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Peisetaerus' ‘Satyric’ Treatment of Iris: Aristophanes Birds1253–6*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2012

E.W. Scharffenberger
E.W. Scharffenberger
Affiliation:
New York
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Extract

The messenger goddess Iris alights at Birds 1199 in the city of Cloudcuckooland. She has been dispatched by Zeus to instruct mortal men on earth to maintain their sacrifices in honor of the Olympian gods, not yet aware that the birds, with the protagonist Peisetaerus as their leader, have founded this city as the hub of an empire that aims to wrest control of the universe from her divine family. This, however, she learns from a tense exchange with Peisetaerus, who forbids her passage through the birds' aerial domain.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 115 , November 1995 , pp. 172 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1995

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References

1 I use the text of Hall, F.W. and Geldart, W.M., Aristophanis comoediae (Oxford 1906).Google Scholar The text and commentary by Dunbar, Nan, Aristophanes Birds (Oxford 1995)Google Scholar were not available to me when I submitted this note for publication.

2 Most recently. Kossatz-Deissmann, A., ‘Iris I’, LIMC v.1 (Zurich and Munich 1990) 751–2Google Scholar; previously Daremberg, C., Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines iii.l (Paris 1900) 576Google Scholar, and Dümmler, F., Archaeologische aufsätze [= Kleine schriften iii], ed. Boehlau, J. (Leipzig 1901) 29–30.Google Scholar Kossatz-Deissmann has provided an up-dated list of vases depicting Iris’ encounter with the satyrs. For a reconstruction of the myth and the plot of the satyr-play(s), see Simon, E., ‘Satyr-plays on vases in the time of Aeschylus’, in The eye of Greece: studies in the art of Athens, ed. Kurtz, Donna and Sparkes, Brian (Cambridge 1982) 125–9Google Scholar; also Sutton, D.F., The Greek satyr play (Meisenheim am Glan 1980) 69–72Google Scholar, and Brommer, F., Satyrspiele 2 (Berlin 1959) 21–3 and 70.Google Scholar

Achaeus' satyr play Iris (= Achaeus fr. 19–23 Nauck and TrGF) is dated to the second half of the fifth century BC; so Simon 130 n. 49, citing TrGF i 20.1. Simon, ibid., has suggested that the scene on London BM E65, attributed to the Brygos Painter and dated to 490–80 BC, was inspired by an earlier satyr-play by Pratinas, an older contemporary of Aeschylus. (For photograph, see LIMC iii.2, 531 [Dromis I].) Brommer 70 has posited other dramas ‘wie ein solches beispielsweise für Achaios überliefert ist’; so also Kossatz-Deissmann, ibid. Such may have inspired the painting on Tarquinia, Mus.Naz. RC 1122 (LIMC V.2, 496 [Iris I 117]), which is dated to c450 BC and depicts Iris making an oratorical gesture toward a satyr.

3 Kossatz-Deissmann 751; also Simon 126–7 and Brommer 23. But Simon 127 n. 24 has minimized the ‘erotic intentions’ of the satyrs, remarking that their aim in laying hold of Iris is to retrieve the offering (in plain view on Berlin, Staatl. Mus. F 2591 (LIMC v.2, 495 [Iris I 113]), dated to c 460 BC) that she stole from their altar. Simon has identified this offering as a tongue, but, given its size and shape, the contention that it is a tail seems far more plausible.

4 I am informed by Guy Hedreen that the cup by the Brygos Painter (London BM E65) is the earliest reliable evidence for a story about Iris and satyrs. Webster, T.B.L., JHS lxx (1950) 85–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in his review of Brommer, Satyrspiele 1, suggested that the myth appeared as early as 540 BC. But the goddess represented on the black-figure lekythos, upon which he based this date, is not identifiable as Iris.

5 So Bees, R., ‘Zu Aristophanes, “Vögel” 1197 f. = fr. adesp. 47’, WüJhh N.F. xviii (1992) 125–32Google Scholar (with bibliography); vs. Rau, Peter, Paratragodia: Untersuchungen einer komischen Form bei Aristophanes (Munich 1967) 176–7Google Scholar, who has argued against the influence of Pr. in Av. 1197 ff.

6 Green, J.R., ‘A representation of the Birds in Aristophanes’, in Greek vase paintings in the J.P. Getty Museum ii (Malibu 1985) 111, 117–8.Google Scholar Green's concluding hypothesis (118), that Aristophanes and his fellow dramatists drew inspiration for their plays from costumes and props, lends credence to the idea that they also looked to other objects such as painted vases.

7 Sutton, D.F., Two lost plays of Euripides (New York 1987) 68.Google ScholarSommerstein, A.H., ed., Aristophanes: Peace (Warminster 1985)Google Scholar, n. on 296–8 (with bibliography), has posited the influence of Aeschylus’ satyric Netfishers upon this scene in the Peace.

8 One red-figure vase (Florence, Mus. Naz. 4218 (LIMC v.2, 499 [Iris 1 167]), attributed to the Kleophrades Painter and dated to c.480 BC), which depicts centaurs pestering Iris, may show what is in fact a variant of the satyr myth. If so, this variant may have set a precedent for Aristophanes in replacing satyrs with another type of hybrid creature.

It is unlikely that Peisetaerus was ithyphallic; so Stone, L., Costume in Aristophanic comedy (Salem, NH 1984) 85Google Scholar and 116 n. 45. In this regard Peisetaerus would have differed from his satyric counterparts with, I imagine, humorous obviousness.

9 I thank the editor and referee for calling my attention to Ach. 271–5 and V. 768–9.

10 For the hyper-sexuality of satyrs, see Hedreen, G.M., Silens in Attic black-figure vase-painting (Ann Arbor 1992) 158–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Silens, nymphs, and maenads’, JHS cxiv (1994) 47–69. For the recurrent theme of sexual assault in satyr-plays, see Sutton (n. 2) 148 et passim. Also Lissarrague, F., ‘Why satyrs are good to represent’, in Nothing to do with Dionysus?, ed. Winkler, J.J. and Zeitlin, F.I. (Princeton 1990) 235–6.Google Scholar

11 Seaford, R.A.S., ed., Euripides, Cyclops (Oxford 1988)Google Scholar n. on 177–87; Hedreen (n. 10) 65–6.

12 Cyclops 179–82:

[‘Then, when you caught the young woman, did you all bang her in turn, since she likes to get married to many men, the faithless bitch …’ (translation mine).]

The verbs (Av. 1254) and (Cyc. 180) in particular lend to the casually callous tone of both passages; see Henderson, J.J., The maculate muse 2 (Oxford 1991) 171–3.Google Scholar