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CONCEALED KYPRIS IN THE IPHIGENIA AT AULIS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 April 2020
Extract
In their first stasimon, the chorus of Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis (= IA) praises ‘concealed Kypris’ as a marker of virtue for women (568–72):
- μέγα τι θηρεύειν ἀρετάν,
- γυναιξὶ μὲν κατὰ Κύ-
- πριν κρυπτάν, ἐν ἀνδράσι δ᾿ αὖ
- κόσμος ἐνὼν ὁ μυριοπλη-
- θὴς μείζω πόλιν αὔξει.
It is something great to hunt for excellence. For women, it is according to concealed Kypris, and among men in turn manifold order being within makes the city grow greater.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 2020
Footnotes
I am grateful to Daniel DeWispelare, Mika Natif, Anne-Sophie Noel, Michelle Wang and the audience at CAMWS in April of 2018 for their helpful comments and suggestions.
References
1 The text is that of Collard, C. and Morwood, J., Euripides: Iphigenia at Aulis (Liverpool, 2017)Google Scholar.
2 Many later poems contain related terminology: Mel. Anth. Pal. 12.114 = 75 GP calls for the evening star to escort the speaker's lover in secret (λάθριος), and Ariphron's Hymn to Hygeia mentions πόθων οὓς κρυφίοις Ἀφροδίτας ἕρκεσιν θηρεύομεν (‘desires which we hunt with the secret nets of Aphrodite’, PMG 318.5).
3 See Pirenne-Delforge, V., L'Aphrodite grecque (Liège, 1994)Google Scholar for more on Aphrodite as Kypris and Calame, C., The Poetics of Eros in Ancient Greece (Princeton, 1999), 39–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar for the semantics of φιλότης.
4 The phrase κρυπταῖσιν εὐναῖς (‘secret beds’) at El. 922 would also fall into this category, if we accept the line as genuine. It is deleted by Kovacs in his Loeb edition.
5 See the helpful summary of which lines are accepted by which editors in Lushnig, C., ‘Euripides: Iphigenia at Aulis’, in Roisman, H. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Greek Tragedy (Chichester, 2014), 1.428–35, at 1.430–1Google Scholar. P.Köln II.67 contains the reading κρυπτάν, but the part of the line where we would expect to find Κύπριν is unfortunately not extant.
6 Various approaches to this line are described by Stockert, W., Euripides: Iphigenie in Aulis (Vienna, 1992), 368Google Scholar.
7 Diggle, J., Euripidis fabulae. Tomus III (Oxford, 1994), 380Google Scholar: ‘Κύπριν κρυπτάν furtum olet; κρυπτάν ad ἀρετάν referre magis gratum quidem sed durius.’
8 G.A. Cesareo, Euripide: Ifigenia in Aulide (Milan, 1962), 77; Stockert (n. 6), 368; Collard and Morwood (n. 1), 391.
9 Stockert (n. 6), 368 agrees with Pohlenz that ‘daß die mehrdeutige Wendung im gegebenen Kontext als Antithese zum Wirken der Männer offensichtlich und für den Hörer klar verständlich die Stille des Hauses bezeichnet.’ Cf. Foley, H.P., Ritual Irony: Poetry and Sacrifice in Euripides (Ithaca, NY, 1985), 80CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘Women should hunt areta (moral excellence) in the concealed sphere of love and marriage (568–70), whereas men have infinite ways to serve their city (570–72).’ Similar remarks at Gibert, J.C., Change of Mind in Greek Tragedy (Göttingen, 1995), 248Google Scholar.
10 See Collard and Morwood (n. 1), 30–1 on the anomalous status of the chorus.
11 Swift, L., The Hidden Chorus: Echoes of Genre in Tragic Lyric (Oxford, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Michelakis, P., Euripides: Iphigenia at Aulis (London, 2006), 42Google Scholar; Zeitlin, F., ‘The artful eye: vision, ekphrasis, and spectacle in Euripidean theatre’, in Goldhill, S. and Osborne, R. (edd.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge, 1993), 138–96, at 159–60Google Scholar notes that their ‘aesthetic appreciation is already tinged with an erotic coloring’.
13 See Foley (n. 9), 82 on epithalamic elements in the third stasimon. For more on the chorus’ final appearance and its textual reliability, see Weiss, N.A., ‘The antiphonal ending of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis (1475–1532)’, CPh 109 (2014), 119–29Google Scholar.
14 See Mastronarde, D., The Art of Euripides (Cambridge, 2010), 134CrossRefGoogle Scholar on the forward-looking aspects of this stasimon. Agamemnon's accusation that Menelaus loved his wife to excess (386–90) may have offered some thematic coherence to the ode's position in the play.
15 Stockert (n. 6), 359–60 discusses the religious ramifications of the makarismos in this line.
16 For similar choral passages about the dangers of female sexuality and agency in other Euripidean plays, see Hipp. 525–34 and Med. 627–43.
17 The earlier designation of Aphrodite as καλλίστα (‘most beautiful’, 553) may refer to the contest of Paris they describe at line 580.
18 Collard and Morwood (n. 1), 391: ‘is it here a great thing and virtuous for women merely to hide it, or by implication to end it?’ They also note the connection with the strophe. Cf. the gloss at Cammelli, L., Euripide: Ifigenia in Aulide (Milan, 1964), 58Google Scholar: ‘schivando l'amore clandestino, illegittimo’.
19 For lamentation at the wedding, see Levaniouk, O., ‘Sky-blue flower: songs of the bride in modern Russia and ancient Greece’, in Bers, V., Elmer, D. and Muellner, L. (edd.), Donum natalicium digitaliter confectum Gregorio Nagy septuagenario a discipulis collegis familiaribus oblatum (Washington, 2012), n.p.Google Scholar
20 See Stafford, E., Worshipping Virtues: Personification and the Divine in Ancient Greece (London, 2000), 111–45Google Scholar on the role of persuasion in the Greek wedding.
21 The IA is a late play of Euripides, produced posthumously soon after 406. For more on Aphrodite and Eros in the wedding ceremony, see Stafford, E., ‘From the gymnasium to the wedding: erôs in Athenian art and cult’, in Sanders, E., Thumiger, C., Carey, C. and Lowe, N.J. (edd.), Erôs in Ancient Greece (Oxford, 2013), 175–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Further images of Greek weddings can be found in Oakley, J. and Sinos, R.H., The Wedding in Ancient Athens (Madison, 1993)Google Scholar.
22 Foley (n. 9), Seaford, R., ‘The tragic wedding’, JHS 107 (1987), 106–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Rabinowitz, N.S., Anxiety Veiled: Euripides and the Traffic in Women (Ithaca, NY, 1993), 38–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
23 Cf. Ion 71–3 and Od. 11.244, in which Poseidon covered (κρύψεν) himself and Tyro with a wave and commanded her to raise their children. Ebbott, M., Imagining Illegitimacy in Classical Greek Literature (Lanham, 2003), 21Google Scholar identifies bastards as being born from hidden unions lacking the sanction of a public wedding ceremony.
24 At Il. 16.173–9, Polydore has a child with the river-god Sperchios but is then married openly (ἀναφανδόν) to Boros. Cf. Il. 2.515 and Od. 6.288.
25 Lyghounis, M.G., ‘Elementi tradizionali nella poesia nuziale greca’, MD 27 (1991), 159–98, at 163Google Scholar: ‘La rilevanza del carattere pubblico della cerimonia è espressa pure da avverbi come ἀμφάδιον ricorrenti nelle descrizioni di nozze; per contro, altrettanto frequenti sono i termini λάθρη, σκότιος, κρυπτός, per caratterizzare un'unione illegittima’. Cf. Kirstein, R., Junge Hirten und alte Fischer: Die Gedichte 27, 20 und 21 des Corpus Theocriteum (Berlin, 2007), 81CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For more on the Greek wedding ritual, see Oakley and Sinos (n. 21).
26 For more on this rite, see Llewellyn-Jones, L., Aphrodite's Tortoise: The Veiled Woman of Ancient Greece (Swansea, 2003), 227–48Google Scholar and Ferrari, G.P., ‘What kind of rite of passage was the ancient Greek wedding?’, in Dodd, D.B. and Faraone, C.A. (edd.), Initiation in Ancient Greek Rituals and Narratives: New Critical Perspectives (London, 2003), 27–42Google Scholar.
27 Foley, H.P., ‘Marriage and sacrifice in Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis’, Arethusa 15 (1982), 159–80, at 170Google Scholar mentions the role of Agamemnon as a father in arranging the sacrifice that replaces Iphigenia's marriage.
28 Achilles accepts his role as bridegroom, as argued by Foley (n. 9), 73.
29 Radding, J., ‘Clytemnestra at Aulis: Euripides and the reconsideration of tradition’, GRBS 55 (2015), 832–62Google Scholar argues that the play presents Clytemnestra as a good wife forced to change because of Agamemnon's actions.
30 In this, she reverses what she sees as Agamemnon's attempt to usurp the maternal role in the wedding ceremony (722–40).
31 The strongest statement of this opinion comes in Smith, W., ‘Iphigenia in love’, in Bowerstock, G.W., Burkert, W. and Putnam, M.C.J. (edd.), Arktouros: Hellenic Studies Presented to Bernard M.W. Knox on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (Berlin, 1979), 173–80, at 174Google Scholar: ‘she is in love, and chooses to sacrifice herself for her intended husband’. For more cautious expressions, see Foley (n. 9), 75, who is followed by Michelini, A., ‘The expansion of myth in late Euripides: Iphigeneia at Aulis’, ICS 24/25 (1999–2000), 41–57, at 51Google Scholar and Rabinowitz (n. 22), 47; Gibert (n. 9), 237–9 provides a useful discussion of the idea, but does not see why Iphigenia's feelings would not be more clearly expressed.
32 Cf. the chorus’ claim that Helen and Paris fell in love because they gazed on each other ‘with eyes turned towards each other’ (ἐν ἀντωποῖς βλεφάροις, 584); Zeitlin (n. 12), 167–71 traces the importance of vision throughout the play and argues that Iphigenia's final change of mind comes from viewing the army.
33 Foley (n. 9), 77 connects the chorus’ first stasimon with Iphigenia's affection for Achilles: ‘If she is motivated by an emerging eros, it is the controlled eros appropriate to marriage, … not the uncontrolled passion that swept Helen into a marriage first with Menelaus, then with Paris.’ I would argue that Iphigenia's affection would indeed be like that of Helen's, but differs in being kept secret.
34 For a defence, not totally convincing, of these lines, see Jouan, F., Euripide: Iphigénie a Aulis (Paris, 1983), 142Google Scholar.
35 Clytemnestra's language recalls that of Cassandra in Aesch. Ag. 1183, an allusion noted by Radding (n. 29), 843–4.
36 Michelakis (n. 12), 52 notes that Achilles’ concern for Iphigenia and her sacrifice on behalf of the army appear to reverse the masculine and feminine roles of the first stasimon.