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CHORAL PROJECTIONS AND EMBOLIMA IN EURIPIDES' TRAGEDIES*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2015
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In his Poetics Aristotle argued that the chorus being one of the actors, as in Sophocles, was its finest function, while he criticized Euripides' choruses for not being part of the whole and not sharing in the action. Aristotle also mentioned that in the work of other tragic poets (probably from the late fifth century onwards) the chorus's odes stood outside the context of the dramatic myth, and named these odes embolima, ascribing their origin to Agathon (who was active in the last quarter of the fifth century bc). So we should not assume that in Aristotle's view Euripides was responsible for paving the way for the practice of the embolima. However, it is at least certain that, in his opinion, Euripides' choral odes were less dependent upon the dramatic plot than those of Sophocles.
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Translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.
References
1 Poetics 1456a 25–32: καὶ τὸν χορὸν δὲ ἕνα δεῖ ὑπολαμβάνειν τῶν ὑποκριτῶν καὶ μόριον εἶναι τοῦ ὅλου καὶ συναγωνίζεσθαι μὴ ὥσπερ Εὐριπίδῃ ἀλλ' ὥσπερ Σοϕοκλεῖ. τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς τὰ ἀιδόμενα οὐδὲν μᾶλλον τοῦ μύθου ἢ ἄλλης τραγῳδίας ἐστίν˙ διὸ ἐμβόλιμα ἄιδουσιν πρώτου ἄρξαντος Ἀγάθωνος τοῦ τοιούτου (‘the chorus should be treated as one of the actors; it should be a part of the whole and should participate, not as in Euripides but as in Sophocles. With the other poets, the songs are no more integral to the plot than to another tragedy – hence the practice, started by Agathon, of singing interlude odes’; translation from Halliwell, S. (ed.), Aristotle. Poetics [Cambridge, MA, 2005])Google Scholar. I think that the phrase καὶ μόριον εἶναι τοῦ ὅλου καὶ συναγωνίζεσθαι (my emphasis) is inserted to explain the initial sentence τὸν χορὸν δὲ ἕνα δεῖ ὑπολαμβάνειν τῶν ὑποκριτῶν, to which it is joined by the conjunction καί (the bold one), functioning here as an explanatory conjunction. For problems of understanding this passage, see Mastronarde, D. J., ‘Il coro euripideo: autorità e integrazion’, QUCC 60 (1998), 67–9Google Scholar (esp. 67, n. 20, on the wording of the text). See also Csapo, E. and Slater, W. J., The Context of Ancient Drama (Ann Arbor, MI, 1995), 349–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mastronarde, D. J., The Art of Euripides. Dramatic Technique and Social Context (Cambridge, 2010), 88, 145–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Early references are Scholia Soph. Aj. 601: οἱ ἀπὸ τοῦ Χοροῦ λόγον περιπαθῆ δεξιᾶσι…καὶ ἔχει ἀκολουθίαν τὰ χορικά (‘the members of the chorus give a passionate speech…and the chorus's odes are relevant to the dramatic actions’); O.T. 471: ἀκόλουθά εἰσι τὰ τοῦ Χοροῦ πρὸς τὰ προειρημένα (‘the odes of the chorus follow what has been told before'); Scholia Aristoph. Ach. 443: τοὺς δ' αὖ χορευτάς: Καὶ διὰ τούτων τὸν Εὐριπίδην διασύρει. οὗτος γὰρ εἰσάγει τοὺς χοροὺς οὔτε τὰ ἀκόλουθα ϕθεγγομένους τῇ ὑποθέσει, ἀλλ' ἱστορίας τινὰς ἀπαγγέλλοντας, ὡς ἐν ταῖς Φοινίσσαις, οὔτε ἐμπαθῶς ἀντιλαμβανομένους τῶν ἀδικηθέντων, ἀλλὰ μεταξὺ ἀντιπίπτοντας (‘By this phrase, he [Aristophanes] ridicules Euripides. For it is Euripides who brings his choruses in such a way that they neither sing in relation to the myth, reciting some other stories instead, as it is in the Phoinissae, nor do they sympathize with the aggrieved heroes, but their narration lies somewhere in between the plot of the myth').
3 See Kranz, W., Stasimon. Untersuchungen zu Form und Gehalt der Griechischen Tragödie (Berlin, 1933), 252–60Google Scholar, on his idea of ‘dithyrambic stasima’ as narrative odes (‘die ἱστορίαι’). In fact, this idea was introduced by Plato, who distinguishes the dramatic genres from dithyramb by observing that tragedy and comedy work ‘only through imitation’ while the dithyramb employs ‘the recital of the poet himself’: τῆς ποιήσεώς τε καὶ μυθολογίας ἡ μὲν διὰ μιμήσεως ὅλη ἐστίν, ὥσπερ σὺ λέγεις, τραγῳδία τε καὶ κωμῳδία, ἡ δὲ δι' ἀπαγγελίας αὐτοῦ τοῦ ποιητοῦ – εὕροις δ' ἂν αὐτὴν μάλιστά που ἐν διθυράμβοις (‘there is one kind of poetry and tale-telling which works wholly through imitation, as you remarked, tragedy and comedy; and another which employs the recital of the poet himself, best exemplified, I presume, in the dithyramb’; Resp. 3.394c, translation from Shorey, P., Plato. Republic [Cambridge, MA, 1969])Google Scholar.
4 Csapo, E., ‘Later Euripidean Music’, in Cropp, M., Lee, K., and Sansone, D. (eds.), Euripides and Tragic Theatre in the Late Fifth Century, ICS 24–5 (1999–2000), 399–426Google Scholar; Csapo, E., ‘The Politics of the New Music’, in Murray, P. and Wilson, P. (eds.), Music and the Muses. The Culture of Mousike in the Classical Athenian City (Oxford, 2004), 207–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the essays in Kowalzig, B. and Wilson, P. (eds.), Dithyramb in Context (Oxford, 2013)Google Scholar; and LeVen, P. A., The Many-headed Muse. Tradition and Innovation in Late Classical Greek Lyric Poetry (Cambridge, 2014)Google Scholar.
5 For the chorus taking on a dramatic role, see Calame, C., ‘From Choral Poetry to Tragic Stasimon: The Enactment of Women's Song’, Arion 3 (1994–5), 136–7 and 146–8Google Scholar.
6 Ar. Poet. 1149a14–18: καὶ τό τε τῶν ὑποκριτῶν πλῆθος ἐξ ἑνὸς εἰς δύο πρῶτος Αἰσχύλος ἤγαγε, καὶ τὰ τοῦ χοροῦ ἠλάττωσε, καὶ τὸν λόγον πρωταγωνιστὴν παρεσκεύασεν, τρεῖς δὲ…. Σοϕοκλῆς (‘Aeschylus innovated by raising the number of actors from one to two, reduced the choral component, and made speech play the leading role. Three actors…came with Sophocles’; translation from Halliwell [n. 1]). In the case of dithyramb, an early sign of a decrease of choreia elements is given by the dramatic synthesis of Bacchylides' Theseus (probably 458 bc), where the dialogue between Aegeus and the chorus (performing as if being an actor) seems to impede the choral performance of the ode. For the dramatic character of this dithyramb, see Zimmermann, B., Dithyrambos. Geschichte einer Gattung (Göttingen, 1992), 94–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Kenyon, N. G., The Poems of Bacchylides (London, 1897), 175Google Scholar, who first edited the papyrus of Bacchylides, characterized Bacchylides' Ode 18 as lyric drama, the only one extant in lyric poetry.
7 The ritual role of the tragic chorus arises from the dithyrambic origins of tragedy, first observed by Aristotle in the Poetics 1449a11: see Pickard-Cambridge, A., Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy (Oxford, 1962)Google Scholar. More recently, see the essays in Csapo, E. and Miller, M. C. (eds.), The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Beyond. From Ritual to Drama (Cambridge, 2007)Google Scholar.
8 This was first mentioned by Davidson, J. F., ‘The Circle and the Tragic Chorus’, G&R 33 (1986), 39–41Google Scholar; he distinguished choruses who ‘refer to their own dancing while they execute it’ from choruses who ‘refer to dancing which is happening or which has already happened in off-stage contexts performed either by themselves or, more often, by others’.
9 Henrichs, A., ‘Dancing in Athens, Dancing on Delos: Some Patterns of Choral Projection in Euripides’, Philologus 140 (1996), 48–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar (quotations from 49 and 50); also idem, ‘“Why Should I Dance?” Choral Self-referentiality in Greek Tragedy’, Arion 3 (1994–5), 56–111Google Scholar. More recently, see the special study by Csapo, E., ‘Star Choruses: Eleusis, Orphism, and New Musical Imagery and Dance’, in Revermann, M. and Wilson, P. (eds.), Performance, Iconography, Reception. Studies in Honour of Oliver Taplin (Oxford, 2008), 262–90Google Scholar.
10 Kranz (n. 3) had already considered the role of the chorus as double: that of an actor and of a performer. On the association of the tragic chorus with ritual, see, generally, Fitton, J. W., ‘Greek Dance’, CQ 23 (1973), 254–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Easterling, P. E., ‘Tragedy and Ritual’, in Scodel, R. (ed.), Theatre and Society in the Classical World (Ann Arbor, MI, 1993), 7–23Google Scholar. More recently, see, B. Kowalzig, ‘“And Now All the World shall Dance!” (Eur. Bacch. 114): Dionysus’ Choroi Between Drama and Ritual', in Csapo and Miller (n. 7), 221–51.
11 Choral projections appear in the following Euripidean plays (in chronological order): Heracleidai 777–83 (projection onto choruses of young men and maidens at the Panathenaic festival); Hecuba 455–65 (onto the Deliades), 466–74 (onto choruses of virgins of Athens); Heracles 348–58 (onto choruses of Phoebus), 370–4 (onto the Peliades), 687–95 (onto the Deliades), 763–7 (onto choruses of Thebes); Electra 432–7 (onto the Nereids and dolphins), 464–8 (onto choruses of the stars, the Pleiades and Hyades), 699–720 (onto choruses of Pan); Helen 1301–68 (onto a divine choreia in ‘Demeter's ode’), 1451–6 (onto Nereides and kallichoroi dolphins), 1465–77 (onto Spartan maiden choruses), 1478–86 (onto flying birds) 1487–94 (onto cranes dancing among the Pleiades and Orion); IT 427–32 (onto the Nereids), 1089–1105 (onto virgins honouring Artemis), 1123–31 (onto the dance of Helen's ship returning home), 1138–52 (onto maiden choruses of the past), 1242–4 (onto Bacchic choruses on Parnassus); Ion 492–502 (onto choruses of Pan), 1074–86 (onto choruses of the stars and Nereids); Phoinissai 226–38 (onto a future dance of the chorus at Delphi), 649–56 (onto Bacchic choruses of Theban maidens and women), 786–8 (onto maiden choruses and choruses of the Graces); ΙΑ 1036–47 (onto the Pierides Muses), 1076–9 (onto the Nereids). In the Bacchae, choral projecting is especially interesting, since the chorus's Bacchic performance on the orchestra is variously combined with the imagined Theban female thiasoi honouring Dionysus on Cithaeron (see below, p. 47, and n. 82). The chronological order of Euripides' plays is based on Collard, C., Euripides (Oxford, 1981), 2Google Scholar.
12 See Rosivach, V. J., ‘The First Stasimon of the Hecuba’, AJPh 96 (1975), 349–62Google Scholar.
13 On the Deliades, see Calame, C., Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece. Their Morphology, Religious Role, and Social Function, trans. Collins, D. and Orion, J. (Oxford, 2001), 104–10Google Scholar; and more recently Kowalzig, B., Singing for the Gods. Performances of Myth and Ritual in Archaic and Classical Greece (Oxford, 2007), 56–128CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The emphasis by Nagy, G., Poetry as Performance. Homer and Beyond (Cambridge, 1996), 56Google Scholar, on the archetypal function of the Delian Maidens in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, 156–64, is a strong argument for the ritual role assumed here by the chorus of Heracles through their projection onto the Deliades' choreia. See also Nagy, G., Pindar's Homer. The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past (Baltimore, MD, 1990), 43 and 375–7Google Scholar.
14 The celebration of the Great Mysteries of Demeter began with the Iacchus procession (Paus. 1.38.6). For details, see Csapo (n. 9), 267–8.
15 Translation from Lee, K. H., Euripides. Ion (Warminster, 1997)Google Scholar.
16 Csapo (n. 9), 276, observes that the chorus here ‘partakes of a form of astral immortality’.
17 For the Nereids as a ‘marine thiasos’, see Barringer, J., Divine Escorts. Nereids in Archaic and Classical Greek Art (Ann Arbor, MI, 1995), 142Google Scholar. For the Nereids as counterparts of the dolphins, see Csapo, E., ‘The Dolphins of Dionysus’, in Csapo, E. and Miller, M. C. (eds.), Poetry, Theory, Praxis. The Social Life of Myth, Word, and Image in Ancient Greece. Essays in Honour of William J. Slater (Oxford, 2003), 69–98Google Scholar.
18 The Nereids are often associated with the sisters of Dionysus' mother, Semele. In Hesiod's Theogonia Agaue (247) and Autonoe (258) are numbered among the fifty daughters of Nereus, while in Pindar, Ol. 2.28–30, Ino is said to be a nymph among the Nereids and to live an endless life (βίοτον ἄϕθιτον) in the sea. Pherecydes (c.465 bc) calls Semele Hyas and identifies the Hyades as nurses of the new-born Dionysus (FGrH 3 F 90a); see Csapo (n. 9), 275.
19 See also Eur. IA 1055–7. Din-words declare circular movements (Eur. Or. 982–3); like helik/s-words (see below, n. 34), they frequently describe dionysiac dance (Eur. Phoen. 792; Ar. Thesm. 122 [with Bentley's emendation δινεύματα]).
20 Pickard-Cambridge (n. 7), 32.
21 Though accepted by modern scholars, this ancient scholarly view has reasonably been challenged by Davidson (n. 8) and Ley, G., The Theatricality of Greek Tragedy. Playing Space and Chorus (Chicago, IL, and London, 2007), 125–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for details, see Csapo (n. 9), 281.
22 For the priority of ecstatic dancing in this Dionysus Ode, see Scullion, S., ‘Dionysos and Katharsis in Antigone’, ClAnt 17 (1998), 96–122Google Scholar.
23 Graf, F., Eleusis und die orphische Dichtung Athens in vorhellenistischer Zeit, Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten 33 (Berlin and New York, 1974), 51–8Google Scholar.
24 Walsh, G. B., ‘The First Stasimon of Euripides’ Electra', in Gould, T. and Herrington, C. J. (eds.), Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 1977), 277Google Scholar. The play has been dated to 420–410 bc, but it is doubtful whether Euripides' Electra precedes or follows that of Sophocles; for this problem, see Roisman, H. M. and Luschnig, C. A. E., Euripides' Electra. A Commentary (Norman, OK, 2011), 28–31Google Scholar.
25 Denniston, J. D., Euripides. Electra (Oxford, 1939), 102Google Scholar, on line 434.
26 Translation from Morwood, J., Euripides. Medea, Hippolytus, Electra, Helen (Oxford, 1997)Google Scholar.
27 Iliad 18.483–9: ἐν μὲν γαῖαν ἔτευξ', ἐν δ' οὐρανόν, ἐν δὲ θάλασσαν, / ἠέλιόν τ' ἀκάμαντα σελήνην τε πλήθουσαν, / ἐκ δὲ τὰ τείρεα πάντα, τά τ' οὐρανὸς ἐστεϕάνωται, / Πληϊάδας θ' Ὑάδας τε τό τε σθένος Ὠρίονος / Ἄρκτόν θ', ἣν καὶ Ἅμαξαν ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσιν, / ἥ τ' αὐτοῦ στρέϕεται καί τ' Ὠρίωνα δοκεύει, / οἴη δ' ἄμμορός ἐστι λοετρῶν Ὠκεανοῖο (‘therein he wrought the earth, therein the heavens, therein the sea, and the unwearied sun, and the moon at the full, and therein all the constellations wherewith heaven is crowned – the Pleiades, and the Hyades and the mighty Orion, and the Bear, that men call also the Wain, that circleth ever in her place, and watcheth Orion, and alone hath no part in the baths of Ocean'; translation from Murray, A. T., Homer. The Iliad [Cambridge, MA, 1924])Google Scholar.
28 In Od. 5.272 (Πληιάδας τ᾽ ἐσορῶντι καὶ ὀψὲ δύοντα Βοώτην, ‘as he watched the Pleiades and the late-setting Boötes’), Odysseus observes the Pleiades on his westerly course. Hesiod underlines their importance in the farmer's calendar (e.g. Op. 383–8, 571–2) and their significance for seafarers (618–28). In [Sapph.] fr. adesp. 976 PMG, the Pleiades along with the Moon are the counterparts of loneliness in the night (δέδυκε μὲν ἁ σελάνα / καὶ Πληϊάδες, / μέσαι δὲ / νύκτες, παρὰ δ' ἔρχεθ' ὥρα˙/ ἐγὼ δὲ μόνα καθεύδω, ‘the Moon and Pleiades have set / half the night is gone. / Time passes. / I sleep alone’; translation from Rayor, D. J., Sappho. A New Translation of the Complete Works [Cambridge, 2014], 21)Google Scholar. In Pind. Nem. 2.11, the Pleiades are mentioned as neighbours of Orion. And in Aeschylus fr. 312 Radt, the Pleiades are referred to as the seven daughters of Atlas, who were transformed into nocturnal figures without wings, mourning for the deed of their father.
29 Ferrari, G., Alcman and the Cosmos of Sparta (Chicago, IL, 2008), 17Google Scholar.
30 Tsantsanoglou, K., Of Golden Manes and Silvery Faces. The Partheneion 1 of Alcman, Trends in Classics 16 (Berlin and Boston, MA, 2012), 63CrossRefGoogle Scholar(ad 60–3); Tsantsanoglou's interpretation is based on close reading of the wording of the text and the Scholia of the Louvre Papyrus.
31 For this stasimon, see below n. 44. For imaginary circular choruses of the Pleiades and the Hyades, see Csapo (n. 9), 280. Both the Pleiades and the Hyades are also located in the constellation of Taurus (Aratus, Phaen. 173); in rituals, the bull is particularly associated with Dionysus (Eur. Bacch. 1017).
32 Translation from Murray (n. 27).
33 The singular (dolphin) may be also taken as plural (dolphins). See Csapo (n. 17), and recently B. Kowalzig, ‘Dancing Dolphins on the Wine-dark Sea: Dithyramb and Social Change in the Archaic Mediterranean’, in Kowalzig and Wilson (n. 4), 31–58.
34 According to Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von, Euripides. Herakles, second edition (Berlin, 1895, repr. 1959), 159Google Scholar, ἑλίσσειν (‘whirling’) is Euripides' Lieblingswort (‘favourite word’).
35 For the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus, see Nobile, C., ‘L'inno omerico a Dioniso (Hymn. Hom. VII) e Corinto’, Acme 62.3 (2009), 3–35Google Scholar.
36 For presumably choral connotations of the verb πήδησαν (‘they leaped’) here, see below n. 42.
37 Herodotus' narrative should be considered later than the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus, which, in all likelihood, dates to the seventh or sixth century bc; see Kowalzig (n. 33), 34, n. 9.
38 On this ‘contradiction’, see S. Lavecchia, ‘Dithyramb and Dionysian Initiation’, in Kowalzig and Wilson (n. 4), 64, n. 39. For the possibility that Arion's dithyramb was performed to the kithara tune, see recently J. C. Franklin, ‘Songbenders of Circular Choruses: Dithyramb and the “Demise” of Music’, in Kowalzig and Wilson (n. 4), 220–2.
39 Csapo (n. 17), 78–90, has argued the importance of these paintings in producing the ‘cultural imaginary’ (imaginaire) of dithyramb. For vases representing dolphins dancing in dionysiac context, see Vidali, S., Archaische Delphindarstellungen (Würzburg, 1997), 234, 41–2, 53–4, 58–9, 105–11Google Scholar; for more bibliographical references, see Lavecchia (n. 38), 65, n. 45.
40 Pindar's reference connecting dolphin(s) with pipes (fr. 140b 15–17 Maehler: ἁλίου δελϕῖνος ὑπόκρισιν, / τὸν μὲν ἀκύμονος ἐν πόντου πελάγει / αὐλῶν ἐκίνησ' ἐρατὸν μέλος [‘in the manner of a dolphin of the sea, which the lovely melody of pipes excited in the expanse of the waveless deep’; translation from Race, W., Pindar, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA, 1997)])Google Scholar is excepted from what is mentioned here.
41 See Csapo (n. 17), 94–5; G. Hedreen, ‘The Semantics of Processional Dithyramb’, in Kowalzig and Wilson (n. 4), 182–3.
42 See B. Kowalzig, (n. 33), 34, who considers the choral connotations of the verb πηδᾶν, used in both the Hymn (πήδησαν, 52) and Herodotus (ἐξεπήδησε, 1.24) for the katapontismos of the pirates and Arion respectively.
43 Translation from Kovacs, D. (ed. and tr.), Euripides. Helen, Phoenician Women, Orestes (Cambridge, MA, 2002)Google Scholar.
44 It should be noticed that in the third stasimon of Helen, which begins with the choral projection pattern of the ship dancing with the dolphins, there is a remarkable choral projection to cranes flying among the Pleiades and Orion (1487–90, in the second strophe). See D. Steiner, ‘Dancing with the Stars: Choreia in the Third Stasimon of Euripides’ Helen', CP 106 (2011), 299–323; Steiner considers the choral projections of the ode as a proof of Euripides' engagement with the musical innovations of the New Dithyramb.
45 Beazley, J. D., Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters (Oxford, 1956), 146.21Google Scholar.
46 For details, see Isler-Kerényi, C., Dionysos in Archaic Greece, trans. Watson, W. G. E. (Leiden, 2007), 182–5Google Scholar. For scenes of dolphins carrying hoplites, see Kowalzig (n. 33), 37–47.
47 Mantziou, M., ‘A Hymn to the Dolphins: fr. adesp. 939 PMG’, Hellenica 40 (1989), 229–37Google Scholar; West, M., ‘Metrical Analyses: Timotheus and Others’, ZPE 45 (1982), 8–9Google Scholar; Campbell, D. A., Greek Lyric V. The New School of Poetry and Anonymous Songs and Hymns (Cambridge, MA, 1993), 361Google Scholar; Furley, W. D. and Bremer, J. M., Greek Hymns. Selected Cult Songs from the Archaic to the Hellenistic Periods, 2 vols (Tübingen, 2001), ii.377–8Google Scholar.
48 Translation from Campbell (n. 47).
49 For the idea that the circular chorus of Arion's dolphins may be seen as a mythical prototype of the dithyrambic circular choruses, see Lavecchia (n. 38), 64–5 (esp. nn. 39, 40). For further discussion on the circular choruses and their connection to the dithyrambic genre, see now P. Ceccarelli, ‘Circular Choruses and the Dithyramb in the Classical and Hellenistic Period: A Problem of Definition’, in Kowalzig and Wilson (n. 4), 153–70 (esp. 162–70). See also above, nn. 20, 21.
50 Translation from Seaford, R., Euripides. Bacchae (Warminster, 1996)Google Scholar.
51 Henrichs (n. 9, 1996), 54–62, strongly argues for the dionysiac character of the choral projections described in the second stasimon of Heracles.
52 I should also note that in the narrative of the Bacchae the description of the wild deeds of the maenads begins with Agave's invocation of her companions as rushing dogs (ὦ δρομάδες ἐμαὶ κύνες, 731).
53 For the interpretative character of the language of the New Music, see LeVen (n. 4), 150–88 (esp. 160–72).
54 See n. 44.
55 Csapo (n. 17), 78, knows of thirteen mentions of dancing dolphins in ancient literature after Euripides.
56 The verse is rather corrupted, but ϕέρει and ἀπὸ πάντων are not disputed.
57 Perhaps it is a passage from an unknown tragedy (TrGF 5.2 fr. 856).
58 Probably, line 1316 (κερκίδος ἀοιδοῦ μελέτας, ‘profound cares of the shuttle bard’) belonged to Euripides' Meleagros (TrGF 5.2 fr. 528a).
59 See Walsh (n. 24), 277.
60 Mastronarde (n. 1, 2010), 141.
61 See also the projection onto the chorus of the Muses in the wedding of Peleus and Thetis in Pind. Nem. 5.22–6.
62 Translation from Morwood, J., Euripides. Iphigenia among the Taurians, Bacchae, Iphigenia at Aulis, Rhesus (Oxford, 1999)Google Scholar.
63 Cf. Eur. Bacch. 158–61, 409–16.
64 See above, nn. 17, 18.
65 Decharme, P., Euripides et l'esprit de son théâtre (Paris, 1893), 462Google Scholar (‘un embolimon au vrai sens du mot’); Paley, F. A., Euripides (London, 1872), ii.194Google Scholar; Dale, A. M., Euripides. Helen (London, 1967)Google Scholar, on Hel. 1301–68, comments on the complete irrelevance of the ode. For a general survey of earlier views, see Kannicht, R., Helena (Heidelberg, 1969), 327–8Google Scholar; Allan, W., Euripides. Helen (Cambridge, 2008), 294–5. AlthoughGoogle Scholar Kannicht argues for the relevance of the ode (327), he admits that the problem is not resolved (334).
66 See Golann, C. P., ‘The Third Stasimon of Euripides’ Helena', TAPhA 76 (1945), 31–46Google Scholar (esp. 31–3, in the context of the passage of Arist. Poetics 1456a25–32); Robinson, D. B., ‘Helen and Persephone, Sparta and Demeter: The “Demeter Ode” in Euripides’ Helen', in Bowersock, G. W., Burkert, W., and Putnam, M. C. J. (eds.), Arktouros. Hellenic Studies Presented to Bernard M. W. Knox on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (Berlin, 1979), 162–72Google Scholar.
67 In Hymn Hom. Cer. 5–8, Persephone is dancing with the Oceanides when she is abducted by Pluto. The element of dancing was probably connected with the abduction of virgins; Aphrodite, too, was abducted by Hermes while dancing (ἐκ χοροῦ) with nymphs and maidens (Hymn Hom. Ven. 117–20).
68 Translation from Kovacs (n. 43).
69 The Muses and the Graces are often seen as dancing in Pindaric odes (e.g. Ol. 14.1–10; Pyth. 1.1–4; Nem. 5.22–5).
70 See Eur. Bacch. 23–4: πρώτας Θήβας τάσδ'…ἀνωλόλυξα (‘Thebes here was the first…land that I made to ululate’) and 1133 αἱ δ' ἠλάλαζον (‘and they were raising the triumph cry’; as in the manuscripts). In tragedy, ἀλαλάζειν (the triumphant cries of males celebrating a victory) is often interchanged with ὀλολύζειν (the ritual cries of women); see Henrichs (n. 9, 1994–5), 104, n. 99.
71 The narrative style of lines 1346–52 (ἔλαβε, γέλασεν, δέξατο; ‘she took up’, ‘laughed’, ‘took into her hand’) induces only a brief and deceptive interruption of the immediate choreia (after the direct evocation in lines 1341–5).
72 The vocative ὦ παῖ (like ὦ τέκνον) is used when the addressee is younger than the speaker; see Aesch. Sept. 686, with the comment by Hutchinson, G. O., Aeschylos. Septem Contra Thebas (Oxford, 1985)Google Scholar. That the addressee here is Persephone was accepted by Pearson, A. C., The Helena of Euripides (Cambridge, 1903)Google Scholar. On the problem of the addressee, see the comments by Kannicht (n. 65) and Allan (n. 65), on Hel. 1355–7; see also Robinson (n. 66), 167–8. There is a reference to Persephone –also unexpected – very early in the play, at the time of the chorus's entrance to the orchestra, where Helen performs a lyric (the first strophe of the parodos) in which she calls the Sereins to accompany her mourning with a Libyan aulos and a syrinx/phorminx, and appears eager to offer graces to Persephone with a paean for the dead of the Trojan War in a nocturnal ceremony (167–78). What is created in this way is an imaginary choreia under Helen's leadership. In particular, the reference to the Libyan aulos subtly connects the fictional chorus of the Sereins and Helen with the real chorus performing to the sound of the aulos.
73 On hair-streaming as a Bacchic element, see Eur. Bacch. 150.
74 The fawn-skin robes (nebrides) are the characteristic costumes of Bacchants (Eur. Bacch. 24).
75 Ivy leaves have a prominent place in dionysiac worship (Eur. Bacch. 25, 81, 106, 384).
76 The fennel stalk (thyrsos/narthex) is the primordial symbol of dionysiac vigour and violence, used by the maenads against their enemies (Eur. Bacch. 113–14, 733, 1099).
77 See West, M., Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1992), 122Google Scholar.
78 For the religious rituals implied by the ode, see Kannicht (n. 65), 328–33; Allan (n. 65), 294–5. See also Swift, L. A., The Hidden Chorus. Echoes of Genre in Tragic Lyric (Oxford, 2010), 229–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who sees echoes of partheniac ritual in the Demeter ode.
79 L. Battezzato, ‘Dithyramb and Greek Tragedy’, in Kowalzig and Wilson (n. 4), 102–10; see also S. Murnagham, ‘The Choral Plot of Euripides’ Helen', in Gagné, R. and Hopman, M. G. (eds.), Choral Mediations in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 2013), 157–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The view that tragedy must be read as ritual song is pivotal in the study of Swift (n. 78), who investigates echoes of five lyric genres (paian, epinikion, partheneia, hymenaios, and threnos) in tragic lyric. On the ritual dances in Sparta, see the choral projection at Hel. 1466–76 in the third stasimon, and Steiner (n. 44), 305–8.
80 Battezzato (n. 79), 106.
81 See above, n. 55.
82 A. Bierl, ‘Maenadism as Self-referential Chorality in Euripides’ Bacchae', in Gagné and Hopman (n. 79), 211–26.
83 This is proved by the architecture of the Hellenistic theatres that have survived (e.g. in Oropos and Epidauros). It is also worth noticing that from the fourth century bc onwards the extant fragments of tragedies mention the performance of the chorus as ΧΟΡΟΥ or ΧΟΡΟΥ ΜΕΛΟΣ; see West, M., Greek Metre (Oxford, 1982), 80Google Scholar, n. 10.