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The Parabasis in Aristophanes: Prolegomena, Acharnians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. M. Bowie
A. M. Bowie
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
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Extract

In this article, an introduction to a proposed more comprehensive treatment of the subject, I wish to discuss the contribution that the parabasis makes to the understanding and interpretation of Aristophanes’ comedies. The study of this part of the plays has in the past concentrated upon two main areas: firstly, its role in the development of comedy, including questions about its original position in the dramatic structure and its relationship to other elements such as the parodos and agon; and secondly, its role as the repository of Aristophanes’ personal views.1 I shall touch but incidentally on the first of these, though my argument will have some bearing on it; to the second I shall return at the end. My aim is to consider an aspect of the parabasis that has not so much been neglected as dismissed as non-existent: the relation between the contents of the parabasis and those of the rest of the play. It is generally agreed that the parabasis deals with matters that are irrelevant to the dramatic action, but I wish to argue that it has a significant role as the focus of the most important themes in the play: far from breaking up the unity of the play, the parabasis provides indications as to where that unity is to be found, besides giving hints about the meaning of the play and the nature of Aristophanic comedy generally.2

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , May 1982 , pp. 27 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1982

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References

1 On the parabasis in general, see most recently Sifakis, G. M., Parabasis and Animal Choruses (London, 1971), with full bibliography.Google Scholar The principal studies are: Zieliński, T., Die Gliederung der altattischen Komödie (Leipzig, 1885);Google Scholar Harsh, P. W., ‘The Position of the Parabasis in the Plays of Aristophanes’, TAPA 65 (1934), 178–97;Google Scholar Herter, H., Vom dionysischen Tanz zum komischen Spiel(Iserlohn, 1947), pp. 31 ff.Google Scholar (particularly valuable reviews of earlier scholarship); Gelzer, T., Der epirrhematische Agon hei Aristophanes (Munich, 1960), pp. 203–12, 255–7;Google Scholar Fraenkel, E., ‘Die Parabasenlieder’, in Beobachtungen zu Aristophanes (Rome, 1962), pp. 191–215Google Scholar (repr. in Newiger, H.-J.(ed.), Aristophanes und die alte Komödie (Darmstadt, 1975), pp. 30–54);Google Scholar Händel, P., Formen und Darstellungsweisen in der aristophanischen Komödie (Heidelberg, 1963), pp. 84–111.Google Scholar

2 The charge of irrelevance needs no exemplification, but has recently been restated by Dover, K. J., Aristophanic Comedy(London, 1972), p. 52,Google Scholar McLeish, K., The Theatre of Aristophanes (London, 1980), pp. 91 f.,Google Scholar and with reference to Acharnians by Koch, K.-D., Kritische Idee und komisches Thema, ed. 2 (Bremen, 1968), p. 24.Google Scholar Only Harsh (n. 1), pp. 187 f. has considered the question of links, but in a very broad fashion; for Knights, cf. Landfester, M., Die Ritter des Aristophanes (Amsterdam, 1967), pp. 40–4; for Lysistrata, J. Vaio, ‘The Manipulation of Theme and Action in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata’, GRBS 14 (1973), 371 f.Google Scholar

3 486 B.C.; cf. D. W. Lucas on Arist. Poet. 1449b. 1–2 (Aristotle: Poetics, Oxford 1968, p. 90).Google Scholar

4 On fragments of other poets which may come from parabases, cf. Whittaker, M., ‘The Comic Fragments in their Relation to the Structure of Old Attic Comedy’, CQ 29 (1935), 188–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Herington, C., in a review of Sifakis, cautions against too hasty an ascription of fragments to parabases, Phoenix 26 (1972), 292–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Attempts to reconstruct backwards, as if a linguistic problem were involved, are especially dangerous. Compare, for instance, Pickard, A.-Cambridge, Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy (ed. 2 by Webster, T. B. L., Oxford, 1962), p. 143: ‘the fact that we can trace the steps by which Aristophanes attempted to work it better into the whole, suggests that if we were able to trace its development backwards, we should find that it was originally a non-dramatic performance’. Harsh (n. 1), p. 186 n. 18, argues in quite the opposite direction: ‘the parabasis was originally relevant to the theme of the remainder of the play, but came in time to be used for any cause which the poet might choose’.Google Scholar

6 Kranz, W., Stasimon (Berlin, 1933), p. 25.Google Scholar For other proponents of this theory cf. Herter (n. 1), p. 54 n. 152, to which add Genz, H., de Parabasi, (Diss. Berlin 1865), pp. 6 ff.,Google Scholar and Kaibel, G., ‘Zur attischen Komödie’, Hermes 24 (1889), 38.Google Scholar

7 Gelzer, T., ‘Dionysisches und Phantastisches in der Komödie des Aristophanes’, Probleme der Kunstwissenschaft 2 (1966), 55–70. On the historical relationship between epirrhematic agon, parodos and parabasis, see in general Pickard-Cambridge (n. 5), pp. 147–51, with Webster’s criticisms, pp. 159–62. On the agon and parabasis, Herter (n. 1), pp. 31–3, 55 n. 165 (bibliography); Gelzer has recently suggested that the similarity in form is fortuitous, but Sifakis (n. 1), pp. 53–60 points out that the epirrhematic form is more appropriate to the agon and probably originated there.Google Scholar

8 Sifakis, pp. 60–8.

9 For this pause, cf. Händel (n. 1), pp. 86 f.

10 The principal proponents of each view are conveniently listed by Gelzer (n. 1), p. 212 n. I (though note, with Harsh (n. 1), pp. 194 f., that Poppelreuter, de comoediae atticae primordiis particulae duae (Diss. Berlin 1893), pp. 32 ff., though credited with the parabasis-prologue idea, ultimately rejected the need to move the parabasis); cf. Sifakis (n. 1), pp. 15–21 for the principal theories, with references.Google Scholar Sodano, A., ‘La parodos parabatica dei Pluti di Cratino. Metrica e struttura’, Rend. Acad. Arch. Lettere e Belle Arti di Napoli 36 (1961), 37–54, argues for the parabasis-parodos theory on the not very convincing grounds of the parabasis-like parodoi of Cratinus’ Pluti and Aristophanes’ Frogs.Google Scholar

11 ‘Breaking the dramatic illusion’ is not, of course, the only argument for transposition: see Sifakis (n. 1), pp. 17 and 55–68. On ‘breaking the illusion’ cf. recently McLeish (n. 2), pp. 64–92; Muecke, F., ‘Playing with the Play: theatrical self-consciousness in Aristophanes’, Antichthon 11 (1977), 52–67;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Bain, D., Actors and Audience (Oxford, 1977), pp. 3–12 and 208–22.Google Scholar

12 So Zieliński, pp. 242 ff. On the possible Doric origin of the iambic scenes cf. Pickard- Cambridge(n.5), pp. 162–210, with Webster's qualifications at pp. 173 f.and 177 f.;Henderson, J., The Maculate Muse (New Haven and London, 1975), pp. 223–8;Google Scholar and most importantly, Breitholz, L., Die dorische Farce im griechischen Mutterland vor dem 5. Jahrhundert. Hypothese oder Realität? (Stockholm, 1960).Google Scholar

13 I shall refer to this section throughout as the ‘anapaests’; it is also known as the ‘parabasis proper’ and άпλo***ν, but I shall reserve ‘parabasis’ for the whole, as some ancient critics did (cf. Gelzer (n. 1), p. 204 n. 3). All the extant plays have anapaests here except the Clouds with Eupolideans. On the metres of the parabasis, cf. Whittaker (n. 4) and Sifakis (n. 1), pp. 33–6, 45–51. On the ancient terminology, Cantarella, R., Aristofane. Le commedie: I. Prolegomeni (Milan, 1949), pp. 98–102.Google Scholar

14 This identification of poet and hero is not uncommon in the early plays, so it is not true to say, with de Ste Croix, that Dicaeopolis is the character who ‘alone of Aristophanes’ characters of whom we know anything is carefully and explicitly identified with the poet himself’ (Croix, G. E. M. de Ste, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London, 1972), p. 363). Nor, as will become clear, can I agree with him that this means that Dicaeopolis is speaking for Aristophanes.Google Scholar

15 The pattern of the play is thus that common in ritual, where a period of chaos is followed by the imposition of order. This raises the question of comedy's relation to ritual, to which I shall return in a subsequent study of the Knights. I shall suggest that that play is based upon a common myth-type, a gigantomachy forming the climax of a succession myth. If this is accepted, then it allows one to offer explanations for the sudden changes at the end of the play, and to account for the base character of the sausage-seller, who is supposed to be the saviour of Athens.

16 Bailey, C. suggested (in ‘Who Played “Dicaepolis”?’ Greek Poetry and Life (Oxford, 1936), pp. 231–40)Google Scholar that Aristophanes himself took the leading role, which would give added point, but is unlikely: cf. Russo, C. F., Aristofane autore di teatro (Florence, 1962), pp. 59 ff.Google Scholar

17 This parallel, and Aristophanes’ notoriously cavalier treatment of the truth about himself, should make one wary of drawing from such remarks conclusions about the parabases of Banqueters and Babylonians, as is done, for instance, by Harsh (n. 1), p. 191.

18 For this trial cf.Whitman, C. H., Aristophanes and the Comic Hero (Cambridge, Mass. 1964), p. 307 n. 2, and add V. Steffen, ‘Qua lege fretus Cleon Aristophanem in iudicium deduxerit’, Eos 48 (1956), 67–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Apart from the comic exaggeration, there is also a nice ambiguity in 642. The sentence could mean, for Athenian ears, ὅτι δημoκρατoûνται, καì ἄνευ τυραννίδoς άλλήλoις πειθόμενoι (schol.’s second interpretation), or with an ironical reference to Babylonians, ‘showing the people in the cities just what “democratic” rule means’ (cf. schol. Ach. 378).

20 For Spartan overtures to Persia, cf. Thuc. 2. 67, 4. 50. Any reminder to the Athenians of the judicial murder of the Spartan envoys in 430 here (Thuc. 2. 67. 4) would accord with the general emphasis on Athenian violence in the play (see below). See also Lewis, D. M., Sparta and Persia (Leyden, 1977).Google Scholar

21 On the complex question of Athenian-Persian relations at this time, cf. the survey in Meiggs, R., The Athenian Empire (Oxford, 1972), pp. 487–95; Lewis (n. 20), Index s.v. ‘Athens’.Google Scholar

22 ξЄνικoίσι λόγoις has two meanings, both of which are significant: (1) it suggests the rhetorical fireworks of people like Gorgias (LSJ9 s.v.ξενικός II); (2) with the schol. Weber, H., Aristophanes-Studien (Leipzig, 1908), pp. 73 ff., sees references to Banqueters and Babylonians here, which is also appropriate.Google Scholar

23 On Pseudartabas’ language, see the contrasting views of Dover, K. J., ‘Notes on Aristophanes’ Acharnians’, Maia 15 (1963), 7 f., and M. L. West, ‘Two Passages of Aristophanes’, CR n.s. 18 (1968), 5–8.Google Scholar

24 Cf. Thuc. 2. 29, 67.

25 Cf. Weber (n. 22), pp. 90–5; van Leeuwen on Kn. 753–5; Henderson (n. 12), pp. 209–11.

26 S.vv. . For the ancient testimony, cf. Blaydes ad loc.

27 On Telephus, cf. Handley, E. W. and Rea, J., The Telephus of Euripides, BICS Suppl. 5 (1957), esp. pp. 22–5, 33–5 on Aristophanes.Google Scholar Rau, P., Paratragodia (Munich, 1967), pp. 19–42, puts less trust in the evidence fróm Aristophanes. It is not certain (a) that the seizure of the child took place on stage in Euripides (cf. Handley-Rea, pp. 36 f.) and (b) how closely Dicaeopolis’ speech is modelled on the original (Rau, pp. 27 f).Google Scholar

28 Cf. 318, 355, 359, 366, 486 f., with Rau (n. 27), p. 27. For ‘chopping-board’, cf. Fraenkel, E., Aeschylus, Agamemnon, iii (Oxford, 1950), p. 529. Handley-Rea (pp. 35, 46) follow Bergk in ascribing the lines to the Telephus, and suggest they were spoken by Menelaus after Telephus’ self-defence.Google Scholar

29 For such a change in the attitude of the chorus after the agon, compare the parabases of Wasps and Birds.

30 Cf. H. T. Wade-Gery, ‘Thucydides the Son of Melesias’, JHS 52 (1932), 205–27 (repr. in Essays in Greek History (Oxford, 1958), pp. 239–70); A. Andrewes,‘The Opposition to Pericles’, JHS 98 (1978), 1–8. His aphasia, for which his trial was famous (Wasps, 946 ff.), makes him a particularly appropriate symbol for the chorus (cf. 683, quoted in text).Google Scholar

31 τώιλίθωι might refer back ironically to the stones used so much by the Acharnians in their earlier guise (184, 236, 285, 295, 319, 341, 343).

32 Aristophanes’ prologues merit attention generally in this respect. -There is a further good example in Thesmophoriazusae, where the apparent nonsense about seeing and hearing, and Mnesilochus’ final confusion about what he sees/is to see or hear, heralds the dominant idea of the play, whereby nothing is quite what it seems, from the moment Agathon appears to the end, where everyone on stage, bar the Scythian, actually is, or is disguised as, a woman.

33 Poetic or high-style words: (only here). For Dicaeopolis’ repeated references to his heart, cf. 480–9 with its fourfold address to his θυμός (480,483) and καρδία (485,489). Elsewhere in Aristophanes, such apostrophes are rare: θυμóς add 450, Kn. 1194 (sausage-seller at play's climax); ψυχή Wasps 756. On the problems of ‘poetic’ words in this passage cf. K. J. Dover, ‘Lo stile di Aristofane’, QUCC 9 (1970), 7–23, reprinted in Newiger (n. 1).

34 For the actual identity of this man cf. Griffith, J. G., ‘Amphitheos and Anthropos in Aristophanes’, Hermes 102 (1974), 367–9.Google Scholar

35 In many ways the Lamachus episode forms a ring with the opening scenes of the play: there are further references to the luxurious life-style of the young (601–6, 614–17); to the misuse of μισθoί (597, 608, 619), again with reference to Thrace (602); 606 Kαταγέλαι picks up 76; 613 and 64 refer to Ecbatana; 592 repeats the obscenity of 158. This ring-composition prepares for the repetition of the themes in the parabasis which follows.

36 On these two words cf. Weber (n. 22), p. 80.

37 Cf. Whitman (n. 18), pp. 70 f.

38 I agree with Rennie, W., The Acharnians of Aristophanes (London, 1909), p. 234, that 971–99, are not a ‘second’Google Scholar parabasis: ‘as there are no anapaests and the metre is cretic throughout with the exception of 987 = 999 trochaic tetrameter, it is hard to see more than the strophe and antistrophe of an ordinary stasimon’. So also Newiger, H.-J., Metapher und Allegorie (Munich, 1957), p. 70 n. 3, and Sifakis, p. 35.Google Scholar

39 Cf. Whitman (n. 18), p. 73. Lamachus at this point recalls the Acharnians in the parodos: both are injured in the leg (219, 1177–9); stones are involved (236, 1180); they are both afraid of mockery (221 ⋯γχάνηι, 1197 ⋯γχάνoι); 1188, from the Telephus, applied now to Lamachus, suggests that he has taken over the role of the sufferer from Dicaeopolis or the chorus.

40 For ἔντoνoѕ= ‘impetuoso, veemente’, cf. A. C. Cassio, ed il nomos orthios’, RFIC 99 (1971), 56. For this kind of change during the parabasis, compare the Birds, where the recital of the Creation myth leads to the new world where humans sprout their wings and rout the gods with the help of their bird-allies.

41 Thucydides’ fate as one (707) links him to Amphitheos expelled by the Archers (54); cf. 711 f.

42 Cf. Henderson (n. 12), p. 59. His whole essay on Acharnians (pp. 57–62) should be consulted on this topic.

43 ibid. pp. 182, 175, 211; LSJ9 s.v μoλύνω I. 1.

44 On this use of χoîρoς cf. L. Radermacher, ‘Xoîρoς “Mädchen”?’, Rh.M. 89 (1940), 236–8; Zeitlin, F. I., “The Dynamics of Misogyny in the Oresteia’, Arethusa II (1978), 165 f., with n. 18.Google Scholar

45 Cf. Erbse, H., ‘Zu Aristophanes’, Eranos 52 (1954), 81–7.Google Scholar

46 Pucci, P., ‘Saggio sulle Nuvole’, Maia 12 (1960), 27, sees here a comic reversal of the usual situation where the young fight in battle, while the old excel in speaking; cf. 71 f.Google Scholar

47 The verbs διὠκω,φεύγω occur five (185, 204, 216, 221, 235) and six (177bis, 203, 210, 217, 222) times respectively in the sixty lines from Amphitheos’ departure to the Acharnians’ encounter with Dicaeopolis (174–236).

48 The choral ode 836–59 thus contains three o f the four main problems that Dicaeopolis will be free of: sycophancy and law-suits, sexual misdemeanours and hunger (854–9). The exclusion of the musically hasty Artemon is also noteworthy (850 f.).

49 On the Megarian Decree (or decrees), see de Ste Croix (n. 14), pp. 225–89 (esp. 237–44 on Acharnians), and App. xxxvi (pp. 383–6) for a historical interpretation of 515–23; Schwarze, J., Die Beurteilung des Perikles durch die attische Komödie (Munich, 1971), pp. 135–9.Google Scholar

50 The closing scenes of the play also indicate a number of detailed improvements: the herald at 1000 inaugurates happier proceedings than that at 43; 1075,1141 Lamachus suffers the frosts earlier inflicted on Dicaeopolis by Theognis’ tragedies (11, 140); 1081, 1107, 1126 Lamachus is mocked by Dicaeopolis, where at 76, 606, 680 Athens or the old men were mocked (all καταγέλως, etc.); 1123 Dicaeopolis possesses the κριβανîται earlier enjoyed by the ambassadors (85 f.); 1218 Lamachus swoons at his wound as Dicaeopolis had done at his armour (581, both εἰλιγγι***); 1219 Lamachus complains σκoτoδινι***, where the chorus had seen only 684 τ***ς; δ⋯κης τ⋯ν ἠλύγην, at their time of trouble.

51 Perhaps the clearest example of a ‘contradiction’ is found in Lys. 1137 ff., where Lysistrata attempts a reconciliation by reminding the Spartans how Athens came to her aid in 462, which, if serious, would hardly be tactful: (Thuc. 1. 102. 3). Nor would the Athenians have been terribly pleased to be reminded of how they had had to join the Peloponnesian League after Sparta had ‘liberated’ them from Hippias.

52 Cf. e.g. Dover (n. 2), pp. 87 f.

53 Cf. Russo, C. F., Aristofane, Gli Acarnesi (Bari, 1953), p. 150.Google Scholar For Triptolemus cf. Richardson, N. J., The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford, 1974), pp. 194–6.Google Scholar

54 Admittedly, this joke is not fully understood, though it is hard to see what else it could mean. The scholiasts only underline the problem: that on 653 says Aristophanes had land on Aegina; that on 654 states first that Aristophanes was a cleruch there, but then says that and that it is likely that Callistratus is meant, who was a cleruch (cf. schol. on Pl. Apol. 19c). The reference to Callistratus is no doubt to be explained as the result of the mistaken belief that he is the ‘I’ of the parabasis.

55 The case for a serious message behind Aristophanes’ comedies has been restated by McLeish (n. 2), pp. 56–62.

56 The relationship between play and parabasis here described is not unique to Acharnians, as I hope to show subsequently. For reading drafts of this paper I wish to thank R. D. Hunter and R. J. Seager; they helped me to see certain problems more clearly and provided useful references.