness o.f the co.ntradictio.ns that divide aman against himself. We must seek to. disco.ver o.n what levels, in Greece, these tragic o.ppo.sitio.ns lie, o.f what they are co.mpo.sed and in what co.nditio.ns they emerged. This is what Lo.uis Gernet set o.ut to. do. in an analysis o.f the vo.cabulary and structures o.f each tragedy.3 It enabled him to. sho.w that the true material o.f tragedy is the so.cial tho.ught peculiar to. i:he city-state;in particular the legal tho.ught that was then 'in the pro.cess o.f being evo.lved. The tragic writers' use o.f a technical / legal vo.cabulary underlines the affinities between the mo.st favo.red tragic themes and certain cases that fell within the co.mpetence o.f the co.urts. The institutio.n o.f these Co.urts was sufficiently recent fo.r the rio.velty o.f the values determining their establishment and go.verning their activity still to. be fully appreciated. The tragic po.ets I?ake use o.f this legal vo.cabulary, deliberately explo.iting its ambiguities, its fluctuatio.ns, and its inco.mpleteness. We find an imprecisio.n in the terms used, shifts o.f meaning, inco.herences and co.ntradictio.ns, all o.f which reveal the disagreements within legal tho.ught itself and also. betray its co.nflicts with a religio.us traditio.n and mo.ral tho.ught fro.m which the law is already distinct but who.se do.mains are still no.t clearly differentiated fro.m its o.wn. The fact is that law is no.t a lo.gical co.n,structio.n. It develo.ped historieally, o.ut o.f"prelegal" pro.cedures. It disengaged itselffrom

MYTH ANO TRAGEOY

, and stands in opposition to these but is still to someextent integrally linked with them. The Greeks dO__ llor have anidea of absolute law, founded upon certain principies aQd organized into a cqherent system. For them there are, é!s it were; differingdegrees oflaw. At one pole Iaw rests upon the authority of accomplished fact, upon compulsion; at the other it brings into play sacred powers such as the order of the world or the justice of Zeus.· It also poses '~oral problems regarding man's responsibilifY. From this point of view divine Dike herself may appear opaque and incomprehensible, in that for human beings she includes an irrational· element ofbrute force. Thus, in the Suppliants, we see the concept . of hatos oscillating between two contrary meanings. Sometimes it denotes legitimate authority, legally based control, sometimes brute force in its aspect of violence, completely opposed to the law and to justice. Similarly, in Antigone, the word nómos may be used with precisely opposed connotations by different protagonists. What tragedy depicts is one dike in conflict with another, a law that is not fixed, shifting and changing into its opposite. To be sure, tragedy is something quite different from a legal debate. It takes as its subject the man actualIy living out this debate, forced to make a decisive choice, to orient his activity in a universe of ambiguous values where nothing is ever stable or unequivocal. --=-; This is the first aspect of conflict in tragedy. The second is closely linked with it. As we have seen, as long as it remains alive tragedy derives its themes from the legends of the heroes. The fact that it is rooted in a tradition of myths explains why it is that in many respects one finds more religious archaism in the great tra- ,_ gedians than in Homer. At the same time, tragedy establishes a distance between itself and the myths of the heroes that-inspire it and that it transposes with great freedom. It scrutinizes them. It confronts heroic values and ancient religious representations wirh the new modes of thought that characterize the-advent of law within the city-state. The legends of the heroes are connected -with royal lineages, noble gene that in terms üf values, social practices', forms of religion, and types of human behavior, represent 26

THE HISTORICAL MOMENT OF TRAGEDY IN GREECE

for the city-state the very things that it has had to c;ondemn and reject and against which it has had to fight in order to establish itself. At the same time, however, they are what it developed from and it remains integrally linked with them. Thé tragic turning point thu~:occurs when a gap develops at the heart of the social experience~jt is wide enough for the oppositions between legal and political thought on the one hand and the rnythical and heroic traditions on the other to stand out quite clearly. Yet it is narrow enough for the conflict in values still to be a painful one and for the clash to continue to tíJ,Ke place. A ' - - - - - - - similar situation obtains with regad to the problems of human responsibility that arise as a hesitant progress is made toward the establishment of law. The tragic consciousness of responsibility appears when the human and divine levels are sufficiently distinct for them to be oppose~ while still appearing to be inseparable. The tragic sense of responsibility emerges when human action becomes the object of reflectionand debate while still not being regarded as suffieiently autonomous to be fully self-sufficient. The particular domain of tragedy lies in this border zone where human act'ions hinge on divine powers and where their true meaning, unsuspected by even those who initiated them and take responsibility for them, is only revealed when it becomes a part of an . order that is beyond man and escapes him. It is now easier to see that tragedy involves a particular moment and that the period when it flourished can be pinned clown betweeh two dates, each of which represents a differen't attitude toward the tragic spectacle. The earlier date is marked by the anger of Solon, who left one of the first dramatic representations in disgust, even before the institution of tragic competitions. Plutarch tells us that when'Thespis pointed out that it was~ after.all, only for fun, the old law-giver, perturbedby the growing am'bitions of Pisistratos, replied that the consequences of such fictions on the relations between citizens would soon b~ clear for all to see. For the sage, moralist, and statesman who had undertaken the task of founding the order of the city-state upon moderation

27

MYTH ANO TRAGEOY

and contract, who had had to break the arrogance of the nobles and was trying to spare his country the hubris of a tyrant, the "heroic" past seemed too near and too alive for· it to be reproduced without risk as a spectacle in the theater. At the end of this period we may consider Aristotle's remarks concerning Agathon, the young contemporary ofEuripides who wrote tragedieswith plots closely modeled on the latter's. The link with legendary tradition is now so stretched that it is no longer felt nec~ssary to engage in a debate with the "heroic" pasto The dramatist can continue to write plays in which he invents the plot himself, following a model that he believes to be in conformity with the works of his great predecessors, but for him, his public, and the whole of Greek culture, the mainspring of tragedy has snapped. Jean-Pierre Vernant

•

I

28

CHAPTER

II

Te n s ion s a nd A m b i g u i ti e sin Greek Tragedyl

What can sociology and psychology contribute toward the interpretation of Greek tragedy? They cannot, to be sure, replace the traditional philological and historical methods of analysis. On the contrary, they must draw upon the scholarly research in which specialists have been'engaged for so long. Nevertheless, they bring a new dimension to Greek studie~. By attempting to situate the tragic phenomenon exactly within the sociallife of the Greeks and by indicating its place in the psychological history of Western man, they bring into the open problems that Greek scholars have hitherto only come upon incidehtly and tackled indirectly. We should like to consider sorne of these problems. T~~g~(:Iy emerged in Greece at the end of the sixth century. Within a hu ndred years the tragic seam had already been exhausted and when Aristotle in the fourth century set out, in his Poetics, to establish the theory of tragedy,he no longer understood tragic man who had, so to speak, become 'a stranger. Tragedy succeeded epic and lyric and faded away as philosophy experienced its moment of triumph. 2 As a literary genre, tragedy seems to give expression to a particular type of human expei=reñce';o¡;etl1ai:-1Sii~ked.,..;ith speclflC sodilTañd psyCl1010gl¿¡¡-condl.tiüñs:-"SéeTng'Tt i;;-this ~y, as"'a~pFieñ·o'~~~~·-;ith·its-;;~"hiStOnca1 moment precisely defined . in space and time, imposes certain methodological rules for interpreting the tragic works; Ea