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Merciful heavens? A question in Aeschylus' Agamemnon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Maurice Pope
Maurice Pope
Affiliation:
Oxford
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Extract

In discussions of Aeschylus' theology one of the passages most often quoted is the so-called ‘hymn to Zeus’ in the first chorus of the Agamemnon (Ag. 160–83). Fraenkel in his commentary goes so far as to call it ‘the corner-stone not only of this play but of the whole trilogy’. The passage concludes with two lines which in all modern editions are read as a statement, though our oldest manuscript, the Medicean, writes them as a question. Textually the difference is merely one of accent, but the difference of accent carries with it a reversal of meaning. As a statement the lines mean that the gods are something to be grateful for, that there is some χάρις or kindness associated with them. Taken as a question they deny this. Clearly then it is of great importance for the interpretation of Aeschylus to decide which is the correct reading.

The lines in question, written without accents, are

Our oldest manuscript, M, as I have said, writes ποῦ with an accent. So does our next oldest, the manuscript 468 of the Biblioteca di San Marco, generally known as V. If this reading stems uncorrupted from the time when accents were first applied to the text of Aeschylus and if at that time the oral tradition of the poet's words was not yet dead, then it will not be destitute of authority. But the thread is far too tenuous to bear any weight of proof.

Equally there can be no argument from authority on the side of reading the lines as a statement. For though Triclinius and the closely associated manuscript F write που without an accent as an enclitic, this is as likely as not to be due to simple conjecture.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 94 , November 1974 , pp. 100 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1974

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References

1 Among the editors, translators, and commentators who have supported the reading of F and Triclinius are Canter in 1580, Casaubon, Pearson (who wrote κρατερῶς in his copy of the text), Stanley in 1663 (‘scilicet haec gratia Deorum efficaciter/Sedili venerando coeli insidentium’), Schütz in 1782, Butler in 1811, Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1816 (‘Huld der Götter ist dies, die gewaltsam thronen hoch am Rudersitz’), Weil in 1858, Verrall in 1889 (‘and it is perhaps a mercy from a Deity who came by struggle to his majestic seat’), Murray in his 1920 translation and his 1937 Oct edition, Wilamowitz in 1914, Fraenkel in 1950, and Postgate in 1969 (who comments ‘Gods who won their own throne by violence are likely to discipline mortals harshly’).

Hermann in 1852 and Schneidewin in 1856 printed the other form of the adverb, βίαια.

Turnebus's followers have included Grotius in 1626 (though he translates ‘Cura Deorum qui vi solida/Resident coeli sedibus altis’), Abresch in 1743, Pauw in 1745 (‘…perbene…nihil certius … quid tibi videtur, nonne accedit ad Gratiam efficacem, de qua Theologi hodie acriter adeo disputant?’), Blomfield in 1818 (‘et deorum reverentia per vim incutitur’), Paley in 1845, Conington in 1848, Headlam in 1909, Weir-Smith in 1926, and in our own generation Thomson, Groeneboom, Mazon, the Oct second edition, Rose, Denniston and Page, Page's edition of the Oct, and Lloyd-Jones (‘There is, I think, a grace which comes by violence from the gods/seated upon the dread bench of the helmsman’ in his 1970 translation, and several citations of the phrase χἁρις βίαιος in his more recent expositions of Aeschylus's thought).

The only editor in modern times to have printed the reading of M, as far as I know, is Wecklein in 1885.

2 In the Prometheus M reads ὡς for ὅς in line 428. Four manuscripts give εὐδαίμων for εὔδαιμον in line 647. Two manuscripts give τοῦτ' ὦ Προμηθεῦ for τοῦτο Προμηθεῦ in line 278.

In the Agamemnon F and Tr give ἐτητύμως for ἐτήτνμος in line 477.

3 I am grateful to Mr T. C. W. Stinton of Wadham College, Oxford, and to Professor Desmond Conacher of the University of Toronto, for their kindness in consenting to read earlier drafts of this article and for the helpfulness of their criticisms. I must similarly thank the members of the Oxford Philological Society who raised valuable points when I put forward some of the arguments of this article at a meeting of the Society in January 1973.