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Musical Themes and Imagery in Aeschylus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2015
Extract
Although imagery from music and song is not uncommon in Greek poetry as a whole, it is usually of no more than superficial significance. In Aeschylus, however, its roots strike deeper, and for that reason I have chosen to concentrate on him here. For the sake of comparison, a briefer survey of its uses in Sophocles and Euripides will be added.
Aeschylus' method of using key images to sustain and develop a dramatic theme has for some time now been recognised as an important feature of his style. Whether he expected the subtleties of his technique to be appreciated by his audience—even by a perceptive minority—is another question. His painstaking craftsmanship would tend rather to suggest that he wrote with more in view than the immediate appeal of the spoken word, deliberately shaping his work as a κτῆμα ἐς αἰεί. A number of dominant images in his drama, such as the yoke in the Persae, the ship in the Septem and the alternating light and dark in the Oresteia, have already received their fair share of attention. But this has not been so with his musical symbolism which, although less apparent, is employed with greater consistency. In no drama is it entirely absent, and it permeates the substance of the Septem and the Oresteia.
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References
1 See especially Hiltbrunner, O.'s Wiederholungs-und Motivtechnik bei Aischylos, Bonn (1950).Google Scholar
2 For a good survey of the different types and functions of music referred to by Aeschylus see Moustopoulos, E., “Une philosophie de la musique chez Eschyle,” REG lxxii (1959), 18–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 In making this distinction I follow the suggestion of Goheen, R. F., ‘Aspects of dramatic symbolism in the Oresteia ,’ A.J.Ph. lxxvi (1955) 113–37.Google Scholar
4 Preserved by Proclus, ap. Bid. Phot. 319b. 39f.Google Scholar, Bekker.
5 For the ὀλολυγή and the related ἀλαλαγή and ἐλελεῦ see especially Deubner, L., ‘Ololuge und Verwandtes’, Abh. d. Preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. (1941), no. i.Google Scholar It was most commonly raised as a shout of joy, a confident battle-cry (usually in the α-form, more suited to the masculine voice) and at sacrifices, where it was customarily chanted by women. In the Bacchic and similar religions it took the form of an ecstatic shriek. For its relationship with the paean call see below.
6 See Stengel, P., Die griechische Kultusaltertumer (1920) 112, 115, 149.Google Scholar
7 The two instruments are discussed at length by Huchzermeyer, H., Aulos und Kithara in der griechischen Musik bis zum Aufgang des klassischen Zeit (1931).Google Scholar
8 The expression might have been intended to look back to ἄχορον in 635, although the construction of the word with either βοὰν or βοᾶν is eccentric. Kruse's emendation ἄκορον βοᾶς is syntactically much more acceptable.
9 Cf. in particular Eur. Phoen. 784 f., and for the opposite idea with reference to Eirene, Bacchyl. Fr. 3 (J), Eur. Fr. 453.8 (N.), Ar. Peace 976.
10 Notice the alternating series of deprecations (659–66, 678–87) and prayers (667–77, 688–97), these corresponding in turn to the strophic divisions of the ode; further the complementary invocations of Artemis and Apollo (676–7, 686–7) and the corresponding positions of δίκας (703) and Δίκας (709) in the final pair of strophes.
11 ἰάλεμος and γόος were applied in a technical sense to the popular, more primitive version of the θρῆνος. There seems to have been little, if any, distinction in meaning between the two terms. This emerges from the study of Reiner, E., Die rituelle Totenklage der Griechen (1938) 4 f.Google Scholar
12 Where, as pointed out by Thomson in his commentary, the key word is στένειν.
13 The view of the Aeschylean trilogy as a weaving together of discords into a harmony is well-known from Owen, T. E.'s book, The Harmony of Aeschylus (1952), esp. 6 f.Google Scholar The metaphor itself, while perfectly open to interpretation on the mundane level, may possibly have conveyed to better-informed minds a further-reaching allusion to the theories of universal harmony put forward by Pythagoras and Heraclitus.
14 This has been noticed by Dumortier, J., Les Images dans la Poesie d'Eschyle (1935) 203.Google Scholar
15 If mere is not actually a fusion here of the literal and the metaphorical. The gadfly is described in 567 as the εἴδωλον of Argus.
16 This has been noted by Fraenkel in his commentary on Ag. 1186.
17 The two calls were often closely associated. On occasions of joy die women's ὀλολυγή would respond to the men's paean, as in Sapph. Fr. 44.31, Bacchyl. xvi 127 f. There is a variation in Soph. Trach. 205 f., where there are injunctions for the ὀλολυγή to be raised with the sacrifice and for companion paeans to be sung to Apollo and Artemis by the men- and maidservants respectively. Men raised the paean with the pre-battle sacrifice and followed it with the ἀλαλαγή: Xen. Cyrop. vii 1.25, Anab. v 2.14 (ἠλέλιξαν), vi 5.27. In Anab. iv 3.19, where women are present, the ὀλολυγή is added. But when the calls were not raised responsively, they might be taken up by members of either sex, e.g. Ar. Knights 1318 (paeans from the audience), 1327 (ὀλολυγή from the chorus).
18 There is an element of burlesque in this caricature of Xerxes. It is repeated from 199 and occurs again at 834 f, and 1030. The quaint concern of Atossa over her son's clothes is to be explained by Aeschylus' desire to keep the image before the eyes of his audience.
19 Broadhead is probably mistaken in denying a reference to the paean here and in translating ‘healing’. While this is the natural sense of the word with reference to, for instance, the hand of Zeus (Suppl. 1066), it is less readily applied to a shout, κέλαδος, moreover, was frequently applied to the paean call, e.g., Eur. H.F. 694, Phoen. 1102, and is indeed so used in the above-mentioned passage (388).
20 The occurrences of the word φροίμιον in Aeschylus are reviewed by Meyer, H., Hymnische Stilemente in der fruhgriechische Dichtung, Würzburg (1933) 29 f.Google Scholar His view that it will always reveal the basic meaning das Hervorgesagte (as is possible in the passage under discussion) is sengibly disputed by Fraenkel in his note on Ag. 1216.
21 The verses are among those condemned by both Bergk and Wilamowitz. See, however, the careful re-appraisal of the problem by Lloyd-Jones, H., “The End of the Seven against Thebes ,” CQ n.s. ix (1959) 80–115 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which leads to the conclusion that there is insufficient evidence to warrant the athetisation of either these verses or of 1005 f. In favour of retaining the passage it can certainly be said that the imagery bears the characteristic Aeschylean stamp. Several parallels from the Agamemnon will be noticed below.
22 This is no doubt felt to be contained in 871–5.
23 The finer points of the comparison are illuminatingly discussed by Tucker in his note ad loc.
24 See further Dumortier loc. cit.
25 For the custom of attaching bells to armour in general see E. Espérandieu in Daremberg-Saglio, s.v. ‘Tintinnabulum’ (p. 342). He is probably right in regarding the bells so used as a means of fascination rather than, as suggested by Tucker in his note, a prophylactic symbol.
26 See Smyth, H. W., Greek Melic Poetry (1900) lxx n. 1.Google Scholar
27 This could hardly have happened at Choe. 942, 952, where there is no pause after the injunctions. Moreover, it would have been much more effective to reserve the actual raising of the chant until the end of the trilogy. The exhortations to do so would presum ably have been given by the leader of the supplementary chorus while all the others present on the orchestra (χωρῖται, πανδαμεί) responded.
28 For this popular lament see Reiner, op. cit., 109 f., and Wilamowitz, Herakles ii 88 f.
29 Cf. Ar. Peace 453, Soph. ΟΤ 1096–7, Similar good-omened formulas occur throughout this play and the next (Ag. 20, 217, 349, 500, 674, 1249, Choe. 782, 868) and are indeed typical of Aeschylus' style. See further the remarks of Kranz, W., Stasimon (1933) p. 39 Google Scholar and Neustadt, E., ‘Wort und Geschehen in Aischylos' Agamemnon’, Hermes lxiv (1929) 253.Google Scholar
30 See the revealing comparison of the ephymnion (328 f., 341 f.) with the Attic curse-tablets (App. to IG iii. 3 (1897) ed. Wünsch) by Knoke, R., De Hymnis Graecorum Tragicis, Diss. Gott. (1924) 2 f.Google Scholar
31 This passage is admirably discussed by Fraenkel in his commentary.
32 For the significance of these words see above, p. 34. Denniston and Page compare Euripides' ἄλυρον ἔλεγον (Hel. 185) and ἀλύροις ἐλέγοις (ΙΤ 146), to which might be added ἐλυρον … μοῦσαν (Phoen. 1028) ἀντιψάλμους ᾠδὰς (IT 178) and possibly ἀλύροις … ὕμνοις (Alc. 447, although see note of Dale ad loc).
33 The translation is Fraenkel's, who is probably right in preferring, on the analogy of this passage, to read ἐκνόμως rather than ἐννόμως for the hymn of the daimon in 1473. See also the discussion of ἄνομον (sc. θυσίαν) in 151 by Lloyd-Jones, H., CQ n.s. iii (1953) 96 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who not implausibly suggests the meaning ‘unaccompanied by the flute’.
34 The version of it, at any rate, which was associated with Terpander. Nothing more is known of the auletic type attributed to Klonas and Olympus. For further details of the Orthian nome see Vetter in RE s.v. ‘Nomos’ (2 p. 843).
35 See Knoke, op. cit., 4, for further examples of this usage.
36 The section 1036–79 is itself cast in the form of a narrative hymeneal. With the opening verses compare Menand. Rhet. περὶ ἐπιθαλ. p. 400.265 (Spengel). For the literary treatment of the Peleus-Thetis wedding in general see Reitzenstein, R., Hermes xxxv (1900) 73–105.Google Scholar
37 The καλλίνικος is also mentioned in HF 681—with particular appropriateness, since the universally popular version of the chant by Archilochus (Fr. 119 B.) commemorated the exploits of Heracles.
38 Two possible examples of oxymoron are, (El. 379–82), (Aj. 975–6).
39 Cf. Ar. Clouds 594 and Schol., Terp. Fr. 697/1 Page, Hom. hs. vii 1, xix 1, xxii 1, xxxiii 1.
40 See also the note on ἄλυρος above and the scene in the IA in which Iphigeneia instructs that a paean be sung at her sacrifice, as in the more orthodox version of the ritual (1468, 1480).
41 Cf. Ion 905 and HF 1303 where Apollo and Hera respectively are reproached for their musical pastimes by the victims of their callousness.
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