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‘I Know You — By Your Rags’ Costume and Disguise in Fifth-century Drama

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Frances Muecke
Frances Muecke*
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Extract

In Euripides’ Bacchae, first produced in the last five years of the fifth century, that is, after the tragedian’s death, there is a remarkable sequence of scenes which constitutes the turning point of the play. In the first of these scenes (787-861), making the last section of the great central epeisodion, the god Dionysus, masquerading as a mortal, tries to persuade Pentheus that in order to spy on the maenads on Mt. Cithaeron, he must put on woman’s dress, or rather, allow himself to be dressed in female garb by Dionysus himself (827). The elements of the ϑῆλνς στολή are detailed in advance at 830 ff. — long flowing locks, skirts down to the feet, a μίτρα for his head, and as the special equipment of the bacchant, a thyrsus and a dappled fawnskin. Pentheus strongly rejects the stranger’s suggestion, though fascinated by it, and when he goes indoors at the end of the scene he has not yet committed himself to the plan. However, it is clear to the audience from Dionysus’ speech to the chorus after Pentheus has left the stage that Pentheus, in his last attempt to exercise control and freedom of action, will not be able to withstand the power of the god. In order to fulfil the god’s plan of vengeance Pentheus must be driven out of his right mind, since only then will he accept the female disguise. When the two main characters return after the third stasimon all this has happened. Dionysus calls Pentheus out of the palace to display himself as a bacchant, and Pentheus looks to Dionysus for approval of his costume. As adjustments are made to it each element of the disguise is spotlighted — the curls and the μίτρα (928-9), the girdle and the long dress (936-7) and the thyrsus (941-2). In keeping with his costume Pentheus must learn to play the part of the bacchant, and Dionysus instructs him in the correct wielding of the thyrsus (943-4) before the two set out for Mt. Cithaeron.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 16 , 1982 , pp. 17 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1982

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References

1 H. Grégoire (Byzantion 13 [1938], 396–9) proposed the emendation αμφίων for the unmetrical ά0όων of R and against the less immediately relevant ίφύων of the Scholia and the Suda at Thesm. 910. The whole of this paper could be taken as an essay in support of the appropriateness of this emendation.

2 The parallel between the plots, as I have sketched them, may result from their possible common derivation from Aeschylus’ Pentheus. Aeschylus wrote a series of Dionysus plays, and in the Agathon scene of Thesm. Aristophanes explicitly draws attention to the Lycurgeia, quoting from Lycurgus’ reaction to the effeminate Dionysus in the first play of the tetralogy, the Edonoi (Thesm. 134 ff.). We are also told by the hypothesis of Aristophanes of Byzantium that the plot of Euripides’ Bacchae was dependent on Aeschylus’ Pentheus, according to Dodds (xxx ff.) the third play in Aeschylus’ Theban Dionysus tetralogy. (See Mette, H.J., Der verlorene Aischylos [Berlin 1963], 141–8.)Google Scholar If then Dodds is right in suggesting that the disguise of Pentheus is a traditional element of the myth which did not originate with Euripides (xxviii, and on lines 854–5), what we may have is a comic version of Pentheus’ disguise in Aristophanes and a tragic version in Euripides, with (in Thesm.) Agathon as the Dionysus figure and the Old Man as Pentheus. However, the disguise in Thesm. might be seen as parody of ritual transvestism. See further Zeitlin, F.I., ‘Travesties of gender and genre in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae’ in Reflections of Women in Antiquity, ed. Foley, H. (London and New York 1982), 194–7.Google Scholar

3 Dodds, E.R., Euripides: Bacchae2 (Oxford 1963), 27–viii, and on lines 854–5, 91276;Google ScholarKirk, G.S., The Bacchae of Euripides (Cambridge 1979), 14–15, 93 ff.Google Scholar (on lines 857–60); Seidensticker, B., ‘Comic Elements in Euripides’ Bacchae’, AJP 99 (1978), 303–20Google Scholar (with bibliography in note 1); Sansone, D., ‘The Bacchae as Satyr–Play?’, ICS 3 (1978), 40–6;Google ScholarSeaford, R., ‘Dionysiac Drama and the Dionysiac Mysteries’, CQ 31 (1981), 252–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Op. cit. 305. ‘Comedy elements’ are defined as ‘structural forms, characters, dramatic situations, motifs, themes, and story patterns which were already or soon to become typical elements of comedy’.

5 Cf. Bradbrook, M.C., ‘Shakespeare and the Use of Disguise in Elizabethan Drama’, Essays in Criticism 2 (1952), 167.Google Scholar For the later history of disguise see Freeburg, V.O., Disguise Plots in Elizabethan Drama (New York 1915);Google ScholarKreider, P.V., ‘The Mechanics of Disguise in Shakespeare’s Plays’, The Shakespeare Association Bulletin 9 (1934), 167–80;Google ScholarCurry, J.V., Deception in Elizabethan Comedy (Chicago 1955);Google ScholarNewman, K.A., Mistaken Identity and the Structure of Comedy (diss. Berkeley 1978).Google Scholar

6 For example, major changes of costume probably did not occur on stage in tragedy. See Dingel, J., Das Requisit in der griechischen Tragödie (diss. Tübingen 1967), 141–4Google Scholar and Taplin, O., The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977), 158 ff.Google Scholar on the arming of Eteocles in the Seven. Taplin is doubtful about whether the chorus don red robes at Aesch. Eum. 1028, and makes the point that it is not a change of costume (412 ff.), but see Macleod, C.W. (‘Clothing in the Oresteia’, Maia 27 [1975], 201–3)Google Scholar for a discussion of the symbolic and emblematic use of dress in the trilogy.

7 Handley, E.W. and Rea, J., The Telephus of Euripides, BICS Suppl. 5 (1957);Google ScholarRau, P., Paratragodia (München 1967 = Zetemata 45), 19–50;Google ScholarWebster, T.B.L., The Tragedies of Euripides (London 1967), 43–8.Google Scholar

8 Roscher, Lexikon 5. 274 ff.; Séchan, L., Etudes sur la tragédie grecque2 (Paris 1967), 121 ff., 503 ff.;Google ScholarJocelyn, H.D., The Tragedies of Ennius (Cambridge 1969), 404 ff.Google Scholar

9 Jocelyn 408.

10 In contrast, Aristophanes shows both the ‘disguising’ and the taking of the hostage on stage (Handley and Rea 24; cf. Taplin 118 n.l).

11 Cf. the role of the ‘disguised’ Odysseus in the debate with the Trojans in Eur. Philoct. (Webster, T.B.L., Sophocles: Philoctetes [Cambridge 1970], 4).Google Scholar

12 Fr. 17 Page GLP3 (1950). The idea of an entry evoking the story pattern of the ‘nostos’ is Taplin’s (124).

13 Fr. 704N.

14 Op. cit. 32–3.

15 That Aristophanes uses disguise here to convey the idea that he himself, as poet, is speaking through the actor’s mouth, was pointed out to me by Dr. A.C. Cassio. Cf. W. Süss, ‘Zur Komposition der altattischen Komòdie’,RhM 63 (1908), 12–38 = Wege der Forsch. 265, ed.Newiger, H.-J. (Darmstadt 1975), 1–29, esp. 13.Google Scholar

16 τρυγψδίαν ποιών refers ambiguously to the situations of both actor and poet.

17 These lines are parodie (Rau 29 n. 31).

18 Taplin 14.

19 For detailed analysis of this scene see Rau 29 ff., Russo, C.F., Aristofane, autore di teatro (Florence 1962), 59–60, 85–92Google Scholar and Dingel (above, n. 6), 206 ff. For L. Biffi (‘Elementi comici nella tragedia greca’, Dioniso 35 [1961], 89–102) Euripides himself had already transformed Telephus into ‘una specie … di Ulisse della commedia’ (97).

20 The earliest example would be Xerxes at Pers. 909 (Taplin 123 ff.).

21 Odysseus wonders at Philoctetes’ dishevelled appearance: ή τε στολή αηθη δοραί θηρίων καλόπτοοσιν αυτόν (Dio Chrys. Or. 59.5). Cf. Soph. Philoct. 226, 274.

22 My discussion of this scene assumes that both in Euripides and in Aristophanes the rags were represented by ragged costumes. This has often been doubted — in the case of Euripides, e.g. Pickard-Cambridge, A., The Dramatic Festivals of Athens2 (Oxford 1968), 202 n. 14;Google Scholar Handley and Rea 29. Dearden, C.W. (The Stage of Aristophanes [London 1976], 118 n. 14)Google Scholar also extends this scepticism to Aristophanes — but recently Taplin(36,121 n. 1,122) has questioned the necessity of maintaining that costumes had no naturalistic features. Dearden is influenced by a problem of staging in Ach. When did Dicaeopolis remove his rags? Russo (87) has suggested that it was in the course of his ‘recognition’ by Lamachus (593 ff.): Lamachus describes Dicaeopolis as πτωχός (593), and Dicaeopolis casts off his costume with the imputation (595). Line 593 is Telephus parody. Cf. line 578 with Rau 41.

23 ‘Euripides’ Rags’, ZPE 15 (1974), 221 ff. Do the rags which are emblematic of misery in Euripides’ tragedies become symbolic of the writer’s poverty of invention in Aristophanes’ mockery of the poet himself?

24 Salingar, L. (Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy [Cambridge 1974], 102–3)CrossRefGoogle Scholar expounds similar ideas in relation to this scene: ‘A metaphor, in brief, is one meaning impersonating another; an actor is a living metaphor. This, at least, seems to correspond to Aristophanes’ view, though he is also aware of the logical gulf bridged by analogy in metaphor and, equally, of the actor’s ‘deceit’ in assuming a role.’ In spite of the similarity of approach and idea my work was substantially complete when I discovered his. I do not use the word ‘impersonation’ with the specialized sense he gives it.

25 A special feature of Aristophanes’ exploitation of these ideas is the internalization of the playwright, whose relation to his own characters is seen as mimetic. See my article ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman’, CQ 32 (1982), 41–55 and Zeitlin (above, n.2), 171–81.

26 See Sharpe, R.B. (Irony in the Drama: An Essay on Impersonation, Shock and Catharsis [Chapel Hill 1959], 4 ff., 12)Google Scholar on the functional primacy of impersonation in drama.

27 My discussion here owes much to the work on irony and drama of my father, Dr.Muecke, D.C., most recently in Irony and the Ironic (London and New York 1982), 66–85.Google Scholar

28 For suggestive discussions of the role of disguise in the Odyssey see Ferrucci, F., The Poetics of Disguise, transl. Dunnigan, A. (Ithaca and London 1980), 34 ff.Google Scholar and Stewart, D.J., The Disguised Guest. Rank, Role and Identity in the Odyssey (Lewisburg, Pa. 1976).Google Scholar For Stewart the theme of the disguised guest is the ‘chief organising idea’ of the poem; he treats it through the perspectives of personal identity and the heroic code. To both authors the use of deceit and disguise in the Odyssey suggests the meta-literary theme of artistic illusion and deceit (Ferrucci 52–3, Stewart 163–4). Stewart even compares the role of the poet in the Odyssey to that of the ‘author’ in Old Comedy (170)!

29 Cf. Taplin (124) on the Odyssey as archetype. As archetype of comedy, Euanthius 1.5, Knox, B., ‘Euripidean Comedy’ in The Rarer Action, ed. Cheuse, A. and Koffler, R. (New Brunswick, N.J. 1970), 89.Google Scholar

30 The parallel of Odysseus and Menelaus is provided by the Odyssey.

31 The definition is that of Freeburg(above, n. 5), 2. I take disguise as a change in personal appearance assumed or exploited in order deceptively and deliberately to conceal identity and maintain two roles. This would allow the Paedagogus’s exploitation of his old age, and assumption of a false name (in Soph. El.) to count as disguise, but not the change in dress and appearance that makes Electra unrecognizable in Euripides’ play.

32 Solmsen, F., ‘Zur Gestaltung des Intriguenmotivs in den Tragödien des Sophokles und Euripides’, Philologus 87 (1932), 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar = Wege der Forsch. 89, ed. E.-R. Schwinge (Darmstadt 1968), 326–44; Diller, H., ‘Erwartung, Enttäuschung und Erfüllung in der griechischen Tragödie’, Serta philologica Aenipontana, Innsbrucker Beitr. zur Kulturwiss., Bd. 7/8 (1962), 93–115.Google Scholar On recognition in relation to these themes see Dworacki, S., ‘Anagnorismos in Greek Drama’, Eos 66 (1978), 41–54.Google Scholar

33 Story Patterns in Greek Tragedy (London 1964), 50–1.

34 Op. cit. 52–3.

35 For Orestes as ‘a type of principal in vengeance plot’ see Burnett, A.P., Catastrophe Survived (Oxford 1971), 11, 12, 81.Google Scholar

36 Stanford, W.B. (The Ulysses Theme2 [Oxford 1963], 84 n. 9)Google Scholar points out that this disguise was anticipated by his beggar’s disguise in Troy (Od. 4. 241 ff.). H. Lloyd-Jones (GRBS 12 [1971], 192 n. 40) suggests that the example of Odysseus (believed to be dead) may be a precedent for the pretended death of Orestes in the tragedies (cf. Soph. El. 62 ff.). Diller (96) suspects that the trick in Choe. derives from epic.

37 Translations of the Odyssey are from Shewring, W., The Odyssey (Oxford 1980).Google Scholar

38 At Od. 11. 455–6 Agamemnon tells Odysseus to come home secretly. See Ferrucci 48 and Stewart 58–60 on the forward references of this episode.

39 See Roscher, Lexikon 3. 955 ff. There is no explicit mention in the Odyssey of his killing Clytemnestra. See Kamerbeek, J.C., The Plays of Sophocles, Part V, The Electra (Leiden 1974), 1.Google Scholar

40 Lloyd-Jones, H., Aeschylus: Oresteia, The Choephoroe (London 1979), on line 571.Google Scholar

41 Choe. is the archetype of the plot in which recognition is followed by intrigue. On this pattern in Eur. Cres. see Webster (above, n. 7), 14 and Burnett (above, n. 35), Appendix on Cresphontes, 18 ff.

42 Cf. Frogs 1163–5.

43 On the relation of the δόλος to the revenge see Horsley, G.H.R., ‘Apollo in Sophokles’ Electra’, Antichthon 14 (1980), 20–1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar No certainty has been reached in the dating of the two plays, though Euripides’ Electra is generally thought to be prior to Sophocles’. See Kamerbeek, Electra, 5 ff. and Lloyd-Jones, H., Introduction to Karl Reinhardt, Sophocles, transl. Harvey, H. and Harvey, D. (Oxford 1979), xxii–iii.Google Scholar

44 Op. cit. 136–7.

45 When gods are associated with disguise it takes the form of a magical transformation (cf. Taplin 428, on Hera in the Semele). Dingel (above, n. 6), (140) points out that gods arrive in disguise (as frequently in the epics): Hera and Athena in the Rhesus, Dionysus in the Bacchae.

46 Op. cit. 163.

47 See Reinhardt op. cit. 175 ff.

48 I owe these points to Professor C.W. Dearden.

49 Pippin, A.N., ‘Euripides’ Helen: A Comedy of Ideas’, CP 55 (1960), 151–63: on Teucer (154), on the role of clothes (151, 154).Google Scholar

50 Dale, A.M. (Euripides: Helen [Oxford 1967] on lines 1050 ff.)Google Scholar points out that Menelaus’s comment (παλαιστής … τω λόγω) refers to the whole idea, the λόγος and θρήνος. Taplin, however, (133 n. 2) favours Hermann’s emendation απαιόλη α ….…

51 See Kannicht, R. (Euripides: Helena [Heidelberg 1969])Google Scholar on these lines. Both he and Dale compare Eur. fr. 697N (Telephus).

52 CP 55 (1960), 154–5; Catastrophe 82, 92 n. 10.

53 Cf. the suggestion that Frogs is a reply to the Bacchae (Jeanmaire, H., Dionysos [Paris 1970], 270).Google Scholar

54 Cf. Thesm. 867,1012; Salingar (above, n. 24), 103–4; Muecke, , ‘Playing with the Play: Theatrical Self-consciousness in Aristophanes’, Antichthon 11 (1977), 64 ff.;CrossRefGoogle Scholar P. Rau, ‘Das Tragödienspiel in den “Thesmophoriazusen”’ in Wege der Forsch. 265 (above, n. 15), 339 ff.; Zeitlin (above, n. 2), 186–9.

55 Cf. Thesm. 910 with note 1 above, and line 935 iστιορράφος: Stone, L., Costume in Aristophanic Comedy (diss. Chapel Hill 1977), 333–5.Google Scholar

56 CP 55 (1960), 154. See also Kannicht 1. 53–73.

57 See Dingel 139 ff.: ‘Requisit und Mechanema’.

58 Cf. Kreider (above, n. 5), 167–8. Kreider’s observation that this is Shakespeare’s practice should be supplemented by the extended study of Shakespeare’s exploitation of ‘discrepant awareness’ in Evans, B., Shakespeare’s Comedies (Oxford 1960).Google Scholar

29 Dingel (68) mistakenly, to my mind, accepts the view of Verrall and Tucker that ‘Orest und Pylades erscheinen nach v. 651 verkleidet als Kaufleute’ (but see his note 4).

60 Dingel (131–3, 152 ff.) does not consider the possibility of disguise.

61 Dingel 141 and n. 2.

62 Dingel 37 ff., 140.

63 Add to Seidensticker’s bibliography (above, n. 3): Dingel 156 ff.; Taplin, O.Greek Tragedy in Action (London 1978), 76;CrossRefGoogle Scholar R. Seaford, op. cit. (above, n. 3).

64 Dodds on lines 854–5. Kirk ([above, n. 3] on lines 857–60) expresses scepticism. To him the disguise suggests ‘a variant of an old and widespread theme of death by mistaken identity.’ See also Gallini, C. ‘Il travestimento rituale di Penteo’, SMSR 34 (1963), 211–28,Google Scholar esp. 215.

65 Ackroyd, P.Dressing up, Transvestism and Drag (Thames and Hudson 1979), 39.Google Scholar Seaford (258–9) interprets the disguise in relation to initiatory ritual.

66 The evidence adduced by Gallini (217) is very weak, but see Dodds on lines 453–9. Add now Aesch. Theoroi 58 and 69: … ’ άναλκις (of Dionysus).

67 Op. cit 258.

68 Winnington-Ingram, RP.Euripides and Dionysus (reprinted Amsterdam 1969), 53.Google Scholar

69 Seaford 258 and n. 57. I agree with Dingel (157 n. 2) against H. Strohm (review of Dodds in Gnomon 33 [1961], 520–1), though I accept the emphasis the latter puts on deceit and trickery.

70 Dingel (142) underplays the thematic importance that the question of recognition retains. See also Strohm, H. ‘Trug und Täuschung in der euripideischen Dramatik’, WJA 4 (1949/50), 140–56Google Scholar = Wege der Forsch. 89 (above, n. 32), esp. 362 n. 32.

71 Dodds, 191 ff. Kirk (101–2) doubts that lines 932 ff. are a deliberate reversal of lines 493–6. Cf. Diller, H. ‘Die Bakchen und ihre Stellung im Spätwerk des Euripides’, Abhand. d. Akad. d. Wiss. und. d. Lit. (Mainz 1955)Google Scholar phil.-hist. klasse 5 = Wege der Forsch. 89, 469 ff., esp. 491. Already at lines 341–2 Cadmus has attempted to dress Pentheus as a worshipper of Dionysus.

72 See notes 6 and 20 above and Seidensticker 318. Rosenmeyer, T.G. (The Masks of Tragedy [Austin 1963], 147–8)Google Scholar compares the red carpet scene of Aesch. Ag., but does not make the connexion with the visual role of the costume in Bacch. On the emblematic use of costume see Dingel 142.

73 Rosenmeyer 147–9; Schmid-Stählin 1.3.676; Dingel 143–4: ‘lediglich … ist das Mechanema-Requisit zugleich Pathos-Requisit’.

74 Cf. the change of costume in Eur. H.F., where Amphitryon, Megara and the children go indoors before the first stasimon to put on κόσμον … νεκρών (329 ff., 442 ff.).

75 Op. cit. 156 ff.

76 Cf. Biffi (above, n. 19), 97.

77 Dingel 158.

78 An ironic reversal of Pentheus’ earlier attempts to correct the ‘disorder’ of the Bacchants, as Dr. A.C. Cassio has pointed out to me.

79 Op. cit. 259.

80 Taplin, Greek Tragedy (above, n. 63), 76.

81 Taplin, loc. cit.

82 Grube, G.M.A.The Drama of Euripides (repr. London 1961), 9;Google Scholar Dingel 159; Lesky, A.Die tragische Dichtung der Hellenen3 (Göttingen 1972), 494;Google Scholar Gallini 213.

83 Seidensticker 319. His view of tragi-comedy is that it synthesizes tragic and comic, whereas according to Thomson, P. (The Grotesque [London 1972], 63)Google Scholar tragi-comedy in the normal sense involves a clear distinction between the comic and the tragic, the grotesque a fusion of the two. Cf. Wilson Knight, G. ‘King Lear and the Comedy of the Grotesque’ in The Wheel of Fire4 (London 1977), 160–76.Google Scholar

84 Loc. cit.

85 Thomson 7.

86 Taplin, , Greek Tragedy 76.Google Scholar Thomson 37: ‘the macabre, if one understands it as the horrifying tinged with the comic, is a sub-form of the grotesque.’

87 Thomson 7–9.

88 Dingel(158) talks of Dionysus as‘Regisseur’. Cf. Salingar(above,n. 24), 111 ff. on the special connexion of theatrical metamorphoses with Dionysus, and H. Jeanmaire (above, n. 53), 301–12. See further Foley, H. ‘The Masque of Dionysus’, TAPhA 110 (1980), 107––33Google Scholar and Segal, C. ‘Metatragedy: Art, Illusion and Imitation’, in Dionysiac Poetics and the Bacchae (Princeton 1982).Google Scholar The last two references are from Zeitlin (above, n. 2), n. 29.

89 An earlier version of this paper was read at the 21st AULLA Congress held from 27 January to 3 February 1982 in Palmerston North, New Zealand. I would like to thank Professors C.W. Dearden and K.H. Lee, and Dr. A.C. Cassio for help towards its revision.