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Searching for a Satyr Play: the Significance of the ‘Parodos’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 January 2009
Abstract
The parodos is the first appearance of the Chorus in a classical Greek drama, an occurrence common to tragedy, comedy – and that curious hybrid form, of which very few examples are extant, the satyr play. One of the two complete surviving, texts is the Ichneutai or Searching Satyrs of Sophocles: and in the following exercise in literary detection. Paola Polesso bases her investigation of the play not only on linguistic evidence but on clues which emerge from seeing the play in performance, to suggest the chronological context with in which the play may now be more precisely placed. Dr. Polesso, who presently teaches drama in the University of Bologna, has acted as assistant director to Luca Ronconi, and has been a contributor to numerous Italian theatre journals.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988
References
Notes and References
1. For a discussion on the ambiguity of the term parodos ‘as a part of the theatre’ compared to the term eisodos, see Taplin, O., The Stagecraft of Aeschylus: the Dramatic Use of Exits and Entrances in Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1977), p. 449.Google Scholar
2. See my essay ‘L'altra faccia di Aristofane comico’ (‘The Other Face of Aristophanes the Comedian), Quademi di Teatro (Florence, 1981). See also my ‘La pace di Aristofane é una fiaba?’ (‘Is the Peace of Aristophanes a Fairy Tale?), Problemi della Pedagogia (Rome, 1978).
3. See Aristotle, Poetics, 4, 1449, 20–25.
4. Translation by Rogers, B. B., in Moses, Hadas, ed., The Complete Plays of Aristophanes (Bantam Books, 1962), p. 13–53.Google Scholar
5. As will be shown later, this essay offers a new suggestion as to the approximate dating of this satyr play.
6. This dialogue between a god and a divine being, located at the beginning of the play, is modelled on an analogous dialogue in Euripides' Alcestis, where the conversation takes place between Apollo and Thanatos. This similarity has given rise to speculation regarding a possible date for The Searching Satyrs of 438 BC, the same as that of Alcestis. For discussion of this point, see Terzaghi, N., Cercatori di Tracce (Florence, 1913)Google Scholar, and Pearson, A. C., Fragments of Sophocles (Cambridge, 1917), p. 230 f.Google Scholar
7. It is never made clear to what this ‘freedom’ refers. The Satyrs are the slave-followers of Dionysus, but Apollo as God of Hunting has also been assimilated by Dionysus, as indicated by Pearson, op. cit., p. 233.
8. I have personally translated into English this part of the parodos of The Searching Satyrs, following the Greek text (and according also to the Italian translation by Ettore Romagnoli), since I was unable to find a literal translation in English of this rather fragmentary part of the Sophoclean text.
9. In Aristophanes' text there is a curious slippage, not previously noticed by scholars, between the figure of Amphitheus and that of the protagonist Dicaeopolis – that is, the person charged with affecting the treaty who is pursued by the Chorus, and the person who has suggested the treaty in the first place. This contradiction may be simply a lapse or gap in the written text, but in terms of the staging it may be explained by the fragmentary nature of the structure of ancient Attic comedy and may possibly further support the view that Aristophanes' parodos is a comic imitation of Sophocles' parodos. Sophocles' satyr play (leaving aside for a moment the mutilations to the text resulting from the Oxyrhincus papyrus) appears structurally sound and there are no contradictions in terms of the form.
10. In scenic terms I have tended to include in the parodos the second repetition of the hunt extending right up to the appearance of the nymph Kyllene. This whole sequence is structurally unified and consists in verbal exchanges between the Satyrs and Silenus, whom I perceive as an integral component of the Chorus, acting as leader.
11. See Albini, U., Un filo conduttore perisegugi di sofocle (Athens and Rome, 1974).Google Scholar
12. See Wilamovitz, U., Die spürhunde des Sophokles (Berlin, 1935)Google Scholar; C. Robert, Bennerkunged zu Sophokles Ichneutai in Hermes, No. 47; N. Terzaghi and A. C. Pearson, op. cit.
13. This scene is repeated in The Searching Satyrs. After the entrance there is a short pause during which a dialogue takes place between the Satyrs and Silenus, then a second phase of movement. (See note 10.)
14. It is useful to note that in another of Aristophanes' comedies, Peace (421 BC), the parodos is preceded by a general request for help, half way between an order and an invocation by the protagonist Trygaeus.
15. See also Pearson, op. cit., p. 225: ‘Apollo leaves the stage as the Chorus of Satyrs advances’. But Pearson as a philologist does not say what Silenus is doing in the meantime.
16. Translation by Green, Roger Lancelyn, in Two Satyr Plays (Penguin Books, 1957), p. 55–90.Google Scholar
17. For a discussion of the literary and philological issues involved in dating The Searching Satyrs, see Pearson and Terzaghi, op. cit.; Perrotta, G., La cronologia dei segugi, in Sofocle (Rome, 1963)Google Scholar; and Sofocle, Ichneutae, ed. Maltese, E. V. (Florence, 1982)Google Scholar, which also contains detailed bibliographies.