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Aeschylusü Oresteia And Archilochus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. Janko
R. Janko
Affiliation:
The University of St. Andrews
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Extract

In a recent article in this journal M. L. West made the plausible suggestion that some features of the parodos of Aeschylusü Agamemnon, including the famous simile of the vultures deprived of their young, display the influence of Archilochusü celebrated epode in which Lycambes was admonished with the tale of the fox and the eagle. I think a passage in the Choephoroe confirms his view.

One of the Oresteiaüs most characteristic traits is the manner in which themes and images recur during the trilogy. The simile of the vultures at Ag. 48 ff. and the omen of the eagle and the hare at 112 ff. are conspicuously placed and vividly drawn, and we are not surprised to find a resumption of this imagery in the Choephoroe, when the eagleüs nestlings, Electra and Orestes, are reunited and plan their revenge (Cho. 246–51, 255–9). Here we find the image reversed: the young have lost their parents, not the parent-birds their young as at Ag.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , December 1980 , pp. 291 - 293
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1980

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References

1 ’The Parodos of the Agamemnon’, CQ N.S. 29 (1979), 1–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Archilochus, frr. 88–95 Diels = frr. 172–81 West.

3 ap. Thomson, G., The Orestega of Aeschylus (Cambridge, 1938), p. 180.Google Scholar In the second edition (Amsterdam and Prague, 1966) Thomson rejects Headlamüs idea, but admits that is unexplained. Daweüs conjecture can be refuted on grounds of sense, since Electra has said that her brother has been faithful to her—all that is needed is for Force, Justice, and Zeus himself to join their side. If , is taken as referring to the bonds of loyalty between brother and sister, Orestes is praying about a matter that does not worry her, and neglects to pray about what does, namely the success of the conspiracy that they must now achieve. If on the other hand refers to compacts or agreements made between them on how to conduct the coup, we must face the problem that no such compacts have previously been mentioned, as Thomson remarks (ad loc.). Thus Headlam may be right, and the cautious will follow Pageüs . However Headlam (loc. cit.) hints at another possibility which deserves review in the light of Westüs theory, that the text of Aeschylusü own MS had this reading. He compares Persae 763 ’ with Archilochus, fr. 227 West ’ ü, and notes that just below at Persae 784 a line with two Ionic forms might be connected with him. In transmitted it is not difficult to emend , and the scansion of away, but there is some evidence to suggest that avoidable dialect forms could be retained in literary borrowing: cf. Forssman, B., Glotta 44 (1966), 5–14,Google Scholar on Pindar Pyth. 3.68 ff., and the Attic formula in Hesiod, Th. 19, 371 (Edwards, , The Language of Hesiod, pp. 102 f.).Google Scholar

4 Art. cit., p. 1.

5 West, pp. 2 f. Note also the parallel between Cho. 250 f., the nestlings … , and the same fable as told by Aesop (fab. 1(1) Hausrath): the eaglets were subjected to destruction because they were , where West prints and deletes as a gloss (Iambi et Elegi Graeci 1, p. 65). Certainly the adjective does not appear in any surviving fragment of Archilochus; but is not Aeschylusü usage some defence for it here?

6 Whether the theological consequences West extracts from his discovery of Aeschylusü source in the parodos are correct, I am not enough of a theologian to judge, although it reads well. This note is not intended to cast any light on the matter beyond confirming that Aeschylus did know and exploit Archilochusü epode.