Delphi Complete Works of Aeschylus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (45 page)

[39]
(Fifteen lines
unintelligible, including “a slave or thrice a slave,” “rightful master,” “miserable
bed and miserable sleepings-out,” “in the (?wretched) . . . of this old . . .,”
“running away from . . . of a polyp,” “Did I do anything . . . to you? Didn’t I
do you many . . .?” “Well, then, be brave and speak . . .,” “. . . stay in the
temple.” Eight lines missing; fragments of two lines.)

[63]
. . . covering
with a shield . . . and you spread this story . . . and let loose a spate of
words, venting your fury against me, saying that I’m no good at work in iron,
but am a cowardly, womanish creature, not to be counted as a male. And now you
have to hand these other new implements, the most detestable of all tools. And
you abuse me and my dancing, for which I’m summoning together the people of the
Isthmian land, and no one, young or old, stays away from these double rows of
dancers if he can help it. But you are playing the Isthmian competitor, and
with your wreath of pine-leaves you refuse the ivy its due honour. Well, you’ll
weep for this, you’ll weep tears that are not stung from you by mere smoke. But
don’t you see your darling close at hand?

[CHORUS]
[79]
No, I will
never leave the temple! Why do you keep threatening me so? I enter my new home,
the Isthmian house of Poseidon. But you must direct these gifts to others.

[?]
[84]
Since you
like to learn of novelties like these, I’m bring these new toys, freshly made,
straight from adze and anvil. Here’s the first plaything for you.

[CHORUS]
[89]
No, not for
me! Give it to one of my friends!

[?]
[90]
Don’t refuse,
my dear fellow! Why, think of the evil omen!

[CHORUS]
[91]
How can one
enjoy this thing? and how shall I use it?

[?]
[92]
It is
suited toe the new craft which you’ve taken up.

[CHORUS]
[93]
But what
are you willing to do in return, if I let you sail?

[?]
[94]
To be your
comrade at the Isthmian games, a most agreeable pursuit.

[CHORUS]
[95]
. . . bring
. . . shall go on board . . . you shall go on foot . . . ankles.

1. Text very doubtful: see Summary.
2.
Ogtogterôzoydêlosêsthodoiporôn
: other editors read this as
outoi
heterôs, ou, dêlos, ktl.
Prof. K. J. Dover makes the very attractive
suggestion that the words I have put in inverted commas may be a quotation from
one of Archilochus’ beast-fables. But I can find no evidence to substantiate
this.
3. Text very doubtful: see Summary.
4. Doubtless
erdoi tis ên hekastos eideiê technên
: “Let each other
practise the craft he knows” (Lobel).
5. Worn by competitors at the Isthmian games in early times.
6. Emblem of Dionysus

NIOBÊ

FRAGMENT 277

Ed. Pr. Vitelli-Norsa,
Bulletin de la société royale d’archéologie d’Alexandrie
28, 1933, 108,
with Plate.

The Papyrus gives
no direct indication of speaker or speakers. Are the words preserved spoken by
one speaker or no? And is all or part of the fragment spoken by Niobe herself?

Let us first
consider ll. 1-9. We know from Aristophanes (
Ran.
911 f.) and from the ancient
Life
of Aeschylus
(quoted below) that for the whole of the early part of the
play Niobe remained veiled and silent. Do these lines come from a speech made by
her, after she has at last broken her silence, or do they come from a
description of her behaviour by some other character? Three passages look as
though, if their text was complete, they would supply an answer to this
question. But of these three passages two (1-4, 10-11) are mutilated at the
vital point, and might be supplemented in accordance with either view. In l. 1,
we might read either
anasten[ein echo or anasten[ein echei.
L. 11 would
be most naturally filled in by a participle (e.g.
zêtôn, agôn
); but one
cannot rule out the possibility that the poet wrote, e.g.,
psuchês] komistra
têde, ktl
: in which case Niobe would after all have been the speaker. Ll.
6-8 should furnish a more certain indication, especially since they are quoted,
or rather paraphrased by Hesychius (cf. fr. 78). But unfortunately the text of
the papyrus is almost certainly corrupt, nor does Hesychius help us to amend it
with certainty.

Hesychius explains
the word
epôzein
as follows:
epikathêsthai tois ôois. Aischylos Niobê
metaphorikôs. ephêmenê taphon teknois epôze tois tethnêksin
. From this
scholars have inferred that the epoimôzousa of the papyrus in l. 7 is corrupt.
Those who think Niobe is not the speaker mostly suppose that the corruption
arose from
epôze
<
I zôsa
> (Latte), and in l. 8 supply a
participle; those who think she is in l. 7 read
epôazousa
and l. 8
supply an aorist indicative.

The verbs
epôzô
and
epôazô
can both mean “to sit on eggs”; but also both can mean “to
utter cries,” one deriving from
ô
and the other from
ôa
. (When
they mean “to sit on eggs,” they should properly be written with adscript iota
after the
ô
, but adscript iotas are so often omitted in papyri that the
absence of this is of no significance.) Hesychius, or rather his authority,
clearly thought that Niobe was compared to a hen; and some of those who share
his view argue against Niobe’s beign the speaker on the ground that she herself
can hardly have made such a comparison. But the argument has no force, since
Hesychius is unlikely to be right. The sense of “utter cries of lamentation” is
far better suited to the context; nor is it reasonable to insist that Niobe’s
silence must exclude the uttering of cries of lamentation. See Kloesel’s
excellent treatment of this point.

Page rightly says
that it would have been far easier for the MS. reading to be displaced by a
paraphrasing word that would not destroy the sense than by a word that would
destroy it; and this makes in favour of
epoimôzousa
as against
epôzei
zôna
. But it is still unlikely that those who supply an aorist in l. 8 are
right. Wolff’s
tritai]on
at the beginning of l. 6 is generally accepted.
He compares
Vita Aeschylus
s. 6, where in all MSS. except M we read
en
gar têi Niobêi heôs tritês hêmeras epikathêmenê tôi taphôi tôn paidôn ouden
phtheggetai
. The words
tritês hêmeras
may be a mere corruption of M’s
reading
tritou merous
. But even if it is,
tritaion
or some other
ordinal number is very probably right. Is it possible for
tritaion êmar . .
. ephêmenê
, “I have been sitting . . . for two days,” to be followed by a
main verb that is not present but aorist? Page explains his reading
eklausa
as being an instantaneous aorist, of the kind which in English is properly
rendered by a present. But I know of no case of a present participle that is
used closely with an indication of time, as
ephêmenê
is used with
tritaion hêmar, being followed by an aorist main verb. Instantaneous aorists of
this sort may be equivalent in sense to English presents, but they are not
treated as presents in Greek syntax. I therefore think it likely that whatever
was displaced by
epoimôzousa
must have included a main verb in the
present tense and that at the beginning of l. 8 we should supply a participle.

The favourite
supplement of those who insist that Niobe must be the speaker is therefore
unlikely to be right; but their main contention is not necessarily wrong. For
epoimôzousa
did not necessarily arise from
epôzei zôsa
. It may equally well have
arisen from
epôzô zôsa
; and though the ugly repetition of
zô
may
be thought to make against this reading, it is somewhat likelier to have given
reise to the corruption in the papyrus than is
epôzei zôsa
. Hesychius,
it is true, puts the verb in the third person; but since he is probably
paraphrasing the text rather than quoting it, this consideration has little
weight.

We are forced to
conclude that the text as it stands offers no reliable means of determining
whether Niobe speaks the lines or no. Those who argue that she does not contend
that their tone is too calm and reflective to be suitable to her. I feel some
sympathy with this argument, but it is not one that can be pressed far; though
it may derive some strength from the reflection that ll. 10-11 look as if they
are not spoken by or to Niobe. Not that this is certain.

Some scholars think
the fragment is part of a dialogue, ll. 1-9 being spoken by an actor, 10-13 by
the Chorus and the rest by the actor again. This cannot be ruled out, but is
unlikely to be right. The question in ll. 12-13 looks like a rhetorical
question of the kind that the asker himself at once proceeds to answer; for
such a question and answer in Aeschylus compare, for instance,
P.V.
500-4.

If the speaker is
not Niobe, who else may it be? Latte suggested Niobe’s nurse; others refuse to
credit a nurse with so much
semnotês
and suggest Niobe’s mother-in-law,
Antiope. There is some reason to suspect that a nurse was mentioned in this
play (see Lesky, l.c., p. 7); and as the single instance of the
Choephoroe
does not prove that all Aeschylean nurses were incapable of
semnotês
,
the nurse ahs a shade the better claim. But we cannot know which of them it
was, if it was either.

To sum up, we have
not sufficient evidence to know whether Niobe is the speaker or no. Nor can we
be quite sure that they belong to a single speaker, though it is likelier than
not that this is so. I suspect, although I cannot prove, that this speaker was
not Niobe, and my supplements are made accordingly. But I offer them with very
little confidence.

1-3 The speaker
does not mean to say: “She can only weep for Tantalus.” The speaker means to
say: “She can only weep for the disastrous marriage which Tantalus made for her”;
but this is expressed by means of the common construction exemplified, e.g., by
Eur.,
Med.
37:
dedoika d’autên mê ti bouleuêi neon
.

But she can only
lament over her luckless marriage, one that proved no haven, into which mighty
Tantalus, the father that begot her and gave her away., forced her fortune’s
ship. For the blast of all manner of evil is striking against her house, and
you yourselves can see the conclusion of the marriage. This is the third day
she has sat by this tomb, wailing over her children, the living over the dead,
and mourning the misfortune of their beauty. Man brought to misery is but a
shadow. Mighty Tantalus will in due course come here; to bring her home will be
the purpose of his coming. But what cause of wrath had the Father against
Amphion, that he has thus ruthlessly destroyed his family, root and branch?
Loyal as you are, I will tell you. A god causes a fault to grow in mortals,
when he is minded utterly to ruin their estate. But none the less, a mortal
must abstain from rash words, carefully nursing the happiness that the gods
give him. But in great prosperity men never think that they may stumble and
spill the full cup of their fortune. So it was that this woman, exultant in . .
. beauty . . .

PROMÊTHEUS
PYRKAEU
S

FRAGMENT 278

Ed. pr. Lobel,
P.
Oxy.
, vol. 20, no. 2245, with Plate I.

Aeschylus wrote
certainly three and probably four plays about Prometheus; the extant
Prometheus
Desmotes
, the
Prometheus Lyomenos
, the
Prometheus Pyrphoros
,
which was probably either the first or the third play of the trilogy that
contained the former two, and the
Prometheus Pyrkaeus
. The
last-mentioned play was probably the satyr-play produced in 472 together with
the
Persae
, the
Phineus
and the
Glaucus Potnieus
: see the
hypothesis to the
Persae
. The play probably dealt with the bringing of
fire to earth by Prometheus; and the numerous vases that show satyrs carrying
fire in fennel-stalks, sometimes accompanied by Prometheus himself, are likely
to be connected with it: see Beazley in
A.J.A.
43, 1939, 618; ibid., 44,
1940, 212; Brommer,
Satyrspiele
44, 79. Fraenkel is almost certainly
right in assigning this fragment to this play. Its subject-matter accords well
with what is known of the Pyrkaeus (see fr. 117 with note); and both the dance
and the allusion to the nymphs suggest satyric drama rather than tragedy. The
lines may belong to the chorus of satyrs; but he reference to Prometheus in the
third person does not preclude their belonging to Prometheus himself.

Terzaghi’s case for
attributing the fragment to the
Pyrphoros
rests on the word
chitôna
in l. 3. Satyrs, he says, do not wear chitônes and therefore the text cannot
belong to a satyr-play. But even if we could be sure that this word referred to
the dress of the Chorus, which we cannot, vases not infrequently show satyrs
dressed like ordinary people. Of course we do not know to which play the
fragment belongs; but there is no positive evidence in favour of Terzaghi’s
view.

. . . and . . . gracious kindness sets
me dancing. [Throw down] your bright cloak by the unwearying light of the fire.
Often shall one of the Naiads, when she has heard me tell this tale, pursue me
by the blaze within the hearth.
The nymphs, I know full well, shall join their dances in honour of Prometheus’
gift!
Sweet, I think, will be the song they sing in honour of the giver, telling how
Prometheus is the bringer of sustenance and the eager giver of gifts to men.
The nymphs, I know full well, shall join their dances in honour of Prometheus’
gift!
(Fragments of six more lines, including “. . . shine . . . shepherd’s
(shepherds?),” “night-wandering dance . . . crowned with . . . leaves,” “deep
thicket.”)