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OLD-SCHOOL STRENGTH: PELEUS AS OLD MAN IN EURIPIDES’ ANDROMACHE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 July 2022
Abstract
The Peleus of Euripides’ Andromache makes claims puzzlingly incongruous with his decrepit physical state; he threatens physical violence against the much younger Menelaus and denies his advanced age outright in conversation with Andromache. Peleus’ motivations for acting in such a way, Menelaus’ cause for acting as if these claims are true, and the literary or dramatic significance of these affairs, all pose problems which this article addresses, while also offering a first step towards a comprehensive methodology for understanding old age in Euripidean drama. It presents a unified view of old men across several plays, highlighting key patterns of their interaction with old age, and applies this broad perspective to a close analysis of Peleus’ portrayal in the Andromache. It argues that old men in the plays of Euripides can be viewed generally on either side of a dichotomy between giving effective counsel or participating effectively in physical conflict. Peleus subverts this dichotomy by denying the fact of his age throughout, an action which allows him to employ the skill in speaking gained by his old age as a dramatic substitute for direct physical confrontation and to occupy the social role of a younger man in the Greek household.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Footnotes
Many thanks to Helene Foley, Elizabeth Latham and CQ's reader as well as to the Editor for their encouragement and scrutiny.
References
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8 Mentor is a guise for Athena to instruct Telemachus, but Telemachus does not explicitly recognize Mentor as Athena herself, as he does when she appears to him as Mentes (Od. 1.324–5). Rather, he recognizes the wisdom of the goddess and the answer to his prayer in the words of Mentor (2.260–6, 2.296–7). This acceptance is not a foregone conclusion, moreover, as it is also possible for a mortal character (for example Pentheus) to reject the counsel of a god and suffer the consequences.
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10 Among the works not discussed in depth here, Tyndareus chastizes Menelaus and Orestes in the Orestes and defends the latter with words but does not participate in the revenge plot against Menelaus. In the Iphigenia in Aulis, the old man counsels Agamemnon in the prologue (which parts of it are genuine or spurious is beyond the scope of my argument) and is next seen failing to prevent Menelaus from snatching away Agamemnon's letter. Menelaus interrupts the old man's efficacy by forcing a counsellor to enter the realm of physical competition.
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14 Wilson (n. 1).
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