Debating with the Eumenides : Aspects of the Reception of Greek Tragedy in Modern Greece [1 ed.] 9781527514676, 9781443879644

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Debating with the Eumenides Aspects of the Reception of Greek Tragedy in Modern Greece

Pierides Studies in Greek and Latin Literature Series Editors: Philip Hardie, Stratis Kyriakidis, Antonis K. Petrides Volume I Stratis Kyriakidis Catalogues of Proper Names in Latin Epic Poetry: Lucretius – Virgil – Ovid Volume II Antonis K. Petrides and Sophia Papaioannou (eds) New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy Volume III Myrto Garani and David Konstan (eds) The Philosophizing Muse: The Influence of Greek Philosophy on Roman Poetry Volume IV Sophia Papaioannou (ed.) Terence and Interpretation Volume V Stephen Harrison (ed.) Characterisation in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses Nine Studies Volume VI Stratis Kyriakidis (ed.) Libera Fama: An Endless Journey

Pierides Studies in Greek and Latin Literature

Volume VII Debating with the Eumenides Aspects of the Reception of Greek Tragedy in Modern Greece Edited by

Vayos Liapis, Maria Pavlou and Antonis K. Petrides

Debating with the Eumenides: Aspects of the Reception of Greek Tragedy in Modern Greece (Pierides VII) Series: Pierides Edited by Vayos Liapis, Maria Pavlou and Antonis K. Petrides This book first published 2017 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2017 by Vayos Liapis, Maria Pavlou, Antonis K. Petrides and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7964-9 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7964-4

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contributors ............................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements ................................................................................... xii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Antonis K. Petrides Chapter One ................................................................................................. 9 Can Transmission and Transformation be Reconciled? Lorna Hardwick Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 26 George Seferis and Euripides’ Bacchae Michael Paschalis Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 39 Myth, the Mask and the “Masquerade” of Femininity: Performing Gender in Yannis Ritsos’ “Ismene” Demetra Demetriou Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 63 The Brightness of Philoctetes’ Weapons in Yannis Ritsos’ “Philoctetes” Maria Pavlou Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 102 Dialogising Aeschylus in the Poetry of Kyriakos Charalambides Antonis K. Petrides Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 122 Memories of Heroines in Memories of Spectators: Mythic, Dramatic and Theatrical Time from the Ancient Drama to the Modern Greek Theatre Theodore Grammatas and Maria Dimaki-Zora

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Table of Contents

Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 132 How to Do (in) Kings with Words: Radically Rewritting the Myth of the Atreids in Athens, 1964 Gonda Van Steen Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 169 Very Tragical Mirth: Myth and the Tragic in Pavlos Matessis’ Towards Eleusis Ioannis Konstantakos Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 202 Cassandra and the Centaur: Greek (Tragic) Myth in Marios Pontikas’ Play Neighing Vayos Liapis Bibliography ............................................................................................ 218 General Index .......................................................................................... 244

CONTRIBUTORS

Demetra Demetriou holds a PhD (2013) and an MPhil (2008) in Comparative Literature from Paris-Sorbonne University (Paris IV) and a BA (2007) in Greek Philology from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She received undergraduate and graduate scholarships for excellence by the Cyprus State Scholarship Foundation and the A.G. Leventis Foundation and has been awarded grants by the University of Bristol and the Norman University Pole. She is currently an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Nicosia (Department of Education), where she has been teaching since 2014. In 2015 she worked as an Adjunct Lecturer (instructor and coordinator) at the Open University of Cyprus. She has also taught at the Department of French and European Studies of the University of Cyprus in 2015 and the Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies of the University of Cyprus in 2013. From 2011 to 2016 she participated in various research programs led by the University of Cyprus (Department of French and European Studies; Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies; Department of History and Archaeology). Demetra specialises in the fields of comparative literary studies, myth criticism, postmodern and feminist theory, and cultural and literary theory. Her essays on Modern Greek literature of the 20th-21st centuries, with a particular interest in the work of Yannis Ritsos, George Seferis, contemporary women’s writing (1970-), and Greek literature of Cyprus adopt a comparative perspective and have been presented in peer-reviewed journals, edited volumes, and international conferences. Maria Dimaki-Zora is an Assistant Professor in Theatre Studies (Department of Primary Education, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece). She graduated from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Philology in 1991 (summa cum laude). Her PhD thesis on Greek literature and drama of the 19th century was published by the Academy of Athens in 2002 (Maria Dimaki-Zora (2002). Spiridon Vassiliadis: His life and works. Athens: Ourani Foundation Publications). She has participated in various Greek and international conferences and has published essays in Greek and international scientific journals. Her research interests include Modern

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Greek theatre and literature, theatre for young audiences in Greece, aspects of Greek culture, and ancient Greek drama. Theodore Grammatas graduated from the Department of Philosophy of the University of Athens in 1975. He pursued his postgraduate studies at the Universities Paris X-Nanterre and École Pratique des Hautes Études from where he received his D.E.A diploma in 1976 and his Doctorat de 3e cycle in 1979 with the thesis “La notion de Liberté chez Nikos Kazantzakis”. He is Professor of the Department of Primary Education of the University of Athens since 1994, where he teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses concentrating on “New Greek theatre and society”, “Theatre for children and youth”, “Theatre and Education”, “History of the New Greek theatre”, “Comparative theatre and Drama”, “Sociology and semiology of theatre”. He has participated in numerous Greek and international conferences, seminars and symposia directly related to his field of scientific interest and teaching. He is a member of many scientific associations and research centres in Greece and abroad. He is the director of the Art and Laboratory Speech of the Human Studies Sector of the Department of Primary Education of the University of Athens. In 1991 he was awarded the Nikos Kazantzakis prize. He has published extensively in Greek and foreign journals as well as in conference proceedings. Lorna Hardwick is Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at the Open University, UK, and Director of the Reception of Classical Texts Research Project (www.open.ac.uk/arts/research/greekplays). Publications include Translating Words, Translating Cultures (2000), New Surveys in the Classics (2003), Classics in Postcolonial Worlds (edited with Carol Gillespie, 2007), Companion to Classical Receptions (edited with Christopher Stray, 2008) and Classics in the Modern World: A ‘Democratic Turn’? (edited with Stephen Harrison, 2013). Recent articles have discussed the cultural history and historiography of ancient Athens and the theoretical frameworks, translation, rewriting and reception of Greek drama, poetry and historiography in modern literature and theatre. She is co-editor, with Professor James Porter, of the Oxford University Press series Classical Presences and was founding editor of the Oxford journal Classical Receptions Journal. Ioannis M. Konstantakos studied classical philology at the universities of Athens and Cambridge and is now Associate Professor of Ancient Greek Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. His scholarly interests include ancient comedy, ancient narrative, fiction,

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folklore, and the relations between Greek and Near-Eastern literatures and cultures. He has published four books and numerous articles on these topics. He has also given many lectures, conference papers and seminars in Greek and European higher education institutions. He has received scholarships from the Greek State Scholarships Foundation and the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation. In 2009 he was awarded the prize of the Academy of Athens for the best classical monograph published within the previous five years. In 2012 he was a finalist for the Greek state prize for critical essay. Vayos Liapis is Professor of Theatre Studies at the Open University of Cyprus. His main areas of interest are Greek tragedy of the 5th and 4th centuries, and the modern reception of Greek tragedy. His latest book is A Commentary on the Rhesus Attributed to Euripides (Oxford 2012), and his latest co-edited volume (with G.W.M. Harrison) is Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre (Leiden 2013). He is currently writing a commentary on Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes for Oxford University Press, and coediting Greek Tragedy after the Fifth Century (with Antonis Petrides) and Adapting Greek Tragedy (with Avra Sidiropoulou), both for Cambridge University Press. Michael Paschalis is Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of Crete, Department of Philology. He has published, edited and co-edited 13 books and has written over 95 articles on Greek and Roman literature and their intertextual relationship. He has also worked on the reception of the Classics in Modern Greek literature (from the 16th to the 20th centuries) as well as in Italian, English, and French literature (including Giovanni Boccaccio, Francesco Petrarca, Torquato Tasso, Ugo Foscolo; William Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Thomas Hardy; Alexandre Dumas père, Gustave Flaubert). His book entitled Re-reading Kalvos: Andreas Kalvos, Italy, and Greco-Roman Antiquity (Heraklion 2013) received the 2014 Athens Academy essay award. His most recent books are: Nikos Kazantzakis: From Homer to Shakespeare. Essays on his Cretan Novels (Heraklion 2015); Holy Men and Charlatans in the Ancient Novel (Groningen 2015). Projected book for 2017: The Cretan Literary Renaissance and the Cretan Academies: An Impossible Relationship. Ȃaria Pavlou studied classics at the universities of Thessaloniki, Leeds, and Bristol. Her PhD thesis focused on the notion of time in Pindar’s epinician poetry. She is currently an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Cyprus and the Open University of Cyprus. Her main areas of interest

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include archaic lyric poetry, Plato, digital classics, and reception studies. She has published works on several Greek authors, including Pindar, Plato, Thucydides, Yannis Ritsos and Iakovos Kambanellis. She is also the co-editor (with A. Tsakmakis and E. Kaklamanou) of Framing the Dialogues: How to Read Openings and Closures in Plato, which will be published by Brill in 2019. Antonis K. Petrides (b. 1975) is Associate Professor of Classics at the Open University of Cyprus, where he has been teaching since 2007. He studied Classics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He also read Classics at Trinity College, University of Cambridge (MPhil & PhD). His studies were funded by the Greek National Scholarship Foundation (IKY), the A.G. Leventis Foundation, the British Academy and Trinity College, Cambridge. Antonis’ research interests lie mainly in the field of Greek and Roman drama (particularly postclassical performance), Hellenistic literature (mainly of the ‘comic mode’: mimiamb, epic and philosophical parody, etc.), and Greek physiognomics. He is also interested in reception studies (mainly the reception of ancient Greek drama in modern Greek literature), in the theory and practice of long-distance adult learning, and in the didactics of ancient Greek language and literature in secondary education. Prominent among his recent and forthcoming publications is the monograph Menander, New Comedy and the Visual (CUP 2014), and the volumes Greek Tragedy after the Fifth Century (CUP, forthcoming 2018) co-edited with V. Liapis, and New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy (Pierides II, CSP 2010) co-edited with S. Papaioannou. He has also edited an Introduction to the History of Cyprus (with G. Kazamias and E. Koumas; Nicosia: Open University of Cyprus 2013), and the proceedings of an OUC conference on the reception of ancient myth (with S. Efthymiadis, Athens: Ion Publications 2015). Currently, he is preparing a new commentary on Menander’s play Dyskolos for OUP. Gonda Van Steen earned a PhD degree in Classics and Hellenic Studies from Princeton University and is the Koraes Chair-designate in the Centre for Hellenic Studies and Department of Classics at King’s College London. Her first book, Venom in Verse: Aristophanes in Modern Greece (PUP, 2000) was awarded the John D. Criticos Prize from the London Hellenic Society. In her 2010 book, Liberating Hellenism from the Ottoman Empire, revolutionary uses of Aeschylus’ Persians (1820s) and the Venus de Milo take centre stage. Her 2011 book, entitled Theatre of the Condemned: Classical Tragedy on Greek Prison Islands (OUP), discusses the ancient tragedies that were produced by the political

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prisoners of the Greek Civil War. Her most recent book, Stage of Emergency: Theater and Public Performance under the Greek Military Dictatorship of 1967-1974 (OUP, 2015), analyses theatre life, performance, and censorship under the Greek junta. Her current book project, tentatively entitled Adoption, Memory and Cold War Greece, is taking her into the new, uncharted terrain of Greek adoption stories that become paradigmatic of Cold War politics and history.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Eight of the nine essays of the volume began life as papers at the Reception of Ancient Greek Tragic Myth in Modern Greek Poetry and Theatre of the 20th and 21st Centuries conference (21-22 December 2014) held in Nicosia, Cyprus. The Conference was organised as part of the Research Project Our Heroic Debate with the Eumenides: Greek Tragedy and the Poetics of Identity in Modern Greek Poetry and Theatre and was generously funded by the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation. We would like to express our sincere thanks to the anonymous reader, for his/her astute comments and constructive criticisms. Warm thanks are also due to Professors Philip Hardie and Stratis Kyriakidis, series editors of the Pierides, for their unfailing support and editorial advice.

INTRODUCTION ANTONIS K. PETRIDES

III. ȅȁǹ ȆǼȇȃȅȊȃ ȄİȤȐıĮȝİ IJȠȞ ȘȡȦȚțȩ ȝĮȢ ĮȞIJȓȜȠȖȠ ȝİ IJȚȢ ǼȣȝİȞȓįİȢ ȝĮȢ ʌȒȡİ Ƞ ȪʌȞȠȢ ȝĮȢ ʌȒȡĮȞ ȖȚĮ ʌİșĮȝȑȞȠȣȢ țȚ ȑijȣȖĮȞ ijȦȞȐȗȠȞIJĮȢ “īȚȠȣ! īȚȠȣ! ȆȠȪȠȣȠȣ…ʌĮȟ!” ȕȡȓȗȠȞIJĮȢ IJȠȣȢ șİȠȪȢ ʌȠȣ ȝĮȢ ʌȡȠıIJĮIJİȪȠȣȞ. ǿǿǿ. EVERYTHING PASSES We forgot our heroic debate with the Eumenides we fell asleep, they took us for dead and they fled shouting “Yiou! Yiou! Pououou… pax!” cursing the gods that protect us. GEORGE SEFERIS Trnsl. Keeley & Sheppard, adapted Book of Exercises, I (Athens 1940)

The Eumenides Project Eight of the nine articles included in this volume were first presented at a conference in Nicosia, Cyprus, on December 21-22, 2014. The conference marked the culmination of a three-year research project (2012-2015) under the direction of Vayos Liapis, titled “Our Heroic Debate with the Eumenides: Greek Tragedy and the Poetics of Identity in Modern Greek Poetry and Theatre”. The Eumenides project was hosted by the Open University of Cyprus and funded by the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation (http://eumenides.ouc.ac.cy). As suggested by the title, which is inspired by the short Seferis poem quoted in the epigraph above, Eumenides examined the complex reception of ancient tragic drama in Greece and Cyprus as a process of negotiating both a modern(ist) cultural poetics and a new sense of self. Modern Greek national and cultural identities consist, largely, of clusters of cultural memory shaped by an ongoing dialogue with the

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Introduction

classical past. In this dialogue between modern Greece and classical antiquity, Greek tragedy takes pride of place. Having been part of the Western canon for a long time, Greek tragedy has proved exceptionally malleable as an interpretive lens through which to focus contemporary crises, ideological tensions, and political dynamics. The Eumenides project aimed to catalogue and analyse the multifarious ways in which ancient Greek tragedy and tragic myth have been adapted, reinterpreted, revised, or re-imagined in modern Greek poetry and theatre from the late 19th century to the present day. One of the project’s fundamental objectives was to explore how modern Greek authors established strategies for the creation of meaning(s) by inviting audiences to respond not only to the text itself but to a network of texts invoked by it—in this case, to a network of Greek tragic texts that are filtered or encoded through their modern successors.

Reception of ancient drama and modern scholarship The Eumenides Project aspired to be a part of a thriving field of modern scholarship on the Greek classics. The reception of ancient drama is currently among the most fertile and stimulating areas of research throughout the Western world. Work similar to the Eumenides Project has already been undertaken by the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama at Oxford University, under the direction of Fiona Macintosh, focusing mainly on the performance reception of ancient drama and dealing with revivals and adaptations of ancient plays on stage, film and radio, and in opera and dance. Also, Lorna Hardwick at the British Open University directed a major project exploring “Classical Receptions in Late Twentieth Century Drama and Poetry in English”. The drama section of the project which included plays staged in the period c.1971-2005 ended in 2007. Further, the modern reception of Greek and Roman drama in its various ramifications has been the subject of an increasing number of major recent publications. Primary among these is a comprehensive handbook to the reception of ancient drama edited by Van Zyl Smit (2016), which complemented the earlier books on the reception of the Classics at large by Hardwick and Stray (2008) and Fornaro et al. (2008). The contributors to Van Zyl Smit (2016) map the reception of Greek theatre far and wide, from its very beginnings in the 5th century B.C. to this day, and from Greece itself to the furthermost parts of the modern world, east and west. Van Zyl Smit (2016) is thus the natural starting point for any aspiring student of the reception of ancient drama. As a guide to

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further reading, the following paragraphs attempt to highlight the most important (book-length) recent studies in the various sectors of the field. To begin with the overall impact of ancient classical culture on the modern world, Hardwick and S.J. Harrison (2013) discuss the role of Classics, including of course drama, in modern democratic practices and theoretical approaches to democracy (see also Stead and Hall 2015 on the use of the classics in the British struggle for social reform). Billings and Leonard (2015) focus on the contribution of ancient tragedy to the formation of modernity. In the same vein, Hall, Macintosh and Wrigley (2004) trace the connection between Greek tragedy and the cultural transformations of the 1960s and 1970s, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world. Various ideological myths involved in Western re-performances of tragedy are studied by Laera (2013). Turning to Greece, Van Steen (2000, 2011, 2015) analyses the various (mainly political) applications of Aristophanes and Greek tragedy in modern Greece, and Tziovas (2014) explores how the Greek past, and its drama, has been re-imagined as the cornerstone of Modern Greek cultural identity. Modern re-performances of ancient tragic plays, especially in the 20th century, have often been driven by visionary auteurs, as stressed in MacDonald (1992) and most recently Rodosthenous (2017). An expansive, yet not exhaustive, catalogue of theatrical revivals of classical drama in Europe from 1585 to 1990 can be found in Flashar (1991). On a more localised level, Smith (1988) charts the rediscovery of Greek and Roman plays in the public theatres and other less conventional venues of Renaissance and Jacobean England (1500-1700). Hall and Macintosh (2005) expand the scope to the period 1660-1914, and Wrigley (2011) scrutinises chiefly the institution of the Oxford Greek Play. MacDonald and Walton (2002) study Irish versions of Greek tragedy. Lohse and Malatrait (2006) and Dreyer (2014) deal with modern revivals of ancient drama in Germany; Humbert-Mougin (2003) in France of 1870-1920; Hartigan (1995), Andreach (2003) and Foley (2012) in the United States; and Bosher et al. (2015) more widely in the Americas. Classics (and Greek drama) in different postcolonial environments is the subject of Decreus and Mieke (2004) and Hardwick and Gillespie (2007). Naturally, re-performances of ancient drama in Greece are of especial interest to the readers of this volume, which, nonetheless, focuses mostly on poetry and dramaturgy. Sideris (1976) investigates the re-performances of years 1817–1932 (the heyday and the collapse of MegálƝ Idéa), while Andreadis (2005) covers the period 1867-2000, and Ioannidou (2017) deals more specifically with the post-modern rewritings of the classical oeuvres that came in vogue in the period 1970-2005 (see also Chapter Six

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Introduction

of this book). Anatomising the foremost institution of classical reception in the country, Arvaniti (2010) presents the tragedy performances at the National Theatre of Greece. A catalogue of revivals performed by Karolos Koun’s Theatro TechnƝs, the second pillar of ancient drama in the modern Greek world, can be found in Mavromoustakos (2008). Tsokou (2016) provides a brief overview of work done by the National Theatre of Northern Greece. Completing the picture with a peripheral yet dynamic centre of ancient theatre reception, Hadjicosti and Constantinou (2013) collect essays dealing with the reception of ancient theatre on the modern Greek – Cypriot stage. A complete inventory of professional and amateur performances of ancient drama in Cyprus can be found in Katsouris (2005), for the period 1860-1959, and in Constantinou (2007), for 19601974. Single tragic plays have also come into scrutiny concerning their reception in literature and on stage. Major studies include: Bierl (19992) on Aeschylus’ Oresteia, with Macintosh et al. (2005) on Agamemnon; Hall, Macintosh and Taplin (2000), Wetmore (2013) and Heavey (2015) on Euripides’ Medea; Hall (2013) on Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris; Honig (2013) on Sophocles’ Antigone [updating the classic work of Steiner (1984)]; Macintosh (2009) on Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus [the reception of all the Oedipus tragedies had been previously analysed by Mueller (1980)]; and Fischer-Lichte (2014) on Euripides’ Bacchae. A detailed outline of literary approaches to Greek tragedy in European literature of the 20th and 21st centuries is sketched by Liapis (2008). Horn (2007) contributes a study of German reworkings of ancient tragic themes or, in his words, “German-speaking ancient dramas”. Walton (2006) investigates modern English translations/adaptations of ancient drama. Aspects of the literary reception of Greek tragedy in English are also studied in S. J. Harrison (2009). As far as Greek myth is concerned, its modern resignification has been intricately connected to the major ancient dramatic works that shaped it. Thus, Chassapi-Christodoulou’s two-volume study on the reception of myth in Modern Greek drama (2002) deals largely with the reworking of mythic material from Greek tragedy. Goodkin (1984), Moddelmog (1993), Eynat-Confino (2008) and Renger (2013) survey different modern adaptations of the Oedipus myth mostly in literature, Goff and Simpson (2007) of the Oedipus and Antigone narratives as treated by the African diaspora, whereas Komar (2003) looks at modern Clytemnestras, Bakogianni (2011) at transformations of Electra, and lastly Raizis (1983), Wutrich (1995) and Duchemin (2000) at the theme of Prometheus. The musical and dance aspect of ancient tragedy has also been

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variously received in the modern world. Good starting points are provided, for ancient heroines in the opera, by MacDonald (2001); more generally for ancient drama in music for the modern stage by Brown and Ograjenšek (2010); for dancing by Macintosh (2010); and for choruses by Fix (2009) and Billings, Budelmann and Macintosh (2013). Finally, the reception of classical antiquity, and drama, in the cinema has been the subject of studies such as: MacDonald (1983); MacKinnon (1986); Winkler (2001), (2009)––neither exclusively focused on tragedy but both with excellent chapters thereon; Fusillo (2007); Michelakis (2013); and Nikoloutsos (2013).

The contents of this volume This volume is divided into three parts. The introductory, methodological chapter by Lorna Hardwick expounds on the multifaceted workings of intertextuality in the process(es) of reception. There follow four chapters on the transformation of ancient drama in modern Greek poetry focusing on George Seferis, Yannis Ritsos and Kyriakos Charalambides (Paschalis, Demetriou, Pavlou, Petrides). The volume closes with another four chapters delving into the interplay between modern Greek theatre and the tragic drama of the classical past (Grammatas and Dimaki-Zora, Van Steen, Konstantakos, Liapis). In Chapter 1 (“Can ‘Transmission’ and ‘Transformation’ be Reconciled?”), Hardwick insists that no single theoretical framework can suffice as a general explanation of the processes of reception. Instead, linear models which privilege the ante-text (“influence”) or the new text (“appropriation”, “rewriting”) may need to be complemented by more dynamic ones that recognise a “dialogue” between the ancient and the modern texts, initiated either by the author/poet or by the reader. Crucially, this dialogue is by necessity punctuated by an indefinite number of other mediating texts––wider contextualities, one might say, which do away with the fallacy of unidirectional receptions. Hardwick finds an example of explicit multi-directionality in the reception of Homer through Cavafy in the work of Irish poets Derek Mahon and Michael Longley. Another instance of such an unequivocally “triangular” dialogue, relevant to the reception of ancient drama, is provided by Antonis Petrides in Chapter 5 of this book (“Dialogising Aeschylus in the Poetry of Kyriakos Charalambides”): Petrides analyses two poems by the Greek-Cypriot poet Kyriakos Charalambides, which look at Aeschylus (both at his work and at his fictionalised persona) through Cavafy and Seferis. In the example of Charalambides, reception is understood

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Introduction

agonistically as competition either with an ancient authority, whose axiomatic positions on a matter need to be refuted, and/or with modern, mainstream constructions of this authority, which require, in the manner of Seferis, an ȘȡȦȚțȩȢ ĮȞIJȓȜȠȖȠȢ: such a “heroic debate” Charalambides undertakes with Aeschylus and simultaneously with two modern authoritative voices that condition his reception in modern literature, Cavafy and Seferis. Apart from Petrides, three other chapters discuss modern poetic conversations with ancient Greek drama. Michael Paschalis (Chapter 2, “George Seferis and Euripides’ Bacchae”) exposes the relationship between Seferis’ work on translating Euripides’ Bacchae (a translation he never completed) and the conception of his emblematic short poem “Pentheus”. Seferis’ notes and surviving drafts of the translation, for the study of which Paschalis retrieved material from the poet’s archive in Vikelaia Library in Heraklion, Crete, afford the rare opportunity to look at a modern poem in statu nascendi, through the poet’s creative engagement not only with the ante-text itself, but also with seminal works of scholarship on it, such as Winnington-Ingram’s book Euripides and Dionysus—a decisive mediating influence. Seferis, Paschalis shows, converses with the modern scholar as much as with the ancient playwright. Demetra Demetriou (Chapter 3, “Myth, the Mask, and the “Masquerade” of Femininity: Performing Gender in Yannis Ritsos’ “Ismene”) and Maria Pavlou (Chapter 4, “The Brightness of Philoctetes’ Weapons in Yannis Ritsos’ “Philoctetes”) turn their attentions to Yannis Ritsos and his Fourth Dimension (1972), an epochal collection of dramatic monologues mostly on mythological, indeed dramatic, themes. Demetriou’s focus is the performance of gender in the monologue “Ismene”, which glances mainly at Sophocles’ Antigone. Pavlou looks at “Philoctetes”, which is based on Sophocles’ homonymous tragedy. In “Ismene”, Demetriou argues, Ritsos transforms the Sophoclean myth by centring on a now-aged Ismene and her rivalry with her sister. This rivalry is articulated on two radically opposed versions of femininity represented by each sister respectively, the gender-conformist Ismene and the gender-transgressive Antigone. Using, as he is wont to do, the ancient heroines as poetic masks, Ritsos broaches the question of (female) subjectivity in the hic et nunc, that is, under the double oppression of the Greek military junta and Soviet totalitarianism. Notably, Demetriou adds, Ritsos’ revision of Sophocles in “Ismene” is dialogised by the interposition of Jean Anouilh’s Antigone, which had made a splash on the Greek stage in 1947.

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In her own Ritsos-themed chapter, Maria Pavlou attempts to supersede the modern fixation on reading the dialogues of the Fourth Dimension as autobiographical, political or historical allegories, and revisits Ritsos’ work as a recasting of the myth of Philoctetes in an existentialist mould. Underlining Ritsos’ interchange with the European movement of existentialism had been one of the highlights of the Eumenides Project. “Philoctetes”, Pavlou argues, like other dramatic dialogues in the Fourth Dimension, pivots on the most fundamental themes of existentialism: “bad faith”, anguish, authenticity, and freedom. First and foremost, she argues, without excluding other readings, Ritsos’ “Philoctetes” is a dramatic monologue about human existence. The remaining four chapters of the volume deal with Modern and ancient Greek theatre. Theodore Grammatas and Maria Dimaki-Zora (Chapter 6, “Memories of Heroines in Memories of Spectators: Mythic, Dramatic and Theatrical Time from the Ancient Drama to the Modern Greek Theatre”) write about mythic, dramatic and theatrical time by problematising the concept of memory. Analysing transformations of Clytemnestra, Andromache and Medea in several late-20th and 21stcentury plays, the authors examine different ways in which mythic time appears as a memory, an echo or a recollection, and how the spectators’ own memories, brought to bear on the reception of the modern performance, open new interpretive possibilities for ancient drama. In Chapter 7 (“How to Do (in) Kings with Words: Radically Rewriting the Myth of the Atreids in Athens, 1964”), Gonda Van Steen focuses on a major moment of Modern Greek theatre, namely Vanghelis Katsanis’ ǵIJĮȞ ȠȚ ǹIJȡİȓįİȢ (When the Atreids or The Successors). This play offers a radical rewriting of the Atreid myth, full of cruel violence and power-hungry monarchs posing as revolutionaries while enjoying their institutional prerogatives and lusting for more. Van Steen offers a close reading of the play and foregrounds its powerful reverberation, as a script on the stage infinitely more than as a prizewinning text in a drama competition, through the turbulent political climate of Greece in 1964. Van Steen chronicles the livid reaction of the political establishment, arguably influenced by the all-powerful Queen Mother Frederica herself, to the production of a play perceived as a direct attack on the institution of the monarchy, in a time when “antiroyal” practically equalled “communist”. Chapter 8 (“Very Tragical Mirth: Myth and the Tragic in Pavlos Matessis’ Towards Eleusis”) by Ioannis Konstantakos anatomises Pavlos Matessis’ play ȆȡȠȢ ǼȜİȣıȓȞĮ (Towards Eleusis, 1992), which refashions the underlying myth of Eleusinian mysteries, that is, the

8

Introduction

tribulations of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone, into a genuine form of modern tragedy for the contemporary stage. Matessis’ play does not engage directly with any particular ancient drama or playwright. Instead, adopting an eclectic approach, it weaves together a plethora of themes and motifs from Greek religion and literature into an original plot, which is in fact loosely based on William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying. Towards Eleusis relates the journey of an ordinary peasant family to their home village, where they intend to lay to rest their deceased matriarch. This at first sight mundane occasion is elevated into a parable on life, death and rebirth. In Matessis’ eyes, after all, the story of Demeter and Kore, although hardly ever the subject matter of ancient tragedies, is the tragic myth par excellence, the deeper structure of the essential tragic experience. Finally, Vayos Liapis’ Chapter 9 (“Cassandra and the Centaur: Greek (Tragic) Myth in Marios Pontikas’ Play Neighing”) throws light on the most recent developments on the Modern Greek stage in relation to the reception of ancient drama, as he zooms in on Marios Pontikas’ “stage triptych” Neighing (ȋȜȚȝȓȞIJȡȚıȝĮ, 2011). Exploiting the aesthetics of postdramatic theatre, Pontikas’ play gives new shape to the myth of Cassandra (who now finds herself in conversation with the Centaur Chiron and the Erinyes) to express a pessimist, almost nihilistic vision: humanity has tragically failed as the “crown of creation”; so has Greek antiquity as the ultimate source of legitimisation. Naturally, Pontikas’ play is replete with echoes especially of the Oresteia, but here the inarticulate speech that made Aeschylus’ Cassandra so memorable stands for the collapse of both logos and logocentrism.

CHAPTER ONE CAN TRANSMISSION AND TRANSFORMATION BE RECONCILED? LORNA HARDWICK

“Homer was wrong . . . Homer was right though” Derek Mahon (2005) “Calypso” “Homer’s ghost came whispering to my mind” Patrick Kavanagh (1951) “Epic”1

Can “transmission” and “transformation” be reconciled? This essay discusses some aspects of the aesthetic and cultural interfaces between ancient and modern Greek uses of myth and narrative in the Homeric epics. The poetry of C.P. Cavafy provides a distinctive nexus between Homer’s epic poetry and its multi-dimensional reception in modern Anglophone poetics, providing insights not only into intertextuality but also into other and more distant poetic relationships such as association, echoing and “glancing”.2 Significantly, Peter Mackridge chose * I would like to thank the volume editors for their initiative in devising the theme of the conference which generated this publication and for their helpful and penetrating critical comments on earlier drafts of this essay. I would also like to pay tribute to the work of the Eumenides Project (http://eumenides.ouc.ac.cy) which is taking on such an important role in researching and publishing data on ancient texts and their use of mythological figures. It is this kind of collaborative and publicly orientated research that enables scholars and their students to work together on an international scale. The generous and freely available dissemination via its website of the work done by the project also enables interested members of the wider public to access information and ideas that promote understanding of ancient and modern Greek culture in its deepest and broadest sense. 1 Kavanagh’s central role in modern Irish poetry and its responses to classical texts is discussed in Hardwick (2011). 2 English versions of Cavafy’s poems are quoted in the translations by Evangelos

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as the sub-title for his Introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Cavafy’s poems, “Cavafy’s ‘slight angle to the universe’”. 3 The heuristic use of such metaphorical terms opens up multi-directional relationships, some of which take their energy from the author’s poetic techniques while some bring to the text insights initiated by the reader’s response, a response that may in practice be, consciously or unconsciously, a response to mediating texts that relate both to the ante-text and to the new text.4 There are a number of models that have been used to categorise and explain the relationship between ancient texts and their subsequent translations, adaptations and creative rewritings. The traditional emphasis on linear and chronological “influences” has been largely superseded by two-way models, such as “dialogue” and “conversation”, that attribute ongoing agency both to the ante-text and to the new text and thus locate power in both the ancient and the modern, rather than in either the ancient or the modern. However, unidirectional models still persist and these usually either take the ancient text as the yardstick for assessing “influence” or they emphasise the agency of later activists in—for example—appropriation or rewriting. I suggest, however, that it is also necessary to find ways of mapping other features, such as creative deviations, repressions and un-signalled or free migrations that are not directly linear. Indeed, no single theoretical framework is satisfactory on its own as a source of general explanation. As a contribution to the on-going discussion about the generation of multidirectional energy, I take as central to this dynamic C. P. Cavafy’s Homer-related poems, of which “Ithaca” is probably the best known.5 The importance of Cavafy’s Homeric poems for my topic is due—at least in part—to their spatial as well as temporal interactions with other receptions of ancient material, which themselves focus on key tropes such as nostos,

Sachperoglou (Cavafy, 2007) with the exception of “Priam’s Night Journey”, which is quoted in the translation by Seth Schein (2016) 138-139. 3 Cavafy (2007) xi. 4 For instance, “associations” may be generated by the sensibility of the poet or of the reader but the latter are not necessarily confined to material within the poem or the poet’s oeuvre. Associations may change over time as the result of cultural shifts and with readerly experience. “Glancing” is a productively ambivalent term that embraces not only the quick allusion or side glance but also the way in which poetic practices can touch and then be deflected away from each other, within and between poems. The cricketing term “leg glance” conveys a similar impression of lightness and elegance in (the batsman’s) technique. 5 Cavafy (2007) 28-75.

Can Transmission and Transformation be Reconciled?

11

nekyia, katabasis, anagnǀrisis.6 Those interactions take up resonances that may be explicit or implicit in the ancient material and in the texts through which the ideas have been mediated. Texts and myths have often been discussed in terms of approaches to translational and creative practice that distinguish between “transmission” (of an accepted text and/or interpretation) and “transformation”. Transformation is a concept that covers a range of possibilities that may include: (i) The re-imagination of the text and its narrative and figures, and the way in which its new audiences and readers imagine their own world and that of the ancient text. (ii) The transformative agency of the work of the writers, story-tellers, and theatre practitioners who engage with the ancient material. This engagement sometimes points to a crisis point or watershed in their own aesthetic practices. The term also applies to the poets and dramatists in antiquity who created new work in response to previous works and myths. Thus “transmission” may involve a series of “transformations”. (iii) In addition, there is an increasing degree of overlap between the dynamics associated with “transmission” and “transformation” in the present day, as public perceptions of antiquity in the wider community become distanced from knowledge of ancient texts and contexts. Public perceptions increasingly rely on the way that translations, adaptations and new creative work present antiquity to contemporary sensibilities (both aesthetic and socio-political). This is paralleled by scholars’ awareness that the relationships between ante-text, mediating text and “new” texts are not invariably overt or linear, and that creative practices not only yield new readings of particular texts, old and new, but also suggest different frameworks of explanation of the relationships between them.

Practice, Theory and Scholarship (I) There are both ancient and modern models for considering how the relationship between the cultural artefact and its antecedents is framed, interpreted and used, and how modern responses to ancient material and to 6

These concepts can be roughly translated as: “homeward journey”; “calling up and questioning of the ghosts of the dead”; “descent to the underworld”; “recognition (of another and/or of oneself)”. The importance of these as tropes lies in the poetic nuances through which they are explored and their repetition with differences, both within a particular text and in the texts with which it is in dialogue; see further Hardwick (2016) with bibliography.

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intervening and contemporary works are enmeshed. Such enmeshing results in questioning and disrupting simple unidirectional transmission and prompts the use of metaphorical images such as “web”, “network” or “palimpsest” to describe them. In this increasingly iterative network of allusions and re-imaginings, the response of modern Greek writing to ancient antecedents is distinctive and sometimes pivotal, but by no means unproblematic. Studies of the sometimes contested relationship between antiquity, modernity and contemporary energies have revealed the richness of this infrastructure for European and world literature as well as for Modern Greek cultural politics. A recent example is the collection of essays edited by Dimitris Tziovas, Re-Imagining the Past: Antiquity and Modern Greek Culture. That collection is especially valuable because of the way it demonstrates how the reception of antiquity cannot be seen in isolation from the reception of other historical periods in Greek culture and politics, including the Byzantine and Ottoman. The reception of the past is in its turn a feature of those periods and contexts. Tziovas’ Introduction starts with a bold statement: “A nation or country can be judged by the way it engages with its past and its memories”.7 His discussion continues with a focus on the relationship between continuity and diversity: The debate about the past in Greece involves a clash of two competing temporalities: one promoting the notions of succession, continuity and conservation of the past, and the other based on a hybrid fusion. . . Relying as they do on linearity and the conservation of ethnic and aesthetic autonomy, earlier notions of the past are now challenged by a postmodern (and pre-modern) emphasis on the materiality of antiquity and its changing or syncretic daily uses.8

I want to acknowledge the importance of this overarching conceptual framework and then to focus this short discussion on one aspect that may contribute to an investigation of the larger issues identified by Tziovas and in particular extend the topic beyond issues of national cultures. My focus will be on the literary imagination and the way in which the confluence of ancient Greek, modern Greek and modern European insights disrupt secure models of linear transmission.9 This is not only part of a modern

7

Tziovas (2014), “Introduction” 1. Tziovas (2014), “Introduction” 5-6. 9 The essay by Petrides in this volume discusses similar issues through close analysis of the interaction between ancient and modern Greek literary texts, demonstrating how the modern text can be “doubly transformative of both the ante-text itself and, potentially, of modern dialogues with it” (p. 103). 8

Can Transmission and Transformation be Reconciled?

13

transformative aesthetic but also acknowledges the pliability and diversity of the ancient imagination and the insights it injects into the future. The role of Cavafy’s poetry itself signals a poetic voice that is displaced from a national cultural centre and speaks with special force to other writers who experience similar tensions. The topic also helps bridge artificial polarities between, on the one hand, romanticised notions of creativity as primarily offering the “new” and, on the other, the emphasis in much postmodern scholarship on fragmentation and “recycling”.10

Intertextualities: Mahon and Cavafy My first example of how the “Homeric ghost” is transmitted and transformed by Cavafy, and so permeates subsequent literatures, is from the work of the modern Irish poet, Derek Mahon. Mahon was born in 1941 in Belfast in the north of Ireland. The Six Counties in the north of Ireland are still part of the United Kingdom but have been afflicted by historic and persisting religious and political divisions. Mahon has worked as a teacher in America, Canada, Ireland and London, and his poetry often reflects his struggles to find a community to which he can easily belong. This search is set against verbal images of desolate landscapes and scenes of cosmic isolation and flux. His classical education and knowledge provide some settings and also underlie his poetic engagement with themes of longing. The opening line of Mahon’s 2005 poem “Calypso” surprises and intrigues the reader.11 “Homer was wrong, she never ‘ceased to please’”. There is a quotation within a quotation. The phrase “ceased to please” is taken from the popular translation of Odyssey 5.153 by E. V. Rieu (p. 92). Rieu’s translation, published in 1946 by Penguin, has sold many millions of copies and has provided an intertext which Irish poets (including those such as Mahon and Michael Longley, both of whom can also read Homer in the original) have used as a springboard for the exploration of Homeric themes that shed light on the relationship between Greek and Irish landscapes and politics. 12 There is a rich 20th-century Irish tradition of rewriting Homer that starts with James Joyce and W. B. Yeats and 10

For formulations of this dichotomy in classical receptions, see Hardwick (2008) and for its expression in high-modernist and postmodernist perspectives, see Eagleton (2003) 182. 11 This is the second and more developed version of the poem, published in his collection Harbour Lights (2005). 12 One of Patrick Kavanagh’s Homer-related poems was titled “On Looking into E. V. Rieu’s Homer” (1951), resonating both with Rieu’s translations and aligning himself with Keats “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer” (1817).

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continues via Patrick Kavanagh, Michael Longley and Mahon himself. Although there are other echoes of Rieu’s phrasing, Mahon’s poem moves away from the image of Odysseus weeping on the shore for his lost home because “the Nymph had long since ceased to please”. Calypso is presented not as a siren distracting him from the journey home but as a wild girl (the Sapphic resonances of which have been suggested by Haughton).13 The poem is full of contemporary allusions and is in some sense an anti-epic. However, the problematic ending postpones closure. It echoes Cavafy and leaves open both the final sequence of the Homeric narrative and the role of poetry in the human psyche: Homer was wrong, he never made it back; or, if he did, spent many a curious night hour still questioning that strange oracular face.

Mahon has reflected on poetry itself: “No doubt poetry, good or bad, is a waste of time, but waste, drift, contingency are the better part of wisdom”.14 The iterations from Mahon’s sometimes ironic poem are multidirectional. I want to mention just two of these movementsa lateral relationship with Michael Longley and a temporal relationship in which Mahon’s poetics engage with Cavafy. Mahon’s poem “Ithaca” is the opening poem to his collection An Autumn Wind. 15 Although the poem mainly presents a focalised narrative that follows closely on Homer, Odyssey 13.187-365, its tone is largely ironic, even comic in its sideglances at devastating human problems. It is permeated with the language of the uncertainty of the displaced person whose anxiety prevents him from recognising his own past home: Will they be primitive and barbarian Or civilised people who will take me in? Those damn swindlers offered a clear run To Ithaca, and instead they’ve set me down In a strange place I never saw before.

13

Haughton (2007) 355-359. Mahon also subverts both his statement and Rieu’s translation when he picks up the trope later in the poem and says that “Homer was right” about the redemptive power of women. Irony is intensified in post-Cavafy responses to the idea of nostos (see below 21-22 for Longley’s translation of Cavafy). 14 Quoted in Haughton (2007) 357. 15 Mahon (2010) 13-14.

Can Transmission and Transformation be Reconciled?

15

The possibility of the traveller’s inaction derives from a combination of ennui with paralysis in the face of the aural, psychological and even physical menace of the snake-like tide (“musing, lost and bored but still alive | He gathered up his gear and made his way | Along the cold edge of the hissing sea”). It is challenged by Athene in the practical words that close the poem (one might also characterise them as advice to the displaced and the immigrant and those who help them). The future is to be created not imposed: “Our first task”, said Athene, “is to stow Your gold and bronzes in the sacred cave And then decide on where we go from there”.

We know from Mahon’s extensive reading in European literature and from his other poetry that engagement with Cavafy was part of his poetic sensibility. This is sometimes directly acknowledged. For example, Mahon’s collection Adaptations (2006) contains a sequence entitled “Alexandria” that is subtitled “from the Greek of Constantine (C.P.) Cavafy, 1863-1933”. This ruminates on aspirations to encounter new countries and new experiences, and juxtaposes this with the deadening effect of a life confined.16

Cavafy’s topoi and the poetics of reception Cavafy was both a transmitter and transformer of perceptions of Homer and a poet with whom subsequent readers and writers are in dialogue—or, to put it metaphorically, through whom they “glance” at Homer. 17 The nature of Cavafy’s relationship with Homer and the types of “glance” that he inspired have been the subject of much debate. An important strand of interpretation emphasises that Cavafy’s life experiences put him “on the borders” in several cultural contexts. Not only was he an Alexandrian Greek but he also spent much of his early life living and being educated in 16 Compare for example, Cavafy’s poem “Walls” (1910): “Without consideration, without pity, without shame, | they built around me great and towering walls …Imperceptibly, they shut me off from the world outside”. Another of Cavafy’s poems from the same period, “The City”, explores the frustrations of trying to escape; “Any new lands you will not find: you’ll find no other seas. | The city will be following you … Always in the same city you’ll arrive”, Cavafy (2007) 12-13, 28-29. 17 Compare Prince (2005) which, following Baudrillard’s theory of the simulacrum, identifies four levels of relationship based on the actual or illusory presence of the ancient text or on its absence.

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England. 18 The Alexandrian context meant that “he wrote as part of a minority European community in a city—though once one of the centres of the world—that had become a minor North African backwater”.19 This lies behind Cavafy’s cultural itinerancy and especially his capacity to capture settings in which culture is fluid, language can be a patois, and the sea a medium of continual intermingling. 20 Out of this landscape and seascape comes a change in what Ithaca is and represents, with the result that it can no longer be a fixed or terminal destination. 21 This transformation embraces both the contexts of Cavafy’s own lived experience and his conflicted relationship with Homer, problematised in his unpublished ms. “Second Odyssey” (1894) and his essay “The Last Days of Odysseus”, published in 1894 and accompanied by epigraphs from Dante and Tennyson.22 The English context meant that Cavafy was steeped in Anglophone literature. The Library Catalogue from the Cavafy Archive, which is organised to follow Cavafy’s own categories, includes novels by Henry Fielding, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy and E. M. Forster as well as works by Oscar Wilde and Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Volumes of poetry in Cavafy’s possession included not only the works of Byron, Thomson, Tennyson and Wordsworth but also translations into English of Homer’s Iliad [by T. A. Buckley in the Bohn’s Classical Library Series (1896)] and the Odyssey [in the influential version by J. M. Mackail (1903, 1905 and 1910)]. This personal library of books in English also included Longfellow’s English translation of Dante and Arnold and Newman’s nineteenth-century essays on translating Homer.23 Although the coverage of literature in English is not comprehensive, it is sufficiently extensive to provide evidence of a deep immersion in English prose and poetic idiom and indicates exposure and sensitivity to English literary traditions in epic, lyric and narrative as well as to the practices and literary devices found in English translations of 18

Liddell (20002). Leontis et al. (2002) 17. 20 There are affinities in this respect with the work of Derek Walcott, especially Omeros (1990). 21 Zerba (2015). 22 Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses” was published in 1842 (in English Idylls and Other Poems) and drew on Dante’s treatment of Odysseus’ last voyage (Inferno Canto xxvi). It was preceded in 1833 by “The Lotos-Eaters”, based on the episode in Odyssey 9, and its companion poem “Choric Song” (in The Lady of Shallott and other Poems). 23 www.cavafy.com/archive/library. 19

Can Transmission and Transformation be Reconciled?

17

canonical works in Greek and Italian. Critics have suggested that because English was the language in which Cavafy was educated, his poems and diction resonate particularly well in English translation. There is evidence from Cavafy’s drafts, notes, literary commentaries and translations that he was equally comfortable in Greek and English.24 It was even rumoured that he spoke Greek with a slight English accent.25 David Ricks has taken this Anglophone appropriation to its fullest extent and argued that the influence of Homer on Cavafy’s poetic development did not come directly from the Greek text but was mediated by Pope’s Iliad. 26 Ricks does, however, recognise that some words from Homer were repeated verbatim in Cavafy’s poem “Priam’s Night Journey”.27 Ricks’ argument has been partially countered by Seth Schein who identifies evidence of Cavafy’s careful reading of Homer in the original as well as echoes of intermediary translations. 28 Schein writes from the perspective of a classicist who is predominantly interested in the significance of Cavafy’s deviations from Homer and the interpretive light that can be thrown on corresponding passages in the Iliad. This trajectory is just one part of the two-way energy of Cavafy’s Homeric interventions. The most significant of Cavafy’s poems on ancient Greek themes are (poems which are variants on Homer are marked *): “Priam’s Night Journey”* (composed 1893 but not published in print until 1968); 29 “Oedipus” (1895); “The Horses of Achilles”* (1896-1897); “The funeral of Sarpedon”* (renounced version 1896-1898, published version 1905), “When the Watchman Saw the Light” (1900); “Interruption” (1900); “Trojans”* (1900-1905); “Disbelief” (1903); “Ionic” (1905-1911); “Ithaca”* (1910-1911). Thus, “Ithaca”, arguably the most famous and influential of Cavafy’s poems, can be seen as the culmination of a process of conversations with Homer that is initiated by a cluster of poems related to the Iliad (1893-1896) and moves towards the explorations of place, 24

The effect seems to have been reciprocal. Peter Mackridge’s Introduction to the 2000 edition of Robert Liddell’s biography opens with the statement that “Cavafy is the only modern Greek poet who is so well known that his work has practically become part of English literature” [Liddell (20002) 7]. 25 Leontis et al. (2002) 27, 30. 26 Ricks (1989) 86-87. 27 Ricks (1989) 90 n. 21. 28 Schein (2016). Schein’s essay is a revision of material first published in 1994 and includes extensive discussion of Maronitis (1986) as well as of Ricks’ monograph (1989). 29 For Cavafy’s non-standard ways of publishing or withholding his poems, see Schein (2016) 139 n. 1.

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associations and nostos drawn from the Odyssey. The Iliadic cluster is significant both because of the concentration of theme and because the proportion of Cavafy’s work that is derived from Homer is a relatively small part of his published oeuvre (154 poems). There is a further contrast between “early” and “late” variations on Homer in that the Iliadic poems make closer use of episodes in Homer, albeit as a basis for focalising the thought of the characters, whereas “Ithaca” uses Homer as a springboard for the poet’s introspection, by implication contesting settled perspectives on the image of Ithaca in the canonical work. 30 “Ithaca” uses nearrepetition of refrains that are carefully positioned so that they appear to echo each other and then diverge (e.g. lines 4-12). In this way, the poem prompts multi-directional literary encounters (see also Petrides in this volume). These encounters can equally be between the poet and the future reader or between the readers and the “dead” poet, Homer, as found in Cavafy. Cavafy himself compared his poetry to a vessel that can contain different experiences or—more prosaically—to a “well-tailored suit that can fit different (though not all) people”.31 More apposite, perhaps, is the comment by Nicholas Samaras, who likened Cavafy’s tone in his poems to that of a “whispering friend”. 32 The “whispering friend” supplies the information that the listener needs: sensitivity to language and form are more important than the reader’s prior knowledge of the mythical narratives. Indeed, Seferis once commented that among modern Greek poets Cavafy was “not strong enough” to support Anglophone poets to engage with classical material. 33 The material discussed in this essay suggests the contrary; it is rather that a different poetics of engagement is created, a poetics that eschews the limitation of myth to a diachronic, and sometimes oppositional, relationship between past and present and instead opens up the possibility of future reflections.34 Cavafy’s use of episodes from the Iliad provides an illuminating prelude to the fluidity of the relationship with Homer that emerges in developed form in “Ithaca”. The Iliadic poems are focused on iconic scenes in Homer but these are reimagined with some details omitted or 30

Zerba (2015) 248f. Quoted in Leontis et al. (2002) 9. 32 Leontis et al. (2002) 81. 33 Fowler (2014) 320. 34 Pourgouris [(2014) 287-288] on Seferis. Fowler [(2014) 318f.] discusses the relationship between Seferis and Seamus Heaney in linking moral insights and concrete locality. The point about Cavafy’s “localities” is that they resist the specific and material correlations. 31

Can Transmission and Transformation be Reconciled?

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altered and others added. The most important overall effect is to combine transmission of the continuing richness of these scenes with transformation in how the figures in them, and their thoughts, are communicated to readers.35 For example, “The Funeral of Sarpedon” is linked to Homer, Iliad 16.462-501 and 666-684; “The Horses of Achilles” is linked to Homer, Iliad 17. 426-447; “Priam’s Night Journey” is linked to the extended episode in Iliad 24.169-691, in which at the instigation of Zeus the sorrowing Priam visits Achilles to supplicate for the ransom of the body of Hector. These are new poems that stand for themselves. They contain what the reader needs and what the poet wants the reader to have. Yet they also resonate with the Homeric ante-text, with which, for the informed reader, they maintain a palimpsestic relationship that colours and “thickens” their poetic texture, transmitting onwards a distinctive sense of Homer’s force and of its potential in other poetic contexts. In an acute discussion of these poems, Seth Schein has likened Cavafy’s relationship to the Iliad to that of the Alexandrian scholar poets of the Hellenistic Age. Like these ancient Alexandrians, his [sc. Cavafy’s] versions of and allusions to Iliadic scenes, with their shifts of perspective, focus, characterisation and emphasis show him to have been an attentive reader and creative re-interpreter of Homeric poetry.36

Schein goes on to assert that readers of Cavafy’s Iliadic poems need to have in mind the relevant passages of the Iliad so that they can both recognise and understand his overall “recasting” of Homeric scenes, as well as the details he omits, alters or adds.37 That observation recognises one possible constituency of (classically educated) readers but neglects to consider how Cavafy’s retelling of the episode can become in its own right a new yardstick, thus changing modern readers’ perceptions of Priam and, indirectly, of Homer. That element can be taken further by identifying how and in what respects Cavafy’s Homer sets a different agenda via the perspectives that are etched in and through the form and diction of the poetry. Both alternatives converge if we consider how future poets might ground their work both in their readings of Homer and in their readings of other poets who have addressed Homeric themes. For example, in “Priam’s Night Journey”, Cavafy refers throughout to “Priam” and not to 35

Schein (2016) categorises this as “Imitation” in the sense discussed by Robert Lowell. 36 Schein (2016) 140. 37 Schein (2016) 140.

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“the old man” (as in Iliad 24.236). The effect is to highlight Priam’s present energy and not to dilute this with the pathos of comparison with his past vigour.38 However, it seems to me that the effect is less one of repression (whether or not the reader is familiar with the details in Homer) and more one of concentration by Cavafy on a vignette harvested from the Homeric episode. In omitting almost everything from the Homeric sequence except Priam’s focus on what is needed to recover Hector’s body, Cavafy selectively creates space for his focus on Priam’s thoughts. This interiority actually precludes closure. Priam’s agony is not resolved— and thus there is an implied invitation in the Iliadic poems (as in “Ithaca”) to readers and to other poets, to explore further.

A triangular conversation: Michael Longley’s glances at Cavafy and Mahon39 If Mahon’s poems represent a revisionist approach to the Odyssey, contextualised in his own sense of displacement and uncertainty of identity, Michael Longley’s autobiographical musing in an occasional poem reveals his own lens on the Ithaca poems. Michael Longley was born in 1939, also in Belfast. He studied Classics at Trinity College, Dublin. In his collection The Stairwell (2014), he includes a poem “The Alphabet”, which meditates on his relationship with his twin brother Peter who had recently died. The poem consists of two four-line stanzas and opens with the reminiscence: I taught you the Greek alphabet Peter.

The second quartet continues: A marine engineer on oil tankers, you Journeyed around the globe, how many times? I dallied with Nausicaa and Calypso And set sail without you for Ithaca. Longley (2014) 49 38 In the Iliad the epithet drawing attention to Priam’s age is also accompanied by the epithet “god-like”. The conjunction serves both to point up the contrast and to blur the effects of time. It could be argued that Homer’s expression is the more open-ended. Reinstating the emphasis on old age, as Michael Longley does in his 1995 poem “Ceasefire”, shifts the balance once more, see below. 39 Petrides in this volume examines another example of triangularity in the relationship between ancient poet, modern poet and intervening interlocutors.

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The poem is slight in itself, yet significant in the sequence of poems dedicated to Longley’s brother. Here, however, I want to draw out how Longley, in alluding implicitly to Mahon’s conversation with Cavafy, invokes a comparison between different kinds of voyages. Mahon’s poem brings to the fore the uncertainty of the journey and its outcomes, as well as questioning its value and authority in comparison with other journeys through life. Longley’s represents a response both to Mahon and to Cavafy. Cavafy’s poem had invited his interlocutor to pray that the road to Ithaca would be long, that it would be full of adventures and knowledge and that it would lead the voyager to encounter and recognise what was in his own psychƝ. 40 Longley’s occasional poem implicitly contains that understanding and yet also responds to Mahon’s combination of jeu d’esprit and diversion from the tasks associated with duty and conformity by grounding his poem in the realities of life experience (“too late for imaginary voyages | In wooden boats, you studied metalwork”). Cavafy’s allusions are to the sensuous and intellectual jewels of Egypt, reflecting perhaps his dual cultural heritage. Mahon and Cavafy share a sense that Ithaca may have nothing to offer once the wandered has “returned”. Longley does not address that aspect; his focus is on the journey and the difference between his own imaginative and metaphorical lingering and the physical and organised journeys undertaken by his brother in the context of his employment, journeys which had a beginning, a middle, and an end. In contrast, Cavafy’s “Ithaca” was plural, as the last line of his poem showed: “you will have come to know what Ithacas really mean”.41 Longley’s sensitivity to Cavafy’s poetry and its effect on his literary sensibility is evident in his translation “Cavafy’s Desires” (1995). 42 Longley’s variation accepts ageing and death as “given”. Longley’s “Like corpses that the undertaker makes beautiful | …so | Desires look, after they have passed away” has a subtly different tone and register from Cavafy’s wording, which opens up reflection on the ambivalence of concepts of life and death and the intermediate state of waiting: “Like beautiful bodies of the dead who did not grow old”, “that is what those desires are like | which have passed without fulfilment”. This sense of affinity but not convergence with Cavafy adds another poetic layer to Longley’s selection and variation on episodes from Homer. 40

The psychƝ might be compared with the “city that travels and will not be left behind” in Cavafy’s poem “The City”, mentioned in n. 16 above. 41 Cavafy (2007) 38 and 39. 42 The poem was published in the same collection [Longley (1995)] as “Ceasefire” and “Homer’s Octopus”.

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Chapter One

Three poems in particular glance sidelong to Cavafy as well as backwards to Homer: “Ceasefire” (1995); “The Horses” (2000) and “Sleep and Death” (2004).43 The sense of “whispering back” while yet doing creating different is especially strong in “Ceasefire”. This poem uses the sonnet form to present what might be a sequel to “Priam’s Night Journey”. In Longley’s poem (which was written when a ceasefire had been negotiated during the period of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and first published in a daily newspaper), the quatrains first express the thoughts of Achilles (“Put in mind of his own father and moved to tears”) and then depict their effects on his treatment of Hector’s corpse (“Made sure it was washed and, for the old king’s sake | Laid out in uniform”). The poem is saturated with irony. The contrast between the insults perpetrated in war on Hector’s body and the respect now shown to it for his elderly father’s sake could have lurched into sentimentality, but Longley quickly disabuses the reader by adding that the body was then “ready for Priam to carry | Wrapped like a present home to Troy at daybreak”. The image of the wrapped gift mutates into the meal described in the third quatrain, when Achilles and Priam converse and laugh. However, the closing couplet again changes the tone and subverts both the reader’s sense of ease and the sequence of actions with which Homer framed the episode. In Homer the supplication comes first. In Longley it is only after the success of his journey that Priam looks back at what he had to do to bring about this recovery of his son’s body: “I get down on my knees and do what must be done | And kiss Achilles’ hand, the killer of my son”. The closure signals the price that has been paid for peace. It also provides an instance of the challenges involved in moving a character from an epic narrative into a historical/present context of interpretation. Yet there is a warning, too, to Longley’s readers at the time—they know that the truce in the Iliad was temporary; such might be the case in Ireland too. So the apparent closure becomes openended. Longley’s poetic dexterity and formal innovation enables Priam to move between the epic past, the Irish present and the indeterminate future.

Practice, Theory and Scholarship (II) How then might we attempt to theorise the iterative relationships that I have sketched? To accommodate the processes of transmission and transformation of Homer in Cavafy, Mahon and Longley, any explanatory model has to recognise the kinds of polyphonic conversations that are 43

Longley’s Homer-related poetry is a significant part of his oeuvre and draws on both the epics; see further Hardwick (2004 and 2008).

Can Transmission and Transformation be Reconciled?

23

generated by and through Cavafy’s poetic engagement both with myth and text in antiquity and with its geographical and cultural diaspora. In those respects the approach set out by Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) is helpful. Bakhtin’s theory of dialogical relationship has proved fruitful for classicists with interests in literary hermeneutics and cultural theory. From his work has been taken the notion that dialogue is an aspect of human activity that brings the self and the other into a relationship which can be polyphonic and open-ended and which can provide a point of intercommunication between the past and the future, via the present. Although well-attuned to the form of the novel (every utterance is at least “double-voiced”, serving the author as well as the characters), his approach has also been influential among performance scholars because it promotes the concept of the embodied, with the lived body as the material condition of social existence and— performance theorists maintain—of communication. Bakhtin’s approach has also been attractive epistemologically because it opens up the possibility that all participants in a dialogue may be and should be heard with attention. Dialogue thus involves a plurality of consciousnesses. 44 Poetry is a field that has elements in common both with the novel and with performance (especially in the context of Homeric epic as performance poetry and its relationships with the mythical narratives found in the Epic Cycle), and communities of writers and readers cross artificial boundaries. In terms of poetry and of the examples that I have mentioned, Cavafy, Mahon and Longley play open-endedly with the expectations set up by the Homeric Odyssey and Iliad, both in the ways in which they use these as starting points to engage readers and in the ways in which they rewrite and destabilise them in their (re)writings. As with Homer, these poets open up multi-directional possibilities.

What difference was made? We may legitimately ask of this kind of investigation: what difference does it make? Interpretations and judgements about the texts that we are discussing are made by scholars but the raw material and the underlying dynamics are generated by poets. The examples from poetry that I have mentioned in this essay involve creativity that works across space, place

44

Bakhtin’s associated concept of the chronotope (such as the “public square”) allows exploration of the relationship between time and space through the translation of spatial and temporal terms into narrative structures, as well as providing a site for the activities of deliberative communities. The implications for writerly and painterly communities follow.

24

Chapter One

and language as well as across and through time, synchronically and diachronically. In responding to them and interpreting their relationships scholars have been stimulated to develop corresponding flexibility in their patterns of thinking. The implications for scholars of such lateral/ horizontal dialogue have been recently explored by Constanze Güthenke. She points out that the “cognitive dissonance that comes from dealing with more than one field is surely having an effect on how we as Classicists relate to other humanistic disciplines”.45 This reassessment of perspectives and the need to hold several of them in tension at the same time, is increasingly present in current research, both into creativity in classical receptions and into the associated histories of scholarship (each provides insights for the other). Dissonance is not only cognitive but affective and seeps into every aspect of critical praxis. Here then, is the special value of being able to research and discuss the ways in which ancient Greek texts, plays, poetics and ideas have been refracted, not only within Modern Greek literature, aesthetic sensibilities and cultural politics, but also in the relationships that these have with poetry and drama in other languages and cultures. Those interfaces and points of intersection illuminate in their turn all the contributing literatures and areas of scholarship. In analysing the mythical narratives, texts and authors, ancient and modern, that offer the most diverse range of energising elements (debate/ experimentation/ cultural force), we quickly encounter second order questions about the extent to which polyphony and polyvalency are defining features in transmission and transformation. Tracking resonances between Cavafy’s Homer-orientated work and that of recent poets like Mahon and Longley reveals thick and fertile layers and intersections that embrace historical contexts and cultural orientations as well as drawing on the formal elements and the interpretive and creative agencies of authors and readers.46 Mutual alienation between history-based readings and aesthetics is dissolved by the continuing presence of the ancient material.47 In these thick texts, historicist and aesthetic readings cannot stand without each other; creativity and re-combination work together. Transformation is part of transmission and transmission is a necessary part of transformation. In its insistence on glancing laterally as well as backwards and forwards, Cavafy’s poetry is pivotal. It echoes the contexts and poetics of Homer’s world and becomes a catalyst for modern

45

Güthenke (2013) 243-244. Hardwick (2014) discusses a variety of ways in which Modern Greek Studies can inform and reshape the hermeneutic web of classical reception analysis. 47 Pourgouris (2014) 283. 46

Can Transmission and Transformation be Reconciled?

25

poetic vitality that both derives energy from its historical and aesthetic frames and yet also pushes against and transforms them.



CHAPTER TWO GEORGE SEFERIS AND EURIPIDES’ BACCHAE MICHAEL PASCHALIS

According to G. P. Savvidis, it was probably in 1952 that Seferis conceived the idea of translating Euripides’ Bacchae. 1 More precise information regarding his overall engagement with Euripides’ play can be derived from the dates when he acquired the books he consulted for the study of the play, which are now housed in the Vikelaia Library of Heraklion. On December 7, 1953 Seferis recorded in his diary the escape-wish of the Bacchants occurring in the first stasimon of Euripides’ Bacchae (402405), a wish alluding to the poet’s own “escape” to Cyprus (see below). According to the dates inscribed by the poet on Winnington-Ingram’s Euripides and Dionysus (1948) and on Dodds’ Bacchae (1953), both books were acquired on July 5, 1955 in Lebanon, where he served as an ambassador from November 1952 to the early months of 1956 and during which time he made his three visits to Cyprus. Vellacott’s translation of the Bacchae (1954) was acquired in Beirut in 1955; a more precise date (May 29, 1955) is given on p. 228 at the end of the translation. It follows that Seferis embarked on the composition of the “Note for the prologue” (see below) and on translating Euripides’ play some time after the dates of the acquisition of these books. Actually his first translation attempts are recorded in pencil on his own copy of Dodds’ Bacchae: lines 1-3 are translated on p. 3, above the Greek text; the opening lines (1168-1171) of the lyric dialogue between Agaue and the Chorus are translated on p. 47, above and at the side of the Greek text (the latter translation is not included in Yatromanolakis’ edition, on which see below). As for the poem “Pentheus”, it must have been composed between these dates and the publication of the Cyprus poems in December 1955. On Friday, January 9, 1959, Seferis bought at Cambridge, England the 1957 paperback edition of E. R. Dodds’ The Greeks and the Irrational. 1

Savvidis (1962) 86.

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27

The pencil marks on its pages suggest that the poet showed as much interest in this book as in Winnnigton-Ingram, especially in chapters IV “Dream-Pattern and Culture-Pattern” and VIII “The Fear of Freedom”, and Appendix I “Maenadism”. On p. 5 of his own copy of Dodds’ edition of the Bacchae, right below the opening lines of the parodos, Seferis made the following note: “White” maenadism — ਥį૵ ıIJ੽Ȟ ʌȐȡȠįȠ ਥȞ ਕȞIJȚșȑıİȚ ʌȡઁȢ “black” maenadism IJ૵Ȟ ਕȖȖȑȜȦȞǜ ʌȡȕ. Dodds-Ir(rational) p. 272-3 țĮ੿ ıȘȝ. 18.

The note suggests that in 1959 Seferis was reading The Greeks and the Irrational with his mind still engaged in the interpretation of Euripides’ Bacchae. Chapter IV in which Dodds examines the attitude of the Greeks towards dreams is relevant to the poem “Pentheus” and especially its beginning which is marked by the poet in the left hand margin of the page: Man shares with a few others of the higher mammals the curious privilege of citizenship in two worlds. He enjoys in daily alternation two distinct kinds of experience—੢ʌĮȡ and ੕ȞĮȡ as the Greeks called them—each of which has its own logic and its own limitations; and he has no obvious reason for thinking one of them more significant than the other. If the waking world has certain advantages of solidity and continuity, its social opportunities are terribly restricted.2

In Seferis’ Papers, which are kept in the Gennadius Library at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, there are five pages of notes in the poet’s handwriting, which contain translation drafts from the Bacchae amounting to a total of fifty-nine lines. It is the second-longest translation of ancient Greek poetry undertaken by Seferis after Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, which amounts to one hundred and one lines. The translation was edited by Yorgis Yatromanolakis in 1980 (reprinted in 20002) in a volume with intralingual translations by Seferis but an update has become necessary for most of them, including the Bacchae one.3 In addition to the translation drafts, the file in the Gennadius Library contains other material on Euripides and the Bacchae written or collected by Seferis. There is a list of Euripides’ surviving plays and their dates; the program of a performance of the Bacchae at the Cambridge Arts Theatre in May 18-23, 1959 directed by Minos Volanakis, which contains a synopsis of the play and a comment by E. R. Dodds; and an analysis of the 2 3

Dodds (1957) 102. Yatromanolakis (20002) 36-43.

28

Chapter Two

Bacchae by Evangelos Fotiadis, Director General of the National Theatre, printed in RadiotƝleorasis (issue 29/9-4/10, 1969) and heavily marked by Seferis in red ink. This is evidence that his interest in Euripides’ play remained vivid till the last years of his life (†1971). On the level of poetic creation Seferis’ interest in the Bacchae was channeled into the composition of “Pentheus”, a poem in the collection Logbook III.4 The collection was composed in the years 1953-1955 on the occasion of the poet’s three visits to Cyprus (6/11/53-9/12/53, 15/9/5417/10/54, 30/8/55-3/10/55) and was published in December 1955. It contains two more poems inspired by or relating to Euripides: “Helen” and “Euripides the Athenian”. Seferis’ engagement with Euripides which had begun in the 1930s became intense in the early 1950s.5 While working on the translation of the Bacchae the poet wrote two brief notes about the play. One is entitled “Note for the prologue” (ȈȘȝ(İȓȦıȘ) ȖȚĮ ʌȡȩȜȠȖȠ) and the other contains comments on the Chorus. The composition of the “Note for the prologue” suggests that Seferis was planning to translate the whole tragedy. But the main significance of these two notes lies elsewhere. They lead us to the source of Seferis’ inspiration, which is Vellacott’s translation of the Bacchae and primarily WinningtonIngram’s Euripides and Dionysus mentioned above. The notes, Seferis’ readings and a passage from an essay he wrote in 1961 give us a good idea of how he interpreted the play, how he personally related to it and what kind of inspiration he had in writing the poem “Pentheus”. He may also have consulted Winnington-Ingram in translating the Bacchae. I quote first the “Note for the prologue”: ȈȘȝ(İȓȦıȘ) ȖȚĮ ʌȡȩȜȠȖȠ ȆȠȚȩ ਥʌȚȝȪșȚȠ ਩ȤȠȣȞ Ƞੂ ǺȐțȤİȢ (Į੝IJઁ IJઁ IJİȜİȣIJĮ૙Ƞ ਩ȡȖȠ ਕȜȜ੹ IJઁ ਕȡȚıIJȠȪȡȖȘȝĮ IJȠ૨ Ǽ੝ȡȚʌȓįȘ) ț(Į੿) ʌȠȚȩ ıȣȝʌȑȡĮıȝĮ; ȀĮȞȑȞĮ ș੹ ʌİ૙ ੒ …. ੘ Ǽ੝ȡȚʌȓįȘȢ ȝİIJ੹ IJ੹ 70 ਕijȠ૨ ਙijȘıİ IJ੽Ȟ ਝșȒȞĮ țIJȜʌ (į੻Ȣ Vellacott) ȕȡોțİ ȝȚ੹ ijȡȑıțȚĮ ਩ȝʌȞİȣıȘ ıIJ੽ ȂĮțİįȠȞȓĮ, ਕijȠ૨ ʌĮȡȐIJȘıİ IJ੽Ȟ ıIJȑȖȞȚĮ IJોȢ ਝșȒȞĮȢ. Ĭ੹ ȝʌȠȡȠ૨ıİ ੖ȝȦȢ țĮȞȑȞĮȢ Ȟ੹ įȚĮʌȚıIJȫıİȚ țȠȚIJȐȗȠȞIJĮȢ IJઁ ਩ȡȖȠ țĮ੿ IJઁȞ țȪȡȚȠ įȚȐȜȠȖȠ ǻȚȠȞȪıȠȣ (ǺĮțȤ૵Ȟ) – ȆİȞșȑĮ IJȠȪIJȠȣȢ IJȠઃȢ įȪȠ ȤĮȡĮțIJોȡİȢ. ੘ȝĮįȚț੽ ਫ਼ıIJİȡȓĮ țȚ ਪȞĮȢ ਕʌȦșȘȝȑȞȠȢ ਙȞșȡȦʌȠȢ. Note for the prologue What is the moral of the Bacchae (Euripides’ last play but also his masterpiece)? What is its ultimate meaning [lit., conclusion]? None, according to . . . In his seventies, Euripides, after he left Athens etc (see Vellacott), found fresh inspiration in Macedonia, having left behind him 4 5

Seferis (19749). Paschalis [(2010) 506-512] with earlier literature.

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the dryness of Athens. By looking at the play and the main dialogue between Dionysus (the Bacchae) and Pentheus, one could, however, identify these two characters. Mass hysteria and a repressed man.

The part of the “Note” about the time and the circumstances of the play’s composition is derived, as the poet himself indicates, from Vellacott’s Introduction to his translation of the Bacchae. I quote the passage with the relevant lines italicised: The Bacchae was Euripides’ last play, written when, past seventy years of age, he had at last left behind the hectic, exhausted, war-obsessed city of Athens, and escaped from a quarter-century of siege into the mountainfreshness of Macedon. The emotional experience involved in this change is hard for us to imagine; the painful act itself may have followed some years of hesitation; there was no prospect of return. The stimulus of new air and scenery is felt at work in the vividness of many lines describing the power and mystery of mountain solitudes; and the theme of the play, the Dionysiac cult, is new for Euripides; but the material in which the theme is worked out, the nature of human character and human environment—this has the familiar stamp; and it is almost certain that so intense and complete a work was the result not of a sudden new inspiration, but of many years of thought. The play grew out of the Athenian world, out of the despairing follies of a disillusioned people, and was addressed to their ears as the last testament of a man who knew them and their need, better than any other man except Socrates.6

Why Seferis became interested in this particular section of Vellacott’s eleven-page long Introduction is not hard to imagine. I assume it is because the turn in Euripides’ life struck a personal chord. He detected in it an intriguing similarity to the turn his own life had taken. The escape from Athens to Macedon, “the stimulus of new air and scenery” and the “sudden new inspiration” seem to reflect the poet’s own situation after November 6, 1953. I mean his “escape” from the accustomed environment and its stegnia (= dryness) to Cyprus, an island which, as I will explain later, belongs to the world of the Bacchae; the sudden inspiration which was channeled into a collection of poems with an entirely new subjectmatter; and the abandonment of the Ithacan Odysseus, the faithful companion of his poetic voyage until that time, for the sake of the Salaminian Teucer, who like the poet found in Cyprus a second home and whose words, derived from Euripides’ Helen (148-149), provided the epigraph for Seferis’ Logbook III: …KȪʌȡȠȞ, Ƞ੤ ȝ’ ਥșȑıʌȚıİȞ..., 6

Vellacott (1954) 24-25.

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Chapter Two

“…Cyprus, where it was decreed for me…” (this quotation was actually the original title of the collection). Did the poet also expect Logbook III to be his “last” collection and his “masterpiece” as he says in the note with regard to Euripides’ Bacchae (his “last testament” as Vellacott wrote about Euripides’ play)? What is certain is that he did not expect the unfavourable critical reception of his poems.7 Seferis begins the “Note for the prologue” with a question about the “moral” (epimythio) and “ultimate meaning” (symperasma, actually “conclusion”) of the play and adds that a certain person he does not mention would have answered: “None”. These lines are derived from Seferis’ major source of inspiration for the interpretation of the Bacchae, Winnnigton-Ingram’s Euripides and Dionysus. The person in question may be Thomas Babington Macaulay, the British historian, essayist and politician. I quote two relevant passages from Winnington-Ingram: “The Bacchae is a most glorious play ...”, wrote Macaulay. “It is often very obscure; and I am not sure that I understand its general scope. But, as a piece of language, it is hardly equaled in the world. […]”. Confused with such a welter of divergent interpretations, the reader may perhaps prefer to enjoy the play in the spirit of Macaulay.8

It is likely that the poet had also in mind the following passage from Winnington-Ingram, which has the advantage of beginning with the word “moral”, the English word for epimythio: Perhaps there is no “moral”, but merely a dramatist taking the facts as he found them and making an exciting play, or, less crudely, a poet presenting with a poet’s fidelity the stark tragic contradiction which he saw.9

The question of the “ultimate meaning” of the play is central to Winnnington-Ingram’s monograph. In chapter I he surveys scholarship on this issue, in chapters II-X he provides an analysis of the tragedy and in the last two chapters he draws his conclusions. In his view Euripides’ treatment of the orgiastic Dionysiac cult in the Bacchae is not so much about religion as about symbols and forces: the instinctive emotional impulses represented by Dionysus and the maenads; the liberation of emotions in the mountains, which takes a peaceful and a violent form; and 7

See in detail S. Pavlou (20052) 207-226. Winnington-Ingram (1948) 4, 6. Seferis underlined the sentence “But, as a piece of language, […] in the world” in his own copy of the book. 9 Winnington-Ingram (1948) 5. 8

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what happens when sensual impulses are repressed as in the case of Pentheus. The following brief statement renders the spirit of the book: The Bacchae indeed implies a practical problem. That problem is, most widely stated, how to deal with the forces of emotion, particularly as they are generated in the associations of human beings.10

Seferis summarises the point of Euripides and Dionysus (the epimythio and symperasma as he calls it) in the last two lines of the “Note for the prologue”. There he sees a confrontation between “mass hysteria” on the one hand and “a repressed man” on the other: ĬȐ ȝʌȠȡȠ૨ıİ ੖ȝȦȢ țĮȞȑȞĮȢ ȞȐ įȚĮʌȚıIJȫıİȚ țȠȚIJȐȗȠȞIJĮȢ IJઁ ਩ȡȖȠ țĮ੿ IJઁȞ țȪȡȚȠ įȚȐȜȠȖȠ ǻȚȠȞȪıȠȣ (ǺĮțȤ૵Ȟ) – ȆİȞșȑĮ IJȠȪIJȠȣȢ IJȠઃȢ įȪȠ ȤĮȡĮțIJોȡİȢ. ੘ȝĮįȚț੽ ਫ਼ıIJİȡȓĮ țȚ ਪȞĮȢ ਕʌȦșȘȝȑȞȠȢ ਙȞșȡȦʌȠȢ.

Seferis dedicated the second of the two notes to the Maenads, these powerful and dangerous forces of emotion as Winnington-Ingram describes them. This note is an almost literal translation of statements by WinningtonIngram, whose exact words Seferis quotes. I quote first the note and below three passages from Euripides and Dionysus with the relevant lines italicised: Winnington-Ingram, Euripides and Dionysus = W ੘ ȤȠȡઁȢ İੇȞĮȚ ȖȣȞĮ૙țİȢ ਝıȚȐIJȚııİȢ ʌȠ૨ ਕțȠȜȠȪșȘıĮȞ IJઁ ȞȑȠ șİઁ ıIJ੽Ȟ ਬȜȜȐįĮ. ǼੇȞĮȚ ijĮȞĮIJȚț੹ ਕijȠıȚȦȝȑȞİȢ ıIJ੽ ȞȑĮ șȡȘıțİȓĮ. ǼੇȞĮȚ ȟȑȞİȢ ı੻ ȟȑȞȘ ȤȫȡĮ—ı੻ țȓȞįȣȞȠ—ਗȞ ਕʌȠIJȪȤİȚ ਲ ȞȑĮ șȡȘıțİȓĮ—șĮȞȐIJȠȣ ਲ਼ ijȣȜĮțોȢ. ȈȘȝİȚ૵ıIJİ IJȠ૨IJȠ IJઁ ȤĮȡĮțIJોȡĮ IJȠȣ. (cf. W. 2 Bacchae = vigorous rhythm from end to end Dionysus = power of blind instinctive emotion W. 9 Pentheus = symbol of crude asceticism W. 9 In no other extant Greek play since Aeschylus, and in Aeschylus only in the Supplices and Eumenides, is the Chorus so prominent. For it is formed of a band of Asiatic Bacchanals who have followed the god, in his human disguise, to Greece. Not only are they passionate adherents of the new religion, but their own fate is closely bound up with the god’s success at Thebes; and Euripides does not allow us to forget that they, a band of women in a foreign land, are in danger of bonds or death. Though they

10

Winnington-Ingram (1948) 168-169.

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Chapter Two have little part in the dialogue, their songs are clearly of fundamental importance for an understanding of the play.11 In other plays of Euripides we may find halting action, dubious characterisation, apparent irrelevancies, to be admitted or explained, but not in the Bacchae, where a vigorous rhythm runs without break from end to end of the play, and where the problems of criticism concern final aims rather than defective methods.12 “Rationalism”, however, will find suspicious features in the story and will deny that the Stranger’s account of events is a true one. But, by so doing, it will distract attention from something which is more important than the immediate excitement of the story, more important than the motives of an Olympian, infinitely more important than a piece of ingenious rationalization—it will distract attention from the symbolism of the events described. For Dionysus symbolises the power of blind, instinctive emotion. Seek to take him by force and imprison him in the dark, and the result is, inevitably, catastrophic. Similarly with the binding of the bull. Its appropriateness has always been recognised, for the bull is an avatar of Dionysus. Here it represents Dionysus as animal (a motif that runs throughout the play) and perhaps especially as sexual animal; and Pentheus, as he sweats and grimaces and pants out his heart is a symbol of crude asceticism, engaged upon a hopeless task. For the true, the essential Dionysus is sitting quietly close at hand, biding his time (618 sqq.).13

Let me note in connection with the Maenads that forty-six out of the fifty-nine lines of Seferis’ translation of the Bacchae refer to the Asian Bacchants and the women of Thebes. These are: the first nineteen lines of the parodos (64-82); the first fourteen lines of the first stasimon (370-383); three lines from the first messenger’s speech telling how the Bacchants swooped on the villagers like birds of prey (748-750); and the five lines of the exodos (1388-1392).

11

Winnington-Ingram (1948) 2. In Seferis’ copy of the book the passage is marked in pencil with a straight line in the left margin and the sentence “is the Chorus so prominent” is underlined. 12 Winnington-Ingram (1948) 6. In Seferis’ copy the passage is marked in pencil with a double line in the left margin and the phrase “vigorous rhythm” is underlined. 13 Winnington-Ingram (1948) 8. In Seferis’ copy the section “it will distract attention … emotion” is marked in pencil with double straight lines in the right margin, the next lines are marked with a single straight line, and the phrases “sexual animal” and “a symbol of crude asceticism” are underlined.

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In 1961 Seferis wrote an essay entitled “Delphi”. His interest in the Bacchae was still vivid and the particular theme originates in lines 306309 of Euripides’ play, where Teiresias predicts that Dionysus would be great in Greece and would be worshipped with torches and dancing even on the crags of Delphi. In this essay the poet talks about Dionysiac worship and Euripides’ Bacchae in terms which summarise the viewpoint of Winnington-Ingram’s Euripides and Dionysus, and records his own reaction to maenadic rites (the relevant lines are italicised): īȪȡİȥĮ Ȟ’ ਕȞİȕ૵ ıIJઁ ȀȦȡȪțȚȠ, ȖȚĮIJ੿ ıȣȜȜȠȖȚȗȩȝȠȣȞ ʌઅȢ Į੝IJઁ IJઁ țȠȓIJĮȖȝĮ ıIJ੹ ȝȑȡȘ IJȠ૨ ਝʌȩȜȜȦȞĮ ਩ʌȡİʌİ Ȟ੹ ıȣȝʌȜȘȡȦșİ૙ ȝ੻ țȐʌȠȚĮ Į੅ıșȘıȘ IJȠ૨ ǻȚȠȞȪıȠȣ, ʌȠઃ IJȩıȠ ਫ਼ʌȠıIJȒȡȚȟİ ਲ ȆȣșȓĮǜ IJȠ૨ ȞİțȡȠ૨ țĮ੿ ȗȦȞIJĮȞȠ૨ ĬİȠ૨, IJȠ૨ ĬİȠ૨-ǺȡȑijȠȣȢǜ IJ߱Ȣ ıȣȖțȚȞȘıȚĮț߱Ȣ ‫݋‬țİȓȞȘȢ įȪȞĮȝȘȢ ʌȠީ ‫ݛ‬șİȜİ Ȟ‫ ޟ‬ȝ‫ޣ‬Ȟ țĮIJĮijȡȠȞȠࠎȞIJĮȚ IJ‫ݸ ޟ‬ȡȝȑȝijȣIJĮ IJȠࠎ ܻȞșȡȫʌȠȣ. ȈIJ‫ޟ‬ ‫ݷ‬ȡȠʌȑįȚĮ ȖȪȡȦ ıIJާ ܿȞIJȡȠ ȖȓȞȠȞIJĮȞ IJ‫ ޟ‬ʌİȡȚȠįȚț‫ ޟ‬ȞȣȤIJİȡȚȞ‫ݻ ޟ‬ȡȖȚĮ IJࠛȞ ĬȣȚȐįȦȞ țĮ‫ ޥ‬IJࠛȞ ȂĮȚȞȐįȦȞ, ੖,IJȚ țȚ ਗȞ įȘȜȫȞİȚ IJȫȡĮ ȖȚ੹ ȝ઼Ȣ IJઁ ਥțıIJĮIJȚțઁ ਥțİ૙ȞȠ ȟȑıʌĮıȝĮ IJ૵Ȟ ȖȣȞĮȚț૵Ȟ ʌȠઃ țĮIJİ૙Ȥİ ੒ șİȩȢ. ȈȣȜȜȠȖȚȗȩȝȠȣȞ IJઁȞ ȆİȞșȑĮ, IJާȞ ܻʌȦșȘȝȑȞȠ ‫݋‬țİ߿ȞȠȞ ǺĮıȚȜȚȐ (Ǽ੝ȡȚʌȓįȘȢ, ǺȐțȤİȢ). ĭȠȕȠȪȝȠȣȞ IJઁ ʌĮȡȐįİȚȖȝĮ IJોȢ IJȡĮȖȦįȓĮȢ IJȠȣǜ ਩ȜİȖĮ: țĮȜȪIJİȡĮ ਲ ijȡİȞȓIJȚįĮ IJ૵Ȟ ĬȣȚȐįȦȞ ıIJ੿Ȣ ਕȥȘȜ੻Ȣ ਥȡȘȝȚ੻Ȣ IJȠ૨ ȆĮȡȞĮııȠ૨, ʌĮȡ੹ IJ੹ ਫ਼ʌȠțĮIJȐıIJĮIJȐ IJȘȢ ıIJ੿Ȣ ıȘȝİȡȚȞ੻Ȣ ਕʌȑȡĮȞIJİȢ ȝİȡȝȘȖțȠijȦȜȚ੻Ȣ ʌȠઃ İੇȞĮȚ Ƞੂ ȝİȖȐȜİȢ ʌȡȦIJİȪȠȣıȑȢ ȝĮȢ. ȈȣȜȜȠȖȚȗȩȝȠȣȞ IJ੿Ȣ ੒ȝĮįȚț੻Ȣ IJȡȑȜİȢ ȝĮȢ.14

Worthy of particular note in this passage are the following three points. First the reference to Pentheus as ton apǀthƝmeno ekeinon Vasilia (“that repressed King”) picks up the description enan apǀthƝmeno anthrǀpo (“a repressed man”) which Seferis applies to Pentheus in the “Note for the prologue”. “Repressed”, translated by Seferis as apǀthƝmenos, recurs in Winnington-Ingram with reference to Pentheus, as in the following passage: “Well-intentioned, but proud, hot-tempered, impulsive, with a repressed sensuality and a leaning towards violent methods”.15 Relevant to our understanding of this passage is furthermore Dodds’ introduction to the Bacchae, where he talks about periodic mountain dancing practiced by women’s societies at Delphi and how it served to channel “mass hysteria” (a term used by Seferis in the “Note for the prologue”) into an organised rite.16 The third point is that in Seferis’ view the example of Pentheus in the Bacchae advises against repressing instinctive impulses (“the precedent of 14

Savvidis (19997) 145-146. Winnington-Ingram (1948) 71. Seferis underlined the phrase “with a repressed sensuality” and marked it in the right margin with the brace sign (}) and a cross. 16 Dodds (1953) xiii-xvi. 15

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his tragedy frightened me”). In the last three lines of the passage which contrast the frenzy of the Bacchants in the heights of Parnassus to civilised life in contemporary capitals the poet relates personally to the liberating effect of maenadic experience. In the concluding thought he looks back with nostalgia to his own collective outbursts of innocent frenzy. At this point we recall that in the “Note for the prologue” Seferis implicitly identifies himself with the poet of the Bacchae as regards the circumstances in which the tragedy was written, and the fresh inspiration it represented. This reaction I associated above with Seferis’ “escape” to Cyprus. It is highly significant that during his first visit to Cyprus the poet recorded in his diary on December 7, 1953 the escape-wish of the Bacchants from the first stasimon of Euripides’ Bacchae (402-405) freely rendered into English by J. F. Roxburgh. 17 I quote Roxburgh’s full translation of the Euripidean passage (lines 3–6 of the translation are left out in the diary) and the Greek original (from Dodds’ edition): Love hath an island And I would be there; Love hath an island, And nurtureth there For men the Delights The beguilers of care, Cyprus, Love’s island And I would be there. ੂțȠȓȝĮȞ ʌȠIJ੿ ȀȪʌȡȠȞ, Ȟ઼ıȠȞ IJ઼Ȣ ਝijȡȠįȓIJĮȢ, ੆Ȟૃ Ƞੂ șİȜȟȓijȡȠȞİȢ ȞȑȝȠȞIJĮȚ șȞĮIJȠ૙ıȚȞ ਯȡȦIJİȢ, [ȆȐijȠȞ ș’ ਘȞ ਦțĮIJȩıIJȠȝȠȚ ȕĮȡȕȐȡȠȣ ʌȠIJĮȝȠ૨ ૧ȠĮ੿ țĮȡʌȓȗȠȣıȚȞ ਙȞȠȝȕȡȠȚ]

Seferis discovered in Cyprus an island where “miracles still happened”.18 In this respect the island belongs to the world of the Bacchae which “is pervaded by the miraculous”. The description occurs in WinningtonIngram, who enumerates the miracles of the play, and Seferis underlined these words in his personal copy of the book.19 The lines quoted above 17

Merminkas (1986) 116, 272-273. “਺ ȀȪʌȡȠȢ İੇȞĮȚ ਪȞĮȢ IJȩʌȠȢ ੖ʌȠȣ IJઁ șĮ૨ȝĮ ȜİȚIJȠȣȡȖİ૙ ਕțȩȝȘ”: see the note on Logbook III in Seferis (19749) 336. See also Papazoglou (2000) 179-182. 19 Winnington-Ingram (1948) 2. 18

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come from the second strophe of the first stasimon. Here the Chorus long for Cyprus, the island of Aphrodite, and other places where Bacchic worship is permitted as opposed to Pentheus’ Thebes. Lines 415-416 “and there it is lawful to perform their rites” are underlined in Seferis’ copy of Winnington-Ingram.20 So far we have seen that the ideas Seferis derived from WinningtonIngram and recorded in the two notes and the passage in the essay on Delphi were instrumental in shaping his understanding of Euripides’ Bacchae. These ideas are important also for interpreting the poem “Pentheus”, which I quote together with the English translation by Edmund Keeley and Phillip Sherrard: ȆǼȃĬǼȊȈ ੘ ੢ʌȞȠȢ IJઁȞ ȖȑȝȚȗİ ੕ȞİȚȡĮ țĮȡʌ૵Ȟ țĮ੿ ijȪȜȜȦȞǜ ੒ ȟȪʌȞȠȢ į੻Ȟ IJઁȞ ਙijȘȞİ Ȟ੹ țȩȥİȚ Ƞ੡IJİ ਪȞĮ ȝȠ૨ȡȠ. ȀȚ Ƞੂ įȣઁ ȝĮȗ੿ ȝȠȚȡȐıĮȞİ IJ੹ ȝȑȜȘ IJȠȣ ıIJȚȢ ǺȐțȤİȢ. Sleep filled him with dreams of fruit and leaves; wakefulness kept him from picking even a mulberry. And the two together divided his limbs among the Bacchae.

Relying on the passage from the “Delphi” essay quoted above, KrikosDavis has argued that “One could suggest that the first line refers to Pentheus’ repressed desires, his instinctive impulses and needs”. She furthermore noted that fruits and leaves are symbols of earthly desires which Pentheus can enjoy in his dreams but is unable to do so while awake. And she concluded that the Theban king is torn to pieces because he foolishly ignores his instinctive impulses. 21 The evidence I have produced so far, from Seferis’ two notes and Winnington-Ingram’s Euripides and Dionysus, reshapes and enriches this interpretation. Of particular significance is the portrayal of Pentheus as apǀthƝmenos (“repressed”) not only in the essay but also in the “Note for the prologue”. But what about the context of sleep and wakefulness in which these ideas are placed? Krikos-Davis reminds us that in the Bacchae sleep is a gift of Dionysus to humanity and cites lines 282-283 spoken by Teiresias. I quote the whole passage (278-283, Dodds’ text) with an English translation by Ian Johnston:

20

Winnington-Ingram (1948) 64. Krikos-Davis (2002) 98-102. On these points see further Papazoglou (2000) 162-166. 21

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੔Ȣ įૃ ਷Ȝșૃ ਩ʌİȚIJૃ, ਕȞIJȓʌĮȜȠȞ ੒ ȈİȝȑȜȘȢ ȖȩȞȠȢ ȕȩIJȡȣȠȢ ਫ਼ȖȡઁȞ ʌ૵ȝૃ Ș੤ȡİ țİੁıȘȞȑȖțĮIJȠ șȞȘIJȠ૙Ȣ, ੔ ʌĮȪİȚ IJȠઃȢ IJĮȜĮȚʌȫȡȠȣȢ ȕȡȠIJȠઃȢ ȜȪʌȘȢ, ੖IJĮȞ ʌȜȘıș૵ıȚȞ ਕȝʌȑȜȠȣ ૧ȠોȢ, ੢ʌȞȠȞ IJİ ȜȒșȘȞ IJ૵Ȟ țĮșૃ ਲȝȑȡĮȞ țĮț૵Ȟ įȓįȦıȚȞ, Ƞ੝įૃ ਩ıIJૃ ਙȜȜȠ ijȐȡȝĮțȠȞ ʌȩȞȦȞ. The other one came later, born of Semele— he brought with him liquor from the grape, something to match the bread from Demeter. He introduced it among mortal men. When they can drink up what streams off the vine, unhappy mortals are released from pain. It grants them sleep, allows them to forget their daily troubles. Apart from wine, there is no cure for human hardship.22

There is also a later passage in the Bacchae that treats the same theme and was translated by Seferis. It is lines 381-385 of the first stasimon, which I quote from Dodds, followed by Seferis’ modern Greek translation and Johnston’s English translation: ਕʌȠʌĮ૨ıĮȓ IJİ ȝİȡȓȝȞĮȢ, ੒ʌȩIJĮȞ ȕȩIJȡȣȠȢ ਩Ȝșૉ ȖȐȞȠȢ ਥȞ įĮȚIJ੿ șİ૵Ȟ, țȚııȠijȩȡȠȚȢ įૃ ਥȞ șĮȜȓĮȚȢ ਕȞįȡȐıȚ țȡĮIJ੽ȡ ੢ʌȞȠȞ ਕȝijȚȕȐȜȜૉ. ȀĮ੿ ȝ઼Ȣ ȖȜȣțĮȓȞİȚ IJȠઃȢ țĮȘȝȠઃȢ ı੹Ȟ ਩ȡșİȚ ıIJઁ șİ૙Ƞ IJȡĮʌȑȗȚ ȜĮȝʌİȡઁ țȡĮı੿ țĮ੿ ıIJઁȞ ੅ıțȚȠ IJ૵Ȟ țȚııȠijȩȡȦȞ ȕȜĮıIJ૵Ȟ ȡȓȟİȚ IJઁȞ ੢ʌȞȠ ıIJȠઃȢ ਙȞIJȡİȢ.23 to bring all sorrows to an end, at the god’s sacrificial feast, when the gleaming liquid grapes arrive, when the wine bowl casts its sleep on ivy-covered feasting men.24

22

Johnston (2008) lines 349-357. Yatromanolakis [(20002)41] erroneously prints “ȡȓȟİȚ ıIJઁȞ ੢ʌȞȠ IJȠઃȢ ਙȞIJȡİȢ”. 24 Johnston (2008) lines 484-488. 23

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The advantage of the second passage is that it includes kissos (“ivy”): sleep comes ston iskio tǀn kissophorǀn vlastǀn (“in the shade of ivybearing tendrils”), as Seferis translates kissophorois d’ en thaliais, or “on ivy-covered feasting men” in Johnston’s translation. Ivy is Dionysus’ sacred plant par excellence and figures prominently in the Bacchae, where it serves to wreathe the head and decorate the thyrsus. The context of the passage may have some bearing on karpǀn kai phyllǀn (“of fruit and leaves”) in the first line of Seferis’ poem, since ivy produces also clusters of berries called korymboi or korymba. The word mouro used by Seferis and commonly translated “mulberry” can also refer to the “berry” of the ivy. According to this interpretation, both lines would contain references to Dionysus’ sacred plant. To be crowned with ivy, as in this passage and in another one also translated by Seferis (stephanǀmenos me kisso, 81), meant to worship the god and enjoy the liberating effect of this experience. Employed as a metaphor in Seferis’ poem the appropriation or non-appropriation of the ivy may portray two contrasting situations as regards Pentheus’ yielding or not yielding to the world of emotion, desire and sensuality. The problem is that in the Bacchae wine brings release from pain as well as sleep that causes forgetfulness. There is no mention of the releasing power of sleep as imagined by Seferis. In Winnington-Ingram’s Euripides and Dionysus there is, however, a passage about how Pentheus at a certain point of the tragedy (beginning at line 812) ceases to resist Dionysus and succumbs to him. As if acting under a spell, he changes attitude, he gradually liberates himself from inhibitions and reveals his repressed impulses and desires. In order to portray the circumstances that bring about this dramatic change, Winnington-Ingram uses on two occasions the word “hypnotism”, a modern coinage based on ancient Greek hypnos (“sleep”). Here are the passages with relevant lines italicised: From the first Pentheus is represented as unstable and excitable, a man of quick temper and violent reactions. As the play develops, we learn of two particular instinctive appetites that are strong in him—the sexual impulse and the lust for power. Now, were he a perfect Bacchanal, he would proceed to the straightforward gratification of these desires. As it is, the sexual impulse is repressed, and therefore the more dangerous, like a stream imperfectly dammed; the desire for power and glory is indeed partially gratified, but not acknowledged. It is not until a process comparable to hypnotism is accomplished upon him that he drops all pretence and frankly reveals his underlying motives. He falls an easy victim to the fascinating personality of the god-stranger, and the ease of the god’s victory is an index of the extent to which Pentheus was already his

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Chapter Two unconscious follower, already familiar (as even Teiresias perhaps realised) with his drugs!25 Has anything happened to Pentheus more than the releasing by wine, by drugs, by hypnotism, in short by Dionysus, of the inhibitions which concealed his true desires?26

Could the description of Pentheus’ condition as “hypnotism” have been one of Seferis’ sources of inspiration for the poem? This is likely, considering that Winnington-Ingram’s monograph was the main influence on Seferis’ reading of the Bacchae, determined the focus of his translation, and shaped the ideas at work behind “Pentheus”. The correspondence between the sleeplike condition (“hypnotism”) of Winnington-Ingram’s Pentheus, which causes him to reveal his repressed desires, and the releasing sleep of Seferis’ Pentheus, which “filled him with dreams of fruit and leaves”, is indeed striking.

25 26

Winnington-Ingram (1948) 159-160. Winnington-Ingram (1948) 119.



CHAPTER THREE MYTH, THE MASK, AND THE “MASQUERADE” OF FEMININITY: PERFORMING GENDER IN YANNIS RITSOS’ “ISMENE” DEMETRA DEMETRIOU

All the world’s stage, And all the men and women merely players. William Shakespeare Antigone, through clenched teeth. A girl, yes. Haven’t I cried enough for being a girl? Jean Anouilh Half victims, half accomplices, like everyone else.1 Jean-Paul Sartre

In 1972, shortly after preventive censorship was lifted by the Colonels’ ruling junta in Greece, Yannis Ritsos’ “Ismene” was published in a collection under the title The Fourth Dimension, which included sixteen dramatic monologues at the time, though it took its final form in 1978 with the addition of “Phaedra”. Ritsos’ recourse to myth in twelve of these poems shows how “literature in the second degree”2 may become, under *

My warmest thanks go to Maria Margaroni for inspiring discussions that improved the argument. I am also grateful to the editors of this volume, Vayos Liapis, Maria Pavlou, and Antonis K. Petrides for insightful comments and valuable bibliographic suggestions. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. 1 This is one of the two epigraphs that Simone de Beauvoir adds characteristically to the second volume of The Second Sex, first published in 1949, a line from Sartre’s 1948 play Dirty Hands. 2 Cf. Genette (1997).

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conditions of totalitarianism, the medium of a “second route”, which enables communist writers like him to invite allegorical interpretations of their poetry, especially within the rigid framework of the Colonels’ rule. However, the writing of “Ismene”, completed in two distinct phases, the first between September-December 1966 (that is prior to the Colonels’ coup), and the second in December 1971, following the poet’s release after three years of detention and house confinement, invites a holistic appreciation of the context which informs The Fourth Dimension. The collection, which comprises poems written from the mid-1950s to the late 1970s, epitomises the evolution of Ritsos’ poetic and political vision in the years that follow Stalin’s death, especially after the violent reaffirmation of Soviet authority in Eastern Europe in the 1950s and late 1960s.3 The fact that Andreas Karantonis, one of Ritsos’ more severe bourgeois critics, welcomes “The Moonlight Sonata”—chronologically the first of the poems eventually included in The Fourth Dimension—“in a spirit of triumph”4 also points in this direction, which makes myth—or the “utmost avowal under the mask of the other”5—both a coded protest and a highly self-critical gesture. Although the character of Ismene appears in a number of extant Greek tragedies related to the Theban Cycle, the “emergence” 6 of mythical 3

Ritsos’ own 1963 essay “On Mayakovsky” (“Ȇİȡȓ ȂĮȖȚĮțȩȕıțȘ”) [Ritsos (1974) 9-33] might be seen as direct proof of this significant turn; in it, he reflects upon and re-evaluates his earlier aesthetic and ideological engagements. In this respect, see also the poet’s reflections in Ritsos (1981 and 1991b). Furthermore, the crisis caused in the international communist movement by the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, as well as its significant repercussions over the Greek Communist Party, are crystallised in a number of poems of the collection ȆȑIJȡİȢ. ǼʌĮȞĮȜȒȥİȚȢ. ȀȚȖțȜȓįȦȝĮ [Stones. Repetitions. Railing] (1972), where the poet’s allusive—yet poignant—criticism is directed at the party’s mechanisms and ideological sterility. A number of critics have pointed out that changes in style and inspiration during that period emerge out of the turbulence within the international communist movement; see, for example, Prokopaki (1981) 37-44; Veloudis (1984) 26-30; Prevelakis (19923) 268-269; Demetriou (2013). 4 Vitti (2006) 170. 5 Ritsos (1991b) 95. See also Ritsos (1989) in one of his latest interviews: “I do not work with mythological themes anymore. I used to have recourse to them while in exile, as a disguise—someone else poses as yourself—to make some things heard, but without provoking the persecution of the editor, the poet, or even the reader”. 6 With regard to myth criticism, Brunel [(1992) 72-86] formulates the three following principles: “emergence” (which refers to the examination of mythical occurrences in a text), “flexibility” (which enables the adaptability of a given myth), and “irradiation” (which refers to the power of myth to “radiate” and signify).

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occurrences in Ritsos directly points to Sophocles’ Antigone as his main intertext. Interestingly, the play figures among Ritsos’ early translations of ancient drama,7 and a stage production of this translation was presented in July 1965 at the Lycabettus Theatre, featuring renowned Greek actress Anna Synodinou in the role of Antigone—a performance which met, however, with sharp criticism by theatre critic Alkis Thrylos.8 Apparently informed by this translating experience, Ritsos embraces, in “Ismene”, many aspects of Sophocles’ play as regards the story, but brings entirely new elements into the plot, a transformation which defines the identity of his text and deploys its potential meanings. This modernisation consists first and foremost in the transposition of the play into a different genre, a fusion of prose, free verse, and drama, peculiar to The Fourth Dimension, as well as in its significant contraction in one act, framed by a prologue and an epilogue by way of stage directions. The story is entirely related from the point of view of an aged Ismene, who addresses her monologue to the mute character of a young officer. The monologue is taken up mainly by Ismene’s recollection of a distant, undefinable past, which, along with a vague setting, enables the myth to move freely between past and present, fiction and reality, individual experience and universality. However, when it comes to “literary myth”,9 this transhistorical dimension is resolutely permeated by historicity, which in Ritsos reclaims its rights through various anachronisms, thereby grounding the story in the hic et nunc. One might have thought that Ritsos, following the logic of his militant Marxist politics, would have opted for the figure of Antigone, who has been forged, especially by twentieth-century dramatists, as an iconic figure of resistance. 10 Like Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht, 11 he could have 7

Veloudis (1984) 51. See Thrylos (1981). I am grateful to Maria Pavlou for drawing this critique to my attention. 9 With regard to “literary myth”, I draw particularly on the theoretical and methodological concerns brought to light by Albouy (1969); Brunel (2003); and Chauvin, Siganos, and Walter (2005). 10 For the phenomenal reception of Antigone in Western European thought and literature, see Fraisse (1974); Steiner (1984); Duroux and Urdician (2010); Chanter and Kirkland (2014). On the dynamics of the Antigone story in the world theatre, see Mee and Foley (2011). For feminist appropriations of Antigone, see Söderbäck (2010). For a critical re-reading of the reception history of Antigone—in philosophy, political theory, gender/queer theory, and cultural politics, see Honig (2013). 11 Although Brecht’s Antigone, as portrayed in Antigone Modell 1948, fails to act on time to prevent the defeat of her people, she remains undeniably, as Bernard 8

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transformed Antigone into a revolutionary myth, or depict her as one of socialism’s “positive hero(-in)es”, as he did in earlier collections with numerous female figures, such as the heroic mother of the Epitaphios, who is modelled on Maxim Gorky’s The Mother, 12 or even his emblematic Lady of the Vineyards, at times identified with Virgin Mary, at others with Dionysios Solomos’ “Glory” or with Laskarina Bouboulina, a major female protagonist of the Greek War of Independence in the early 19th century. However, Ritsos opts for Ismene—or the anti-hero—, whose perspective has been silenced both by the tragic tradition and by its later reception. This is a significant choice, for Ritsos further shifts his chief thematic focus on the sisters’ rivalry rather than on the confrontation between Antigone and Creon that lies at the heart of the tragic action and has been placed at the centre of both scholarly interpretations and rewritings of Antigone. Hence, it is gender which provides the source of dramatic conflict in Ritsos. Gender, however, is no longer inscribed in some kind of Hegelian masculinity/ femininity dialectic, 13 but is rather articulated around two different ethical stances, which correspond to two radically opposed variations of “womanliness”. Significantly, it is on another Sophoclean play, namely Electra, that Ritsos grounds his own Electra-Chrysothemis confrontation in his monologue “Chrysothemis” (1972), where the conflict between the sisters appears to revolve around similar—yet not identical—concerns. Engaging postmodern 14 feminist thought enables us to explore how Ritsos exposes the circumstances of the production of (female) subjectivity Knox observes, “the image of what Brecht longed to see—the rising of the German people against Hitler, a resistance that in fact never came to birth” [(1984) 36]. 12 Gorky’s Mother has served as a model for a number of communist writers in general and for Ritsos in particular. For a discussion of Ritsos’ indebtedness to Gorky, see Veloudis (1977) 4; and Demetriou (2013) 406-413. 13 In his reading of Antigone as a conflict between the spheres of divine and human law, Hegel (1977) comes to naturalise this opposition as a dialectic between the feminine and the masculine element: whereas the former is associated with nature, the oikos, contingency, and individual self-consciousness, the latter is aligned with culture, the polis, freedom, and universal self-consciousness. Hegel’s interpretation of the play has been highly influential among scholarship, but is vividly contested by contemporary feminist thought. A number of essays on this topic appear in Söderbäck (2010), including Luce Irigaray’s foremost “The Eternal Irony of the Community” (ch. 5), first published in Irigaray (1985a). 14 Although postmodern thought as an all-encompassing theoretical approach (quite often conflated with poststructuralism) is increasingly being contested, we may identify some points of resonance between a number of diverse thinkers who articulated, along with Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault, a

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within the political rationalities of both the Greek military junta and Soviet totalitarianism. In this paper, I will seek to build on insights by Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, and their respective intellectual backgrounds, especially since both thinkers attribute a certain theatricality to (gender) identity construction by raising significant issues that relate to personal agency. In doing so, they both explore, albeit from different theoretical standpoints, the possibilities of social and subjective transformation. I intend to show that their theories can illuminate my discussion of “Ismene”, for Ritsos’ very recourse both to the mythical persona and the genre of dramatic monologue invites some kind of enactment, which foregrounds performative strategies, along with Brechtian techniques, as an essential component of the text. The way the status of the dramatis personae is transformed on the level of signification is thus placed at the centre of the argument: rather than rehearse the celebrated Antigone – Creon debate, at the heart of Sophocles’ Antigone, Ritsos chooses to focus on a confrontation that is rather peripheral to Sophocles’ play, namely the encounter between Ismene and Antigone. Both in Ritsos and Sophocles the sisters’ rivalry foregrounds not a familial, but rather a political issue, which exposes an enduring tension between the domestic and the public spheres with regard to a woman’s position in a male-dominated world. In fact, Antigone, in wishing to give burial rites to her brother Polynices against Creon’s edict, is not just a transgressor of civil law, but also of the behavioural patterns of her sex. Sophocles’ Creon stresses, throughout the play, the importance of maintaining his sexual status rather than his identity as a ruler (Ant. 679-680): țȡİ૙ııȠȞ ȖȐȡ, İ੅ʌİȡ įİ૙, ʌȡઁȢ ਕȞįȡઁȢ ਥțʌİıİ૙Ȟ, țȠ੝ț ਗȞ ȖȣȞĮȚț૵Ȟ ਵııȠȞİȢ țĮȜȠȓȝİș’ ਙȞ.15 Better to fall from power, if need be, at the hands of a man, and thus nobody would call us inferior to women.

At the same time, Sophocles’ Ismene, already at the opening scene of the play, reasserts the civic (qua male) structures of authority. In attempting to vivid critique of modernity and Enlightenment’s ideals. Among a number of feminist thinkers, Judith Butler (1992) recognises (albeit mistrustfully) a certain usefulness of both “postmodernism” and “poststructuralism” for feminist political agendas, as long as these terms serve to contest normative frameworks and problematise the grounds of foundationalist positions. 15 I quote Antigone from Lloyd-Jones (1994), whose line-numbering I adopt.

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dissuade her sister from committing the deed, she comes to rationalise (and naturalise) her own submissive behaviour and consequent exclusion from political and community life (Ant. 61-64): ਕȜȜ’ ਥȞȞȠİ૙Ȟ Ȥȡ੽ IJȠ૨IJȠ ȝ੻Ȟ ȖȣȞĮ૙Ȥ’ ੖IJȚ ਩ijȣȝİȞ, ੪Ȣ ʌȡઁȢ ਙȞįȡĮȢ Ƞ੝ ȝĮȤȠȣȝȑȞĮ· ਩ʌİȚIJĮ į’ Ƞ੡Ȟİț’ ਕȡȤȩȝİıș’ ਥț țȡİȚııȩȞȦȞ, țĮ੿ IJĮ૨IJ’ ਕțȠȪİȚȞ țਙIJȚ IJ૵Ȟį’ ਕȜȖȓȠȞĮ. But you must understand, first, that we were born women, not made, by nature, to contend with men; then too, that we are ruled by those who are stronger, so we must obey in this, and things still worse.

Borrowing on this role-bound Sophoclean type, Ritsos presents an equally passive and obeying Ismene, caught up in a feminine ideal of beauty, as opposed to her sister, who refuses to fall mimetically into the same pattern. This portrayal of the two sisters’ attitudes to femininity is highly reminiscent of Jean Anouilh’s version of Antigone, which premiered in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1944 and was first brought to the Greek stage by the Theatro TechnƝs of Karolos Koun in 1947. Ritsos, who was most probably familiar with the original French version of the play, seems to enter, to a certain extent, into a dialogue with Anouilh, but further develops an approach which is hardly flattering with respect to pregiven ideals of femininity. In fact, his Ismene only affirms her ostensible “essential” self through a process of abjection16 and exclusion of all that Antigone’s (male) values represent. The abject figuring of Antigone marks out, precisely, Ismene’s attempt to carve the divide out of which her feminine ego will be able to emerge: ੵ, ਲ ਕįİȜijȒ ȝȠȣ ȡȪșȝȚȗİ IJ੹ ʌȐȞIJĮ ȝ’ ਪȞĮ ʌȡȑʌİȚ ਲ਼ į੻Ȟ ʌȡȑʌİȚ, […] ȆȠȜઃ IJ੽ ȜȣʌȩȝȠȣȞ. ȆĮȡ੹ ȜȓȖȠ Ȟ੹ ȕȜȐȥİȚ țĮ੿ ȝȑȞĮ. 16

In Powers of Horror, psychoanalytic feminist Julia Kristeva theorises “abjection” as the “dark revol[t] of being” [(1982) 1], directed against everything that appears to threaten the subject’s individuation and necessary separation from the (m)Other. Rather than drawing a definite borderline or mark out a cut, the abject shows how identity remains constantly threatened by a breakdown of meaning, order, and cohesion. Although a precondition to subjectification, abjection also points to its limits, exposing the porous boundaries of the self, as well as the violent exclusionary processes of ego-formation within specific sociohistorical locations.

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[…] ਺ ਕįİȜijȒ ȝȠȣ șĮȡȡİ૙Ȣ țĮ੿ ȞIJȡİʌȩIJĮȞ ʌȠઃ İੇIJĮȞ ȖȣȞĮȓțĮ. ੍ıȦȢ Į੝IJઁ ȞਛIJĮȞ ਲ įȣıIJȣȤȓĮ IJȘȢ. Ȁ’ ੅ıȦȢ ȖȚ’ Į੝IJઁ Ȟ੹ ʌȑșĮȞİ.17 Oh, my sister settled all questions with It’s either right or it isn’t […] I felt so sorry for her. She almost hurt me too. [...] My sister, you see, was also ashamed of being a woman. Maybe that was her real misfortune. And perhaps that was why she died.18

As her monologue unfolds, Ismene finds her sister guilty of hubris for having renounced her desire and sacrificed her wedding with Haemon in the name of “her own longing for heroism” and “a cheap immortality”.19 In invoking Antigone’s lament on her way to her final habitat, where she was to be buried alive, Ismene recalls emphatically the sole Sophoclean passage where her sister’s moral integrity appears to collapse before mortality: Ȁ’ ਥțİ૙ȞȠ IJȘȢ IJઁ “ਙțȜĮȣIJȠȢ, ਙijȚȜȠȢ”, ੁįȓȦȢ ਥțİ૙ȞȠ IJઁ “ਕȞȣȝȑȞĮȚȠȢ” İੇIJĮȞ ਲ ȝȩȞȘ IJȘȢ ੒ȝȠȜȠȖȓĮ, ਲ ʌȡȫIJȘ ੪ȡĮȓĮ IJĮʌİȚȞȠıȪȞȘ IJȘȢ, ਲ ȝȩȞȘ șȘȜȣțȒ IJȘȢ ȖİȞȞĮȚȩIJȘIJĮ, […] ʌȠઃ ਩IJıȚ ı੹ Ȟ੹ įȚțĮȓȦıİ țȐʌȦȢ IJ੽Ȟ ʌȚțȡĮȝȑȞȘ ਫ਼ʌİȡȠȥȓĮ IJȘȢ. ǹ੝IJઁ IJ੽ ıȣȖȤȫȡİıİ ıIJ੹ ȝȐIJȚĮ ȝȠȣ.20 And those words of hers, “unwept, unbefriended”, above all, that “unwedded”, were her only admission, her first fine humble gesture, her sole act of feminine daring, […] some sort of vindication for her embittered arrogance. In my eyes, that excused her.21

The otherwise allusive intertextual relation between Ritsos and Sophocles becomes here effective, for Ismene quotes precisely those words which in Sophocles’ version shake Antigone’s pride as she is being 17

Ritsos (199117a) 210-212. English translations of “Ismene” are those of Peter Green and Beverly Bardsley [Ritsos (1993)]. For short quotations, I cite only the English translation. I have modified Green and Bardsley’s translation whenever I thought it was necessary. 18 Ritsos (1993) 196-198; translation modified. 19 Ritsos (1993) 196. 20 Ritsos (199117a) 213. 21 Ritsos (1993) 198-199.

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led off to her tomb (cf. Ant. 876-878: ਙțȜĮȣIJȠȢ, ਙijȚȜȠȢ, ਕȞȣȝȑȞĮȚ- | ȠȢ IJĮȜĮȓijȡȦȞ ਙȖȠȝĮȚ | IJ੹Ȟ ਦIJȠȓȝĮȞ ੒įંȞ).22 However, while Antigone’s significant change of tone in Sophocles seems to highlight her profound humanity, Ritsos’ Ismene places greater emphasis on her sister’s anguish, which betrays, to her eyes, a “feminine” (qua resigned) bravery.23 In light of Irigaray’s feminist perspective, the complex unconscious processes, as well as power and symbolic workings, through which Ismene—be it in Sophocles, Ritsos, or Anouilh—comes to adopt a phallic position become plainly evident. Indebted to Derrida’s deconstructive project, Foucault’s discursively constructed subjectivity, and Lacan’s psychoanalytic perspective, Irigaray (1985a, 1985b) denounces the patriarchal structures which sustain Logos, having excluded women from language and imported them into a monosexual economy of desire and representation. Interestingly, Irigaray exploits the theatre metaphor in order to interrogate the ways in which the “scenography” of philosophical discourse renders this “systematicity” possible.24 She thus sets out to query logos and its scenic apparatus, that is, the architectonics of its theatre, its framing in space-time, its geometric organization, its props, its actors, their respective positions, their dialogues, indeed their tragic relations, without overlooking the mirror, most often hidden, that allows the logos, the subject, to reduplicate itself.25

Entrapped within this set of discursive arrangements, a woman has no choice, Irigaray argues, but to “enter into the masquerade of femininity”,26 that is in a value system where she remains the object rather than the subject of language and desire. The concept of “masquerade”, first introduced in psychoanalytic discourse by Joan Rivière’s influential essay 22

“Unwept, unbefriended, unwedded, I hapless one am led, along the road prepared for me”. 23 It should be noted, however, that unlike his character (Ismene), Ritsos seems to fully concur with Sophocles—as well as with Anouilh—in presenting a humanised Antigone who, despite her bold statements and “heroic temper” [cf. Knox (1964)], proves to succumb—even for a moment—to her passion for life: “But one noontime in summer, when the whole house was asleep | […] I saw her | by the dining room pantry, a bowl of syrup in her apron, | wolfing down huge spoonfuls of bread pudding. I turned and fled. | […] | She too could be hungry (and knew it). Perhaps she even felt love. What | she couldn’t bear | was to yield to her own desires” [Ritsos (1993) 198]. 24 Irigaray (1985b) 74-75. 25 Irigaray (1985b) 75. 26 Irigaray (1985b) 34.

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“Womanliness as a Masquerade” (1929), then taken up by Lacan in his seminal “The Signification of the Phallus” (1977), foregrounds the constructed nature of femininity which comes to be worn as a mask or “essence”. Both Rivière and—most notably—Lacan appear to inform Irigaray’s conflation of “masquerade” and “femininity”, although her concept of the mask implies that there lies an other, genuine feminine self behind the artifice that has to renounce an essential part of her jouissance in her attempt to “be the phallus”27 or “the living mirror”28 of the male subject. Nonetheless, Irigaray recognises a revolutionary potential in the masquerade, inasmuch as “a playful repetition”29 may disrupt the staging conventions and recuperate “the feminine”30 in language. She writes: One must assume the feminine role deliberately. Which means already to convert a form of subordination into an affirmation, and thus to begin to thwart it. […] To play with mimesis is thus, for a woman, to try to recover the place of her exploitation by discourse, without allowing herself to be simply reduced to it. It means to resubmit herself […] to ideas about herself, that are elaborated in/by a masculine logic, but so as to make “visible”, by an effect of playful repetition, what was supposed to remain invisible.31

However ludic such a (re)enactment might seem, to take on the masquerade is not necessarily a joyful “play”, for much pain may be concealed, as Ismene’s words suggest, insofar as femininity becomes a woman’s burial mask:

27

Cf. Lacan’s distinction between “having” and “being” the phallus, which designate two modes of identification that correspond to male and female psychosexual development respectively [Lacan (1977) 281-291]. In her attempt to “be the phallus”, Lacan contends, “a woman will reject an essential part of femininity, namely, all her attributes in the masquerade” (ibid. 290). 28 Irigaray (1985b) 207. 29 Irigaray (1985b) 76. 30 As indicated by the title of her book Speculum of the Other Woman, Irigaray (1985a) intends to bring back to language a pregiven femininity which has been repressed within the structures of patriarchal thought. However, this woman will no longer be Beauvoir’s inferior “other” (as merely the “other of the same”) but rather, as Margaret Whitford puts it in her introduction to The Irigaray Reader, “a self-defined woman […], whose otherness and difference would be given social and symbolic representation” [(1991) 24-25]. 31 Irigaray (1985b) 76.

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Chapter Three ȆȠIJȑ IJȘȢ į੻Ȟ İੇIJĮȞ ਲ ਕįİȜijȒ ȝȠȣ IJȩıȠ ੪ȡĮȓĮ, ੖ıȠ ȞİțȡȒ· ਥȖઅ ȝȩȞȘ ȝȠȣ IJોȢ ਩ȕĮȥĮ ਩ȞIJȠȞĮ IJ੹ ȝȐȖȠȣȜĮ […] IJોȢ ਩ȕĮȥĮ IJ੹ ȤİȓȜȘ ȕȣııȚȞȚȐ, țĮ੿ IJ੹ ȝȐIJȚĮ țĮIJȐȝĮȣȡĮ, IJİȡȐıIJȚĮ ȝ੻ țĮȝȑȞȠ ijİȜȜઁ (ʌȠIJȑ IJȘȢ į੻ ȕĮijȩIJĮȞ). ȉોȢ ijȩȡİıĮ ʌİȞIJĮʌȜ઼ ʌİȡȚįȑȡĮȚĮ Ȟ੹ țȡȪȥȦ IJઁ ıȘȝȐįȚ IJȠ૨ ȜĮȚȝȠ૨ IJȘȢ, IJĮ ıțȠȣȜĮȡȓțȚĮ ਥțİȓȞĮ ȝ੻ IJȠઃȢ įȣઁ ȖȣȝȞȠઃȢ ਥȡȦIJȚįİ૙Ȣ, įĮȤIJȣȜȓįȚĮ, ȕȡĮȤȚȩȜȚĮ, țĮ੿ ȝȚ੹ ijĮȡįİȚȐ, ȤȡȣıȒ ʌȩȡʌȘ ıIJ੽ ȗȫȞȘ IJȘȢ. ਯIJıȚ, ȕĮȝȝȑȞȘ, ıIJȠȜȚıȝȑȞȘ, İੇȤİ ਕʌȠȤIJȒıİȚ ȝȚ੹ ʌĮȡȐȟİȞȘ ੒ȝȠȚȩIJȘIJĮ ȝ’ ਥȝȑȞĮ. “Ȇ૵Ȣ ȝȠȚȐȗİȚ IJોȢ ੉ıȝȒȞȘȢ”, İੇʌİ ıȚȖ੹ ਩ȞĮ țȠȡȓIJıȚ. ȉȫȡĮ İੇȤİ ʌĮȡĮȚIJȘșİ૙ ਕʌ’ IJ੿Ȣ IJȡȠȝİȡȑȢ IJȘȢ ਕʌȠijȐıİȚȢ, ਕʌ’ IJȠઃȢ ਱șȚțȠઃȢ țĮȞȩȞİȢ, ਕʌ’ ੖ȜİȢ IJ੿Ȣ ਕȞȩȘIJİȢ ਕȞIJȡȚț੻Ȣ ijȚȜȠįȠȟȓİȢ țĮ੿ ੁįİȠȜȘȥȓİȢ. ȆİșĮȝȑȞȘ, İੇȤİ ȖȓȞİȚ ਥʌȚIJȑȜȠȣȢ ȖȣȞĮȓțĮ.32 Never, never had my sister looked so lovely as when she was dead. All by myself I made up her cheeks, heavily […] painted her lips bright crimson, made her eyes look deep black, huge, with black burnt cork (she never made up herself). I hung five rows of necklaces on her to hide the scars round her throat, plus those earrings with two naked lovers, rings and bracelets, and a broad gold buckle for her belt. Made up and adorned this way she’d acquired a curious resemblance to me. “How like Ismene she is”, a girl whispered. Now she’d renounced her frightful decisions, her moral principles, all those stupid male goals and obsessions. By dying she’d at last become a woman.33

By representing gender as a social practice rather than the causal effect of anatomical sex, Ritsos would appear to echo Simone de Beauvoir’s famous assertion “[o]ne is not born, but rather becomes, woman”,34 which laid the groundwork for constructionist perspectives of gender identity. Across the Atlantic, Judith Butler departs precisely from Beauvoir’s phenomenological account to ground her own understanding of the natural body as a product of acculturation. Moving beyond the sex/gender distinction, Butler’s reading of Beauvoir comes to support her major thesis that sex has been “gender all along”.35 Like Irigaray, albeit from an anti32

Ritsos (199117a) 213. Ritsos (1993) 199. 34 Beauvoir (2011) 293. 35 Butler (19992) 12; (1986) 46. It should be noted, however, that by identifying “woman” with “gender”, as feminist critic Toril Moi [(1999) 59-79] rightly points 33

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essentialist perspective, Butler explores the relation between power, language, and the body, and presents gender as a theatrical event, as constituted through a series of performative acts. In her view, the body literally dramatises its available historical conventions through a process of “stylized repetition”, 36 which produces the illusionary effect of an internal gender core. She primarily relies on John Austin and John Searle’s speech-act theory to foreground the social, intersubjective, and ultimately dramatic dimension of language and its role in the constitution of identity.37 In light of this approach, Ismene’s last utterance in the quotation above is not merely a statement, but a founding act, whose symbolic power initiates a (rather violent) process of “womanisation” that takes place before (and is to be approved by) the social audience attending the ritual. Furthermore, femininity in “Ismene” appears to be some kind of vestimentary code under the guise of a naturalised law, or as Roland Barthes puts it with regard to fashion, “a supercode which words impose on the real garment”.38 However, Ismene’s sign system produces neither garments, nor fashion trends, but “women”; a set of identical “Others”, whose inglorious “Mythologies”39—as Barthes would have it—are made to serve the interests of domination. out, Butler ultimately disregards Beauvoir’s understanding of the sexed body as a situation. ǹs Beauvoir suggests, and Moi further elucidates, whilst biological facts cannot ground any values or hierarchies, they still form part of a woman’s situation, and thus remain fundamental to the “lived experience” of the female human being. 36 Butler (1988) 519. 37 In How to Do Things with Words, philosopher of language J. L. Austin (1962) distinguishes between “constative” and “performative” utterances: whilst the first are merely descriptive, the second have a performative function in communication, by literally bringing about the reality that they name. For a fuller discussion of Butler’s reliance on Austin’s lectures in linguistics, see Salih (2002) 88-92, 100103. John Searle’s (1969) approach in Speech Acts further develops the performative function of language communication and remains a reference point in Butler’s (1988) essay “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution”. 38 Barthes (1990) 9. 39 Cf. Barthes’s ideological analysis of myth in his Mythologies, where he exposes the way in which the petit-bourgeois popular myths “suggest and mimic a universal order which has fixated once and for all the hierarchy of possessions” [Barthes (1972) 156)]. In the same vein, his cultural analysis of fashion as a system of signs [Barthes (1990)] resembles very much the way in which these modern mythologies come to institute culture as nature, and has much in common with the Beauvoirian “myths of Woman”, referring to stereotypical images of femininity, as manufactured by various collective representations within patriarchy [Beauvoir (2011) 161-284].

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Nevertheless, Butler keeps emphasising that the body is not a mere object or medium upon which such a semiology operates; rather, the social agent participates in this en-gendering process as someone who is simultaneously acting and being acted upon. In exploring, then, the limits of personal agency, Butler contests Beauvoir’s “voluntaristic account of gender”,40 which seems to postulate that identities can be chosen by some kind of transcendental cogito that remains ontologically distant from language and culture. In the context of the problematic of essence and performativity, Butler 41 revisits a wide range of psychoanalytic and feminist literature related to the notion of “masquerade” (including Rivière, Lacan, and Irigaray) to raise a crucial question: Who is the “one” that lies beneath the mask? Who is truly the “doer” behind the deed? In rejecting an “expressive model” 42 of gender, Butler contests Irigaray’s sexual ontology and insists on an understanding of the masquerade as the very means by which genuine femininity is constituted, “an appearing”, says Butler, “that makes itself convincing as a ‘being’”.43 However, in her reading of Beauvoir’s concept of “becoming”— through the lens of Sartre’s pre-reflective doctrine—Butler recognises eventual spaces of agency and innovation.44 Indeed, to “become” a woman, both for Butler and Beauvoir, is based on an understanding of the body as both “construct” and “freedom”, “facticity” and “project”, a “scene of culturally sedimented meanings”45 and a field of possibilities. This kind of choice, taken up in its spontaneity, opens up the subject to multiple resignifications and enables one to see the self—to mix Foucaultian and Kristevan phraseology—as an artwork-in-process.46 For Butler then, the 40

Butler (1986) 36. See Butler (19992) 55-73. 42 The term refers to an ostensible gendered essence and interiority as “expressed”, shown, and produced through the body, which implies that the gendered self precedes the very acts “by which [gender] is dramatised and known” [Butler (1988) 528]. 43 Butler (19992) 60. 44 See Butler (1986) 40, 45-48. 45 Butler (1986) 48. 46 The making of the self as a work of art remains a focal point in Foucault’s ethical-aesthetic approach of subjectivity. In his late work on sexuality he refers in particular to an “aesthetics of existence”, which implies a number of strategies/practices (or “techniques of the self”), by which individuals “not only set themselves rules of conduct, but also seek to transform themselves, to change themselves in their singular being, and to make their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria” [Foucault (1987) 1011]. In a similar vein, Kristeva’s (1998) psychoanalytic/semiotic approach of a 41

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“Other woman”47 is not one to be unveiled as Irigaray suggests, but rather, one to be invented. In the very character of gender as performative, and thus contingent, resides the possibility of enacting the self differently.48 In exploring precisely the potential of subversive performatives, Butler offers a discussion of drag and cross-dressing as ultimately theatrical, mimetic, and parodic, in that they expose the imitative structure of gender as a prototype that lacks originality.49 Hence, potentiality is to be traced in “failure”,50 for the signs of gender may be re-cited, re-iterated, or brought into different contexts, in ways that can be, as Butler playfully puts it, “radically incredible”.51 Her fine remarks constitute an ideal locus for the exploration of Ritsos’ staging of cross-dressing, which significantly “troubles” gender and plays around the boundaries of sexual difference: ȂȚ੹ ȞȪȤIJĮ, ʌĮȓȗȠȞIJĮȢ, ਕȖȩȡȚĮ țĮ੿ țȠȡȓIJıȚĮ, ʌȐȞȦ ıIJઁ ȤȠȡȩ, țȐʌȠȚȠȢ İੇȤİ IJ੽Ȟ ਩ȝʌȞİȣıȘ Ȟ’ ਕȜȜȐȟȠȣȝİ ȡȠȪȤĮ—Ȟ੹ ijȠȡȑıȠȣȞ IJ’ ਕȖȩȡȚĮ ȖȣȞĮȚțİ૙Į ț’ ਥȝİ૙Ȣ ਕȞIJȡȚțȐ. Ȁ’ İ੅IJĮȞİ ȝȚ੹ ʌĮȡȐȟİȞȘ ʌȜȘȡȩIJȘIJĮ, ȝȚ੹ ਕįȑȟȚĮ ਥȜİȣșİȡȓĮ ȝȑıĮ ı’ Į੝IJ੽ IJ੽Ȟ ਕȜȜĮȖȒ,—ı੹Ȟ ȟȑȞȠȚ ıIJઁȞ ਦĮȣIJȩ ȝĮȢ țĮ੿ IJĮȣIJȩȤȡȠȞĮ ıȦıIJȠ੿ țĮ੿ İੁȜȚțȡȚȞİ૙Ȣ. ȂȠȞȐȤĮ ਲ ਕįİȜijȒ ȝȠȣ ਩ȝİȚȞİ ȝ੻ IJ੹ ȝĮ૨ȡĮ ȡȠ૨ȤĮ IJȘȢ, ıIJ੽ ȖȦȞȚȐ, ʌİIJȡȦȝȑȞȘ, ਥʌȚIJȚȝȘIJȚțȒ țȚ ਕȞIJȚʌĮșȘIJȚțȒ. […] ȉ੹ țȠȡȓIJıȚĮ, ȞIJȣȝȑȞĮ ਕȞIJȡȚțȐ, İੇIJĮȞ ʌȚઁ șĮȡȡİIJ੹ ਕʌ’ IJ੹ ਕȖȩȡȚĮ.52

motile sujet-en-procès (a subject “in process”, but also “on trial”) foregrounds the dynamism which is inherent in both the signifying process and the creation of the self. 47 See above, n. 30. 48 See Butler (1988) 520. 49 See Butler (19992) 174-177. 50 Butler (19992) 179. Butler draws heavily on Derrida’s engagement with Austin with regard to the “failure” of an utterance to perform a given speech act within particular conditions/context. According to Derrida, the risk of “failure”—in conveying “one” single meaning, truth, or authorial intention—is intrinsic/essential to the linguistic sign, every sign being structurally “iterable” and “citational”, that is likely to be reduplicated with an alteration of the same: “Every sign, linguistic or nonlinguistic, spoken or written […] can be cited; put between quotation marks; in so doing it can break with every given context, engendering an infinity of new contexts in a manner which is absolutely illimitable. […] This […] iterability of the mark is neither an accident nor an anomaly, it is that (normal/abnormal) without which a mark could not even have a function called ‘normal’” [Derrida (1982) 320-321]. 51 Butler (19992) 180. 52 Ritsos (199117a) 211.

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Chapter Three One night, while boys and girls were playing and dancing together, someone had an inspiration: let’s change clothes, make the boys wear the girls’ dresses and let us have their male attire. There was a strange fulfillment, an awkward freedom in this exchange—we were like strangers to ourselves, yet at the same time real and honest. Only my sister stayed in her own black dress, in the corner, turned to stone, reproving and repugnant. […] The girls in their male clothes were bolder than the boys.53

While Antigone does not have to “perform”, for she really is her own “masculine” values, Ismene dares to display her “masculinity” only when masked. At the same time, the crucial detail that the girls in this game “were bolder than the boys” suggests that women, born as such, are not able to contemplate themselves on equal terms with men except in disguise. Through this playful mimesis, Ismene seeks to integrate all the parts of who she is, experiencing an authentic sense of herself which is clearly at odds with the social role she performs: ੘ ǹ੆ȝȦȞ ijȠȡȠ૨ıİ IJઁ įȚțં ȝȠȣ ijȩȡİȝĮ ț’ İੇIJĮȞ IJȩıȠ įȚțȩȢ ȝȠȣ ʌȠઃ ȤȩȡİȥĮ ȝȑıĮ ıIJઁ ıȚȞIJȡȚȕȐȞȚ țĮ੿ IJ੹ Ȟİȡ੹ țȡȠȣȞİȜȓȗĮȞ ıIJ੹ ȝĮȜȜȚȐ ȝȠȣ, ıIJȠઃȢ ੭ȝȠȣȢ ȝȠȣ, ıIJ੹ ȝȐȖȠȣȜȐ ȝȠȣ, ı੹ ȞਙțȜĮȚȖĮ—ȜȑİȚ· ੮ıʌȠȣ ʌȐȖȦıĮ ੒ȜȩțȜȘȡȘ ț’ ਩ȞȚȦıĮ ȞਙȤȦ ȖȓȞİȚ ਪȞĮ ਙȖĮȜȝĮ ਥʌȓȤȡȣıȠ IJȠ૨ ੅įȚȠȣ IJȠ૨ ਦĮȣIJȠ૨ ȝȠȣ, ijȦIJȚıȝȑȞȠ ਕʌ’ IJઁ ijİȖȖȐȡȚ, ਕȞIJȓțȡȣ ıIJ੹ IJȣijȜ੹ ȝȐIJȚĮ IJȠ૨ ʌĮIJȑȡĮ.54 Haemon was wearing my dress, and was so much mine that I danced under the fountain, let the water pour down on my hair, my shoulders, my cheeks— as if I were crying, he said—till I got chilled through and felt I’d become a gilded statue of my own self, lit by the moon, facing my father’s blind eyes.55

As “natural” identities become increasingly suspect, Ismene’s reference to her blind father is significant, for Oedipus stands for the hero who finds 53

Ritsos (1993) 197; translation modified. Ritsos (199117a) 211-212. 55 Ritsos (1993) 197-198; translation modified. 54

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his way to real identity at a terrible price: blindness. In this way, links between vision and truth, sight and knowledge, appearance and substance, clearly break down. What is more, transvestism leads here to a reverse— and quite unpredictable—metamorphosis: in fact, Ismene’s metaphoric transformation into a “statue” does not respond to a desire to become some kind of unusual or supernatural other; on the contrary, it enables a return to a “primary” (or rather repressed) state of being. Esther Newton’s fine theorisation of drag as a “double inversion” is here quite instructive: At its most complex, [drag] is a double inversion that says, “appearance is an illusion”. Drag says […] “my ‘outside’ appearance is feminine, but my essence ‘inside’ [the body] is masculine.” At the same time it symbolises the opposite inversion; “my appearance ‘outside’ [my body, my gender] is masculine but my essence ‘inside’ [myself] is feminine”.56

To further trouble vision and metaphysical claims to truth, Ritsos follows Sophocles in introducing the figure of “the blind old prophet”57— presumably Teiresias—who is charged, however, with a totally different role. Instead of making known the verdict of the gods to Creon, the seer of Thebes is here revived to tell Ismene a truth about herself: ȝȠ੡ʌȚĮıİ IJઁ ʌȘȖȠȪȞȚ, ȝȠ૨ ıȒțȦıİ IJઁ ʌȡȩıȦʌȠ. “ĬਙıȠȣȞĮ ʌȚઁ ੕ȝȠȡijȘ— ȝȠ૨ İੇʌİ— ਗȞ İ੅ıȠȣȞ ਕȖȩȡȚ”. “ǼੇȝĮȚ”, IJȠ૨ İੇʌĮ. īİȜȐıĮȝİ ț’ Ƞੂ įȣઁ ı੹Ȟ ıȣȞȑȞȠȤȠȚ.58 he took me by the chin and lifted my face. “You’d be better looking”, he told me, “if you were a boy”. “I am”, I said. We both laughed like conspirators.59

As laughter arises in parodic forms,60 the lack of identification between the actor and the character may further cling to the distortion of the 56

Newton (1972) quoted in Butler (19992) 174. Ritsos (1993) 209. 58 Ritsos (199117a) 224. 59 Ritsos (1993) 209. 60 Cf. Butler’s [(19992) 175-177] discussion of drag in terms of “gender parody”. Specifically, Butler turns to Fredric Jameson’s concept of pastiche as parody without laughter, for it has lost the sense of an original compared to which what is being imitated appears to be comic. She goes on to argue that gender impersonation is closer to pastiche rather than to parody, in the sense that it 57

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writer’s own gendered reality in his stage role, played by a woman.61 If this is the case, then the anatomy of the performer proves to be literally male, which reverses the terms, multiplies significations, and suggests a larger fluidity of identities. Furthermore, it is significant that it is Teiresias who reveals Ismene’s true identity, for he appears in a number of narratives as the androgynous myth par excellence.62 If his androgynous status remains allusive in “Ismene”, it becomes the very theme of a choral song of the same period, which Ritsos titles precisely “Teiresias”,63 where the staging of both the female and male selves of the seer open up the self to the Other(s) within. It thus becomes obvious that Ritsos’ characters in “Ismene” performatively re-inscribe gender in ways that accentuate its constructedness and display the grotesque of the whole venture. Unlike her tragic model, Ismene offers a different kind of “repetition” which brings together both Butler and Irigaray’s politics of mimesis, for both thinkers have emphasised in highly Derridean fashion—and despite their differences—the possibility of shaking logos from the inside. Is this implosive strategy, however, capable of a radical displacement? Butler is pretty much aware that the performance may challenge but will never change the “script” of gender. Derrida himself addresses the problem of the “place” of power, which “regularly transforms transgressions into ‘false sorties’”,64 as he terms it. In fact, Ritsos’ female figures seem to fall back into a “place” or the claustrophobic climate of the collapsing house that foregrounds their monologues: cf., for instance, the indoors death of the old maid in disputes the notion of an “original” and further reveals that the “original” is deprived of ontological locus. However, for Butler (ibid. 176), “[t]he loss of the sense of ‘the normal’ can be in its own occasion for laughter, especially when ‘the normal’, ‘the original’, is revealed to be a copy, […] an ideal that no one can embody”. Laughter interpolates, thus, Butler’s argument, implying, unlike Jameson, that postmodern parody interrogates extant normative assumptions, and thus, may be ironic, subversive, and highly politicised. 61 The lens that the mythical persona brings to The Fourth Dimension has been put forward by Ritsos himself on several occasions (see above, n. 5). On the enriching interaction between Ritsos and his fictional characters, see, in particular, Prokopaki (1981) 38. On this topic, see also Veloudis (1984) 43-74. 62 For a comprehensive account of the narratives related with Teiresias’ experience as both man and woman, see Brisson (1976). 63 It should be noted that “Teiresias”, completed between 1964 and 1971, was written in about the same time as “Ismene” (1966-1971), and that the two texts explore similar concerns, as well as performative techniques. “ȉeiresias” was first published in the fourth volume of Ritsos’ complete poems (ȆȠȚȒȝĮIJĮ), in 1975. 64 Derrida (1969) 56.

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“Chrysothemis”; “the mountain’s sovereignty” over Electra’s fate, “especially on the side of the women’s quarters”;65 the drowning of the Woman in Black in the kitchen of “The Moonlight Sonata”; or the “drowning woman” 66 that Ajax hides beneath his own masquerade of masculinity. Unlike male heroes of the collection, such as Orestes or Philoctetes, Ismene proves incapable of finding her way towards an opening and only addresses her potential of liberation as a conditional: ਟȞ ȕȖȐȜȦ IJȠ૨IJĮ IJ੹ ȕȡĮȤȚȩȜȚĮ, ਗȞ ȜȪıȦ IJ੽ ȞȪȤIJĮ IJ੹ ȝĮȜȜȚȐ ȝȠȣ, ਗȞ ȜȪıȦ IJ੹ țȠȡįȩȞȚĮ ਕʌ’ IJ੹ ıĮȞIJȐȜȚĮ ȝȠȣ, ʌȡȠʌȐȞIJȦȞ ਗȞ ȕȖȐȜȦ ਥIJȠȪIJĮ IJ੹ ȕĮȡȚ੹ ʌİȡȚįȑȡĮȚĮ, ʌȠઃ ȝȠ૨ țȡĮIJȠ૨Ȟ IJઁ ȜĮȚȝઁ ı੹ ȤĮȜțȐįİȢ, șĮȡȡ૵ ʌઅȢ ș੹ ijȪȖȦ ʌȡઁȢ IJ੹ ʌȐȞȦ, ș੹ ਥȟĮİȡȦș૵. ǻ੻ ș੹ IJ੕șİȜĮ. ੍ıȦȢ ȖȚ’ Į੝IJઁ IJ੹ ijȠȡ૵. Ȃ੻ ıIJİȡİȫȞȠȣȞ țĮIJ੹ țȐʌȠȚȠ IJȡȩʌȠ, ʌĮȡ’ ੖IJȚ ȝ’ ਥȞȠȤȜȠ૨Ȟ ıȣȤȞȐ·—IJ੹ ijȠȡ૵ țĮ੿ ıIJઁȞ ੢ʌȞȠ ȝȠȣ, ı੹ ȞਛȝĮȚ ਪȞĮ ıțȣȜ੿ ʌȠઃ ਥȖȫ ਲ ੅įȚĮ IJ੕ȤȦ įȑıİȚ ȝʌȡઁȢ ı੻ ȝȚ੹ ʌİıȝȑȞȘ ʌȩȡIJĮ.67 If I take off these bracelets, if at night I lay down my hair, if I untie my sandal laces, above all if I remove these heavy necklaces, which clasp my throat like chains, I feel I’ll float up, become airborne. I wouldn’t want that. Perhaps that’s why I wear them. They anchor me in some way, though they’re often a burden—I even wear them when sleeping, as though I were a dog that I myself had tied to a fallen door.68

By omitting any reference to Creon’s crude threats and brutal attempts to exercise authority, and by silencing Ismene’s will to share her sister’s fate as is the case in Sophocles, Ritsos focuses on the ways in which Ismene participates in the very terms of her oppression. The move from the tragic to the modern myth is thus marked by the transition from the authoritative figure of the ancient regime to modernised disciplinary practices that render the subject “docile”69 and self-regulating, in ways that recall Foucault’s lucid analysis in Discipline and Punish, and resemble the self-censorship imposed by the junta on authors and publishers following 65

Ritsos (1993) 125. Ritsos (1993) 228. 67 Ritsos (199117a) 208. 68 Ritsos (1993) 194. 69 Foucault’s [(1979) 135-169] analysis of the historical development of the penal system shows how power in modern societies continues to work through the use of new techniques that produce obedient and subjected individuals. Hence the chapter entitled “Docile Bodies”, where he exposes the way in which modern disciplinary power aims no longer to inflict physical penalties on the body, but rather to “correct” and manipulate it. 66

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George Seferis’ 1969 statement.70 In a sense, Butler concurs with Foucault in arguing that this kind of power is not truly external, but literally acts on and through the body in ways that remain concealed. 71 Given this framework, Ismene does not merely internalise, but literally incorporates the law imposed on her, for her body becomes fashioned, shaped, and normalised in accord with dominant representations of femininity. Furthermore, the fact that Ritsos refers to Creon only as a grieving figure, upon discovering the death of both his wife and son, highlights the tyrant’s hamartia and subsequent pathos, and leaves no doubt about his guilt, a question that has provoked vivid debates in the philosophical, philological, and literary reception of Antigone. 72 Thrylos’ depreciative views of Ritsos’ translation of Antigone are of particular interest in this respect, focusing precisely on the translator’s linguistic choices with regard to the figure of Creon. Specifically, Thrylos contends that by choosing a vocabulary drawn from triodia73 and katharevousa,74 Ritsos’ major concern was “to humiliate Creon” and “show that Creon is nothing more than a vile demagogue”. 75 Apparently informed by Hegel’s interpretation of the play as a conflict between two equal rights, Thrylos further argues that “[b]y humiliating Creon, [Ritsos] humiliated the whole tragedy; by removing one of its parts, he came to abolish the conflict between two equal opponents and efface catharsis altogether”.76 However 70

On the impact of Seferis’ statement against the junta and the subsequent lifting of preventive censorship, see “Athenian” (1972) 136; Van Dyck (1998) 26-27; Van Steen (2015) 133-135. On the establishment of the New Press Law (in January 1970), which allowed authors, journalists, and publishers to publish their books or articles—yet at their own risk, see Richard Clogg’s introduction in “Athenian” (1972) 2; Van Steen (2015) 118-119. 71 See Butler (19992) 171-180. 72 Dominant interpretations of the play are divided between the so called “orthodox view”, according to which Antigone is justified in her opposition against Creon, and the “Hegelian view”, the proponents of which follow Hegel’s reading of the play as a conflict between two equally valid spheres. For a detailed doxography concerning both interpretative traditions see Lardinois (2012) 58-64. 73 Triodion (plural triodia) is a canon of three odes intended for ecclesiastical use during Lent. 74 Katharevousa is a variety of modern Greek which originated in the 19th century as an attempt to “purify” the language of foreign elements and provide a return to its ancient Greek roots. Much appealing to the regime’s rhetoric during the Greek military junta, katharevousa remained the official language of the state and education until 1976, when it was replaced by Demotic Greek. 75 Thrylos (1981) 243. 76 Thrylos (1981) 243.

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canonical in tone, Thrylos’ review lays open to view Ritsos’ highly modernising and rather parodic figuration of the tyrant. The use of katharevousa and ecclesiastical elements suggests precisely an intended mimicry of institutionalised and religious discourse on the part of Ritsos, recoding, thus, and interpolating the Antigone story into contemporary linguistic and political concerns. For Ritsos, then, Creon is not rehabilitated. However, his own story develops along a different path, for it is Ismene’s prohairesis, that is the burden of her own choices, which invests the new myth with its intensity and passion. Ismene is not a drag, but a fallen queen. Having lapsed into “bad faith” 77 and unable to transcend her female condition, she becomes Ritsos’ tragic hero par excellence: ȀĮșȑȞĮȢ ȝĮȢ ੅ıȦȢ șਙșİȜİ ȞਛȞĮȚ țȐIJȚ ਙȜȜȠ ਕʌ’ ੖,IJȚ İੇȞĮȚ. ਡȜȜȠȢ IJ’ ਕȞIJȑȤİȚ ʌİȡȚııȩIJİȡȠ ਲ਼ ȜȚȖȩIJİȡȠ, ਙȜȜȠȢ țĮșȩȜȠȣ. ਺ ȝȠȓȡĮ, țĮșઅȢ ȜȑȞİ, ȝ઼Ȣ įȑȞİȚ ȝ੻Ȣ ıIJઁȞ țȪțȜȠ IJȠ૨ ਕțĮIJȩȡșȦIJȠȣ Ȟ੹ IJȡȚȖȣȡȞȐȝİ ȖȪȡȦ-ȖȪȡȦ ıIJઁ ʌȘȖȐįȚ, ੖ʌȠȣ ȝȑıĮ IJȠȣ ȝȑȞİȚ țȜİȚıȝȑȞȠ, ıțȠIJİȚȞȩ, ਕȟİįȚȐȜȣIJȠ IJઁ ʌȡȩıȦʌȩ ȝĮȢ. ਺ ਕįİȜijȒ ȝȠȣ ਕȡȞȚȩIJĮȞ Ȟ੹ ʌĮȡĮįİȤIJİ૙ țĮ੿ Ȟ੹ ਫ਼ʌĮțȠȪıİȚ,—ਕȜȪȖȚıIJȘ ਲ ਕʌİȜʌȚıȝȑȞȘ.78 Perhaps each one of us would like to be something different. Some bear it, more or less, others not at all. Fate binds us, they say, on the wheel of the unachievable, leaves us circling the well in the depths of which there awaits us, closed in, dark, unresolved, our own face. My sister refused to confess, to submit—unyielding, the desperate one.79

“Fate” here does not refer to some kind of transcendental ordering but rather to a determinism, which intersects with societal forces and sustains both the necessity of assumed roles in the functioning of society and a vicious historical circularity: 77

I use this term from a Beauvoirian rather than a Sartrian existentialist perspective, referring specifically to those female human beings who tend to act inauthentically under societal pressures, giving up themselves to passivity and immanence, and thus forfeiting any possibility of transcendence and personal fulfillment. 78 Ritsos (199117a) 212. 79 Ritsos (1993) 198; translation modified.

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Chapter Three ȆȩȜİȝȠȚ, ਥʌĮȞĮıIJȐıİȚȢ, ਕȞIJİʌĮȞĮıIJȐıİȚȢ (ʌȩıİȢ ijȠȡȑȢ ȟĮȞȐȖȚȞĮȞ IJ੹ ੅įȚĮ),— ıȦȡઁȢ Ƞੂ ıIJȐȤIJİȢ ıIJ੿Ȣ ʌȜĮIJİ૙İȢ […]— ੅įȚĮ ıIJȐȤIJȘ […] ĬȘȕĮ૙ȠȚ, ਝȡȖİ૙ȠȚ, ȀȠȡȓȞșȚȠȚ, ȈʌĮȡIJȚȐIJİȢ, ਝșȘȞĮ૙ȠȚ—ʌȠȚȠ઀ įȚȠȚțȠ૨ıĮȞ ıIJ’ ਕȜȒșİȚĮ;— ȝȚ੹ ȝȣıIJȚț੽ ਥȟȠȣıȓĮ ı੹ Ȟ੹ țȚȞȠ૨ıİ ਕʌઁ ȝĮțȡȚ੹ IJ੹ ȞȒȝĮIJĮ80 Wars, revolutions, counterrevolutions, the same again and again, ashes heaped in the squares […]—the ash is the same. […] Thebans, Argives, Corinthians, Spartans, Athenians—which of them really ran things? A secret power seemed to be pulling strings from a distance81

Although the fratricidal conflict of Eteocles and Polynices is not here explicitly mentioned, the endless reiteration of civil conflict clearly informs Ismene’s monologue and may allude, more specifically, both to the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) and to the major split within the Greek Communist Party that culminated following the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. 82 While the Atreid myth had offered Ritsos an ideal platform for autobiographical parallelisms between his own family and the House of Atreus in earlier Fourth Dimension monologues such as “The Dead House” or “Under the Shadow of the Mountain”, “Ismene” is mostly grounded in immediate political experience, thus enabling more direct allusions to collective and national “tragedies”. In a secular era, which has evidently abandoned the theological debates enacted by Sophocles, the Antigone tale lends itself primarily to political reflection on the issues of repression and totalitarianism. Thus immersed in the inescapability of history—or the “eternal recurrence” of her gender role—Ismene keeps foregrounding fatalism, in the face of which the subject remains powerless, and political will becomes futile. By contrast, Antigone’s deed is given in Ritsos an existential edge: on the fragile boundary between the alterable and the inevitable—and despite her specific “situatedness”—Antigone, just like 80

Ritsos (199117a) 222. Ritsos (1993) 207. 82 In this respect, see also the poem “ȂİIJȐ IJȠ ıʌȐıȚȝȠ IJȘȢ ıȣȞșȒțȘȢ ȁĮțİįĮȚȝȠȞȓȦȞ țĮȚ ǹșȘȞĮȓȦȞ” [“After the Breakup of the Treaty Between the Spartans and the Athenians”] [Ritsos (1972) 59], written in April 1968, that is two months after the split of the Greek Communist Party into the mainstream (proSoviet) Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Interior (with a reformist, Euro-Communist orientation). 81

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her Sophoclean predecessor, 83 was empowered to impact on her own destiny by setting her own conditions of existence.84 ȂȩȞȠ IJઁ șȐȞĮIJȩ IJȘȢ,— ੕ȤȚ· ȝȩȞȠ IJ੽Ȟ ੮ȡĮ țĮ੿ IJઁȞ IJȡȩʌȠ IJȠ૨ șĮȞȐIJȠȣ IJȘȢ ȝʌȠȡȠ૨ıİ Ȟ੹ įȚĮȜȑȟİȚ. ȀȚ ਕȜȒșİȚĮ, įȚȐȜİȟİ.85 It was only her death—no, rather it was only the time and the mode of her death that she could choose. And indeed, she chose them.86

If death, then, proves to be the only power that is greater than humans (as Sophocles’ Ode on Man in Antigone points out), and if there is no god left to pull the strings, then Ritsos’ tragedy becomes profoundly humanised. Nevertheless, unlike Sartre or Brecht’s political theatre, whose disdain for divine order has a clear revolutionary objective, Ritsos does not seem to put forward a philosophy of praxis in “Ismene”. Instead, the very form of dramatic monologue evacuates action and accentuates passion. Locked up in individual suffering, Ismene is hardly capable of reaching out to her interlocutor. This further testifies to the committed writer’s incapacity to reach out to his “virtual public”,87 as Sartre would have it, the world out of the windows and the City, which the young officer (a man of humble, rural origin) comes to symbolise. Not surprisingly, Ismene compares him on several occasions with Haemon, who appears, in

83 Cf. Antigone’s words, addressing Ismene in Sophocles: ıઃ ȝ੻Ȟ Ȗ੹ȡ İ੆ȜȠȣ ȗોȞ, ਥȖઅ į੻ țĮIJșĮȞİ૙Ȟ (555) [“because you chose to live, but I chose to die”]. 84 Contra Prokopaki [(1981) 55], according to whom “Antigone’s sacrifice [in Ritsos] is stripped of her myth and its potential resistance overtones”. In fact, Antigone’s deed appears to be the sole purely heroic act of resistance in The Fourth Dimension, as it is free from the dilemmas faced by other “engaged” (engagés) figures of the collection, such as Orestes or Philoctetes. 85 Ritsos (199117a) 212-213. 86 Ritsos (1993) 198; translation modified. 87 In his 1948 collection of essays What is Literature?, Jean-Paul Sartre refers to the committed writer’s responsibility to place himself on the side of his “virtual public” (i.e. the oppressed masses, the progressive audiences) as part of the quest for a classless society, which would involve freedom for all: “he must write for a public which has the freedom of changing everything; which means, besides the suppression of classes, abolition of all dictatorship, constant renewal of frameworks, and the continuous overthrowing of order once it tends to congeal” [Sartre (1978b) 118].

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Sophocles, to stand for the values of the democratic polis, as opposed to Creon’s tyrannical, kinship-based rule:88 ਯȤİIJİ țȐIJȚ ਕʌ’ IJઁȞ ǹ੆ȝȠȞĮ— Į੝IJ੽ IJ੽ ıȣıIJȠȜ੽ ʌȠઃ ijȑȡȞİȚ ਲ įȪȞĮȝȘ ț’ ਲ ਕțİȡĮȚȩIJȘIJĮ.89 You have something of Haemon— that modesty bred of strength and integrity.90 ȀȐIJȚ țȠıIJȠȪȝȚĮ IJȠ૨ ǹ੆ȝȠȞĮ—IJਙȤȦ țȡĮIJȒıİȚ ıIJ੽ ȞIJȠȣȜȐʌĮ— ș੹ ı઼Ȣ ʌȘȖĮȓȞȠȣȞ ȝȚ੹ ȤĮȡ੹ ijĮȞIJȐȗȠȝĮȚ. ȀĮ੿ IJઁ țĮȚȞȠȪȡȖȚȠ IJȠȣ ȟȓijȠȢ, […] į੻Ȟ ʌȡȩijIJĮıİ Ȟ੹ IJઁ ȗȫıİȚ ıIJ੽ ȝȑıȘ IJȠȣ.91 One of those suits of Haemon’s—I ’ve kept them in the closet— should fit you beautifully, I think. And his new sword, […] he never got around to strapping it on.92

From the Young Man in “The Moonlight Sonata” to Neoptolemus in “Philoctetes”, the power of youth, always at odds with the old, seems to return in borrowed clothes, throughout The Fourth Dimension, to bring about a change which is most often impossible. In the final stage directions, Ismene takes off the mask, exposing the features of her ageing face, which point to the themes of time, decline, and death that pervade The Fourth Dimension, drawing thus significant parallels between the gendered and the political body. The highly expressionistic portrayal of the heroine goes hand in hand with an aborted attempt for dialogue and intercourse, for she resists the young officer’s “siege”, defends the portals of her chastity, and conceals her unaccomplished desire in the masquerade: 88

In the fifth-century polis, which had witnessed the transition to democracy, Creon’s gradually emerging tyrannical behaviour can hardly have appealed to an audience of Athenian citizens. A number of scholars concur with this view; see, e.g., Bowra (1970) 72-76, 102-103; Winnington-Ingram (1980) 120; Lardinois (2012) 61-62; Carter (2012) 122-123. See also Froma Zeitlin’s [(1990) 149] discussion of Thebes as an “anti-Athens” (the negative model of the democratic polis), where she refers in particular to Creon’s tyrannical rule. 89 Ritsos (199117a) 214. 90 Ritsos (1993) 200. 91 Ritsos (199117a) 228. 92 Ritsos (1993) 213.

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ȈȘțȫȞİIJĮȚ. ȆȜȘıȚȐȗİȚ ıIJઁȞ țĮșȡȑijIJȘ. ǺȐijİIJĮȚ ʌȐȜȚ. ਡıʌȡȘ ı੹ ȖȪȥȠȢ. ȉ੹ ȝȐIJȚĮ ʌİȜȫȡȚĮ, țĮIJȐȝĮȣȡĮ. ਰȞĮ ȖȪȥȚȞȠ ʌȡȠıȦʌİ૙Ƞ. ਝȜȜȐȗİȚ. ĭȠȡȐİȚ ਪȞĮ ijȩȡİȝĮ IJોȢ ਕįİȜijોȢ IJȘȢ [...]. ǺȐȗİȚ ȝȚ੹ ȗȫȞȘ ȝ੻ ijĮȡįİȚ੹ ʌȩȡʌȘ. […] ȄĮʌȜȫȞİȚ ıIJઁ țȡİȕȕȐIJȚ ȞIJȣȝȑȞȘ țĮ੿ ȝ੻ IJ੹ ıĮȞIJȐȜȚĮ IJȘȢ. […] ȀȜİȓȞİȚ IJ੹ ȝȐIJȚĮ. ȋĮȝȠȖİȜȐİȚ. ȀȠȚȝȒșȘțİ; ਝʌ’ IJ੽Ȟ ʌȜĮȧȞ੽ Į੅șȠȣıĮ ਕțȠȪȖİIJĮȚ IJઁ ȡȠȜȩȧ.93 She rises, goes to the mirror, makes herself up again, plaster white, her eyes huge, black-circled. A plaster mask. She takes off her dress, puts on one of her sister’s […]. She adds a belt with a broad buckle. […] She sinks back on the bed, fully dressed and still wearing her sandals. […] She closes her eyes. She smiles. Has she fallen asleep? From the hall nearby the tick of the clock can still be heard.94

Fatality, thus, is reinvented in the face of self-denial. This open-ended scene clearly recalls “the fair dead” that Ismene herself makes up to bring about the simulacrum of womanliness, or bury, as deep as she can, her very “own dead opposite”.95 In her book Antigone’s Claim, Butler tries to imagine an alternative Symbolic, a different social context in which Antigone—the unintelligible or the non-representable—would not have to choose death over life or “emerg[e] in language as a living body interred into a tomb”.96 Ritsos similarly opens up one such space for reflection, in which neither Antigone, nor Ismene will have to become a living corpse within the vault of their symbolic heteronomy. While myth (or the mask) links life on and off the stage in a highly metaphorical way, the “masquerade” further unsettles the boundaries that demarcate performance from life and unravels new layers of meaning. This kind of distancing, which brings Ritsos close to Brecht’s “alienation effect”, solicits the entry of the reader/spectator into the story and enables a critical perspective. In eluding “presence”, Ismene becomes both a

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Ritsos (199117a) 228. Ritsos (1993) 213. 95 Ritsos (1993) 196. 96 Butler (2000) 81. In Antigone’s Claim, Butler sets out to unsettle the unquestionable laws both of kinship and language which provide, in her view, the heteronormative framework within which the subject is allowed “to be” and to speak. For Butler, Antigone becomes representative of the melancholic subject who suffocates within the reified structures (cf. the “tomb”) of the Symbolic order, and yet claims the Word to disrupt its foundations from within. Therefore, the figure of Antigone provides Butler the opportunity to trace the livable space—if any—left open for marginal and un-intelligible lives towards different configurations of the human. 94

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character and a “demonstrator”,97 who unmasks what is being performed behind the scenes. Between the world of appearances and the “real” one, Ritsos’ use of the theatre metaphor problematises the truth-value of both gender categories and theatre itself. By presenting life as a form of performance and vice-versa, Ritsos moves towards a new realism, which dramatises the committed writer’s inner crisis in his quest for alternative configurations of identity—be it sexual, social, national, ideological, or aesthetic. As historian of religions Mircea Eliade suggests, myth is a “revelation”, in that it reveals the mystery of the cosmos that would otherwise remain unknown: God or Being shows itself to us, in ways that make myth the ontological foundation of the world.98 By raising the issue of identity— which haunts Theban narratives from Pentheus to Oedipus—the secular mythology of “Ismene” becomes precisely an ontophany, which reveals the complexity and plurality of human existence. Ritsos’ significant digression from Sophocles clearly privileges Ɲthos (character) over mythos (plot),99 and foregrounds the psychic drama of self-division and alienation. If myth offers the dissident writer a mask, the masquerade provides his characters with a language to reconfigure their placement, and open up themselves to new possibilities of existence. It gives way to expression to any “myth” of interiority (be it “masculine”, “feminine”, or “Other”), which is measured up daily against the human.

97

My use of the term “demonstrator” alludes to Brecht’s [(2001) 125-126] approach to acting, which requires that actors do not identify with, but rather “demonstrate” their roles, by keeping the audience aware that they are watching a performance. In opposing “epic” to “dramatic” (Aristotelian) style, Brecht’s theatre invites the critical involvement of the spectator, moving beyond emotional empathy. 98 Eliade (1968, 1971) links religious thought to the manifestation of the Sacred in the world (“hierophany”), which literally founds the “reality” of homo religiosus and enables him to know himself in knowing the world. This quest of primordial truth is thus experienced as an “ontophany”, a revelation of God or Being, which, as Brunel [(2003) 9] further suggests, is one of the major defining functions of (literary) myth. 99 Cf. Aristotle’s insistence on the preponderance of mythos (plot) over all the other elements of tragedy, including the characters themselves (Poetics 1450a 21-24, Halliwell).



CHAPTER FOUR THE BRIGHTNESS OF PHILOCTETES’ WEAPONS IN YANNIS RITSOS’ “PHILOCTETES” MARIA PAVLOU

“Philoctetes” has been hailed by some as the finest and most masterful dramatic monologue in Yannis Ritsos’ The Fourth Dimension. 1 The monologue is uttered by the young Neoptolemus, son of Achilles––or to be more precise, by someone who “has something of the characteristics of Achilles, only a trifle attenuated, as though he were Achilles’ son, Neoptolemos”. 2 The mute addressee of the monologue, a “handsome, bearded, mature” man “with a virile intelligent air”3 is not named, but he can safely be identified as Philoctetes, the protagonist of Sophocles’ eponymous tragedy, which serves as Ritsos’ main intertext. Ritsos’ “Philoctetes” stands out among the mythological poems of The Fourth Dimension as the only dramatic monologue whose speaker is not the hero mentioned in the title: Philoctetes remains silent throughout, even though his thoughts are often echoed in Neoptolemus’ account, which on several occasions verges on the dialogic. The monologue, dubbed a “Poem of Duty” (ʌȠȓȘȝĮ IJȠ૨ ȋȡȑȠȣȢ) by Prevelakis,4 has mostly been taken to be grounded in and responding to specific contemporary or roughly contemporary events, and to be serving Ritsos’ militant Marxist ideology. While acknowledging the monologue’s wider philosophical concerns, Peter Bien privileged a political reading in his extensive and rich study of * Warm thanks are due to Vayos Liapis and Antonis Petrides for their comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank Professor Laurel Fulkerson for sending me her article on Sophocles’ Neoptolemus. 1 See Maronitis (2008) 45. 2 Ritsos (1993) 231. Translations—with modifications—are taken from P. Green and Bardsley in Ritsos 1993. References to the translation are made by page. For the physical likeness between Achilles and Neoptolemus see Soph. Phil. 356-358. 3 Ritsos (1993) 231. 4 Prevelakis (19923) 356.

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“Philoctetes”, treating the poem as a reflection of Ritsos’ immediate historical experience in particular, and of 20th-century Greek history in general:5 Politically, the poem attempts to come to terms with Ritsos’s own annealment in the furnace of Greek history: the cruelties and disillusionments of 1940-1950 in particular, and also of 1912-1922 periods that taught him the realities behind political crusades and that, instead of destroying his ideals, tempered them into a different kind of strength: a clemency and silence meant to serve others as a compass.

Peter Green has also argued for the poem’s political and ideological intentions:6 In his “Philoctetes” it is hard not to see Ritsos himself in the wounded hero, embittered by petty rivalries and betrayals, yet bitten (as the narrator Neoptolemos suggests) by the serpent of wisdom, and courted for his special weapons, i.e., the gift of poetry such as the Epitaphios or Romaiosyne [sic], that could be used as propaganda in the unending political struggle.

At the other end of the spectrum, Meraklis has characterised “Philoctetes” as the most apolitical poem of The Fourth Dimension, on the grounds that here the flow of history seems to depend on psychological factors rather than on the principles of historical materialism.7 More recently, the purely political reading of the poem has been challenged by Dimitris Tziovas. Drawing attention both to the poem’s suppression of references to exile and patriotism—themes which prevail in Sophocles’ tragedy and other modern reworkings of it 8 —and to the prominent role allocated to Neoptolemus, Tziovas has put forward the suggestion that, in addition to its political orientation, “Philoctetes” can also be seen as a study of male bonding and identity, and that “to this end it attempts to reconcile personal introspection with the historical predicament, the private and latently 5

Bien (2011a) 59. P. Green (1996) 105-106. See also Beaton (1994) 222. Based on the fact that Ritsos’ first concentration camp was on Lemnos, at Kontopouli (1948-1949), Jeffreys [(1994) 82] associates him with Philoctetes, who was also exiled on Lemnos, arguing that “Philoctitis speaks the monologue as a patron saint of exiled communists”. 7 Meraklis (1981) 537. 8 See, e.g., André Gide’s Philoctetes or The Treatise on Three Ethics (1899) and Heiner Müller’s Philoktet (1965). 6

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(homo)erotic self of Neoptolemus with the public persona of Philoctetes”.9 Whether adopting a political reading of “Philoctetes” or not, most interpretations give an autobiographical slant to the poem, trying to associate its two main characters with Ritsos’ struggle between his political and artistic consciences. Arguably, the mythological poems of The Fourth Dimension are replete with autobiographical and historical associations. As Ritsos himself confesses, myth is a convenient “poetic mask” allowing freedom of speech and flexibility. 10 At the same time, however, purely autobiographical or historical readings of The Fourth Dimension annul the very essence of the collection, which, as its title attests, aims to overcome time by merging the three temporal dimensions into a single continuum.11 In light of this, in what follows I propose an alternative reading of “Philoctetes”, seeking to examine it from a broader perspective: as a recasting of the tragic Greek myth of Philoctetes in an existentialist mould. In a series of recent articles emanating from the research project “Our Heroic Debate with the Eumenides” there has been an attempt to study three of the poems of The Fourth Dimension (“Orestes”, “Ajax” and “Agamemnon”) through the prism of the European movement of existentialism. While existential questions permeate many of Ritsos’ poems, especially those included in The Fourth Dimension,12 in these three dramatic monologues those concerns become more focused, and are filtered through the lens of existentialism. Ritsos’ experimental dialogue with this philosophical movement is officially launched with “Orestes”, for which Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Flies [Les Mouches (1943)], an existentialist reworking of the tragic myth of Orestes, seems to have provided a significant model. In his study of the convergences between these two works, Liapis has convincingly argued that Ritsos is in dialogue with Sartre and other existentialists such as Albert Camus and Søren Kierkegaard.13 The dramatic monologues “Ajax” and “Agamemnon”, composed between 1966 and 1970, also grapple with several key existentialist themes, such as 9 Tziovas (2014) 299. It can hardly be a coincidence that Ritsos chooses to reflect upon the issue of male homosociality by drawing on the only surviving Greek tragedy that includes an exclusively male cast of characters. 10 Ritsos (1991b) 95. 11 See, e.g. Tziovas (1996) 67. See also Ritsos’ own comments in his essay “ȅn Mayakovsky” [(1974) 25], written at the same period with “Philoctetes”. 12 The issue has been fleetingly touched upon by Sokoljuk [(1976) 15-16] and Calotychos [(1994) 190]. See also the MA theses by Hatzidimitriou (2011) and Moschopoulou (2015). 13 Liapis (2014a).

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“bad faith”, anguish, authenticity and freedom. The fly that so greatly tortures Ajax in the aftermath of his horrible hallucination and animal slaughter in the Greek camp cannot but bring to mind the monstrous flies—symbols of repentance and remorse—that haunt the people of Argos in Sartre’s The Flies. The same applies to the nauseous feeling that torments Agamemnon in the eponymous monologue from Ritsos’ Fourth Dimension, evidently an allusion to the core Sartrean tenet of nausea, the gripping sense of disgust and repulsion emanating from one’s meditation on the contingency of existence, whose ramifications Sartre discusses in Nausea [La Nausée (1938)].14 Ritsos’ “Philoctetes” is also informed by several existentialist insights, especially the issues of existential freedom,15 commitment, and authentic individuality. As I will attempt to demonstrate, “Philoctetes” is first and foremost about human existence, posing questions that probe what it means to be human and to exist in the world. As Tassos Leivaditis aptly put it in his brief review of Ritsos’ poem: In “Philoctetes” man now steps beyond the threshold of his private room, goes through the walls of the gate and, with all his infirmities, efforts or defeats, ventures into the Universe.16

“Philoctetes” is dated May 1963—October 1965.17 Its composition at a time when Ritsos must have been deep into existentialism during his agonising work on “Orestes”,18 and the unmistakable similarities (in terms of both content and style) that the two poems share, further justify and enhance the reading I propose here.19 14

M. Pavlou (2013); (2015). On the difference between conventional freedom and existential/ontological freedom see Sartre (1978a) 483: “the formula ‘to be free’ does not mean ‘to obtain what one has wished’ but rather ‘by oneself to determine oneself to wish’ (in the broader sense of choosing)”. 16 Leivaditis (1975) 230. 17 The first edition of the poem in 1965 also had the subtitle “੧ıIJĮIJȠ ʌȡȠıȦʌİ૙Ƞ” (“Ultimate Mask”), which was, however, removed in subsequent editions. 18 On this issue see the testimony by Kaiti Drosou in Ritsos (2008) 29-30. 19 Both dialogues: (i) are uttered by the sons of the two most prominent Homeric heroes, Agamemnon and Achilles; (ii) end with an act that initiates a new beginning in contrast to the other two masculine dramatic monologues of The Fourth Dimension (“Agamemnon” and “Ajax”) that end with closure (Agamemnon is murdered by Clytemnestra, and Ajax commits suicide); (iii) deal extensively with the polar opposition “action vs. inaction”, and the responsibility of individuals to abandon “bad faith” and pursue a life project through their free and authentic 15

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Sophocles’ and Ritsos’ Versions of the Myth of Philoctetes The myth of Philoctetes was dealt with by all three tragic poets. Yet only Sophocles’ play has survived, and it is on this that Ritsos modelled his own story.20 The Sophoclean version of the myth runs as follows: En route to Troy, Philoctetes is bitten by a snake when he accidentally trespasses into the shrine of a nymph on the isle of Chryse. The Greeks cast him out on the deserted isle of Lemnos, on the advice of Odysseus and because of his continual howls and suppurating wound. Ten years later they return to fetch Philoctetes’ famous bow, since this weapon is indispensable for the fall of Troy according to a prophecy by the captured Trojan seer Helenus. Odysseus persuades young Neoptolemus to snatch Philoctetes’ bow by using dubious and deceitful means. Neoptolemus at first complies with Odysseus’ instructions but gradually starts to feel sympathy for Philoctetes’ suffering, and even though he takes the bow from him, eventually he returns it to its rightful owner. Despite Neoptolemus’ pleas that he should follow him to Troy, Philoctetes steadfastly refuses to comply. Neoptolemus is about to take the hero with him back to Greece, when the deified Heracles suddenly appears ex machina, and persuades his old friend Philoctetes to return to Troy. Ritsos follows the main storyline of Sophocles’ play (Neoptolemus arrives on the isle of Lemnos with the mission of persuading Philoctetes to return to Troy), but he also diverges from his tragic model on several points. He reduces the number of dramatis personae from five to two, and he takes a radically different approach to several of the key themes in Sophocles’ play, such as the physicality of Philoctetes’ wound, his exile and abandonment on Lemnos, the treacherous role played by Neoptolemus, and the circumstances of Philoctetes’ return to Troy. These differences aside, however, a closer look at the two works shows that Ritsos does not treat the myth merely as a convenient canvas on which to paint the present—either personal or historical—but that he enters into a more rigorous and agonising dialogue with the tragic play with a view to expanding and deepening it, thus bringing to the fore several of the issues Sophocles’ Philoctetes implicitly deals with.21

commitment to a purpose; (iv) make extensive use of figurative language, especially of the trope of oxymoron, on which see Bien (1980) 10. 20 The versions of Aeschylus and Euripides are outlined by Dio Chrysostom (Orationes 52 and 59). 21 Contrast Jeffreys [(1994) 83] who argues that the traditional myth is “almost unrecognizable, but for the title and stage directions”.

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Neoptolemus’ and Philoctetes’ “Invisible” and “Visible” Wounds In the opening stage directions of “Philoctetes” we are informed that Neoptolemus arrived on Lemnos just a couple of hours ago, and that Philoctetes, having spent several years in solitude and silence, has spoken to him at great length. Accordingly, Neoptolemus’ long monologue is offered as a reply to what has preceded it. Indeed it is a response that Philoctetes is eagerly awaiting: Respected friend, I was sure you would really understand. We younger men who were called in, as they say, at the last minute as though to reap the glory already prepared with your own weapons, with your own wounds, your own death, we too have knowledge of it and acknowledge it, and we have, yes, we too, have our wounds in another part of the body—unseen wounds, without the compensation of fame and of the honorable blood poured out visibly, in visible battles, visible contests.22

Neoptolemus’ introductory remark that Philoctetes’ reaction was no more than he had expected, in conjunction with his addressing Philoctetes as a “friend”,23 inevitably gives the impression that he is on intimate terms with his interlocutor, even though we know that the two men have never met before. In addition, Neoptolemus also shows reverence for Philoctetes by calling him a “respected” friend. He once again pays his respects a few lines further down, asserting that his main concern is for Philoctetes himself and only secondarily with his weapons,24 thus distancing himself from his tragic counterpart, whose one and only objective—at least at the beginning of the play—is to get hold of Philoctetes’ numinous bow. Neoptolemus’ opening gambit raises a number of questions: where does his respect for Philoctetes emanate from? How could Neoptolemus know how Philoctetes would react? What exactly is Philoctetes to Neoptolemus? I will return to these questions near the end of the paper. For the time being let me shift my attention to another issue raised in the first stanza, an

22

Ritsos (1993) 231. Upon encountering Philoctetes Sophocles’ Neoptolemus addresses him using the word ȟȑȞȠȢ (੯ ȟȑȞ’, 232). Even though in ancient Greek ȟȑȞȠȢ means both “stranger” and “friend”, Neoptolemus seems to be using it with the first meaning. 24 Ritsos (1993) 233. 23

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issue which is central to the interpretation of the poem: the “unseen wounds” mentioned by Neoptolemus. As Tziovas has recently observed, the great emphasis laid upon these inner traumas sets the focus of the poem from the outset: For Neoptolemus the personal trauma is more important than the historical one, and by having him as the main speaker and protagonist, the poem shifts the attention to his private world. What is highlighted in the opening lines of the poem is not the conflict between generations but their different experiences and, most importantly, their different wounds. The wounds of Philoctetes’ generation are visible and therefore public, whereas those of Neoptolemus’ generation are unseen and “without the compensation of fame”. It is striking that in the last line of this opening section of the poem the word ‘visible’ is repeated three times. Hence the opening lines of the poem introduce a contrast between the public and the private, the seen and the unseen, the historical and the personal, and this contrast is crucial for the interpretation of the poem, since Philoctetes seems to represent the former and Neoptolemus to stand for the latter.25

I agree with Tziovas that the poem is not merely about the wounds caused by history but also, and more significantly, about personal trauma. Yet I am less inclined to associate the distinction between public and personal trauma with Philoctetes and Neoptolemus respectively. While Philoctetes’ wound is indeed visible, it is certainly not a heroic one inflicted in visible battles and contests, but rather a wound ingloriously caused by a snake. In point of fact, Philoctetes’ external wound receives little if any attention in Ritsos’ poem. We hear nothing about it, other than that it is physical (ʌȩȞȠȢ IJȠ૨ ıȫȝĮIJȠȢ, “a wound in the body”) and the outcome of a snakebite. 26 This is a far cry from the Sophoclean play, in which Philoctetes’ physical pain prevails.27 It is also telling that in contrast to Sophocles’ Philoctetes, who is exiled on Lemnos, Ritsos’ Philoctetes has retreated willingly to the island, using his external physical wound as a cover for an inner mental and spiritual wound.28 Consequently, I suggest 25

Tziovas (2014) 307. Ritsos (199117a) 249 and (1993) 233. Neoptolemus also refers to Philoctetes’ ਕșİȡȐʌİȣIJİȢ ʌȜȘȖȑȢ [(199117a) 249] [“incurable wounds” (1993) 233], but the wounds implied here could be both internal and external. 27 As well as bearing witness to Philoctetes’ moans and suffering whenever he has a seizure, we are also encouraged to visualise his wound and smell its stench even before Philoctetes’ appearance on stage, through the lavish descriptions provided by others; see, e.g., Soph. Phil. 7-11, 38-39, 162-190, 203-210. 28 Ritsos (1993) 233. 26

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that in spite of the distinction between historical and personal traumas introduced in the opening stanza of the poem, Neoptolemus and Philoctetes share a similar trauma: the trauma of being human, that is, the wound stemming from our existence in the world along with other human beings. Perhaps this is why Philoctetes showed a great understanding of what Neoptolemus had to say earlier in their conversation.29 Even though the two men belong to different generations, and although each generation has its own experiences, Philoctetes and Neoptolemus are first and foremost human beings. It is through this lens, I propose, that we should view Neoptolemus’ monologue: as an account addressed from one human being to another. As noted above, Philoctetes’ wound in Sophocles is one of the primary points of attention. Nevertheless, Sophocles’ Philoctetes is not merely about “visible traumas”. As McCoy points out: What is important about Philoctetes is not only the fact of his wound. Surely his extreme physical pain matters to him, and at times occupies his attention to the exclusion of many things. But even for Philoctetes, this wound is only a figure of much deeper wounds suffered in his exclusion from society, from the company of fellow human beings.30

Even though several of the deeper, invisible traumas experienced by Sophocles’ characters might be defined as “historical” in the sense that they have been caused by politics and the ongoing war, at the same time they acquire a broader and more universal significance. For instance, Neoptolemus’ attempt to ensnare Philoctetes, and his excruciating wavering between his noble nature and his duty towards his country is not only about political intrigues and scapegoating, but also about the existential feeling of “anguish” experienced by humans every time they are called to make choices. As Nussbaum remarks, Neoptolemus’ cry ʌĮʌĮ૙ at line 895 (the same cry that Philoctetes utters while in pain at 745746), as well as indicating empathy with Philoctetes’ suffering, also signals “the agony of recognized agency”, that is, Neoptolemus’ realisation of his freedom to choose and therefore of the responsibility that he has to assume for his actions. 31 It is on this existential aspect of suffering that Ritsos seems to focus and reflect in his “Philoctetes”. The traumas of his Neoptolemus and Philoctetes are not associated with a specific historical period, a specific place or time, but with human existence in general. 29

Ritsos (1993) 231 McCoy (2013) 64. 31 Nussbaum (20012) xxxvi. 30

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Neoptolemus’ Existential Trauma and the Road to Authentic Individuality Neoptolemus’ character in Sophocles constitutes a vexed and muchdebated issue. Does this young man really change as the play unfolds, or are his sudden scruples and claims of remorse for deceiving Philoctetes merely a sham? Most scholars agree that Neoptolemus undergoes a transformation, and that his encounter with and sympathy for Philoctetes are conducive to his moral growth.32 Ritsos’ Neoptolemus also changes, even though in his case the transformation takes place outside the dramatic time of the poem; we do not witness it synchronically, but learn about it in retrospect. When Ritsos’ Neoptolemus arrives on Lemnos to encounter Philoctetes, he is already an existential hero. Accordingly, his monologue, a flashback to his personal journey towards what existentialists call “authenticity”,33 is not a plain reconstruction of the various stages that he went through, but is enriched and informed by the insights and knowledge that he has gained throughout this whole life-changing experience. In order to be an authentic person and acquire an authentic life Neoptolemus must struggle to transcend his “facticity”,34 recognise his freedom and become aware of himself as a fully responsible agent, both for his own life and most importantly for all humanity.

The Collective Past Neoptolemus’ family and social environment are the two givens of his “facticity” that severely constrain and condition his freedom up to his adolescence; therefore, it is hardly an accident that Neoptolemus chooses to open his speech with a long exposition on his childhood and the years preceding his joining the army. This excursus into his past is divided into two distinct parts. In the first part, which is cast in the first-person plural, 32

On this issue see Fulkerson (2006). For Sartre being authentic presupposes the acceptance of our structure as beings that are always in the process of becoming; “authenticity consists in refusing any quest for being, because I am always nothing” [Sartre (1992) 475]. See also Webber (2009) 46. 34 “Facticity” stands for all those givens and brute facts of our human condition which are out of our control and can constrain our ontological freedom, such as our height, race, biology, nationality, language, environment, talents etc. For Sartre “facticity” is one of the two aspects of humanity, the other being “transcendence”. “Transcendence” refers to the freedom shared by all humans to negate or interpret their “facticity”. 33

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Neoptolemus recalls a collective experience shared by his generation as a whole. As he remarks, he and his peers grew up in a milieu where the present was in the grip of a glorious past, which they were indoctrinated to slavishly respect and venerate. This past was so tightly intertwined with the present that it was difficult for them even to make a distinction between things that belonged to the dead and those that belonged to the living.35 In fact, its presence was so overwhelming that it evoked in them a constant anxiety and the fear that they were always being watched and judged by their sanctified forefathers: “The tap of spoon against plate was an unexpected reproving finger touching us on the shoulder. We turned to see. Nothing”.36 This image ushers in from the very beginning one of the key themes of Sartrean existentialism; the look of the Other.37 Being situated in a social context, human beings do not exist as single entities but are confronted by and engage with other human beings. Sartre dubs this interpersonal dimension of being as “being-for-others”.38 When we look at the world, we perceive Others both as subjects looking at the same world and as objects that can be looked upon. By reducing the Others to an object, we perceive them as having a fixed and consolidated nature and in doing so we absorb their subjecthood. At the same time, however, we become aware that the Others also look upon us; in an attempt to retrieve their subjecthood, which we have absorbed, they return “the look” and objectify us. Inevitably, this constant interplay of subjectivity and objectivity leads to conflict. While Neoptolemus and his peers become aware of themselves as being objectified by “the look” of their venerated forefathers, at this 35 Ritsos (1993) 232: “We made no distinction between wine jars and funeral vases. We did not know what was ours and what belonged to the dead”. The image is reminiscent of the haunting past and pervasive cult of the dead in Sartre’s The Flies. The words of the High Priest, who leads the ceremony of the dead and invites the deceased to rise from their tombs and take revenge from the living are representative: “Vous, les oubliés, les abandonnés, les désenchantés, vous qui traînez au ras de terre, dans le noir, comme des fumerolles, et qui n’avez plus rien à vous que votre grand dépit, vous les morts, debout, c’est votre fête! Venez, montez du sol comme une énorme vapeur de soufre chassée par le vent; […] Voyez, les vivants sont là, les grasses proies vivantes! Debout, fondez sur eux en tourbillon et rongezles jusqu’aux os! Debout! Debout! Debout!...” [Sartre (1947) 156-157]. 36 Ritsos (1993) 232. 37 This issue is extensively discussed in the section titled “The Look” in Sartre’s Being and Nothingness [Sartre (1978a) 252-302]; it also constitutes the founding principle of his play In camera (Huis Clos), performed twice in Athens in the 1950s. 38 Sartre (1978a) 219-430.

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stage they cannot return “the look”, an inability skilfully expressed through their futile attempts to see the haunting faces of those reproaching them. Neoptolemus and his peers were raised as soldiers; this was the prescribed role that they were obliged to play. The models they were educated with were all militaristic: “warring men and warring gods”, no poets or athletes. Their childhood resembled “a long white gallery… lined its whole length with funeral stelae”, with the dead heroes always represented as young and attractive, always in an upright position—a masquerade, as Neoptolemus bitterly comments, of “the eternal horizontal of death”.39 These statues stood as the models that they had to imitate, even as they were forbidden from admiring them aesthetically.40 Not even the artists were left free to exercise their art: any posture that would “spoil” the beauty of heroic death had to be concealed and denied.41 Everything that formed part of the world of Neoptolemus’ generation was censored and monitored, showcased in a prescribed and beautified way. Everything was covered with a brilliance that was “blind, blinding precisely in its self-display”, as Neoptolemus will painfully remark further down.42 Incarcerated in this suffocating, militaristic environment, and trapped within norms and roles that they were obliged passively to embody, Neoptolemus’ generation was deprived of the freedom of choice, and by extension of the ability to envisage alternative possibilities. Fortunately, they were consoled by the sounds that would float up to their rooms from the banqueting halls at night, firing their imaginations into visualising what they could only hear: All the speeches of great men, about the dead and about heroes. Astonishing, awesome words, pursued us even in our sleep, slipping beneath closed doors, from the banqueting hall where glasses and voices sparkled, and the veil of an unseen dancer rippled silently like a diaphanous, whirling wall between life and death. This throbbing rhythmic transparency of the veil somehow comforted our childhood nights, lightening the shadows of shields etched on white walls by slow moonlight.43 39

Ritsos (1993) 232. Ritsos (1993) 232: “And they never let our gaze linger even a little on their shapely limbs or the marble curls that sometimes fell on their foreheads”. 41 Ritsos (1993) 232 “the craftsmen had learned (or perhaps they had been ordered?) to leave out cliffs and things of that kind”. 42 Ritsos (1993) 240. 43 Ritsos (1993) 232. 40

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This first part of Neoptolemus’ account closes with a cry of resentment for the crushing weight of this past and with a direct address to Philoctetes: Such high standards they bequeathed to us—who asked for them? Why couldn’t they have left us alone in our littleness, our own littleness; we don’t want to be measured against their standards—besides, what good did it do you, or us? 44

Neoptolemus’ rhetorical question “what good did it do you, or us?” is normally taken to designate Philoctetes’ generation as blameworthy and Neoptolemus’ generation as traumatised: what did the older generation gain by raising the young the way they did, and what did the young gain? However, the unidentified third-person plural (“they bequeathed … Why couldn’t they have left us alone…?”) complicates things. Philoctetes and his generation were once young too, and most likely also experienced the same traumas. Seen from this perspective, the rhetorical question “what good did it do you, or us?” might also be understood as Neoptolemus’ attempt to merge the “we” (his own generation) and the “you” (Philoctetes’ generation) into an expanded “we” that embraces the young of all times, and by extent all humanity. In this reading the unidentified “they” might be associated with the impersonal forces of history, and with all the “resistances” in general that deprive humans of their existential freedom, that is the freedom to make choices and act according to their own will.45

The Personal Past After a short digression, in which Neoptolemus expresses his understanding of Philoctetes’ withdrawal and openly reveals to him the purpose of his visit,46 the youth resumes his account of his childhood years. Now the tone becomes more personal and the first-person plural is replaced with the first-person singular, a further indication that Ritsos’ intention was not to focus merely on humans as historical beings. From the public space Neoptolemus’ account zooms in on the private space of Achilles’ palace; he expands upon his relationship with his parents and lays emphasis upon one particular experience that paved the way for his subsequent 44

Ritsos (1993) 233. On the nature of these “resistances” see the discussion in pp. 85-86 below. 46 Ritsos (1993) 233: “I make no secret of that—it’s for them [i.e. Philoctetes’ weapons] I have come, as you guessed”. 45

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transformation. He remembers the soldiers they used to accommodate in the guest rooms of their house. When these guests would retire to their rooms at bedtime and “forget schemes for war and contests and ambitions, physical in their nakedness, erotic and innocent”, 47 they would start laughing and shouting, and Neoptolemus would secretly listen to their voices from the corridor, while examining their swords and shields propped against the wall. Bombarded with speeches about glorious heroes, and surrounded by imposing statues of warring men, in these moments Neoptolemus had the opportunity to get a taste of the private and more humane moments of a soldier and, most importantly, of the solidarity and homosociality that can exist among males.48 Notably, whereas in the first part of his account he describes how the voices from the banqueting halls used to reach his and his peers’ rooms and fire their imaginations, here Neoptolemus gets out of his room with the intention of eavesdropping on the soldiers’ chit-chat. In other words, he changes from a passive hearer to an active listener. Although he does not approach the guests’ doors lest his father catch him eavesdropping, this is the first free choice that he makes: an action that violates his father’s rules. Neoptolemus’ eavesdropping comes to play a pivotal role in his transformation for another reason as well: his engagement with an either/or dilemma concerning his future: I heard them then from the corridor, as I stealthily examined their gleaming swords and shields propped against the wall, secretly reflecting the moonlight that shone on them through the glass door—and I felt so alone and confused as if that were the moment when I had to choose for all time between their laughter and their weapons (which were both their own). I was afraid, too, that Father would get up in the night and find me in the corridor touching these strange weapons—most of all that he would realize I had heard the laughter, would realize my secret dilemma.49

47

Ritsos (1993) 234. This male bonding is something that Neoptolemus also senses in his father’s friendship with Patroclus. As he confesses, that friendship served to bring him closer to his otherwise estranged father, since only when he would meet Patroclus, would Achilles come “down with broad strides off his pedestal” [Ritsos (1993) 235]. 49 Ritsos (1993) 234. 48

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The loneliness and confusion that Neoptolemus experiences upon confronting his dilemma are reminiscent of the Sartrean notion of “anguish”. According to Sartre, when we make a choice, there is nothing, neither a god nor a system of values, which we can hold on to and which might justify our decision. This sense of being completely alone in our decision-making conjures up a feeling of loneliness and abandonment.50 This is exactly how Neoptolemus feels when he finds out that there is an alternative to the life of the dutiful soldier, even though at this early stage he believes that his choices are limited to two: the soldiers’ weapons or their laughter. Though both alternatives are based on what other soldiers do—note his remark that both of these choices were theirs—this is the first time that Neoptolemus realises that he can have a say about his own future. What merits particular attention, however, is that although Neoptolemus comes face to face with a dilemma, he does not truly confront it by engaging with a “why this rather than that?” question and, therefore, he does not make a decision after all. In light of this, Neoptolemus appears to still be an aesthete—in Kierkegaardian terms— who feels that the freedom he experiences is more of a burden than a blessing.51 In spite of Neoptolemus’ taking a taste of his freedom, the imposing figure of his father still looms large upon him. Achilles’ oppressive regime is eloquently articulated through the image of him bestriding his son every time Neoptolemus attempted to look out of the window; even more significant is the reference to Achilles’ “look” as encroaching into and penetrating to the very fibre of Neoptolemus’ being. His father’s oppressive authority forces Neoptolemus—in his attempt to avoid Achilles’ “look”— to “prefer” (ʌȡȠIJȚȝȠ૨ıĮ) to stay trapped in the secured and monitored space of their house, amid the “docile furniture”, the “obedient feel of the 50

On the notion of anguish see Sartre (1978a) 29-45. Neoptolemus’ either/or dilemma and his loneliness also bring to mind another existentialist philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, who puts under scrutiny the implications of either/or in his book bearing the same title; see also next note. 51 Kierkegaard recognises three different existentialist stages: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. The aesthetic, the first and most immature stage, is associated with pleasures and personal enjoyment. For Kierkegaard a true engagement with the either/or dilemma, that is the making of conscious choices, is characteristic of the ethical stage. As Liapis [(2014a) 136] puts it, “If an ‘aesthetic’ life in Kierkegaardian terms is a play with possibilities, an unwillingness to choose one among several alternatives, an ‘ethical’ choice weighs and then excludes other possibilities, and so valorises the one finally chosen”. For a discussion of Kierkegaard’s three stages of existence see Evans (2009) 68-138. On the ethical dimension of either/or see Harries (2010) 137-148.

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curtains” and “the deserted hall with its statues”. Neoptolemus might not be ready yet to return his father’s “look”, he is however at pains to hinder his own objectification, an action that once again differentiates him from his peers: That’s how big my father’s shadow was, too; it darkened the whole house, blocked windows and doors from top to bottom, and sometimes I thought that in order to see the day I would have to put my head under his legs— this scared me especially—the feel of his thighs on my neck. I preferred to stay in the house, in the rooms’ benevolent half-light, amid the docile furniture, the obedient feel of the curtains, and at other times in the deserted hall with its statues. I loved the kouroi.52

Sophocles’ Neoptolemus never expresses feelings of fear towards his father. In fact, he has no experiences of his father whatsoever—when he sees him for the first time at Troy, Achilles is already dead. 53 Yet the reference to Achilles’ “great shadow” and the image of him bestriding Neoptolemus in Ritsos’ poem ingeniously allude to the burden that Sophocles’ Neoptolemus is condemned to carry on his shoulders as a result of his father’s heroic image. In Sophocles, Neoptolemus is first and foremost the “son of Achilles” and is always referred to as such, never once by his own name.54 Everyone expects him to prove himself worthy of his great father, a role which Neoptolemus willingly accepts and struggles to play correctly, as implied by his agonised and recurring references to his noble nature.55 Conversely, in Ritsos the notion of Neoptolemus’ “noble nature” is deliberately eclipsed. Far from finding in himself his father’s attributes, Ritsos’ Neoptolemus focuses on their differences and the distance that separated them.56 This is in line with one of the founding principles of existentialism: “existence precedes essence”. For existentialists there is no innate human nature (i.e. human essence); humans become what they become through their actions, not because of their noble or ignoble natures. As Sartre notes, a coward “is not like that 52

Ritsos (1993) 235. Soph. Phil. 351. 54 Notably, this is also how he introduces himself to Philoctetes, as the “son of Achilles” (Phil. 240-241). 55 On this issue see Blundell (1988). 56 Ritsos (1993) 235: “I loved the kouroi […] Father did not like the statues. […] And only that friendship of his with Patroclus brought him at all close to me”. 53

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because he has a cowardly heart, lung, or brain” but “because he has made himself a coward through his actions”.57 Accordingly, in Ritsos it is not Neoptolemus’ physis that prescribes his actions, but rather his actions that make him of a particular kind. One of the most puzzling passages in Ritsos’ “Philoctetes” is Neoptolemus’ nostalgic contemplation of his mother which takes up no fewer than three printed pages and is introduced as part of his childhood memories. 58 In contrast to the overbearing figure of his father, whose shadow covers everything, Neoptolemus’ mother is weak and vulnerable—a “diaphanous shadow”. 59 Neoptolemus concentrates on an activity that was decisive in his mother’s life: bird hunting. While his mother objected to the killing of birds by her husband and his men, she passively and silently accepted their activity, thus acquiescing to a state of “bad faith”, which Sartre sees as a form of self-deception.60 “Bad faith” is generated when the individual denies his or her freedom, seeking to escape the anguish experienced when making conscious choices. 61 Having endorsed the view that she was what she had been, that is a passive and fragile person, Neoptolemus’ mother failed to transcend her past actions in order to become what she was not, that is an active person firmly standing up for her beliefs.62 In fact, she even became part of the men’s activity by ordering each time the servants to pluck the slaughtered birds for dinner. Although not actively involved in the birds’ killing, the mother’s passive stance inevitably condemned her to remorse. Neoptolemus graphically narrates how the feathers from the dead birds, with “a fleck of imperceptible red” at their roots, would catch on her hair and veil her completely. He remembers how once he removed one such feather from her, because he could not bear to see his mother “shaded by alien sins”.63 The mother’s guilt is figuratively visualised as a noose coiled around her neck—a noose, however, which she meticulously hid from others. Not being able to shake off the burden of her guilt, Neoptolemus’ mother eventually committed suicide:

57

Sartre (2007) 38. Although the figure of the mother in Ritsos also has strong biographical associations, as I will argue later on, her extensive description in “Philoctetes” is pregnant with meaning and serves to shed ample light upon Philoctetes’ own case. 59 Ritsos (1993) 235. 60 Sartre (1978a) 48. 61 Sartre (1978a) 47-70. 62 On this form of “bad faith” see Webber (2009) 48. 63 Ritsos (1993) 237. 58

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The men, on their way back from hunting, just before they reached the house, saw, behind the trees, the western window, which seemed to be hanging from the branches, in midair, by itself, and there, in its darkened frame, Mother as if she too were suspended, staring far off at the sunset, as though gilded. The men believed it was for them she waited, hungrily watching the road. Much later we realized she was gone, that she was indeed hanged. On her face, the shadow of the rope was just barely discernible. The moment she heard the hunters down the road she’d composed her expression, brushing back with her hand a black ringlet that perhaps had fallen into her eyes, swept aside the shadow of that rope.64

While the mother’s inertia leads to her death, at the same time it proves crucial for the emergence of Neoptolemus’ individuality, making him to realise one cardinal thing, namely that hands which remain inactive can bring no change at all: and I realized: those hands would never again be able to unlock anything, hands that were so singular, so remarkable, locked for all time in their particular transparency.65

Consequently, while Neoptolemus recognises himself as a member of a homogenous group (his peers) that moves and acts like a puppet, his personal experiences help him to turn into an active subject and incite him to begin, tentatively at first, to question some of the rules foisted upon him both by his father and the wider social context: he finds aesthetic pleasure in the statues, he eavesdrops on his father’s guests, and he aspires to a future that is not legitimised by his social environment. All this enables him to single himself out as a unique individual.

Getting Ready for the “Leap” When Neoptolemus reaches military age, he spends some time in a camp near Mt Oeta.66 Here the models that dominated his childhood begin to 64

Ritsos (1993) 235-236. Ritsos (1993) 237. 66 Ritsos does not provide further information about this camp, but Bien [(2011b) 65

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founder; in the camp the light changes, he notes.67 Neoptolemus describes a time when they were getting ready for sleep: the bodies of his fellow soldiers were flushed from the flames of the campfires, with an intense red colour as if they had been stripped of their skin, and looked “more carnal and bestial, more shameless and sensual” than usual, making the camp look like “a giant slaughterhouse with entrails and testicles hung from meat hooks through the night”. 68 The statues of his childhood with the gleaming surfaces and the delineated muscles, and the idealised image that he had formed in his mind of his father’s guests during their moments of relaxation, now give way to the base and unvarnished face of reality. Ironically, the only statues present at the camp are the “little secret statues” made of the “black and greasy lumps of dirt” which the sentries, taking off their sandals, “rubbed between their toes” and “kneaded for hours”.69 But whereas in the camp everything looks different from what they expected, there is something which—at least at the beginning—remains the same: the haunting and persisting fear that somebody will come and rob them: Above the tents sparkled the vast naked herringbone of the Milky Way. And it was once more almost as it had been, in summers long ago, a dread of some unknown, indefinite thief, or even the usual thieves, lest they jump into our rooms through the open windows, from the balcony— we didn’t know how to guard against them then (or now)—we were distracted by the buzzing of a mosquito, the hum of moonlight, the arches echoing with clandestine kisses. A woman, trusting in solitude, excreted calmly in the field, feeling on her buttocks the sharp pricking of the weeds and the stars.70

In spite of this diffuse, threatening sense of “robbery”, the soldiers shrink

72] seems to be right in taking it as a training camp. Its location near Mt Oeta, where the dying Heracles bequeathed his weapons to Philoctetes, can hardly be coincidental. 67 Ritsos (1993) 238 68 Ritsos (1993) 238. I have substituted “huge slaughterhouse” for P. Green and Bardsley’s “great sacrificial beast” which mistakes ıijĮȖİ૙Ƞ (slaughterhouse) for ıijȐȖȚȠ (sacrificial beast). I have also changed “hook” with “meat hooks”. 69 Ritsos (1993) 238. 70 Ritsos (1993) 238-239.

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from squarely facing their fear. Pretending ignorance of how to protect themselves, they try to exorcise their dread by letting themselves become distracted by other things. Yet, by turning a blind eye to this unsettling and bone-chilling feeling, inevitably they surrender to “bad faith”: they deceive themselves that they have no choice but to go along with this fear, thus refusing to recognise their freedom to choose how to deal with it. Gradually, however, things change. As Neoptolemus remarks, in the evenings, when they were not engaged in other activities and had plenty of time to reflect, “then began remorse and repentance and creation”. 71 Whereas during their childhood Neoptolemus and his peers obediently and unquestioningly accepted the roles and values foisted upon them, reflection now leads to a new awareness of themselves, not merely in terms of their everyday routine but also as existent subjects. Tellingly, as well as succumbing to remorse and repentance, they also start “creating”: they enter the process of thinking about alternatives and unrealised possibilities for the future,72 thus beginning to experience themselves as intentional beings—what Sartre calls “being-for-itself”. 73 This transition from the state of “pre-reflective awareness” to that of “reflective awareness”74 elicits the soldiers’ understanding of their freedom to make choices and take action. Only then do they catch their “thieves” and realise that it was freedom that was “stolen” from them. They were “deceived” by their elders into believing that they were not free to decide about their own lives, and that the one and only role they could assume was that of the soldier. 75 To put it differently, they were “deceived” into falsely 71

Ritsos (1993) 238. The use of the word “creation” (įȘȝȚȠȣȡȖȓĮ) is significant. Whereas the possibilities that the soldiers think of as children are particular and modelled on existing images, creation normally presupposes a certain uniqueness. 73 Sartre distinguishes at least two different kinds of being: “being-for-itself” and “being-in-itself”. “Being-for-itself” (conscious being) is characterised by lack of identity with itself; it lacks a predetermined essence. It is defined by Sartre [(1978a) lxv] “as being what it is not and not being what it is”. By contrast, “beingin-itself” (unconscious being) is a mode of existence that simply is (e.g. a rock is a rock and cannot change its being). 74 When we are absorbed in an activity, we do not reflect on our experience and, therefore, we are reflectively aware not of ourselves but of the activities we are engaged in. This state Sartre calls “pre-reflective awareness”. “Reflective awareness” emerges when we cease our activities and attempt to discover the meaning of these activities [Sartre (1978a) 74-79]. 75 The association implied in the passage between deception and stealing could serve as an allusion to the prologue of Sophocles’ play, where a similar relationship is also at stake. In Phil. 55-57 Odysseus tells Neoptolemus that he 72

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identifying themselves as instances of “being-in-itself”. For existentialists freedom is a fundamental part of the human condition. As Sartre famously remarked, humans “are condemned to be free” in the sense that they cannot escape their freedom:76 What we call freedom is impossible to distinguish from the being of “human reality”. Man does not exist in order to be free subsequently; there is no difference between the being of man and his being free.77

Recalling this peculiar “sensation of thievery” from the perspective of the present, and having made the existential journey to an appreciation of freedom as the value that confers dignity on humans, Neoptolemus now comprehends the “stealing” of one’s freedom as an act of violence, comparing it with “pillage”: “This sensation of eternal thieving, or rather pillaging (ȜİȘȜĮıȓĮ)—mute, concealed, and constant”.78 Moreover, while he comes to recognise freedom as an indispensable part of the human condition, he also becomes aware of its precariousness and its being under constant threat. This “sensation of thievery” is a perpetual and persisting feeling, because humans are prone to surrender to “bad faith”, either by pretending that there is nothing they can do about any given situation or by allowing others to deny or limit their freedom. What Neoptolemus has learned during his existential journey is that one should always watch out for the “thieves” and be ready to confront them. Retaining one’s freedom requires constant effort and action. Armed with this new understanding of their freedom, the soldiers decide to reclaim what was “stolen” from them—to “steal it, even” from those who have robbed them. Their determination to abandon “bad faith” by recognising their freedom to choose and constantly create themselves is skilfully expressed through a meditation “on another journey”.79 This was at the time when the building of the Trojan horse began. The news of its construction reached the camp in absolute secrecy:

must “beguile” (ਥțțȜȑȥİȚȢ) Philoctetes’ soul by words, adding that he should not conceal his identity as the son of Achilles (IJȩįૃ Ƞ੝Ȥ੿ țȜİʌIJȑȠȞ). 76 Sartre (1978a) 461-462: “I am condemned to exist forever beyond my essence, beyond the causes and motives of my act. I am condemned to be free. This means that no limit to my freedom can be found except freedom itself or, if you prefer, that we are not free to cease being free”. 77 Sartre (1978a) 25. 78 Ritsos (1993) 239. 79 Ritsos (1993) 241: “There, below, on the moonlit shore, our ships, dark, motionless, turned to stone, were meditating on another journey”.

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And it was as if we already heard the secret axes in the forest chopping wood. We heard the great thud whenever a tree crashed to the ground, and the frightened silence hiding behind our shoulders. And it was as if I saw already the Wooden Horse, hollow, huge, gleaming dangerously in the starlight, almost divine, while its shadow stretched out, mythical, over the walls.80

Upon hearing about this plot, Neoptolemus starts fantasising about the Trojan horse. He envisions himself inside its hollow belly, and vividly describes the unprecedented feelings that his contact with the wooden construction would evoke in him. His position inside the horse would be uncomfortable, and he would feel as if suspended in the void and “swallowed up”. Nevertheless, Neoptolemus feels that he is ready to attempt “the great, futile leap into the unknown”, a leap that would make him feel alive, and would transform him into a bridge uniting two shores: Thus, in this position, high up there in the planked throat of the horse, I felt swallowed up, yet still alive, with a view over the enemy camps, the fires, the ships, the stars, all the intimate, awe-inspiring, incalculable wonder—as they say—of the world, as if I were a lump caught in the throat of infinity and at the same time a bridge arching from two shores, both precipitous and unexplored— a false bridge, certainly, made of wood and bitter cunning. (It was from there up, I think, in the midst of such a nightmare, that I gazed for the first time upon the soothing brightness of your weapons.)81

Here Neoptolemus sees the Neoptolemus he is not but wants to be, that is, the possibility of being something other than what he presently is: not merely an anonymous soldier who slavishly obeys rules, but a victor and conqueror for the common good. By apprehending himself as lack and nothingness in order to envision the “being-for-itself” that he has yet to be, Neoptolemus performs what Sartre calls “nihilation” or “negation”.82 Of particular importance is Neoptolemus’ reference to the futile “leap”, a notion reminiscent of Kierkegaard. According to Kierkegaard, humans 80

Ritsos (1993) 241. Ritsos (1993) 241-242. 82 According to Sartre, the ability of humans to make themselves into a lack is possible because human consciousness is no-thing. On this issue see Sartre (1978a) 3-45. 81

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can feel truly and genuinely alive only when they passionately commit themselves to something, and are prepared to fight for an idea, even if this idea cannot be justified or grounded in evidence and reason. By throwing ourselves into uncertainty, we manage to follow a track that is entirely our own, and therefore to experience an authentic life. However, in order to bridge the gap between ourselves and our “insane” and gratuitous idea, we have to take what has come to be known as a “leap of faith”; we have to commit ourselves to the pursuit of our idea and “jump” even when our reason holds us back.83 Owing to the uncertainty involved in such an act, this “leap” is always undertaken in fear and trembling. Aware though he is of the risks of such a project, Neoptolemus still passionately commits himself to the task. Having realised his freedom to make choices and create himself, he sees the Trojan horse as an opportunity to fight for a deeply personal life-project. Neoptolemus appears determined to pursue his project no matter what and regardless of his peers’ stance; this is probably the reason why, although he envisages the other soldiers inside the horse, he describes all of this as primarily a lonely experience. 84 Indeed, if we cast a look at the Homeric description of the Greeks’ behaviour inside the Wooden Horse, we see that, with the exception of Odysseus and Neoptolemus, it was anything but heroic. As Odysseus narrates to Achilles, whom he encounters during his sojourn in Hades, Neoptolemus was the only one of those hidden inside the horse’s belly who did not feel fear or cry in despair.85 One of the things about Neoptolemus’ aspirations that capture our attention is his explicit recognition of the Trojan horse as a kind of mask and a tool of deception.86 In stark contrast with Sophocles’ Neoptolemus, who favours violence over deception, 87 and for whom the use of questionable means is at odds with his noble nature—and the heroic ideal in general—Ritsos’ Neoptolemus consciously and freely endorses deception as the only possible means by which the Greeks can win the war. As he stresses to Philoctetes near the end of his monologue, his 83 Commenting on this passage Bien [(2011a) 55-58] also makes reference to Kierkegaard’s “leap”, approaching it, however, from a different perspective. 84 Even though according to tradition Neoptolemus was destined to capture Troy, by passionately committing himself to the project of the Trojan horse and by making it his own, Neoptolemus manages to transcend even his fate. Eventually he will become heroic through his own actions, not because of his destiny. 85 Hom. Od. 11.523-537. 86 Ritsos (1993) 241: “as if I were… a bridge…a false bridge, certainly, made of wood and bitter cunning”. 87 Soph. Phil. 90-91.

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decision was taken in pursuit of the common good, not for personal gain or grandeur: When we get to Troy, the wooden horse I told you about will be ready. I will hide inside it with your weapons. This will be my own mask, and one for your weapons as well. Only in this way will we gain victory. This will be my victory—and yours too, I mean. It will be the victory of all the Greeks together, and their gods. What’s to be done? Only such victories exist. Let us go.88

In Sophocles, deception is exemplified by Odysseus, who appears ready to employ it at any time, and at any cost providing that he achieves his ends. It is Odysseus who is held responsible for Philoctetes’ abandonment on Lemnos, it is he who contrives the scheme to steal his weapons, and it is he who forces Neoptolemus to carry it out. Ritsos’ Neoptolemus consciously endorses Odysseus’ trickery and cunning; it can hardly be an accident that the noun ʌĮȞȠȣȡȖȓĮ, “knavery”, which Ritsos’ Neoptolemus employs with reference to himself, is used twice in Sophocles’ Philoctetes, always in relation to Odysseus. 89 Yet whereas Odysseus resorts to deception for personal gain, Neoptolemus appears ready to get his “hands dirty” for the achievement of a higher purpose: “the victory of all the Greeks together, and their gods”.

The Absurdity and Nothingness of Human Existence The reference to the Trojan horse is a pivot, switching Neoptolemus’ narrative from the camp near Mt Oeta to the battlefield at Troy. It is here that the real struggle begins. Having already decided upon his fundamental project, and having wholeheartedly committed himself to it, it remains now for Neoptolemus to make the necessary choices to put this project into action. Yet, on entering the battlefield, Neoptolemus comes to realise that making choices within a world that is full of “resistances” can be a difficult and challenging task. By being embodied and situated in the

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Ritsos (1993) 247. Ritsos (199117a) 258: ı੹ ȞਛȝĮȚ ȝȚ੹ ȝʌȠȣțȚ੹ ıIJĮȝĮIJȘȝȑȞȘ ıIJઁ ȜĮȡȪȖȖȚ IJȠ૨ ਕʌİȓȡȠȣ țĮ੿ IJĮȣIJȩȤȡȠȞĮ ȝȚ੹ ȖȑijȣȡĮ | ʌȐȞȦ ਕʌઁ įȣȩ, IJઁ ੅įȚȠ ਕʌȩțȡȘȝȞİȢ țȚ ਙȖȞȦıIJİȢ, ੕ȤșİȢ—ȝȚ੹ ȖȑijȣȡĮ ȥİȪIJȚțȘ, ȕȑȕĮȚĮ, ਕʌઁ ȟȪȜȠ țĮ੿ ʌȚțȡ੽ ʌĮȞȠȣȡȖȓĮ. Soph. Phil. 408 and 927. Although at 927 the first impression is that the adjective is associated with Neoptolemus, it is Odysseus that Philoctetes seems to have in mind. Cf. the adjective ʌĮȞȠȪȡȖĮ at 448. 89

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world, humans are subject to a network of things that condition and constrain their freedom, such as natural laws, biological and psychological factors, and other human beings.90 Neoptolemus remembers the unbearable heat at noon, when the battle would cease for a while, and their great thirst, which would remain unquenched because of the lack of water, and induce hallucinations. He also remembers his fellow soldiers: some of them, seeking vainly a justification for the war, threw ashes on their hair, burst into tears, and were full of anger, envy, shame, repentance and remorse. Others were passive, content in their ignorance, “obedient to necessity and facile hope”.91 How could Neoptolemus fight back against nature and all these physical conditions? How could he deal with all these other human beings, who were equally free to choose and act as he was? How could he effectively handle their diverse moods and psychological conditions? Even the one grand idea that had initiated the expedition against Troy, and that was allegedly shared by all, now proved to be merely a veneer, artfully concealing personal interests and private ambitions: And yet they too set off once with charming naïveté and the secret vainglorious ambition to change the world. They set off all together, yet each one apart, and they knew it and they saw it: each one for his own reasons, a private ambition, covered by one grand idea, one common purpose, a transparent roof under which they could more clearly distinguish each one’s share, the misfortune and meanness of all. How dear friend, could you have put order into this confusion?92

Thrown into the midst of all this, Neoptolemus finds himself submerged in a world that is pointless and contingent, and comes face to face with what existentialists call the “absurd”. Humans by nature seek meaning, trying to impose order and reason upon the world, which nonetheless is fundamentally irrational and chaotic. According to Camus, “the absurd is born out of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world”.93 Unable to impose order on the chaos that envelops him, Neoptolemus discovers another major truth about human existence: its nothingness. He realises that, regardless of their status and position, all human beings share the same fate: death. Even the 90

Linsenbard (2010) 29-30. Ritsos (1993) 242-243. 92 Ritsos (1993) 242-243. 93 Camus (1955) 20. 91

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most powerful, the chieftains of the Greek army themselves, are nothing but a “plain […] sown with white bones”: these nights, I heard, amid the splashing of oars, the voices, the squabbles of the commanders, over booty they had not yet taken, over titles they had not yet decreed. And I saw in their eyes hatred for all, the savage suffering of the eminent; and deep inside, like a feeble firefly in the depth of a dark cave, I saw their loneliness too. Behind their beards glittered their fate, stripped bare, as behind a forest’s naked branches a parched plain in the moonlight, sown with white bones.94

By stripping everything of meaning, this knowledge of human finitude evokes despair and devastation. At the same time, however, it awakens and liberates.95 This new awareness frees Neoptolemus from facing death with morbid anticipation, 96 and elicits in him a kind of happiness.97 By embracing the nothingness of human existence, he manages to overcome the brutal fact of human finitude, thus rendering life more valuable and even pleasurable. As he notes, “For a few moments, despite all this, I could still enjoy the privilege of distinguishing behind or among the shields and the spears a bit of sea, a little twilight, a beautiful knee, and of having—yes, despite everything—a tiny justification to give me pleasure”.98 However, the acceptance of his own mortality leads to a chasm between Neoptolemus and his fellow soldiers: I remember one night when we sailed with a full moon. The moonlight set a gold funeral mask over every face; for an instant the soldiers stood and stared as if they didn’t recognize one another or as if they recognized one another for the first time; and suddenly, they all turned and stared up at the moon,

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Ritsos (1993) 243. Antonis Petrides reminds me that a very similar idea is to be found in Nikos Kazantzakis and his formulation of the so-called “Cretan Glance”. On this issue see, among others, Anton (2010). 96 See Reynolds (2006) 50. 97 “This knowledge was like a blessing, a release, a soothing admission, an inert delight at the touch of eternity and nothingness” [Ritsos (1993) 243]. 98 Ritsos (1993) 243. 95

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Neoptolemus describes an evening when the moonlight put a “gold funeral mask” over the faces of everybody sailing with him, making them look at each other as if they were strangers meeting for first time. Even though death has been everywhere during the war, this is the moment when the soldiers face death existentially and comprehend it as an inseparable part of the human condition. This visceral realisation of personal and human mortality evokes in them a vague feeling of guilt, owing to their inability to face the nothingness of existence square in the face and to accept the fact that humans are beings-towards-death. As a result, they start behaving foolishly and irrationally in a desperate attempt to “forget that moment, that understanding, that absence” and to shake off the burden of their own mortality: they play games in order to mask the purposelessness of their existence, and create stories in order to fill their void and satisfy their needs. They “yell, joke, make vulgar gestures, compare their organs, smear themselves with grease from the spit, leap, dance, wrestle, pretend to read in rams’ scraped shoulder blades facetious omens and dirty stories”.100 In a nutshell, Neoptolemus’ fellows surrender to “bad faith” and once again find refuge in “self-deception”. Amid the chaotic shouts of his companions, Neoptolemus remains silent and immobile. Inevitably, this evokes in him a feeling of great loneliness, even among his best friends: Perhaps you too, on such a night, amid the countervailing voices of your fellow warriors, could hear, clearly, the absence of your own voice—as I did, that time with the full moon. Yes, I heard myself not shouting; and I stayed there immobilized among them all, all alone among even my best friends, all alone in a great lonely circle, on a very high threshing floor, and I could hear with terrible clarity the voices of the others, and at the same time I could hear my own silence.101

99

Ritsos (1993) 244. Ritsos (1993) 244. 101 Ritsos (1993) 244. The reference to the “threshing floor” could serve as an allusion to Digenis Akritas’ fierce single battle with Charos (Death) on the marble threshing floors. Following Digenis’ example and unlike his peers, here Neoptolemus faces death straight in the eye. I owe this association to Vayos Liapis. 100

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Neoptolemus’ experience once again brings to mind Sartre’s views on the look of Others. Although, according to Sartre, our confrontation with the Other is always conflictual, at the same time it is revelatory and conducive to the discovery and understanding of ourselves: I cannot discover any truth whatsoever about myself except through the mediation of another. The other is essential to my existence, as well as to the knowledge I have of myself. Under these conditions, my intimate discovery of myself is at the same time a revelation of the other as a freedom that confronts my own and that cannot think or will without doing so for or against me. We are thus immediately thrust into a world that we may call “intersubjectivity”. It is in this world that man decides what he is and what others are.102

In the passage under discussion, it is his being with others that provokes Neoptolemus’ awareness of what he is not. It is because of the others’ shouts that he hears his own silence. This experience helps him realise that, as well as circumscribing our freedom, others also constitute a sine qua non for the discovery of our identity, of what we are and what we are not. At the same time, however, Neoptolemus verifies once more that conformity cannot lead to authenticity. One should blaze one’s own individual trail if one desires to embrace an authentic life.

The Burden of Freedom and Authentic Life After a short but enlightening digression on the circumstances of Philoctetes’ withdrawal to Lemnos, Neoptolemus moves on to the last section of his narrative, which culminates in his emergence as a true existential hero embracing an authentic life. He describes how one evening on the high seas he loosened his belt, and how this movement generated in him a feeling of relief, as if loosening “an age-old noose” from around his neck: I held my belt for a little then put one end of it into the water, watching it trace a smooth line through the boundlessness, while at the same time, in my fingers reverberated the motionless pulse of a rare lightness. Then I drew my belt out of the water and, wet as it was, I firmly tightened it around me once more.103 102 103

Sartre (2007) 41-42. Ritsos (1993) 246.

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Apparently the belt here takes on a symbolic meaning and stands for existential freedom, this fundamental part of the human condition which consists in autonomy of choice.104 For existentialists, ontological freedom cannot be taken lightly or without a sense of responsibility. As Linsenbard points out, “the freedom we enjoy as agents consists in a creative and autonomous agency, not a reckless capriciousness”. 105 Denying the existence of a priori objective values, Sartre locates the source of value in humans, pointing out that, when we choose, we choose not only for ourselves but for the whole world: since the values we create through our choices could be apprehended by any human being in the same situation, these values acquire a universal dimension. 106 This “humanisation” of values imposes a huge responsibility, and by extension places a tremendous burden on our shoulders every time we make a choice. It is within this framework that we should perceive the feeling of “rare lightness” generated by Neoptolemus’ loosening of his belt. Notably, Neoptolemus does not allow this feeling to last for long, and he immediately rushes to put his belt on again, tightening it fast around his body. In fact, he tightens it so fast that its buckle is impressed on his skin: I can show you the mark of the belt on my body— the print of a small wheel—the impressed trace of the buckle. Oh, yes, freedom is clamped tight always, it’s a vise that grips the whole body—and the heel, always, without fail. Besides, the tightening of the belt forces the chest to expand. This deep and painful withdrawal, which little by little calms down.107

The “small wheel” stamped on Neoptolemus’ body—possibly a visualisation of “being” as a lack—is indicative of his determination not only to embrace his freedom, but also to defend it as the primary human value, one that reclaims human dignity by allowing humans to transcend their “facticity” and keep exploring new possibilities by making and remaking themselves. As Neoptolemus figuratively puts it, the tight embrace of the belt “obliges the chest to expand”.108

104

The belt as a symbol of existential freedom is to be found in other poems of The Fourth Dimension as well, especially in “Ismene” [Ritsos (1993) 202-203]. 105 Linsenbard (2010) 29. 106 Sartre (2007) 42-43. See also the discussion in Liapis (2014a). 107 Ritsos (1993) 246. 108 On this idea see, e.g. Sartre (1992) 69: “Man who through his negativity breaks every form that encloses him, continually pushes outwards the limits of what man is. He is perpetually conquering new realms of existence for his species”.

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Neoptolemus’ specific mention of the heel, obviously an allusion to Achilles’ heel, serves as an apt exemplification of this very thing. Achilles knew from his mother that he was destined to live either a short but glorious life or a long life in obscurity.109 Even though his choices were limited, he still had a choice. When after his initial withdrawal from battle he re-entered the fray in order to avenge Patroclus’ death, he freely and consciously chose to “expose” his heel (the only vulnerable part of his body) to danger, thus freely favouring a glorious death over a long but anonymous life. In so choosing, Achilles managed to transcend his destiny (“facticity”) and to become a hero through his actions. By affirming existential freedom as a value and advancing it as the source of all values, he also managed to become authentic. Through his firm tightening of his belt, Neoptolemus too proves himself to be authentic, and it might not be mere coincidence that in his description of this episode of Neoptolemus’ life Ritsos uses the word Į੝șİȞIJȚțȩIJȘIJĮ, which echoes Sartre’s authenticité.110

Neoptolemus and Philoctetes So far my analysis has focused mainly on Neoptolemus’ long and agonising journey towards authenticity. Yet as already mentioned at the beginning of this paper, Ritsos’ “Philoctetes” is about Neoptolemus, the speaker of the monologue, as much as it is about its silent addressee, Philoctetes. In a discussion following the production of his dramatic monologue “The Return of Iphigenia” by Minos Volanakis, Ritsos explained that his choice to cast Neoptolemus as the speaker in “Philoctetes” was based on the fact that an old man like Philoctetes would hardly deign to make such a deep and personal confession, stressing however that, in spite of the deeply personal tone of Neoptolemus’ account, what the youth says sheds light upon Philoctetes himself: From what Neoptolemus, Achilles’ young adolescent son, says we see the way he tries to approach Philoctetes, to persuade him to surrender his weapons. This allows us to understand how Philoctetes is perceived by others and what the image of Philoctetes’ personality is in other people’s minds.111 109

Hom. Il. 9.410-915 and 18.95-126. ȉȩIJİ ਩ȜȣıĮ țૃ ਥȖઅ IJ੽ ȗȫȞȘ ȝȠȣ țૃ ĮੁıșȐȞșȘțĮ | IJ੽Ȟ ੅įȚĮ ȝȠȣ IJ੽Ȟ țȓȞȘıȘ ਵȡİȝȘ, ਕȞĮʌȩIJȡİʌIJȘ, ਕȞİȟȒȖȘIJȘ, | ȝૃ ਥțİȓȞȘ IJ੽Ȟ Į੝șİȞIJȚțȩIJȘIJĮ IJોȢ ȝİIJĮijȣıȚțોȢ. [Ritsos (199117a) 262] (“Then I too loosened my belt and sensed my own movements, peaceful, inevitable, incomprehensible, with that authenticity of the metaphysical”, Ritsos [1993] 246). 111 http://www.bibliotheque.gr/article/9640. 110

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Indeed, in addition to the references near the end of the monologue that are explicitly signposted as echoing Philoctetes’ own words,112 Neoptolemus’ account is replete with significant information about his mute interlocutor, especially the circumstances of his withdrawal to Lemnos: I understand your own gallant withdrawal, respected friend, with a commonly accepted pretext—a wound in the body, not in the mind or the spirit—a good excuse that serpent’s bite (perhaps the serpent of wisdom?) to let you stay alone and exist—you, and no one else— or even not exist, coiled in a circle like the serpent biting its tail. (Often I too have wished it.)113

Ritsos’ treatment of Philoctetes’ presence on Lemnos stands in stark contrast with Sophocles’ play, where the hero is stranded on the island on account of his foul-smelling wound and disturbing howls, which prevent the Greeks from pouring libations and sacrificing in peace. 114 Ritsos’ Philoctetes withdraws to Lemnos willingly, seeking to transcend a situation that was causing him pain—an internal trauma. What is more, after his retreat to Lemnos he tries to stage his death and allow fake news of his end to spread, so that he could be left completely alone—a stance which distances him even more from his tragic counterpart, who craves companionship on deserted Lemnos: Alone, you hung your empty shirt in a tree to deceive passers-by into saying: “He’s dead”; and you, hiding behind the bushes, heard how they believed you were already a corpse, so you could live through the whole range of your own senses; and then you’d be able to wear once more the shirt of your feigned death until you became (as you have become) the great silence of your being.115

112

See e.g. Ritsos (1993) 244-245, where the phrase “as you said” is used twice. Ritsos (1993) 233. Commentators typically take Neoptolemus’ reference to the “snake of wisdom” at face value. See, e.g., P. Green (1996) 105-106; Christodoulou (2010) 68. I would propose that Neoptolemus’ question is more nuanced, and that it seeks to encourage Philoctetes’ reflection on his decision rather than to qualify his withdrawal as an act of wisdom. 114 Soph. Phil. 5-11, 257, 260-275, 600, 1031-1034. 115 Ritsos (1993) 245. Philoctetes’ reference to the passers-by implies that in Ritsos Lemnos is not a desolate island. 113

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Information about Philoctetes can also be gleaned from Neoptolemus’ own experiences, which the youth often presents as mirroring those of his interlocutor.116 For instance, when Neoptolemus refers to the frustration, pettiness and self-serving ambitions of the rank and file of the Greek army, he ingeniously focalises his inability to come to grips with this chaos through Philoctetes’ eyes: ǿ saw gallant men throw ashes on their hair; and I saw the ashes mingle with their tears, black furrows scored in their beards, down to their chins. […] How, dear friend, could you have put order into this confusion? How could you stay near them? Now I understand.117

Something similar occurs in the stanza cited below; in divulging his own feelings, Neoptolemus also gets a glimpse of what Philoctetes must have felt when he decided to withdraw from the battlefield: Perhaps you too, on such a night, amid the countervailing voices of your fellow warriors, could hear, clearly, the absence of your own voice—as I did, that time with the full moon. […] Perhaps it was at a similar moment, respected friend, that you too decided to withdraw. Then, I suppose, you let the snake at the altar bite you.118

By drawing associations between his own and Philoctetes’ experiences, Neoptolemus seeks first and foremost to come closer to his interlocutor, and to highlight their shared inner traumas. 119 However, his references seem to serve another, equally significant purpose. At the beginning of the paper I suggested that the tone and wording of Neoptolemus’ opening 116

Contrast Jeffreys [(1994) 82]: “Neoptolemos almost ignore Philoktitis, filling his monologue with comments on his own past which the reader may relate to Ritsos’ youth and twentieth-century Greek history”. 117 Ritsos (1993) 242-243. 118 Ritsos (1993) 244. 119 This is also achieved through the understanding that Neoptolemus openly expresses on a couple of cases towards Philoctetes’ actions and decisions; “I understand your own gallant withdrawal” (233); “Now I understand” (243).

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address to Philoctetes imply that his interlocutor is much more to him than merely a man he is meeting for the first time. Indeed, this inference is confirmed in the course of the poem through Neoptolemus’ two references to the weapons of Philoctetes, both of which are ingenuously associated with critical moments in the youth’s life. The first occurs when Neoptolemus envisions himself inside the Trojan horse: And I felt already as if I was there inside the hollow of the horse, with the others, entirely alone […] (It was from up there, I think, in the midst of such a nightmare, that I gazed for the first time upon the soothing brightness of your weapons).120

The second instance is to be found at the point where Neoptolemus juxtaposes his own silence with his companions’ yells and shouts: and I stayed there immobilised among them all, all alone among even my best friends, all alone in a great lonely circle, on a very high threshing floor, […] From up there I observed for a second time the brightness of your weapons. And I knew.121

How are we supposed to understand the “brightness” of Philoctetes’ weapons in these references, and in what sense is this brightness “soothing” for the young Neoptolemus? In order to better appreciate the role assumed by Philoctetes’ weapons in the monologue, it would be instructive to have a look first at their genealogy. According to myth, Philoctetes received his bow—which Ritsos replaces with three spears122—from Heracles. Wasted by the disease inflicted upon him through the shirt smeared by Deianeira

120

Ritsos (1993) 241-242. Ritsos (1993) 244. 122 Ritsos (1993) 231. Bien [(2011b) 68] relates Ritsos’ innovation with Hegelian dialectic and the triptych thesis-antithesis-synthesis. I would suggest that Ritsos’ notable departure from Sophocles could also be associated with the theme of male homosociality that permeates his “Philoctetes”; in contrast to the bow, which de facto presupposes individual use, the three spears allow for team work and collaboration and, therefore, are conducive to male bonding. 121

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with the toxic blood of Nessus, and unable to bear his excruciating pain, Heracles wished to immolate himself. Philoctetes assisted him with the kindling of his pyre when nobody else would respond to his call or dare to undertake such an enormous and risky task. Heracles bequeathed his invincible bow to Philoctetes, as a reward for his labour and a symbol of their friendship.123 Heracles’ bow was considered to be numinous and sacred. In Sophocles it is described as invincible, and it evokes Neoptolemus’ awe and astonishment. 124 In Ritsos the three spears are also invested with a metaphysical power (they are described as the “only ones in their kind”), even though here this power receives secondary attention and it is only fleetingly mentioned in the opening stage directions. 125 Rather Ritsos transfers the significance of Heracles’ weapons from their “essence” to how they are used. It is not the weapons as such that are significant, but first and foremost what one does with them. 126 By acting virtuously, consciously and with full responsibility Philoctetes has managed to become his weapons and to inscribe values on the world—the values of sacrifice, labour and friendship: Then, I suppose, you let the snake at the altar bite you. You knew, in any case, they only need our weapons, and not ourselves (as you said). But you are your weapons, the honors won through labor, friendship, and sacrifice, a gift from the hand of him who strangled the Seven-headed one, who killed the guard of Hades. And you saw it with your own eyes, and you have experienced it: that is your inheritance and your consummate weapon. That alone gains victories. Now please show me how to use them. The time has come.127 123

Sophocles’ Philoctetes recalls this event when, upon a crisis, he pleads Neoptolemus to burn him and, therefore, save him, as he himself did with Heracles in the past (Soph. Phil. 799-803). 124 Philoctetes’ bow is called “holy” in 942-943 and it evokes Neoptolemus’ awe and astonishment in 654-657 (“Is that the famous bow that you are holding? […] Is it possible for me to look at it from close, and to hold it and kiss it as though it were a god?”). On this issue see Lada-Richards (1997); Fletcher (2013). 125 Ritsos (1993) 231. 126 As Neoptolemus remarks, an old spear that has been retired from battle is rendered useless (ਕȞȫijİȜȠ) and can only “curve like a tolerant finger above a lyre” [Ritsos (1993) 245]. 127 Ritsos (1993) 244-245. I have emended P. Green and Bardsley’s “and you asked for it” (țĮ੿ IJ੕ȗȘıİȢ) into “and you have experienced it”. I have also substituted Bien’s [(2011) 153] “that is your inheritance and your consummate

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Accordingly, as well as bringing deliverance to Heracles’ suffering, Philoctetes’ virtuous act also seems to have exerted a great influence upon the young Neoptolemus and to have served as a source of inspiration and a kind of moral compass for him, especially when he found himself thrown into similar situations. It is hardly mere happenstance that Neoptolemus recalls Philoctetes’ weapons on two occasions when he feels completely alone, a feeling emanating not from his being literally alone, but from his companions’ denial to leave aside “bad faith” and his own strong desire to be authentic. His loneliness cannot but bring to mind Philoctetes and the feelings that he must have experienced upon helping Heracles with his immolation. Philoctetes accepts to kindle Heracles’ pyre when nobody else would respond favourably to the hero’s desperate pleas for help owing to their reluctance to take on responsibility for such an act. Instead of conforming with their stance, Philoctetes freely and consciously chooses to do what he thinks is best, and Heracles’ decision to bequeath his weapons to him validates his action as virtuous and honest. Philoctetes’ example helps Neoptolemus realise that it is always lonely at the top; that authenticity is part and parcel with loneliness. At the same time, however, the knowledge that others—albeit few—have also experienced similar feelings serves to reduce Neoptolemus’ loneliness and make him feel a certain intimacy with Philoctetes, an intimacy that grows even stronger upon their encounter on Lemnos. .

Returning to Troy and the Beginning of a New Journey Neoptolemus rounds off his monologue by repeatedly pleading with his interlocutor to return to Troy, and by stressing that they need him more than his weapons. He hands to Philoctetes “the mask of action”, which he brought with him “hidden in his sack”, asking him to wear it and follow him to the ship. In accordance with Sophocles’ play, Ritsos’ Philoctetes eventually assents. But whereas in Sophocles this is effected through Heracles’ intervention, 128 in Ritsos no deus ex machina is required; his Philoctetes makes his decision willingly, incited by no alien imperative. What is more, Heracles promises Philoctetes a cure for his wound and a

weapon. That alone gains victories” (țȜȘȡȠȞȠȝȚȐ ıȠȣ țĮ੿ IJȑȜİȚȠ ੖ʌȜȠ ıȠȣ. ǹ੝IJઁ ȞȚțȐİȚ ȝȠȞȐȤĮ) for P. Green and Bardsley’s “your legacy and your perfect weapon. It conquers on its own”. 128 Soph. Phil. 1415-1416. On Heracles’ intervention see Easterling (1978), esp. 33-36.

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glorious life as a reward;129 on the contrary, Ritsos’ Neoptolemus cautions Philoctetes that the future will not be bright. While he is aware, thanks to Helenus’ prophecy, that Troy will fall, Ritsos’ Neoptolemus also knows that their victory will in essence be Pyrrhic. On their way back to Greece, when there will be plenty of time for reflection upon the meaning of their actions, the whole army will succumb to remorse and despair at the futility and waste of war, and will be haunted by the terrifying question “why did we come, why did we fight, why and where are we returning?”130 In point of fact, Neoptolemus makes a similar comment near the opening of his monologue, when he warns Philoctetes that his return to Troy will bring him no deliverance,131 a warning which he ventures to illustrate with a reference to some unidentified torchbearers: Torchrunners race through the night. Their torches gild the streets. For a moment the statues of the gods shine out, pure white, like doors opened in gigantic walls. Later the shadow of their stone hands falls covering the street. No one any longer can distinguish anything. One evening I saw a frenzied crowd lift one man onto their shoulders cheering him. A torch fell on him. His hair caught fire. He did not cry out. He’d been dead for some time. The crowd scattered. The evening was left all alone, laurel-crowned, with the golden leaves of the stars.132

Difficult though it is to pin down the exact meaning of this peculiar vignette, I would argue that it is a reverse allusion to an incident that proved to be a landmark in Philoctetes’ life: Heracles’ immolation on Mt Oeta. While in the case of Heracles the pyre is kindled by Philoctetes at the hero’s behest, leading to Heracles’ apotheosis, in the episode described by Neoptolemus the unnamed man is set on fire by accident and simply dies, with his finitude and the absurdity of his death been ingeniously thrown into relief through the reference to the “laurel-crowned” evening. 129

Soph. Phil. 1418-1422. Ritsos (1993) 247. 131 Ritsos (1993) 233: “what kind of deliverance is that? Such words are much in fashion now—we have learned them—what can we say?—ȃȠone has time anymore to see and to speak”. 132 Ritsos (1993) 233-234. Cf. “Ismene” [Ritsos (1993) 207]: “Wars, revolutions, counterrevolutions, the same again and again, ashes heaped in the squares from the fires they lit for great festivals, or the dead—the ash is the same. Sometimes they even burned those whom a little before they’d called heroes. The bay leaves had completely lost their meaning”. 130

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Ironically, the laurel crown received by Heracles after his immolation, as a symbol of his immortalisation, is here depicted crowning not the immolated man—who is indifferently abandoned by the very crowd that lionised him a few moments earlier—but the evening. As well as highlighting the irrationality and meaninglessness of human existence, this episode also serves to remind Philoctetes of the reasons that—to judge from Neoptolemus’ account—led him to withdraw from the battlefield in the first place: the refusal of his peers (“the many”) to assume responsibility for their actions, their inclination towards “bad faith”, and the loneliness that he often experienced while among them, owing to his refusal to conform to herd mentality.133 Accordingly, Philoctetes’ return to Troy will not necessarily result in deliverance from his current pain of loneliness, because being with others too can make one feel lonely. This is what Neoptolemus most likely implies when he characterises Philoctetes’ final choice “impossible”.134 This naturally raises the question: why does Philoctetes eventually choose to return and be lonely with others? As mentioned above, Neoptolemus tries actively to implicate his silent interlocutor in his account with a view to presenting both himself and him as sharing in the trauma of existence. At the same time, however, through his “look” Neoptolemus objectifies Philoctetes, thus allowing him to adopt a thirdperson perspective on himself. This alienating effect leads to introspection, and has a drastic impact on Philoctetes’ perception of himself and the world around him. Without openly criticising him, Neoptolemus helps Philoctetes realise that although inactivity and isolation may keep one’s hands clean—and even lead to a kind of “saintliness”—they can bring no change, and cannot make the world a better place.135 Among other things, 133

The vignette with the burning man could also echo a real life incident that took place a month after Ritsos had started working on “Philoctetes”. On 11 June 1963 a Buddhist monk burned himself to death in Saigon protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the government of South Vietnam. Photographs and the video of his self-immolation were circulated all over the world and were extensively discussed. Even though Ritsos’ burning man is put into fire by mistake, he, Heracles and the Buddhist monk share one significant feature: they endure their burning without showing any signs of suffering. ȉheir dignity places all three of them at the top, separating them from the great majority of men. Many thanks to Vayos Liapis for drawing this incident to my attention. 134 Ritsos (1993) 234: “The choice, I think, is impossible—and between what?” 135 This is what the sailors’ song, which Philoctetes hears just before making his decision to return, also seems to be about: that the world surrounding us can be understood only in human terms, and that, by extension, it can be changed only through action and the way we exist within it. For Bien [(2011a) 58-59] the sailors

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this is ingeniously manifested through the telling association of Philoctetes with Neoptolemus’ mother by means of their hands: I have told you a lot about Mother—perhaps because I discerned in your hands, my friend, a hint of that light in hers. Whatever she touched suddenly turned into distant music, no longer tangible, audible only from then on, or not even that. Nothing was left— a forgotten echo, a vague sensation—no certainty.136

While both Philoctetes and Neoptolemus’ mother choose to “keep their hands clean” from the sins of others by abstaining from the war or by committing suicide respectively, their detachment from the world around them obliterates all chance of making the world a better place to live in. Hands which are sheer light can only turn everything they touch into something distant and intangible, something that soon becomes nothing more than “a forgotten echo, a vague sensation”, as Neoptolemus comments on his mother’s hands. For his part, Neoptolemus appears to nurture a completely different attitude from his mother and Philoctetes. Even though he too is weighed down by the meaninglessness and absurdity of existence, and although he experiences feelings of loneliness among his peers, he chooses to stay involved and among them, conscious that with his actions and his authentic mode of existence he can create values and therefore influence the lives of others. In contrast to Philoctetes, who chose not to soil his hands, Neoptolemus appears ready to “get his hands dirty” for the sake of all Greeks, as implied through his explicit acknowledgment of the Trojan horse as his mask.137 All in all, whereas Philoctetes’ withdrawal and isolation were his own choice, Neoptolemus’ monologue helps him come to a new understanding, serve as a kind of homines ex machina, and are deemed responsible for Philoctetes’ final decision to return to Troy. However, as Tziovas [(2014) 314] rightly observes, “If the sailors’ song was what helped Philoctetes to make up his mind, then what is the purpose of Neoptolemus’ story?” 136 Ritsos (1993) 237. 137 Seen from this perspective Neoptolemus is very similar to Hoederer, one of Sartre’s main characters in his play Dirty Hands (Les Mains sales). As he characteristically tells Hugo, a young communist who appears reluctant to sacrifice his ideals and principles for the sake of efficacy: “How you cling to your purity, young man! How afraid you are to soil your hands!... Well, I have dirty hands. Right up to the elbows. I’ve plunged them in filth and blood”. Sartre’s play was staged in 1948-1949 at the Kotopouli Theatre in Athens; see http://www.openarchives.gr/view/2505921.

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namely that inactivity leads nowhere and can bring no change. This incites Philoctetes to take action with the others, thus altering his previous fundamental project to stay entirely alone. This shift in his stance should not be taken as an indication of a mercurial character or lack of constancy, but rather as a manifestation of Philoctetes’ freedom. According to Sartre, our actions in the present may either reinforce our previous interpretations or uproot and replace them, a transformation which he calls “conversion to authenticity”. If one rejects a previous project and adopts a radically new way of acting, then the new project should not be conceived as something entirely different, a new beginning, but rather as the continuation of the previous project. Sartre illustrates his point through the example of an atheist: “a converted atheist is not simply a believer; he is a believer who has for himself rejected atheism, who has made past within him the project of being an atheist”.138 Interestingly, in discussing this issue Sartre makes special reference to Gide’s Philoctète, in which Philoctetes eventually decides “to cast off his previous hate, his fundamental project, his reason for being, and his being” by voluntarily giving his weapons to Neoptolemus.139 Unlike Ritsos’ Electra in “Orestes” who stubbornly refuses to change and remains incarcerated in the past, his Philoctetes recognises his ontological freedom to choose, and embarks upon a radical modification of his previous fundamental project, thus taking heed of Neoptolemus’ final caution not to become a captive of “the most beautiful revelation”: Still, let the gods guard us from becoming captives even of the most beautiful revelation yet, lest we lose forever the tender artlessness of metamorphosis and the ultimate achievement of speech.140

If by the “most beautiful revelation” we are to understand existential freedom, then Neoptolemus is cautioning Philoctetes not to deny his freedom of choice—not to be ensnared by his freedom to deny that there are other options and possibilities. As a “being-for-itself” humankind is not rigid and confined; rather, humans are transcendent beings that undergo continuous metamorphosis thanks to their ability constantly to (re)create themselves by making choices and putting those choices into action. This freedom to choose, however, retains its meaning only as long as humans are engaged in the world among other human beings. Besides,

138

Sartre (1978a) 466-467. Sartre (1978a) 475-476. 140 Ritsos (1993) 246. 139

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outside a resisting world freedom loses its meaning as freedom.141 Consequently, Ritsos’ Philoctetes chooses action over inaction not because he feels obliged or duty-bound to do so, but because he wants to commit himself to the common good. This becomes his new fundamental project, and this is the reason why he rejects “the mask of action” handed to him by Neoptolemus. When Philoctetes retreats to Lemnos, he puts on a mask, in the sense that he does not reveal the real reason that forced him to make his decision but fabricates an excuse instead: he lets himself be bitten by a snake and then uses his gangrenous foot as a pretext. Likewise, after his retreat to Lemnos he does not openly express his wish to be left entirely alone, but fakes his own death instead. So, whereas his decision to abandon the battlefield is freely and consciously taken, Philoctetes avoids assuming full responsibility for his action, most likely because he still feels unprepared to deal squarely with the others’ look (i.e. how the other Greeks would react to the prospect of his withdrawal). After his encounter with Neoptolemus, however, Philoctetes chooses to revise his previous fundamental project and return back to the “real world” in order to fight with his peers, conscious that his being with the others will not be always easy. Nevertheless, he takes on the challenge knowing that this is the only way that the world may become a better place. Moreover, his encounter with Neoptolemus and the similar experiences and feelings that they share also make him understand that he is not entirely alone. Hence Ritsos’ “Philoctetes” closes with a conversion (or rather, a metamorphosis, as is shown on Philoctetes’ face which “becomes younger, more positive, more present”) 142 that exemplifies in the most eloquent way Philoctetes’ existential freedom. The final action of the poem is his, so it is only right that the monologue is named after him.

141 142

Sartre (1978a) 483. Ritsos (1993) 246.



CHAPTER FIVE DIALOGISING AESCHYLUS IN THE POETRY OF KYRIAKOS CHARALAMBIDES ANTONIS K. PETRIDES

1. Introduction In the chapter that programmatically opens this volume, Lorna Hardwick argues against the traditional linear and uni-directional models of interpretation as regards the reception of ancient texts. These models look for “influences”, privileging the ante-text, or “transformations”, favouring its modern re-imagination. Instead of these dated frameworks, Hardwick valorises more intricate, “two-way” or even multi-directional models of “dialogue” or “conversation”, in which the modern text not only transforms its ancient interlocutor, but oftentimes becomes itself “a new yardstick of comparison, thus changing modern readers’ perceptions” of the ante-text. As Hardwick shows, examining the transformative role of Cavafy as regards the reception of Homer by Irish poets such as Derek Mahon, the modern text can develop both temporal relationships with older texts and lateral dialogues with more-or-less contemporary interlocutors that inform the way it “glances” at the ancient textual stimulus. This function of the modern text as doubly transformative of both the ante-text itself and, potentially, of modern dialogues with it opens a dynamic space of triangulation in classical reception, which has not been sufficiently illustrated or theorised as regards the interaction between Ancient and Modern Greek literary texts. The poetry of the Greek-Cypriot poet Kyriakos Charalambides (1940–) offers a prime example of such triangulated textual dialogues, not only due to its dense intertextuality but also because of its strategic understanding of intertextuality as competition with earlier literature. In his pivotal collection Dokímin (Athens 2000), Charalambides explicitly likened this relationship to a traditional kind of power game, the titular įȠțȓȝȚȞ, in which the palikária of the village proved themselves by racing against one another while carrying a huge

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rock (įȚIJȗȓȝȚȞ). Likewise, the modern poet can only prove his worth if he allows himself to be measured not only against his ancient forefathers (the “rock” of tradition––what Seferis in MythistorƝma had seen as a heavy marble head burdening his hands), but also against his contemporaries (the other modern poets carrying the same rock). This chapter examines two poems by Charalambides, which exemplify the attitude above with the bonus of providing the notion of “dialogue” with a literal twist. The poems are adjacent in Charalambides’ collection Quince Apple (ȀȣįȫȞȚȠȞ ȂȒȜȠȞ, 2006); they are, namely, “Aeschylus son of Euphorion’s valour” (“ǹȚıȤȪȜȠȣ ǼȣijȠȡȓȦȞȠȢ ĮȜțȒ”, pp. 45-46) and “The Glasswork of the Sultans” (“Ǿ ȣĮȜȠȣȡȖȓĮ IJȦȞ ȈȠȣȜIJȐȞȦȞ”, pp. 4749). Both these poems are, in Charalambides’ term, “historiomyths” (ȚıIJȠȡȚȩȝȣșȠȚ),1 in which, one way or another, Aeschylus plays a major part. They adopt a technique common in Charalambides of the post-1995 period.2 Specifically, they form part of a series of “contrarian” exchanges with major authorities of the Greek past (poets or other). This technique assimilates the time-honoured Greek tradition of philosophical, indeed agonistic, dialogue; furthermore, in its systematic, designedly pedestrian rationalism, it relates further to the quasi-essayist poetic style that Charalambides first establishes in Dokímin (a collection, whose title, among other connotations, also alludes to the word įȠțȓȝȚȠ, essay).3 The formula in each occasion is simple: what a traditional authority has to say about a specific matter is treated with respectful disagreement and is methodically refuted. The new proposal that emerges from the exchange re-interprets, and thus renovates, tradition. In this peculiar poetic refutatio, the contrarian attitude may be direct and the “antagonist” explicitly identified by name (e.g. Stesichorus in “Palinody”, 4 Thucydides in “Dialogue of the Melians”, 5 Menander in “Sappho in Leucas”, 6 St 1

This is the general title of the section in which the two poems are included [Charalambides (2006) 35-69]. The section includes nineteen poems in total. 2 In 1995, Charalambides publishes Meta-History (ȂİșȚıIJȠȡȓĮ), which marks a turning point in his career. For an overview of Charalambides’ oeuvre, especially as regards his relationship with myth and history, see Petrides (2014a) 279-290. 3 On Dokimin [Charalambides (2000)] and the significance of its untranslatable title, see Petrides (2014a) 284-285. 4 Charalambides (2000) 11: ȉȘȞ İȓʌİ IJȘȞ țȠȣȕȑȞIJĮ IJȠȣ Ƞ İʌȚȡȡİʌȒȢ | ıIJȠȣ ȜȩȖȠȣ IJȘȞ ȦȠȡȡȘȟȓĮ (“He spoke again, the man who is prone to the ovulation of speech”). The persona loquens is Helen herself. 5 Charalambides (2000) 148. The poet here speaks in the persona of the Melians, which makes his tone much more reproachful than usual: ȍȡĮȓĮ ıȣȝȕȠȣȜȒ, ȝĮ IJĮ ıĮȞįȐȜȚĮ | IJȘȢ ǹijȡȠįȓIJȘȢ, ȝĮ IJȠ ȝȒȜȠ IJȘȢ ȞIJȡȠʌȒȢ (“Quite an advice, by Aphrodite’s sandals, by the apple of shame”). He is commenting on the poem’s

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Anthony in “Studius dei ਥȞ įȪıİȚ”,7 or Seferis in “Knowledge of history”8 and “ȈȣȞIJȣȤȚȐ”). 9 Just as commonly, however, the exchange may be indirect and the antagonist can remain unnamed, being very easy to infer. Both poems that concern me here belong to the second category; both, as said, are dialogic “transformations” of the Aeschylean ante-text (“text” being not only Aeschylus’ writings per se but also his fictionalised persona). Crucially, Charalambides’ transformation of tradition can only be completed with the crucial intervention of a third party, a different interlocutor each time, who has himself left an indelible mark in the way the modern eye glances at the ancient authority. Charalambides’ antagonists in my two poems need no naming: in the first, it is Constantine Cavafy and his emblematic “Young men of Sidon, 400 AD”; in the second, Aeschylus and his Persians, with Herodotus in the background and not without the distinct, if implicit, presence of George Seferis himself, the poet who, as the very title of this volume reveals, first introduced this understanding of ancient Greek tradition as a “debate” or a contest of endurance and will. “Aeschylus son of Euphorion’s valour” is a poem about the ancient playwright, which contradicts Cavafy and morphs into a “poem of poetics” (ʌȠȓȘȝĮ ʌȠȚȘIJȚțȒȢ), articulating a novel view of Aeschylus as a poetological exemplum. On the contrary––at first glance, at least––“The Glasswork of the Sultans” is a direct engagement with the ancient authority, which, however, is crucially “triangulated” by the looming presence of the aforementioned modern interlocutor and of a topical, all too painful, point of concern.

epigraph. This is actually a quotation from the Athenians’ speech, but, in the way it is presented, it is as if Thucydides himself issues the advice. 6 Charalambides (2006) 38: Ǿ ȃȑĮ ȀȦȝȦįȓĮ șĮȡȡȫ įİȞ ȑȤİȚ | IJȠ įĮȓȝȠȞȐ IJȘȢ țȚ ȩȜĮ IJĮ įȚĮıIJȡȑijİȚ (“New Comedy, I think, holds nothing | sacred and distorts everything”). 7 Charalambides (2000) 99: ǹȣIJȐ ʌȠȣ ȜȑİȚ Ƞ DZȖȚȠȢ ǹȞIJȫȞȚȠȢ | İȓȞĮȚ ȞȠȝȓȗȦ ȣʌİȡȕȠȜȑȢ (“What St. Anthony says | is, I think, an exaggeration”). 8 Charalambides (1995) 72: [Commenting on a diary entry by Seferis] īȚĮIJȓ șĮ ʌȡȑʌİȚ ȞĮ IJȠȣȢ IJȠ İȟȘȖȒıİȚȢ; […] ȃĮ ȝȘ, ʌĮȡĮțĮȜȫ, ıȠȣ įȚĮijİȪȖİȚ… (“Why should you have to explain it to them? […] Please, let it not escape your attention…”). 9 Charalambides (2000) 177. The contrarian tone here is more ambiguous: ȂʌȡȐȕȠ ıȠȣ, īȚȫȡȖȠ! ȉĮ ıIJĮȡȐIJĮ ȜȩȖȚĮ | įİȞ İȓȞĮȚ (İȓʌİȢ țĮȚ IJȠȪIJȠ) ȖȚĮ ʌȡȦIJİȣȠȣıȚȐȞȠȣȢ. | ǼȓȞĮȚ ȖȚĮ ȀȣʌȡȚȫIJİȢ ıĮȞ țȚ İȝȐȢ (“Well done, Yiórgos! Straight talk is not (you said that, too) for people from the capital. It is for Cypriots like us”).

Dialogising Aeschylus in the Poetry of Kyriakos Charalambides

2. “Aeschylus son of Euphorion’s Valour” ǹǿȈȋȊȁȅȊ ǼȊĭȅȇǿȍȃȅȈ ǹȁȀǾ ȉȫȡĮ ȝʌȡȠıIJȐ ıİ IJȠȪIJȠ IJȘȢ ıʌȠįȩIJİȚȡĮȢ īȑȜĮȢ IJȠ ȝȞȒȝĮ ȤȐȡĮȖȝĮ İȟĮijȞȓȗİȚ: “ਝȜț੽Ȟ įૃ İ੝įȩțȚȝȠȞ ȂĮȡĮșȫȞȚȠȞ ਙȜıȠȢ...” ȉȠ ʌȡȐȖȝĮ ȤȡȒȗİȚ ȝȐȜȜȠȞ İȡȝȘȞİȓĮȢ ʌȚȠ ȕĮșȣʌȜȩțĮȝȘȢ țȚ Įʌȩ IJȠȣ ȂȒįȠȣ. ǻȚȩIJȚ ıȣ, Ƞ ʌȜȒȡȘȢ İȣijȠȡȓĮȢ, ȑįȦțİȢ ȑȡȖĮ IJȑIJȠȚĮ ʌȠȣ țĮȞİȓȢ įİȞ ĮʌİIJȩȜȝȘıİ Ȟૃ ĮȝijȚıȕȘIJȒıİȚ. (ȈIJȠ ʌȚȠ ȝȚțȡȩ țȜȦȞȐȡȚ IJȠȣȢ ijȦȜȚȐȗİȚ ȕȠıIJȡȣȤȘįȩȞ IJȠȣ ȜȩȖȠȣ Ș IJȡȚʌȜİȟȓĮ.) ȀȚ ĮȞ ȒșİȜİȢ ıIJȠ ȂĮȡĮșȫȞȚȠȞ ȐȜıȠȢ ȃĮ țĮIJĮIJȐȟİȚȢ ȐșȜȠȞ, ʌĮȝȝĮțȐȡȚıIJİ, ȖȚĮIJȓ ʌĮȡȑțĮȝȥİȢ IJȚȢ ȞĮȣȝĮȤȓİȢ ʌȠȣ ૃȤĮȞ ıIJȘȞ ĮȡȚıIJİȓĮ ıȠȣ ȝİȡIJȚțȩ; ǹȜȜૃ ȩȝȦȢ țȡȐIJİȚ IJȫȡĮ ʌȠȣ IJȠ ıțȑijIJȠȝĮȚ Ș ȝȞİȓĮ IJȠȣ ȂĮȡĮșȫȞȠȢ ȩȜĮ IJૃ ȐȜȜĮ ıȣȖțİijĮȜĮȓȦıİ țĮȚ ȝȐȜȚıIJĮ țĮșȐȡȚıİ IJȘȢ IJȑȤȞȘȢ IJȚȢ ȡȠȑȢ—Ș ȝȞİȓĮ IJȠȣ ȂĮȡĮșȫȞȠȢ ȝȐȜĮȟİ IJȘȞ ȥȣȤȒ ıȠȣ țĮȚ IJȘȞ ȑʌȜĮıİ ȝİ IJȡȩʌȠȞ ȫıIJİ ȞĮ ȖİȞİȓȢ ĮȣIJȩȤșȦȞ IJȘȢ ĮȞįȡİȚȐȢ ıȠȣ, ȝȘȞ İʌȚȗȘIJȫȞIJĮȢ IJȘȞ ĮȡİIJȒ ıIJȠȣȢ ȠȣȡĮȞȠȪȢ ȣʌȐȡȤİȚ ıIJȠȣ ȞȠȣ IJȘȞ İȣįȠțȓȝȘıȘ, ıIJȠ ȐȜıȠȢ İțİȓȞȠ ʌȠȣ ȝȠȚȡȐȗİȚ țĮIJૃ ĮȞĮȜȠȖȓĮȞ IJૃ ĮȡȫȝĮIJĮ, IJĮ ȤȡȫȝĮIJĮ țĮȚ IJȚȢ ȜĮIJȡİȓİȢ. ȆȡȠʌȐȞIJȦȞ įİ ȦȢ ȝĮȡĮșȦȞȠȝȐȤȠȢ ȖȞȦȡȓȗİȚȢ ʌȩıȠ ȜȚȖȠıIJȐ ȤȡİȚȐȗȠȞIJĮȚ ȖȚĮ ȞĮ ȚıȠȡȡȠʌȠȪȞ ĮȚıșȘIJȚțȐ İțİȓȞĮ ʌȠȣ Ƞ ȂĮȡĮșȫȞĮȢ IJİȤȞȘȑȞIJȦȢ ĮʌȠțȡȪȕİȚ. ȂȐȘȢ 2003 AESCHYLUS SON OF EUPHORION’S VALOUR Translation: Antonis K. Petrides10

10

First published in Petrides (2014-2015).

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To Foivos Stavridis Now, in front of this sepulchre in ash-consuming Gela, a carving startles: “His glorious prowess the Marathonian grove…” The matter is in need of some clarification more thick-tressed than the Mede himself. For you, a man full of euphoria, produced works that no one dared question. (In the tiniest of their branches nestles, like a curl, the triple-woven word). And if you wanted in the Marathonian grove a prize of yours to place, o most blessed one, why did you bypass the naval battles, which had a share in your excellence? Hold on, however; now that I think of it, the mention of Marathon summed up everything else, indeed, it cleansed the streaming of the art—the mention of Marathon kneaded your soul and shaped it so you can be an autochthon of your manly valour, not looking for virtue in the heavens; for it exists in the flourishing of minds, in that grove which evenly apportions fragrances, colours and worships. Above all, as a veteran of Marathon, you know how little is required to strike the aesthetic balance in the midst of all that Marathon artfully conceals. May 2003

In this poem, the bone of contention is Aeschylus’ legacy as immortalised on his funerary epigram in Gela.11 This legacy is also, famously, the talking 11

Vita Aeschyli, 11.40-45, Radt: ਕʌȠșĮȞȩȞIJĮ į੻ īİȜ૶ȠȚ ʌȠȜȣIJİȜ૵Ȣ ਥȞ IJȠ૙Ȣ įȘȝȠıȓȠȚȢ ȝȞȒȝĮıȚ șȐȥĮȞIJİȢ ਥIJȓȝȘıĮȞ ȝİȖĮȜȠʌȡİʌ૵Ȣ, ਥʌȚȖȡȐȥĮȞIJİȢ Ƞ੢IJȦ ǹੁıȤȪȜȠȞ Ǽ੝ijȠȡȓȦȞȠȢ ਝșȘȞĮ૙ȠȞ IJȩįİ țİȪșİȚ | ȝȞોȝĮ țĮIJĮijșȓȝİȞȠȞ ʌȣȡȠijȩȡȠȚȠ īȑȜĮȢ. | ਕȜț੽Ȟ įૃ İ੝įȩțȚȝȠȞ ȂĮȡĮșȫȞȚȠȞ ਙȜıȠȢ ਗȞ İ੅ʌȠȚ | țĮ੿ ȕĮșȣȤĮȚIJȒİȚȢ ȂોįȠȢ ਥʌȚıIJȐȝİȞȠȢ (“And when he died the people of Gela gave him a lavish burial in the state cemetery and offered him grand honours inscribing his tomb as

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point of C. P. Cavafy’s “Young men of Sidon, 400 AD”. In both cases the inscription’s statement is taken to reflect Aeschylus’ own dying testimony rather than the Geloans’ perception of him.12 The staging of Charalambides’ poem differs from Cavafy’s in one significant respect, emphasised by the very first line: rather than enjoying himself at a symposium, Charalambides’ persona is standing in front of Aeschylus’ tomb in Gela (“Now, in front of this sepulchre…”). The difference in the setting could reflect the divergence between the characters of the two personae and their final verdicts. Cavafy’s protagonist is a “perfumed” young aristocrat of lascivious Sidon given to letters and luxuries, who is quick to impose his own elite aestheticism upon the ancient playwright. Charalambides’ is a traveller, who takes pains to visit the tomb itself, to track Aeschylus’ footsteps, in an attempt to understand the great man’s true intentions. Apart from that, the poem sets off in a tone familiar from Cavafy. Charalambides’ speaker is just as startled by the content of the inscription as Cavafy’s youths are (“a carving startles”). This is, of course, a deliberately misleading strategy on the Greek-Cypriot poet’s part: his conclusion will be very different, in fact the exact opposite of Cavafy’s: as opposed to his great interlocutor, Charalambides ends up validating the merit of the epigram and its poetological upshots. In stanza two, as well, the sentiment is entirely Cavafyan: the persona loquens is puzzled by the fact that Aeschylus inexplicably failed to mention his most illustrious achievement, that is, of course, his universally admired corpus of tragedies, and chose to commemorate only his exploits in Marathon. Cavafy’s youth reacts with vehement disapproval: Į, įİȞ ȝૃ ĮȡȑıİȚ IJȠ IJİIJȡȐıIJȚȤȠȞ ĮȣIJȩ… (“ah, this quatrain does not please me…”). He speaks of Aeschylus losing his courage (“expressions of the sort look craven”) and lowering himself and his work to the level of the “rabble”

follows: ‘This monument covers the body of Aeschylus son of Euphorion, the Athenian, | who died in wheat-bearing Gela. | The Marathonian grove and the longhaired Mede can speak for his glorious bravery, which they know very well’”). 12 The literary-historical problem associated with Aeschylus’ funerary epigram reinforces the impression of a constantly “triangulated” dialogue with tradition and about it (see further in the second section of this chapter). Who is truly responsible for Aeschylus’ construction as a Marathǀnomachos rather than as a tragic poet in the Gela epigram—that is, for splitting his public persona? Is it Aeschylus himself, as some ancient authorities believe (Paus. 1.14.5, Athen. 14.627c), or perhaps a Hellenistic source, as Page argues [(1981) 131-132]? What do we do with Aeschylus’ supposed “duality” as warrior and poet, which the epigram creates? Cavafy’s exuberant youth privileged the poetry. Charalambides’ traveller will show that the two are one.

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(IJȠȞ ıȦȡȩ). Charalambides’ persona is more restrained, but just as perplexed: “The matter is in need of some clarification”. Stanza 3 retains the same tone, only it adds further to the persona’s confusion: his tragedies are not the only thing Aeschylus failed to mention; in reality, even his military record is selectively treated in the inscription, since his involvement in the great naval battles of his day (one of which, in fact, the battle of Salamis, was immortalised in his Persians) is also omitted. There is a feigned pedantry in this stanza, consistent with Charalambides’ aforementioned pseudo-essayist style, which serves the strategy of surprise. Here the poetic persona analyses the inscription as if with the clinical accuracy of a scholar, who sees contradiction and lacunae on the surface, rather than, as in the second half, with the insight of a poet, who recognises unity and harmony in the deep structure. The Cavafyan streak is brought to an abrupt end in the beginning of the fourth, concluding stanza, which transforms the poem, unexpectedly, into a “poem of poetics” (ʌȠȓȘȝĮ ʌȠȚȘIJȚțȒȢ). “Hold on, however”! The mention of Marathon, and Marathon alone, is not a mistake after all on Aeschylus’ part, but a kind of synecdoche, which encapsulates the essence of both his life and his artistic achievement. The operative word is “autochthon” (ȞĮ ȖİȞİȓȢ ĮȣIJȩȤșȦȞ IJȘȢ ĮȞIJȡİȚȐȢ ıȠȣ), with its strong ties to ancient Athenian ideology:13 Marathon is what makes Aeschylus’ valour not only specifically Athenian but also earthly—human and physical, rather than mystical, metaphysical or otherworldly. Unlike Aristophanes’ larger-than-life, towering figure, who is disconnected from real people and real life (I am referring, of course, to Aeschylus’ image in the Frogs),14 Charalambides’ Aeschylus is deeply rooted in the earth and made from the stuff of actual human beings. He is simultaneously somebody special (somebody whose mind “flourishes”) and one of the hoi polloi. Contrary to the indignation of Cavafy’s persona, he is proud to be so. Aeschylus’ poetic achievement and military valour are inextricable. His “flourishing mind”, in association with, not in separation from, the “fragrances” and the “colours” of the Marathonian grove, affords him all the worship that he needs. “Above all” (ʌȡȠʌȐȞIJȦȞ), however, for Charalambides’ Aeschylus Marathon is something more than a shortcut reference to a glorious historical incident that marked his life; it is a capsule of artistic theory. The special, Marathonian kind of excellence in art that Charalambides’

13

On the ideology of Athenian autochtony, see e.g. Loraux (1993). On the agǀn in Aristophanes’ Frogs and specifically the image of Aeschylus resulting from it, see most recently Griffith (2013) 115-149. 14

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Aeschylus achieved is encapsulated by the concluding verses: “to strike the aesthetic balance in the midst of all | that Marathon artfully conceals”. At first sight, these verses seem to evoke the kind of naturalism celebrated by Ovid with reference to Pygmalion: ars adeo latet arte sua (Met. 10.252). In fact, this is again a misleading impression: “what Marathon conceals” is not so much the IJȑȤȞȘ behind the artistic product that makes it seem artless and natural, but rather an aesthetic prerequisite which belongs to the socio-political and moral as much as the aesthetic order: moderation (ȝȑIJȡȠȞ) in both aesthetics and morality, ȝȘį੻Ȟ ਙȖĮȞ, harmonious balance. Mentioning Marathon, and Marathon alone, Aeschylus’ sepulchre underlines that a poetics of identity is inseparable from a poetics proper. To return briefly to Stanza 2 and to the image of Aeschylus in Aristophanes’ Frogs, we are indeed startled by the formulation whereby Charalambides describes (practically performs) Aeschylus’ poetic essence there. Verses such as ıIJȠ ʌȚȠ ȝȚțȡȩ țȜȦȞȐȡȚ IJȠȣȢ ijȦȜȚȐȗİȚ | ȕȠıIJȡȣȤȘįȩȞ IJȠȣ ȜȩȖȠȣ Ș IJȡȚʌȜİȟȓĮ (“In the tiniest of their branches nestles, like a curl, the triple-woven word”), in their almost affected grandiloquence, seem to be corroborating Aristophanes’ way of presenting Aeschylean style rather than militating against it. Obviously, this, too, is in the spirit of the first stanzas’ misleading agenda, because Charalambides’ actual drift soon proves to be the opposite: his Aeschylus commands the virtues of ĮȞĮȜȠȖȓĮ and balance. Aristophanes’ construction of Aeschylus in the Frogs as the epitome of the Marathǀnomachoi, a golden age lost, is enveloped in deep, undermining irony (the same irony that undercuts Dikaios Logos in the Clouds and the chorus of old men in the Acharnians): Aristophanes’ Marathǀnomachoi are respectable but obsolete relics of a bygone time. Charalambides, on the contrary, reinvents Aeschylus as the proponent of a true and genuine classicism, “cleansed” of any negative connotations, and deeply associated with an understanding of virtue, personal as well as artistic, as participation in, not detachment from, historical time. Eventually, Aeschylus’ ĮȞįȡİȓĮ in Charalambides articulates a universal poetological exemplum. The true poet needs to be historically engaged; he cannot afford to extricate himself from the workings of history and the practical aspects of life, detach himself from the ground looking to seek self-validation “in the heavens”. A true poet is ineludibly a poet of his times, a man of his people, a grain of his own earth, an “autochthon of his valour”. As Charalambides himself phrased it to me per litteras: ȉȠ IJİȜȚțȩ ıȣȝʌȑȡĮıȝĮ İȓȞĮȚ: ȖȚĮ ȞĮ țȐȞİȚ Ƞ ʌȠȚȘIJȒȢ ĮȜȘșȚȞȒ IJȑȤȞȘ ʌȡȑʌİȚ ȞĮ İȓȞĮȚ ܻȞįȡİ߿ȠȢ ȝİ IJȘȞ ĮȡȤĮȓĮ IJȠȣ ȩȡȠȣ ıȘȝĮıȓĮ, ʌȠȣ İȝʌİȡȚİȓȤİ țĮȚ IJȘȞ

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Chapter Five ȑȞȞȠȚĮ IJȘȢ ĮȡİIJȒȢ. ȅ ʌȠȚȘIJȒȢ ȠijİȓȜİȚ ȞĮ ĮȖȖȓȗİȚ IJȘ ȗȦȒ ıIJȘȞ ʌȡĮțIJȚțȒ IJȘȢ ȩȥȘ țĮȚ ȞĮ įȠțȚȝȐȗİȚ IJȘ įȚțȒ IJȠȣ įȪȞĮȝȘ ıIJo ȚıȠȗȪȖȚĮıȝȐ IJȠȣ ȝİ IJĮ įȡȫȝİȞĮ IJȘȢ ȚıIJȠȡȓĮȢ. The conclusion is the following: to produce true and genuine art, the poet must be ܻȞįȡİ߿ȠȢ in the ancient sense of the word, which also included the notion of virtue. The poet has to embrace life in its practical dimension and test his own power as he weighs himself against the workings of history.

3. “The Glasswork of the Sultans” Ǿ YǹȁȅȊȇīǿǹ ȉȍȃ ȈȅȊȁȉǹȃȍȃ ȅ ȄȑȡȟȘȢ Ƞ “ʌȠȜȣȝĮșȒȢ”—IJȠ ȜȑȖȠȣȞ IJĮ țȡȠȞIJȒȡȚĮ IJȠȣ— șȑȜȘıİ ȝİ IJȠ ʌȜȒȡȦȝĮ IJȠȣ ȤȡȩȞȠȣ ȞĮ ȝİȜİIJȒıİȚ ıIJȠ ʌȡȦIJȩIJȣʌȠ IJȠȣȢ DzȜȜȘȞİȢ. ȉȠ ʌȡȫIJȠ ȕȒȝĮ IJȠȣ ȒIJĮȞ ȞĮ ȤȦȡȑıİȚ IJȘ șȐȜĮııĮ— IJȠȞ ʌȩȞIJȠ—ıIJĮ țĮȡȐȕȚĮ IJȠȣ ȞĮ IJȘȢ ijȠȡȑıİȚ ȝȚĮ ʌȡȠȕȚȐ ıIJİȡȚȐȢ ʌȠȣ ȞĮ IJȘȞ ĮȣȜĮțȫȞȠȣȞ İȡȣșȡȠȓ IJȡȠȤȠȓ ıijȣȡȒȜĮIJȠȚ, įȚȐıIJȚțIJȠȚ İț ȜȓșȦȞ IJȚȝȓȦȞ: ȓĮıʌȚȢ, ĮȤȐIJȘȢ, ıȝȐȜIJȠ. ȅ ȠȓıIJȡȠȢ IJȠȣ ȤȡȣıȠȪ ʌİȡȚțĮȜȪʌIJİȚ IJȠȞ ȒȜȚȠ IJȠȣ ȂİȖȐȜȠȣ ǺĮıȚȜȑȦȢ ĮȡȓijȞȘIJȦȞ ȜĮȫȞ IJȘȢ ĮȤĮȞȠȪȢ ȌȣȤȒȢ, Įʌȩ IJȠ ȃİȓȜȠ, IJȠȞ ǿȞįȩ țĮȚ IJȚȢ ĮțIJȑȢ IJȠȣ ǹȚȖĮȓȠȣ, IJȘȢ ǹȡĮȕȓĮȢ țȚ ǼȣȟİȓȞȠȣ țȚ ǼȜȜȘıʌȩȞIJȠȣ. ĬȐȜĮIJIJĮ! ȉȘȞ ĮȞȣʌȩIJĮȤIJȘ ȑȕĮȜİ Ȟૃ ĮȜȣıȠįȑıȠȣȞ IJȘ ȖȪȝȞȦıİ ȦȢ IJȠȞ ĮijĮȜȩ țĮȚ IJȘ ȝĮıIJȓȖȦıİ ȝİ ʌȠșȠʌȜȐȞIJĮȤIJȘ ȑȟĮȡıȘ, IJȠȣȢ ȐȤȡĮȞIJȠȣȢ ȤȪȞȠȞIJĮȢ ȜȩȖȠȣȢ Įʌȩ țȠȪʌĮ. ȅȚ DzȜȜȘȞİȢ ʌȠȣ įİȞ țĮIJĮȜĮȕĮȓȞȠȣȞ Įʌȩ șȣıȓİȢ ȖȣĮȜȚȠȪ țȚ ȣʌȑȡȠȖțĮ ȑȡȖĮ IJȠȞ ʌĮȡİȟȒȖȘıĮȞ țĮșૃ ȪȕȡȚȞ, țĮșૃ ȣʌȑȡȕĮıȚȞ IJȠȣ IJȡĮȖȚțȠȪ IJȠȣȢ ȝȑIJȡȠȣ. ȀĮȚ įȚİIJİȓȞȠȞIJȠ ıIJĮ țȠȓȜĮ IJȦȞ șİȐIJȡȦȞ IJȠȣȢ ʌȦȢ IJȐȤĮ İȝİȓȢ (ȞȠȖȫ IJȠȣȢ DzȜȜȘȞİȢ) įİȞ İȓȝĮıIJİ ȣʌȠIJĮȖȝȑȞȠȚ įȠȪȜȠȚ țĮȞİȞȩȢ.

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ȀĮșȑȞĮȢ Įʌȩ ȝĮȢ țĮȚ ȝȚĮ ȚıIJȠȡȓĮ įȣȠ ȞĮ ȝȠȞȠȚȐıȠȣȞ įİȞ ȝʌȠȡȠȪȞ, țĮȞ IJȡİȚȢ ȞĮ ȝʌȠȜȚĮıIJȠȪȞİ Įʌૃ IJȠ ȝİȜȓııȚ IJૃ ȠȣȡĮȞȠȪ, ȖȚĮIJȓ İȝȐȢ IJȠȣȢ DzȜȜȘȞİȢ ȝĮȢ ȑțĮȝİȞ Ƞ ǽİȣȢ İȜİȪșİȡȠȣȢ—țĮșȑȞĮȢ țĮȚ ȝȚĮ ʌȩȜȘ. ǻȠȚȐțȚ ȝĮȢ țȚ ȠįȘȖȩȢ ȝĮȢ ʌȐȞIJĮ IJȠ ȐIJȠȝȠ ʌȠȣ ȝȑıĮ ȝĮȢ ijȦȜȚȐȗİȚ țȚ ȠȚ ȤȠȡȠȓ ȝĮȢ ȖİȞȞȚȠȪȞIJĮȚ Įʌȩ IJȠ ijȡȩȞȘȝĮ IJȘȢ ĮȡİIJȒȢ, ʌȠȣ ȜȑȖİȚ IJȠ ʌȡȑʌȠȞ, țĮșİȞȩȢ ȟİȤȦȡȚıIJȐ. ȅȚ DzȜȜȘȞİȢ ȜȠȚʌȩȞ, ʌȠȣ įİȞ țĮIJĮȜĮȕĮȓȞȠȣȞ ʌȦȢ ȐȜȜȠȞ ȒȜȚȠ, ȐȜȜȠ țȩıȝȠȞ ȑȤȠȣȞ ȠȚ ȆȑȡıİȢ, ȐȜȜȘ ȖİȪıȘ IJȦȞ ʌȡĮȖȝȐIJȦȞ (ĮijȠȪ İțİȓȞȠȚ ʌĮȓȡȞȠȣȞ ȑȞĮȞ ʌȐʌȣȡȠ ȝİ ȤȞȐȡȚ țȦȝȦįȓĮȢ IJૃ ǹȡȚıIJȠijȐȞȘ țĮȚ ȝİ ĮȣIJȩȞ IJȣȜȓȖȠȣȞİ IJȚȢ ijȚȐȜİȢ IJȠȣȢ), șĮȡȡȠȪȞ ȟİțȠȣȕĮȡȚȐȗİIJĮȚ ıIJĮ ȝȐIJȚĮ IJȠȣȢ ȝȚĮ ȝȐȗĮ ȕĮȡȕȐȡȦȞ. ǻİȞ țȠȚIJȐȞİ IJȠ įȚȐțȠıȝȠ, IJȘ įȚĮȖȡȐȝȝȚıȘ țĮȚ IJȚȢ İʌȚȤȡȣıȫıİȚȢ, IJĮ ʌIJȣİȜȠįȠȤİȓĮ ȖȚĮ IJȘȞ ĮʌȩȤȡİȝȥȘ, IJȠ ȤȡȫȝĮ IJİȜȠıʌȐȞIJȦȞ IJȠȣ ȖȣĮȜȚȠȪ țĮȚ IJȘȞ țȠȝȥȩIJȘIJĮ IJȠȣ ıȤȒȝĮIJȩȢ IJȠȣ— ıȪȞIJȘȟȘ țĮȚ ʌİȡȓȤȣıȘ țȚ ȠȟȓįȚȠ IJȠȣ ĮȡȖȪȡȠȣ ıʌİȚȡȠİȚįİȓȢ ȞİȣȡȫıİȚȢ țĮȚ ȤȣIJİȪıİȚȢ ıİ ȝȒIJȡĮ ʌȠȣ ĮʌȠȡȡȩijȘıİ IJĮ ȝȣıIJȚțȐ IJİȤȞȠȖȞȦıȓĮȢ ĮȚȫȞȦȞ—įİȞ țȠȚIJȐȞİ ȠȚ DzȜȜȘȞİȢ IJȘ įȚĮȝȩȡijȦıȘ IJȘȢ ȣĮȜȩȝĮȗĮȢ țĮȚ ıȓȖȠȣȡȠȚ, ȩʌȦȢ ʌȐȞIJĮ, țĮIJĮțȡȓȞȠȣȞ. ĭȜİȕȐȡȘȢ 2003 THE GLASSWORK OF THE SULTANS Translation: David Connolly,15 adapted To George Kechagioglou Xerxes the “erudite” —his goblets say as much— wanted when the time was right16 to study the Greeks in the original.

15

In Charalambides (2011). Original: ȝİ IJȠ ʌȜȒȡȦȝĮ IJȠȣ ȤȡȩȞȠȣ. Connolly translates: “with the passing of time”. 16

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Chapter Five His first step was to fit the sea—the high sea— into his ships; to clothe it in a fleece of land that would be furrowed by red wrought wheels, studded with precious stones: jasper, agate, enamel. Goldૃs effusion envelops the sun of the Great King of countless peoples of the vast Soul, from the Nile, Indus and the shores of the Aegean, of Arabia of the Euxine and of the Hellespont. Thalatta! He had them bind the insubordinate One;17 stripped her to the navel and lashed her with impassioned excitement,18 pouring unsullied19 words from a cup. The Greeks who understand nothing of glass sacrifices and extravagant works misinterpreted in hubris, in transgression of their own tragic measure. And they claimed in the caveas of their theatres that we (the Greeks, I mean) are supposedly no one’s subjugated slaves. Each one of us a different story; two cannot be reconciled, nor three be grafted20 by the heavens’ bee, for we Greeks were by Zeus made free—each one a different city. Our rudder and guide always the individual nestling within us; and our dances are born from the sense of virtue, that dictates the duty, of each one separately.

17

Connolly translates “the insubordinate sea”, but we must notice that Charalambides does not repeat the word șȐȜĮııĮ in this line. 18 Charalambides’ original (ȝİ ʌȠșȠʌȜȐȞIJĮȤIJȘ ȑȟĮȡıȘ) has strong erotic overtones that Connolly’s “impassioned” lacks. “Overcome by torturous erotic excitement” would be a more accurate rendition. 19 Connolly translates ȐȤȡĮȞIJȠȣȢ as “unadulterated”. 20 Connolly’s “nor three be stung” does not correspond, in my view, to Charalambides’ ȞĮ ȝʌȠȜȚĮıIJȠȪȞİ.

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The Greeks, then, who don’t understand that the Persians have a different sun, a different world, a different taste of things (for they take a papyrus with traces of a comedy by Aristophanes and wrap their bottles in it), believe a mass of barbarians is unwinding before their eyes. They don’t see the design, the ruling and gold plating, the spittoons for expectoration, the colour of the glass at least and the elegance of its shape— fusion and pouring and oxide of silver, spiral veins and castings in a mould that absorbed the secrets of centuries of know-how—the Greeks don’t see the shaping of the glass mass, and sure of themselves, as always, condemn. February 2003

“The Glasswork of the Sultans” provides another case of “contrarian” dialogue with an authority of the past. In the previous poem, Charalambides clashed with Cavafy vis-à-vis Aeschylus’ legacy. Here, on the face of it, he counters Aeschylus himself and his orientalising construction of Xerxes and the Persians in the homonymous tragedy. The primacy of Aeschylus as the interlocutor of this poem—over, say, Herodotus, Book 7—is established obliquely through the mention of hubris in specific conjunction with the Greek notion of a “tragic mean” (IJȠȣ IJȡĮȖȚțȠȪ IJȠȣȢ ȝȑIJȡȠȣ). It is proposed much more decisively through the reference to the “caveas of their theatres” and the allusion to Persians 230-245 that follows (țĮȚ įȚİIJİȓȞȠȞIJȠ | ıIJĮ țȠȓȜĮ IJȦȞ șİȐIJȡȦȞ IJȠȣȢ ʌȦȢ IJȐȤĮ | İȝİȓȢ (ȞȠȖȫ IJȠȣȢ DzȜȜȘȞİȢ) įİȞ İȓȝĮıIJİ | ȣʌȠIJĮȖȝȑȞȠȚ įȠȪȜȠȚ țĮȞİȞȩȢ; compare especially Persians 242: Ƞ੡IJȚȞȠȢ įȠ૨ȜȠȚ țȑțȜȘȞIJĮȚ ijȦIJઁȢ Ƞ੝įૅ ਫ਼ʌȒțȠȠȚ). Charalambides’ strategy in “the Glasswork of the Sultans” is comparable to that of the previous poem we analysed. The first half of the composition conveys the misleading impression that the modern poem is following along the tracks of its ancient interlocutor. But then, suddenly and unexpectedly, a single word—in this case, the word ȐȤȡĮȞIJȠȢ— signals a dramatic change of direction towards the complete refutation of the ancient authority.

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To that effect, in lines 1-18, Xerxes’ image is entirely Aeschylean. He is the bombastic, arrogant leader of the Persians, who dares to chain and lash the infinite, insubordinate sea, as if she is another one of his subjects—those “countless peoples of the Nile, the Indus and the coasts of the Aegean, Arabia, the Euxine and the Hellespont” (one readily remembers Aeschylus’ long catalogues here), whom he feels free to “stuff into his ships” (ȞĮ ȤȦȡȑıİȚ ıIJĮ țĮȡȐȕȚĮ IJȠȣ). Here, even his cups—the subversive focal point of the poem’s second half—are still mere tokens of ridiculous conceit, celebrating sycophantically by way of the inscriptions they bear his supposed royal erudition (ȅ ȄȑȡȟȘȢ Ƞ ‘ʌȠȜȣȝĮșȒȢ’—IJȠ ȜȑȖȠȣȞ IJĮ țȡȠȞIJȒȡȚĮ IJȠȣ). The extravagant luxury of the “fleece of land” with which he “clothes” the sea is not yet the positively charged symbol of otherness it becomes later in the poem. It is exactly what ʌȜȠ૨IJȠȢ is in Aeschylus’ Persians: as opposed to that measured blend of material prosperity and god-fearing acceptance of human limits which Aeschylus calls ੕ȜȕȠȢ, ʌȜȠ૨IJȠȢ in the hands of Aeschylean Xerxes is an expression of hubristic human vanity bound to incur divine wrath (șİ૵Ȟ ijșȩȞȠȞ, Aesch. Pers. 362). In fact, the “fleece of land”, with its red wrought wheels, “studded with precious | stones: jasper, agate, enamel”, reminds one strongly of the famous ਖȡȝȐȝĮȟĮ which features prominently—most probably in absentia21 and surely as a symbol of the disgraceful hubris that caused the defeat—in the exodus of Persians. In the first half of the poem the “gold’s effusion” (Ƞ ȠȓıIJȡȠȢ IJȠȣ ȤȡȣıȠȪ) is such as “to cover the sun of the Empire” through and through. The King himself, virtually blinded by his own ostentatious inanity, is nothing but a perverted sadist, who lashes out at the sea “overcome by torturous erotic excitement” (IJȘ ȖȪȝȞȦıİ ȦȢ IJȠȞ ĮijĮȜȩ țĮȚ IJȘ ȝĮıIJȓȖȦıİ | ȝİ ʌȠșȠʌȜȐȞIJĮȤIJȘ ȑȟĮȡıȘ). All this starts to change suddenly in line 18, when Xerxes, soon after his unseemly lashing of the sea, pours libations into it “from a cup”. Charalambides’ wording is significant here: at this point the poem’s direction changes rapidly, if at first indistinctly, through the semantics of a single word. Xerxes pours ȐȤȡĮȞIJȠȣȢ | [...] ȜȩȖȠȣȢ Įʌȩ țȠȪʌĮ. On a first level, the adjective alludes to Xerxes’ lashing of the sea as a ritual act.22 DZȤȡĮȞIJȠȢ (better translated perhaps as “unsullied, unblemished” rather than “unadulterated” [above, n. 19]) is often associated with Holy Mary (ਙȤȡĮȞIJȠȢ ȆĮȡșȑȞȠȢ) and generally with all that is pure and true. What is 21

Scholars disagree whether in the Exodos of Persians (908-1077) Xerxes appears on the ਖȡȝȐȝĮȟĮ or on foot, but the latter hypothesis prevails; on the issue see Garvie (2009) 338-340. 22 This dimension was contributed by Kyriakos Charalambides during the discussion of my paper at the Eumenides conference.

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“unsullied” or “unadulterated” here, of course, as it soon turns out, are not Xerxes’ words (far from it) but the cup itself, the glasswork on which the rest of the poem will focus insistently. The hypallage has a strong ironical force. In the next stanza, this Asian glasswork is initially called ਫ਼ʌȑȡȠȖțȠȞ ਩ȡȖȠȞ (“extravagant work”). This ambiguous qualification, coupled with the just as equivocal expression that follows (țĮșૃ ȪȕȡȚȞ, țĮșૃ ȣʌȑȡȕĮıȚȞ IJȠȣ IJȡĮȖȚțȠȪ IJȠȣȢ ȝȑIJȡȠȣ), gives the initial impression that the Aeschylean rhetoric continues, not least because these lines reproduce the Persians’ insistent exploitation of the preposition ਫ਼ʌȑȡ to denote Persian transgressiveness. In fact, though, the Aeschylean streak is now dropped. The Greeks “misinterpret”, they “fail to understand”. Connolly’s translation (“misinterpreted as hubris, as a transgression | of their tragic measure”) obscures, I think, the subtle ambiguity of Charalambides’ original. The Greeks indeed consider Xerxes’ act as hubris. But their own cocky self-assurance and hasty judgement (țĮȚ ıȓȖȠȣȡȠȚ, ȩʌȦȢ ʌȐȞIJĮ, țĮIJĮțȡȓȞȠȣȞ) is itself a violation “of their own proper measure”, perhaps even a graver one. This initiates a startling turnaround in the poetic commentary. In what follows Charalambides shakes the very fundaments of Aeschylus’ rhetoric in the Persians; he turns the Aeschylean political dynamics completely on its head. What in the Persians was the quintessence of Greek superiority over the Persians, what made the Greeks powerful and invincible against all the odds—namely, Athenian democracy, Greek political independence, ਥȜİȣșİȡȓĮ and ʌĮȡȡȘıȓĮ—becomes in Charalambides’ poem their Achilles’ heel. Indeed, the Greeks are nobody’s “subjugated slaves”—but this also translates into a pernicious inability to live in concord with one another (įȣȠ ȞĮ ȝȠȞȠȚȐıȠȣȞ įİȞ ȝʌȠȡȠȪȞ). Indeed, Zeus has made them free—but too free; in fact, “each one of them is an independent city”. They may not be a ȝȐȗĮ ȕĮȡȕȐȡȦȞ—but their individuality, so strongly highlighted as the ਪȡțȠȢ of their land by Aeschylus’ Messenger,23 is in Charalambides a severe predicament. The Greeks do retain a sense of virtue dictating moral action—but each one of them has a different understanding of what is right (țȚ ȠȚ ȤȠȡȠȓ ȝĮȢ | ȖİȞȞȚȠȪȞIJĮȚ Įʌȩ IJȠ ijȡȩȞȘȝĮ IJȘȢ ĮȡİIJȒȢ, ʌȠȣ ȜȑȖİȚ | IJȠ ʌȡȑʌȠȞ, țĮșİȞȩȢ ȟİȤȦȡȚıIJȐ). That said, the Greeks’ greatest plight by far is their unwillingness to incorporate the Other into their own worldview. The second half of the 23

Aesch. Pers. 348-349: ǺĮı: ਩IJ’ ਛȡ’ ਝșȘȞ૵Ȟ ਩ıIJ’ ਕʌȩȡșȘIJȠȢ ʌȩȜȚȢ; | ǹȖȖ. ਕȞįȡ૵Ȟ Ȗ੹ȡ ੕ȞIJȦȞ ਪȡțȠȢ ਥıIJ੿Ȟ ਕıijĮȜȑȢ. (“Queen: So is the city of Athens still unconquered? | Messenger: As long she has her men, they are her invincible bulwark”).

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poem thus places one version of hubristic arrogance against another: on the one hand the Great King’s excess, on the other hand the Greeks’ facile, supercilious conviction of superiority, which, conditioned by insularity and narcissism, betrays nothing but their inability to understand the workings (and the players) of history. This war is a clash of egotisms, the second part of the poem seems to imply, not a battle between virtue and vice as in the Persians; in such, it may well-nigh be a mere coincidence that Xerxes, not the Greeks, comes off the worse. The “historiomythical” crust of Charalambides’ poem begins to crack, revealing the topical comment lurking beneath. The clue hides in the poem’s very title. What do the “Sultans” have to do with a poem about Aeschylus and Salamis, apart from the fact that the Ottomans, too, like the ancient Persians, excelled in glasswork? The poet testifies that the immediate inspiration of the title was an art exhibition entitled “The Glasswork of the Sultans”, presented initially at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from October 2001 to January 2002, and then at the Benaki Museum in Athens from February 20 to May 15, 2002. 24 As Dimitris Rigopoulos noted announcing the event in the Athenian newspaper Ǿ ȀĮșȘȝİȡȚȞȒ (17.02.2002): The exhibition does not limit itself to providing a panoramic overview of Islamic glasswork; it also records its influence on European art. […] The glasswork of the Sultans promotes a field of Islamic culture that created numerous artworks of rare quality and good taste, yet it was not deemed worthy of the art historians’ attention.

In other words, the neglect and practical disrespect towards the glasswork of the Sultans on the part of modern art historians is prime evidence of Western orientalising, self-blinding arrogance. The fate of the Sultans’ glasswork underlines the poem’s major theme. To explore the reverberations of this theme in the poem, and to understand how it ushers in a third, silent intertextual interlocutor, one first needs briefly to recap a central notion in Charalambides’ oeuvre: what he calls the “tragic feeling”. This tragic feeling is intrinsic to his perception of his Cypriot Greekness and to the development of his own relationship with myth, history and the authorities of present and past. “Occasionally”, Charalambides once said in a lecture he delivered at the Open University of Cyprus, “I compare my own way of writing with that of my colleagues from Greece. They tell me sometimes: ‘You, Kyriakos, come from a 24

See http://www.athenapub.com/10glass.htm and, for the Athens event specifically http://www.benaki.gr/files/eventfiles/dt/Press-release-english-colour.pdf

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completely different world’. For Cyprus is indeed a different world; it has the stamp of tragedy, and this has given the island a different perspective, a different potential for interpreting the world, the tragic feeling” (my emphasis).25 The seed of “historiomythical” thinking was present in Charalambides since his poetic preludes. However, it was in the three pivotal Cyprusthemed collections he published after the Turkish invasion of 1974 (Coast of the Achaeans (1977); Famagusta, Reigning City (1982); and The Dome, (1989) that the Greek Cypriot poet’s historical consciousness and his poetic reuse of collective memory consolidated into a grand narrative about the nature and fate of mankind in general and about what he perceives as the tragic destiny of his native island in particular; in a nutshell, it developed into a personal historical vision of the Tragic, determined by the historical fate of Cyprus but intended to be universal in its applications. In interviews given in 2008 and 2009, the poet commented on this vision as follows: My poetry shows on its body the stigmata of the modern tragedy of Cyprus, namely the Turkish invasion and the occupation of a large part of the island, which completely upset the order of things and made me redefine poetry as an essence and as a way of life. Through the experience of invasion and occupation, I was graced with the opportunity to understand that in the end it is nothing short of a miracle and a blessing for a people to be able to contain the memory of all their defining elements in the circumscribed space of tragedy. […] However, unless one incorporates the sense of the tragic into an ecumenical understanding of History, unless one perceives of existence as something deep and fathomless, the character of one’s art ends up being merely descriptive and consumerist. The essence of art is that it encompasses a much wider space than its temporal framework.26 (the emphases are mine)

In the extract above, Charalambides views the Turkish invasion as an instance of cosmic outrage and imbalance, an upset of the order of things—much like Xerxes’ invasion of Greece in “The Glasswork of the Sultans” or like the crucifixion of Christ by a brash and unwitting 25

Charalambides in Petrides (2014b); cf. also Charalambides (2009) 144-146. Kyriakos Charalambides in Hadjicosti (2008). Cf. also Charalambides in Petrides (2014b): “We [sc. Greek Cypriots] have been given the curse and the blessing to rediscover life from scratch because of the tragic event [sc. the Turkish invasion and occupation]. We have become tragic figures. We have been given a great tragedy and through that the opportunity to upgrade our existence and redefine the world”.

26

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humanity (the mention of stigmata implicitly compares Charalambides’ poetry with the body of the true and repentant believer showing––in fact, sharing––the distress of the Passion). Yet for the poet, like all tragedy, this particular outrage, too, the invasion and continuing occupation of Cyprus by Turkey, is (or can be) cathartic in the long run, both in the sense of broadening one’s moral horizons and of cleansing one’s soul from those very failings which contributed to the tragedy in the first place. “Upsetting the order of things” is a deliberately ambivalent phrase; for such an upset, apart from destroying one’s universe, can also jolt one’s dormant sensibility and cocksure morality (cf. țĮȚ ıȓȖȠȣȡȠȚ ȩʌȦȢ ʌȐȞIJĮ țĮIJĮțȡȓȞȠȣȞ) into a painful, yet salutary awakening. In the Greek (and generally the Western) imaginary, Xerxes’ hubristic crossing into Greece, as depicted in Aeschylus’ Persians, is nothing short of the archetype of “invasion” and, simultaneously, the paradigmatic moment of cosmic disturbance. It was, in fact, one of Charalambides’ primary intertextual connections, George Seferis, who monumentalised the enchainment of the Hellespont (in Seferis, a token of the tragically misguided belief that power can justify any transgression) as a metaphor for the historical injustice done to Cyprus by various foreign oppressors. I am referring, of course, to Seferis’ poem “ȈĮȜĮȝȓȞĮ IJȘȢ ȀȪʌȡȠȢ” (“Salamis of Cyprus”), written in 1953 with reference to the British and their refusal to grant Cyprus Enosis with Greece. Repeatedly taught, dictated or referenced everywhere from schools to national occasions and from television shows and popular songs to literature, this poem, as well as the whole Cyprus-themed collection in which it is included, Logbook III (1955), was epochal for Greek Cypriots in general and Greek-Cypriot poets in particular.27 Being the springboard of most postcolonial Greek Cypriot poetry of the national stripe, it provided a handy blueprint for visualising the interconnection of history and tragedy as regards the island’s historical fate. Seferis’ poem provided an accommodating vision of constant historical insults added to interminable historical injuries, which underscored most of Greek Cypriot education, foreign policy and wider Weltanschauung in the period after independence and especially after 1974. This reassuring, self-exonerating discourse was formulated, as a rule, in obstinate self-insulation from opposing viewpoints, and in persistent refusal to acknowledge that 27 On the influence of Seferis’ “Cypriot” poems on Greek-Cypriot poets belonging to the so-called “Generation of the Indepedence” (īİȞȚȐ IJȘȢ ǹȞİȟĮȡIJȘıȓĮȢ), see Kechagioglou-Papaleontiou (2010) 443, 454-455, with bibliography. Among other things, the authors quote the succint dictum of the poet Theodosis Nikolaou: “With his [Cypriot] collection… Seferis showed Cyprus to Cypriots”.

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somewhere there may be, to quote from Charalambides’ poem, “a different sun, a different world, a different taste of things”. In 2003, exactly fifty years after Seferis’ “Salamis of Cyprus” (1953) and about three decades after the Turkish invasion (that is, in a period when nationalism increasingly started to be seen as a blind alley), Kyriakos Charalambides, in his common habit of entering into deconstructive dialogue with his poetic “ancestors”, tackles the Xerxes episode at palpable variance with Seferis. Facing Xerxes, Charalambides’ Greeks “fail to understand” the tragic essence of the experience. On top of that, their quick judgement of the “barbarian” is narcissistic and shortsighted—in one word, it is itself hubristic. Their viewpoint remains obstinately confined to their own limited understanding of the complexities of history and their conveniently manichaeistic orientalism (ȝȐȗĮ ȕĮȡȕȐȡȦȞ). Their unexamined, obtuse sense of superiority blinds them to their own fatal flaws: history teaches that soon after the Medika those very flaws would gradually prove their undoing. This reaction furnishes indeed an effective “objective correlative” to the Cypriot condition, as Charalambides seems to perceive it. It should be stressed that, in giving the Xerxes episode such a starkly anti-Seferic, ironical twist, Charalambides is not in disconnect from Aeschylus, despite what appears at first sight. For the Greek-Cypriot poet, as evidenced by the interview extracts cited above, the 20th century Cypriot experience is a historical convergence whose ingredients were there since the time of Salamis. I am referring to that uneasy but potentially productive encounter of a parochial, self-assured microcosm with an apocalyptic event, which challenges the narcissism of that microcosm—or should be expected to do so. The ancient Greeks thwarted the apocalypse, but Aeschylus’ reading of that victory is less one-sided, less panegyric than it looks. According to some scholars at least,28 what makes the Persians a genuine tragedy—and not, for example, an epinician—is that the ending of Aeschylus’ play is more open than it looks. In fact, some argue, Xerxes’ fate could function as a cautionary tale for Athens itself, which in 472 BC was already displaying symptoms of imperialistic arrogance (“failing to understand”, in effect, the Xerxes experience). As David Rosenbloom puts it: It is possible to synthesise the play’s epinician and tragic perspectives. As Gregory Nagy notes, the function of epinician is twofold: to praise victory and to warn against the seductions of hybris and tyranny. The Persians

28

For instance, Vogt (1972); Gagarin (1976); Melchinger (1979); Thalmann (1980); Meier (1993); Rosenbloom (2006).

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For Rosenbloom the Persians manages to depict Xerxes defeat both “as a spectacle to delight the victors” and as “a negative example for the nascent Athenian empire”.30 Through the play’s empathetic power, the suffering of war and death becomes a universal human destiny rather than just the fate of the vanquished: Aeschylus paradoxically transcends the notion of the Asian “Other” as an inhuman and inferior adversary just as he abets his construction in the Greek imaginary. 31 In 2003—exactly fifty years, I repeat, after “Salamis of Cyprus” and almost thirty after the Turkish invasion—Charalambides, always the national poet, supersedes Seferis’ indignation to recapture Aeschylus’ pained, reflective, inclusive humanity. It should be clear that, although Charalambides’ interlocutor here appears to be Aeschylus himself, it is still, as in our first poem, Aeschylus’ legacy, its interpretation and appropriation which provides the bone of contention. For Charalambides this is a legacy of historical introspection and of a “tragic feeling”. The Turkish invasion as a tragedy, if approached with cognisance, could afford Greek Cypriots the opportunity of tragic purgation; that is to say, the chance to overcome the bounds of ephemeral time in order to grasp the tragic principle of human existence at large, and to surpass the narrow confines of their own insularity, which nourished such a self-destructive sense of entitlement and such blindness to the historical and political circumstances as that which sealed their tragic fate. In 2003, he seems to be implying, this is still a desideratum.

Conclusion The two examples analysed here should suffice to show that Kyriakos Charalambides’ “contrarian” debates with authorities of the distant or more recent Greek past are intricate, polyphonic intertextual engagements, which in themselves perform the poet’s understanding of tradition not as a straightforward, univalent patrimony but as an ਕȖȫȞ that implicates Greek language and culture in their dynamic diachronicity. The dynamism, the torturous dialogism, which is always inherent in Charalambides’ reception processes, is betokened by the fact that in both our poems the main antagonist is not the ancient voice on the surface (Aeschylus) so much as a 29

Rosenbloom (2006) 145. Rosenbloom (2006) 38. 31 On Aeschylus and ancient Greek orientalism, see Hall (2007) 184-224, in which she reconsiders some of the theses she propounded in Hall (1989). 30

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more oblique, modern one that “triangulates” it. At the end the dialogue that matters is not with or about the playwright of yore as a figure of the past, but about what is (to be) done with him today. This open-ended deliberation cannot be anything but a contrarian engagement—in Seferis’ words, a “heroic debate” (ȘȡȦȚțȩȢ ĮȞIJȓȜȠȖȠȢ) with the various ambiguous Eumenides of the past.



CHAPTER SIX MEMORIES OF HEROINES IN MEMORIES OF SPECTATORS: MYTHIC, DRAMATIC AND THEATRICAL TIME FROM THE ANCIENT DRAMA TO THE MODERN GREEK THEATRE THEODORE GRAMMATAS AND MARIA DIMAKI-ZORA

If by “performance” we mean the “poetics of remembrance”, since it is there that the playwright’s and the actor’s memory as well as the spectators’ memory and social memory creatively meet, then theatre can be called the “art of memory”.1 As a reflective and repetitive appearance of the past in the present, it represents a timeless presence or a timeless past, within which cultural memory (as a collective product) is embodied in the individual memory (as a subjective creation) of the viewer with an all-embracing reference.2 Subsequently, theatre becomes a privileged field of repetition, memory and mnemonic reconstruction of the texts and their performed visualisation, 3 a timely cultural phenomenon comprising and deriving meaning from the individual memory of the viewer, as well as the collective memory of the audience, with which it is engaged in a constant dialogue.4 Thus, theatrical performance is a unique occurrence that takes place just once, limited in time and artistically hovering between an elusive current assessment and a constantly decreasing mnemonic recording, which makes the expression of any judgment on the part of the viewing 1

Samuel (1994). Schudson (1989). 3 Malkin (20022). 4 Jardine (1996); Grammatas (2011) 173. 2

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subject rather relative and precarious. This is because during the performance, in front of the viewer, a stage reality takes place that is naturally impossible to be perceived and decoded identically by all those present, due to the various subjective and objective, measurable and immeasurable factors, one of which, memory is very important indeed. The ceaseless change and transformation of pictures and symbols, which come out on stage as composite theatrical speech, 5 results in emerging feelings and stimulates the viewers’ conscience, thus finally being recorded as “memory”. In its own turn memory becomes a starting point and a prerequisite for even more mnemonic processes, which, when accordingly added, it projects the past of the story onto the present of the theatrical expression (performance). This procedure of recording and memorising problematises any effort to later reflect upon the memories caused by the particular performance in the viewer’s conscience every time s/he tries to recall the impressions of a spectacle s/he attended in the past in a critical and distanced manner.6 We can thus conclude that the perception of the viewer and the audience (of one particular performance or any other in general) constitutes the sum of (possibly) different but similar ingredients, which as a whole derive (directly or indirectly) from the concept of memory. This is exactly the question posed here: how does memory work? What is the true relationship between memory and the actual occurrence itself? 7 Is what remains in the viewer’s memory after a performance a sum of words and phrases with a particular conceptual gravity and value content, or some facial expressions, the actors’ movements and gestures, or elements of the setting, or eventually some occurrences irrelevant to the aesthetic result, connected to the place and time of the performance? Those questions have been discussed in an earlier study.8 Here we aim to explore, with the same starting point and similar questions in mind, the Modern Greek Drama and its relationship to classical tragedy, mostly in the ways in which mythic time appears as a memory, an echo or a recollection in modern dramatic revisions or adaptations of ancient myths, especially through tragic heroines such as Clytemnestra, Andromache and Medea. 9 Moreover, we focus on how mythic and dramatic time are projected on to the audience’s consciousness, while the spectators watch the performance, in a closed or open theatrical space, and recall “classical” 5

Thomadaki (1993) 7-9. Grammatas (2011). 7 Schacter (2001). 8 Grammatas (2011). 9 Sidiropoulou (2014a). 6

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performances that they have already seen, opening up new interpretative possibilities for the perception of ancient myth and drama. As Marvin Carlson comments in The Haunted Stage, drama “has always been centrally concerned” with “the retelling of stories already known to its public”. 10 For contemporary drama this comment is much more true, considering that most postmodern playwrights have dealt with adaptation, revision, transcription or retelling of Greek tragic myths in their plays.11 In Modern Greek theatre during the last decades, retelling of the already known myths, drawing on the rich sources of Greek Tragedy or suggesting different interpretations of mythic stories, seems to be a familiar element of the theatrical language. Playwrights use the canvas of the classical plays in a way that allows them to revise its elements, aiming to express their own concerns within an already known context. Thus, they sometimes focus on specific dramatic characters and re-examine their motivation, or choose some elements of the plot of a classical tragedy, which they expand and illuminate while reducing or completely eliminating other aspects. At other times they transpose the story to another time/place, thus creating analogies between contemporary characters and the familiar tragic persons.12 Already in the 1970s, in the collection Fourth Dimension (1978), Yannis Ritsos took some very important steps towards an innovative observation of the tragic myth, which is considerably differentiated from the until then existing approaches that had already made their appearance since the eighteenth century.13 One of the ways in which myth is revised in Modern Greek plays is by exploiting memory; memory is assigned a special function, namely to give multiple levels of signification to the myth as retold by the modern dramatists. Memory, as a complex function of the human brain, has many unexplored properties; accordingly, the study of memory is related to psychology, neurophysiology, biology, medicine as well as sociology, history and cultural studies. 14 Types of theatrical memory in particular are the neurophysiological or intellectual memory, the emotional memory, the physical or experiential memory, and the collective or social memory; these function together so that the performance is being recorded in a multidimensional way in the viewers’

10

Carlson (2001) 17; Foster (2012) 1. Patsalidis (2014) 5-8. 12 Chirico (2012) 18-21. 13 Chassapi – Christodoulou (2002). 14 Hutton (1993). 11

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consciousness (and even in their unconscious), and its data are recalled whenever the conditions are appropriate.15 In theatre, in general, the subject matter of the play, the values and the messages derived from it, the relationships and the circumstances experienced by the persons, the characters presented, all influence the viewers’ consciousness and catalytically affect their memory, by intensifying or weakening oblivion brought about by the time-distance from the dramatic and scenic space and time on the one hand and the objective time on the other. The most interesting “implication” of memory appears in the case of classical texts, because they are the “most lasting repository of peoples’ cultural memories”. 16 Thus characters such as Oedipus, Antigone, Clytemnestra, Electra or Medea, given the intensity of the circumstances they experience and the breadth of qualities they express, are difficult to forget, despite the variety of other impressions the viewer acquires from the theatrical experience. In addition, the visualised symbols and the objects inscribed in the text structures, the descriptions and instructions for place and time, as expressed by the playwright’s stagedirections, acquire a special significance for the function of memory, being highly visualised symbols of circumstances and concepts inextricably connected to the play, thus enabling their mnemonic recording as signifiers. In particular, tragic heroines of contemporary plays converse with their earlier intertextual personae and attack the certainties of the audience, recalling elements inscribed in the dramatic text, which characterise them, while they simultaneously refresh their image, adding new perspectives that affect the perception of drama.17 In Akis Demou’s play ǹȞįȡȠȝȐȤȘ Ȓ IJȠʌȓȠ ȖȣȞĮȓțĮȢ ıIJȠ ȪȥȠȢ IJȘȢ ȞȪȤIJĮȢ [Andromache or Woman’s landscape in the height of night] (1999) the well-known Homeric heroine whose fate is tied to the dramatic space of destroyed Troy, as depicted in Euripides’ Trojan Women, is now transposed to Epirus “in an artificial Trojan landscape, imitation of Troy”, as the author comments in the brief narration of the myth which precedes the text.18 Hector’s wife, a former princess, is now found as a slave, away from Troy, which, however, she recreates with her own hands in the new landscape in which she was brought to live. The building materials for this utopia19 are the materials of memory; a foreign language, Greek, enables Andromache to find new 15

Grammatas (2011). Patsalidis (2010) 68. 17 Sidiropoulou (2014b). 18 Demou (2006) 244. 19 Demou (2006) 361, 366. 16

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names for things and to move on with her life. Her memory lures her to a dilemma between a happy then / there and an unbearable here / now, while she is trying with her words and her paintings to understand and conquer this present, filling it with the stuff of her memory. The members of the audience on the other side are transferred, through the heroine’s memory, to the past, which is known and retraced in their memory because of the intertextual journey of Andromache’s character from Homer to the present days.20 Demou creates visual symbols for the audience, through a scenic space described as “three large painted surfaces, representing facades of public and private buildings of Troy, creating the illusion of a room-city”. This space is constructed simply by the memories of the heroine 21 while it simultaneously creates a scenic space that makes it easy for the audience to record in their own memory. Another representative sample of mnemonic recording can be found in Avra Sidiropoulou’s play ȉĮ įȐțȡȣĮ IJȘȢ ȀȜȣIJĮȚȝȞȒıIJȡĮȢ [Clytemnestra’s Tears]. Here the dramatic figure of Clytemnestra seems to struggle constantly with her memory, which is present in every part of the monologue as a driving force behind every thought, every judgment and every emotion. In an intertextual dialogue with Iakovos Kambanellis’ trilogy The Supper, Clytemnestra is dominated by her grief for the loss of her beloved Iphigenia and reconstructs the past in the shadow of memories.22 Agamemnon comes again and again in her mind and speech as the husband, the lover and the murderer of her daughter, raking up strong emotions such as love, affection and hatred in an endless path, which Clytemnestra has to follow through her memories and the mandatory presence of the past. By exploiting postdramatic techniques and monologue 23 the tragic heroine inaugurates a dialogue with her own dramatic personae from Aeschylus and Euripides to Ritsos and Kambanellis as well as with other tragic figures such as Iphigenia, Electra and even Medea, 24 highlighting the power of memory in its diachronic dimension, which is by definition its essence. Moreover, in this way, another quality of memory is explored, which is directly related to the audience, who probably carry in their mnemonic “baggage” the whole information and the theatrical experience that includes the image and the speech of these heroines from other performances of Greek Tragedies or contemporary performances or films based on the 20

Tentorio (2013). Tentorio (2013) 158-159. 22 Liapis (2014b) 123-141. 23 Diamantakou–Agathou (2010); Patsalidis (2008). 24 Sidiropoulou (2004) 8. 21

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revision of classical myth. From the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles to the monologues of Marguerite Yourcenar and the trilogy of Eugene O’Neill, the plays of Iakovos Kambanellis and Andreas Staikos, as well as movies such as Trojan Women and Electra directed by Michael Cacoyannis,25 spectators have already read or watched various revisions of the Tragic Myth and have already recorded in their memory various 26 interpretations of the tragic heroines which are recalled during the 27 present performance. Clytemnestra in Sidiropoulou’s monologue comes via an intertextual dialogue through the memory of viewers, and eventually rises above and beyond entrenched images, combining elements from all of them but refusing to be entrapped in any of them. Is she a mother in pain for the loss of her daughter, is she a betrayed woman who asks for revenge, is she an unfaithful wife, is she a regretful assassin, or is she all of the above at the same time? At the beginning of the monologue, she expresses her emotions primarily as a mother who suffers for her lost daughter (“I had once Iphigenia”, p. 12), a part of her personality which recalls memories of Clytemnestra in Kambanellis’ Letter to Orestes, but later she presents herself as a woman bent on revenge, an aspect already known from Aeschylus’ Oresteia. In this respect, she brings back memories of Clytemnestra of Agamemnon who is characterised as ਕȞįȡȩȕȠȣȜȠȢ ȖȣȞȒ (ǹgam. 10-11), because of her decisive and strong character, which is deemed inappropriate for a woman.28 This aspect of a strong and proud queen is emphasised when the heroine of Clytemnestra’s Tears says: “My husband is back. I am a woman again” (p. 19). Beyond this mnemonic function of the textual elements, stage instructions play a more important role, as indicators of a communication between present and past and as mechanisms of accessing and understanding what has irrevocably happened but mimetically reoccurs via its stage configuration. During the performance, the playwright’s discourse, as inscribed in the text (consciously or not), sometimes as memory and sometimes as oblivion, it eventually has a redeeming effect on the 25

MacDonald (1983). Indicative is the list of some names: Lydia Koniordou as Electra of Sophocles, National Theatre (1996); Karyophyllia Karampeti as Electra of Sophocles, National Theatre (1998); Stephania Goulioti as Electra of Sophocles (2007) under the direction of Peter Stein; Irene Papas as Electra of Euripides in the emblematic film of Michael Cacoyannis (1962), to mention some relatively recent interpretations. 27 Grammatas (2014). 28 Goldhill (2008) 86. 26

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spectator’s conscience whether suppressing, or reforming, or even silencing issues from the past, in a way that a renegotiation takes place, or moreover a re-signification of the circumstances and experiences referred to within it. Playwrights with a different voice and means, everyone from their own point of view, aesthetics and ideology, submit their own proposals for an approach and renegotiation of the past by the present, via the development of a particular way of managing the collective memory created for it. The case of plays whose subject matter or heroes have been used by different playwrights with different aesthetics and at different times are really representative, as the creators of one historic period attempt to intervene creatively in the memory of the past, thus adjusting it or describing it according to their own expectations.29 An indicative example of the exploitation of the spectator’s memory as far as a different meaning to be given is concerned, is Lia Vitali’s play ȇȠıIJȝʌȓij. ȅ įȚıIJĮȖȝȩȢ IJȘȢ ȀȜȣIJĮȚȝȞȒıIJȡĮȢ ʌȡȚȞ Įʌ’ IJȠ ijȩȞȠ [Roast Beef. Clytemnestra’s Hesitation before the Murder], where Clytemnestra, Iphigenia, Aegisthus, and Agamemnon are transposed to a very different dramatic time and space from the mythical palace of Argos, in a nursing home for elderly people. The stage-directions are significant: “A surgical table. Everything is white. Surgical table with surgical tools, scissors and knives well sharpened. On the operating table, a simple crystal vase with red, bushy roses”.30 Blood is present in every way through its presence (red colour) and its absence (the white colour of the pale face of Iphigenia and her light-coloured dress), while Clytemnestra loves to sharpen the knives and cuts the roast beef into thin slices. Iphigenia, the young daughter, sings in whispers: “my mother for my sake sharpens knives” thereby recalling the sacrifice of her tragic namesake and the revenge taken by her mother. Another element of the secondary text, the title and the subtitle, is also meaningful. When the time of murder comes again, this modern heroine of the postfeminist era hesitates to kill her husband and prefers to live with him passionately. With this transposition of time and space, the diegesis moves the story to another time and place (in the “pension for the elderly”, present time), but without losing its core, while at the end an essential change happens: the ethical values radically change, as Clytemnestra obeys new rules within the new social and cultural conditions of our era. In Anna-Maria Margariti’s play ȆĮȡĮıțȒȞȚȠ [Backstage], three female actors in a small English town, in the modern age, reside in the same 29 30

Grammatas (2011) 178-180. Vitali (2008) 208.

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apartment and blame one another for the conditions of their lives. The bond that ties this play with the myth of the Atreids (as happens also in Andreas Staikos’ play ȀȜȣIJĮȚȝȞȒıIJȡĮ; [Clytemnestra?]) is a postdramatic one, whereby two modern actresses revive, in speech and action, the relationship of the tragic heroines Clytemnestra and Electra. Here, the female characters of the play are three actresses who take part in a performance of Sophocles’ Electra. Two of them, Cynthia and Evelyn, mother and daughter respectively, perform the parts of Clytemnestra and Electra. It transpires that their relationship is essentially analogous to that of the tragic heroines they impersonate, while a third figure, Martha from Ukraine, who has left her father's home together with a stranger called Jason, finds out that her husband has abandoned her for a younger woman, leaves taking her children with her, and later murders them. In this way, Clytemnestra, Electra, and Medea transfer their tragic fate to this modern team of three actresses. This transposition of ancient myth into contemporaneity highlights the analogy between the tragic heroines and the dramatic figures of the modern play, and allows spectators to recognise the well-known characters and to use their mnemonic recordings as interpretative keys for the perception of the play. In addition, the mnemonic connection between the contemporary play and the ancient drama is reinforced here by the sight of Cynthia’s knife, which evokes memories of a murder. It is notable that a scene that strongly recalls Clytemnestra holding a knife in Lia Vitali’s Roast Beef (mentioned above) acquires special significance for the function of memory, as it becomes a visualised symbol strongly connected to the tragic heroine, so that it can easily be recorded as signifier. As we can see from this selective survey of modern Greek plays that revise ancient myths, most playwrights or directors often make use of familiar historic and mythological themes and elements, and employ stagecraft and dramatic techniques that help them manipulate, in the best possible way, the distance between stage and auditorium. This is why they reclaim stereotypes and elements commonly accepted by the entire audience, so that their work becomes more intelligible and accessible to the audience, thus more easily recalled to memory. They are based on the concept of “collective” or “cultural” memory,31 which is mostly a result of social procedures. Focusing on that kind of memory we can say that what the viewer remembers, or may remember, does not only originate in their personal but to a great extent their collective cultural experience. It has a familiar and commonly accepted language, its subject matter and 31

Grammatas (2011) 187-191.

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characters rely on predetermined stereotypical values, which in their turn constitute a form of “contemporary mythology”. The individual memory of those belonging to this culture (readers, audience) relies upon and is determined to a great extent by the collective, since subjects “remember what they already know”, what is more familiar and accessible.32 Such a memory function can be identified in Maria Kyriaki’s play Medea—De Profundis. In the preface of this work, the author states: “Medea is registered in our collective memory as a mysterious, magical being, an unexplained creature”,33 and continues by exploring the ancient myth of Medea and its various versions, focusing on the Euripidean version of the tragic heroine which is the most accessible in the memory of viewers.34 A similar version of the myth is presented by Vassilis Bountoures in his play The Other Medea, whose title is indicative of the playwright’s intention to present a tragic Medea with characteristics that differ from those assigned to her stereotypical image by collective memory. 35 This mnemonic recording of creative revisions of the well-known myths by modern writers feeds back and enriches the collective memory of the viewers. 36 The historical, social and political conditions of life, the experiences of the modern viewer, the current attitudes, affect decisively the way in which audiences perceive these new forms. Present conditions shape the collective memory of the spectator, who decodes this new theatrical language with the elements provided by the conditions of his life. Based on the multidimensional interpretation of the myth, by exploiting to the full the rich cultural inheritance and by embodying to the mythological the original historic background of the contemporary Greek society, the above playwrights recall to the memory of their spectators, not only the intertextual presence of already familiar characters and events of the Ancient Greek Tragedy, but also the collective memory that these possess as a group. These are the reasons why metadramatic texts and in general all theatrical modernism plays that fully exploit the Tragic Myth, find a fertile ground to develop in contemporary Greek reality and surpass the traditional ways of approaching the Ancient Drama by expanding the dimensions of the regional and the Greek example within the frame of modern global dramaturgy. In this sense, we can maintain that retelling, revision and transcription of well-known tragic myths is one of the most significant and interesting tendencies in contemporary Greek dramaturgy, 32

Saro (2008) 311. Kyriaki (2012) 13 34 Centanni (2003) 26-27. 35 Bountoures (1990) 7-9, 79-86. 36 Sidiropoulou (2014a). 33

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directly linked to the various functions of memory, which, in this way, becomes a key factor in the formation of the audiences’ opinion of a play, an actor, a performance or theatre in general.



CHAPTER SEVEN HOW TO DO (IN) KINGS WITH WORDS: RADICALLY REWRITING THE MYTH OF THE ATREIDS IN ATHENS, 1964* GONDA VAN STEEN

Introduction: Radical Reception This chapter discusses perhaps the most radical modern Greek version of Aeschylus’ Oresteia, which dates back to the mid-1960s, when Greece was experimenting with a new theatrical and political language. ‫ނ‬IJĮȞ Ƞ‫ݨ‬ ݃IJȡİƭįİȢ… (When the Atreids… or The Successors) (1964), of Vanghelis Katsanis charted new territory in the process of rewriting and acculturating classical tragedy, and pressed the question of where tragedy’s value lay for crisis-ridden Greece. Katsanis’ “ancient” play made in modern Greece was not simply an offshoot of the classical models provided by Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis, and the Electra plays. It was, rather, a creative, topicalised rewriting, in a sense conversant with current translation theory and especially with the work of André Lefevere. The young playwright’s act of rewriting was sensitive to the new aesthetic, sociopolitical, and institutional aspects of 1960s Greece. His treatment of ancient tragedy illustrates the full range of the Greek reception through rewriting or translating for a new cultural context in ways that reach beyond translation in the conventional sense. Katsanis’ play further introduced innovative dimensions of dramatisation and metatheatricality that served to throw legendary heroes and leaders, even monarchs, from their pedestals. In his hands, the model tragedies took on very concrete mythical, anachronistic, and sociopolitical forms and transformations, and entered into the broader cultural debate of whether and how the revival stage of classical Greek drama could radicalise modern Greek playwriting. Katsanis’ work made the traditional myth of Orestes reach the zero point of demythologisation and functioned as an important point of reference in a political context of literary and

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theatrical censorship. The play also laid out one of the most useful agitational myths with a practical agenda for revolutionary tyrannicide. Main themes in this chapter are the various motivations underlying the novel version and reinvented stage personae and, in particular, the new plot twists of political expediency that reflected power struggles in contemporary Greek society. Many scholars of reception see a committed return to ancient drama in the West of the—politicised—late 1960s, at the height of the Cold War. An excellent starting point may be, for one, Dionysus since 69: Greek Tragedy at the Dawn of the Third Millennium, edited by Edith Hall, Fiona Macintosh and Amanda Wrigley (2004). Hall states in her introduction to that volume: This reawakening [of interest in Greek tragedy] was just one result of the seismic political and cultural shifts marking the end of the 1960s. Greek tragedy began to be performed on a quantitatively far greater scale, from more radical political perspectives, and in more adventurous performance styles than it had been before.1

In her 1995 study, Greek Tragedy on the American Stage, Karelisa Hartigan listed Aeschylus’ Oresteia among the ways in which theatre in the States responded to the Vietnam War, drugs, and flower children of those turbulent years.2 May 1968 and the student revolutions in Europe and the United States boosted the creation of new myths and the reinventing of old ones. Orestes reemerged as a protest figure against authority: he— quite literally—took the stage and demanded freedom of expression for the vocal younger generations. He was the hero in whose mind an inner revolution had erupted, a revolution which could erupt anew and assume broader societal dimensions. The 2005 volume of essays, Agamemnon in Performance, 458 BC to AD 2004 [F. Macintosh et al. (eds)], which grew out of an international conference organised by the Oxford Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, aptly presents the larger modern political and dramaturgical framework in which the boom of

* I thank Vayos Liapis, Maria Pavlou, and Antonis Petrides, inspirers and organisers of the Eumenides Project and its 2014 international conference, held by the Open University of Cyprus on 21 and 22 December 2014. I have benefited greatly from their editorial comments as well. My gratitude goes also to all exceptionally engaged attendees, who presented and contributed in various ways to the intellectually stimulating exchange before, during, and after the conference. 1 Hall (2004a) 1. 2 Hartigan (1995) 67-81.

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productions of, for one, Aeschylus’ Oresteia emerged in the latter decades of the twentieth century. Hall discovers reasons in the then “climax of the Cold War, followed by the fall of the Berlin Wall and Western liberal capitalism’s compromised ‘victory’ over its long-time Soviet rival”.3 She explains: The Oresteia has offered a theatrical site for exploring the decades-long repercussions of international war, the corrosive psychological effect of feuds, and the impossibility of finding a compromise between irreconcilable claimants to political authority. . . [T]he trilogy continued to be performed repeatedly in the 1990s, as the world struggled to discover a new political shape and direction, while western Europe and the USA searched for a new enemy against which to define their own identities…4

Greece as well as Western Europe saw the creation of landmarks in Oresteia interpretation in the 1980s and 1990s: the 1980 production by the Theatro TechnƝs of Karolos Koun reinvented chorus participation; Peter Stein’s Oresteia (1980, Berlin); Peter Hall’s highly stylised 1981 Oresteia, performed at the National Theatre in London (in Tony Harrison’s translation [1982]); and Ariane Mnouchkine’s Les Atrides (1990, Paris), staged with her Théâtre du Soleil. 5 The “seismic shifts” of which Hall speaks may have been registered first in Paris, London, or New York, but 3

Hall (2004b) 174. Hall (2004b) 174. 5 See further Bierl [(1996) 111-114] for a brief summary sketch; Chioles (1995) 32-51; A. Green (1994) 46-52; Hartigan (1995) 68-81, 151-153; Fischer-Lichte (2004) 344-352. On the American stage, Jack Richardson’s The Prodigal (1960) reworked the myth of the house of Atreus and expressed “the need for the individual [Orestes] to resist conformity” [Colakis (1993) 9 [quotation], 1-10]. This sentiment grew stronger by the mid- through late 1960s, as the Vietnam War carried on and polarised American society. See also Colakis [(1993) 72-75] on David Rabe’s The Orphan, which, by 1970, bore all the traces of precisely those conflicts, but it also warned of the dangerous rootlessness of rebellious youth. Kevin Wetmore Jr. included a chapter entitled “Orestes in South Africa” [(2002) 143-168], in which he discussed, among other productions, Athol Fugard’s Orestes of 1971. Modern African interpreters have used the myth of Orestes freely to explore issues of violence and justice in the resistance to apartheid in South African history and society. See Komar (2003) for a recent study of famous modern versions of the myth of Clytemnestra. For the reflections of various ancient Greek myths in modern Greek drama, see Chassapi-Christodoulou (2002). For information on the history and development of native Greek theatre, see Bacopoulou-Halls (1994) and Constantinidis (2001). For a first introduction to the (unjustly) forgotten Successors of Katsanis, see Van Steen (2002). 4

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turmoil was brewing in Greece as well—albeit for varied reasons. If a radical production, however, falls onto a lesser-known stage, and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound? The modern Greek performance tradition of ancient drama may serve as a salutary reminder to students of reception of the breakthrough of classical plays as protest plays in Greece from the 1959 Birds of Karolos Koun on (see below 143), even when only few outside of Greece took note. In the oppressive Greek environment of the aftermath of the Civil War (1946-1949), what was a young author to do who had some ideas about how to rework the myth of the Atreids?6 When I asked Vanghelis Katsanis in person if he knew what he was getting into, he laughed, and then admitted that he really had no clue: in his youthful innocence, he just thought that the meaning of the myth was his to remake (interview, 9 June 2004, Athens). Katsanis’ rewriting of the myth of the Atreids merits closer examination. How did he deploy ancient elements and what did they mean to Greek urban audiences of the 1960s? Katsanis did not simply borrow from the classical tragedians but engaged in a process of transculturation, and the dynamics of the play’s production then pushed this transculturation process even further. The concepts of rewriting and acculturation are central to translation theory and have permeated the study of the reception of ancient drama as well. Katsanis’ treatment of the myth of the Atreids, which extended far beyond the practice of translating, may illustrate the full range of the Greek reception through rewriting for a new cultural context, using modes of citing, editing, reviewing, commenting, anthologising, and imitating to achieve this goal.7 Admittedly, an interactive (militant Greek) understanding 6

Many aspects of the Greek Civil War and of the Cold War in Greece remain disputed, and the debates are likely to continue. Koulouris (2000) has compiled the bibliographical record on the Greek Civil War up through 1999. He notes the absence of leftist written testimonies [(2000) 72], which has been partly remedied since. From 2000 on, scholarly debate about the Greek Civil War has flourished to the point of perhaps detracting from other domains of history(-writing). Recent studies in English on the Greek Civil War and its aftermath include Close (2002); Gerolymatos (2004); Hatzivassiliou (2006), with focus on the Cold War; and Mazower (2000). Important sources in Greek include: Kalyvas and Marantzidis (2015); Margaritis (2000-2001); and Van Boeschoten et al. (2008). A new addition to the scholarly study of the Civil War as a historical episode and movement is Voglis’ study of 2014, characterising the war as a “weak revolution”. 7 André Lefevere’s comprehensive work (1992) offers further insights into the theory of rewriting as a form of translation that reaches beyond translation in the conventional sense but constitutes no less a mediated social act (as it meets the perceived needs of shifting sociopolitical contexts that determine how rewritings

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of the notion of rewriting proffers another example of our current thinking about reception in terms of two-way models, for which Professor Lorna Hardwick eloquently argues in the opening chapter of this volume. I would even venture to speak of a three-way model: Katsanis creatively and selectively rewrote several ancient texts, which then could not but become associated with the new, leftist-subversive interpretation (at least among literati in Greece).8 Meanwhile the 1964 reading public, too, in its keen anticipation of the opening production, sharpened the play’s modern message and thus infused it with lateral or horizontal readings. Similarly, I have found Erika Fischer-Lichte’s concept of “interweaving performance cultures”, with its cross-cultural emphasis, to be very beneficial, especially if we can agree to validate (or rehabilitate) modern Greece’s engagement with ancient Greece as one of the oldest and most complex cross-cultural exchanges. 9 But let’s delve into the details of Katsanis’ story, without losing sight of this chapter’s goal: to provide classical scholars with a modern Greek case-study of radicalising the myth of the Atreids, which— unfortunately—never entered into the critical discussions of the political and other aspects, or the reception histories, of the original plays.

What Happened? A bizarre sequence of events shook up Greek theatre and politics in early August of 1964, in the midst of a short-lived political dawn under the liberal government of George Papandreou. Pressured by the Greek royal family, Papandreou’s (otherwise progressive) administration banned what it denounced as an “antiroyal” play, The Successors, of the débutant playwright Vanghelis Katsanis.10 Katsanis’ play is full of bold inversions

are produced and consumed). Performances on stage or screen supplement the various modes of rewriting an actual text, which must bring the latter closer to the target culture [(1992) 6-7]. See also recently Asimakoulas (20092) on the notion of rewriting and its multiple aesthetic, sociopolitical and institutional aspects. 8 Liapis suggests that Katsanis’ interpretation did not go unnoticed by the poet Yannis Ritsos, who deeply engaged with the myth of Orestes as well [Liapis (2014a) 123-124). 9 Fischer-Lichte’s initiative features prominently on the web, as does the Eumenides Project (http://eumenides.ouc.ac.cy), which is very helpful at a time when scholars are still searching for the definitive language pertaining to reception studies and performance reception, in particular: http://www.geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de/en/v/interweaving-performancecultures/index.html [last accessed 15 January 2018]. 10 More than left-wing or centrist administrations, right-wing governments were

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and well-aimed stings, which provoked the anger of the royal court, the government officials, and the conservative critics. In the early through mid-1960s, the label of “antiroyal” also entailed the suspicion of communist sympathies, and Papandreou’s hard line on communists or suspected communists is well documented, albeit somewhat forgotten.11 The play had been scheduled to open on the official stage of the Herodes Atticus Theatre, as part of the Athens Festival of the 1964 summer season.12 It was exceptional for a modern Greek play to be invited onto the Herodeion’s “sacred” stage to enhance the Athens Festival program, which had only been in existence for some ten years. In an official announcement from the Ministry of the Presidency of the Government, the authorities hid behind the pretexts of “protection” and “prevention”: they claimed that they had learned from the police that royalist agitators were plotting to sabotage the premiere; they then decided that the best way to protect

likely to keep artists and literati under crossfire. The official ban on Katsanis’ play proves that, well before the Greek colonels installed their own, more restrictive censorship procedures, certain raw home truths had long been subject to state censorship. Before the coup of 21 April 1967, this state censorship functioned mostly via postproduction and postpublication interdictions. From 1967 through 1969, the related legislation returned to the principles of preemptive censorship and its formal licencing procedures. Censorship restrictions on the Greek theatre were harsher—and had a history of being harsher—than on any other art form. Suffice it to say that the Greek stage had experienced hypernationalist, anticommunist, and antiliberal purges before (in the late 1930s and 1940s). PostWWII censorship, however, tended to be of a more incidental nature and was never as ruthlessly organised as under the junta. For details on the junta’s various types of censorship legislation and their history, see Van Steen (2015) ch. 2. 11 In his excellent book on Cold War Greece, Evanthis Hatzivassiliou has brought renewed attention to the politics and rhetoric of George Papandreou (not to be confused with his son, Andreas Papandreou, or his grandson by the name of the former) [(2006) 126-129]. 12 Katsanis, interview, 9 June 2004, Athens. Katsanis remembered that the 7 August production was directed by Pelos Katselis, and that it featured the following prominent actors among its cast: Manos Katrakis as Agamemnon; Aleka Katseli as Clytemnestra; Nelly Angelidou as Electra; and Dimitris Malavetas, a young and relatively unknown actor, as Orestes. The costume design was by Giorgos Vakalo, and the music by Theodoros Antoniou. See also Pelos Katselis, interview by F. Ladis, HƝ AvgƝ, 24 July 1964. It was no coincidence that many members of the cast were actors of Katrakis’ Greek Popular Theatre (EllƝniko Laïko Theatro, founded in 1955): its founder’s choices revealed leftist and antiauthoritarian sympathies.

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public order was to cancel all performances—three days before the opening night.13 The Successors had been eagerly anticipated by the Greek public, and now, because of the official ban, its notoriety only increased and it became a succès de scandale. Katsanis’ work had won first prize from among twenty-nine submissions in a nationwide competition organised by the Greek National Tourist Organisation. 14 From the time of the play’s unanimous selection, it had been discussed daily in the press. The press was running quotations from the script and in particular those passages that reflected poorly on the monarchy and that exposed the royal house’s disdain of ordinary people.15 The general public had therefore embraced the subversive play well before the scheduled opening performances. Also, Kostas Nitsos, editor of the progressive journal Theatro, had made the full text of The Successors available in its May-June 1964 issue.16

13

See the anonymous report of 4 August 1964 in HƝ KathƝmerinƝ, one of the leading conservative Greek newspapers of the time: “Yesterday the Government Forbade the Opening of the Play, The Successors, of Mr. Ev. Katsanis. Political Protests Were Expected to Take Place in the Herodeion. The Three Days of the Festival Now Remain Uncovered”. See also the anonymous reports in the Eleftheria newspaper of 4 and 5 August 1964. 14 The jury consisted of five leading figures from the world of Greek theatre and theatre criticism: Petros Charis, Kostas Moussouris, Dimitris Myrat, Kostas Oikonomidis, and Marios Ploritis. For a position statement by Myrat, who went on to produce the play in the fall of 1964, see Myrat (1964); G. K. Pilichos, “Who Will Pay the One Million [Drachmas]?”, Ta Nea, 7 August, 1964. This article, which continued under the same title in Ta Nea of 8 August, 1964, discussed mainly the financial responsibilities and consequences (and the issue of reimbursement of the many tickets sold in advance). 15 George Valamvanos observed that “expectations ran high”; and he described an “entire nation, whose interest was peaked by numerous articles in the press about the play” [in Katsanis (1979) 31]. He also noted that the Greek papers printed whole passages of the play itself “day after day to the delight of the general public” [(1979) 32]. All subsequent references to Valamvanos’ introduction or to the English translation, which he co-authored with Kenneth MacKinnon, appear in parenthesis in the regular text or at the end of the English quotations. Page numbers in square brackets refer to Katsanis’ original Greek text. Valamvanos and MacKinnon preferred the title The Successors, but others have occasionally referred to the play by the title of Since the Atreids ... or When the Atreids ..., the latter being an exact translation of the original Greek title ‫ނ‬IJĮȞ Ƞ‫݃ ݨ‬IJȡİ߿įİȢ ... . 16 Both installments of the article by Pilichos, mentioned in n. 14, were accompanied by adjacent ads for the issue of Theatro in which the forbidden play had appeared “in its entirety”.

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Katsanis had drawn the attention of Greece’s literary establishment, the government, and the court and his play had become the talk of Athens, but conservative criticism and outright contempt continued to build. In her personal column in HƝ KathƝmerinƝ of 9 August 1964, right-wing publisher Eleni Vlachou denounced Katsanis’ Atreides as “Katsatrides”, in an obvious pun on the modern Greek word katsarides, which means “cockroaches”. This representative comment signals that many of the critiques published at the time of the scandal may be deconstructed as mere ideological disapproval. 17 “The downfall of the play was fast and expertly executed by those whose interest was to see it disappear from the proscenium of public notice”, Valamvanos testified, in his introduction to the English translation of The Successors. 18 Valamvanos agreed that, before the ban, the play had first been received as “a serious and rather rare attempt by a contemporary Greek dramatist to project classical Greek culture into modern times”.19 The “Greek Spring” of the early 1960s had allowed intellectual and cultural life to flourish after several decades of indirect censorship. However, the new generation to which Katsanis belonged still faced the challenge of developing writing styles and dramaturgical modes in a political context that remained strife-ridden. In the mid-1960s, latent censorship was therefore not solely a form of repression but represented an impulse that fostered a wave of creative productivity and also attempts to subvert the classics—or to be subversive through the classics. The Successors was finally performed on an Athenian commercial stage, the Kotopouli-Rex Theatre, in the fall of 1964, when the risk of immediate public protest had subsided. Dimitris Myrat, the leading actorproducer of the Myrat-Zoumboulaki Theatre, opened the production on 15 October 1964.20 He feared that his show, too, might be closed down, and 17

HƝ KathƝmerinƝ hosted the first wave of criticism. See the related articles in HƝ KathƝmerinƝ, 4, 7, and 9 August 1964; and also the negative comments of Emilios Chourmouzios, “Creating Monsters ...”, HƝ KathƝmerinƝ, 7 and 8 August 1964. See further the brief analysis of the contemporary political accusations of leftist favouritism and protectionism by Petros Charis, an intellectual of the Right, in the conservative periodical Nea Hestia (1964). 18 Valamvanos (1979) 32. 19 Valamvanos (1979) 31. 20 Tzavalas Karoussos played Agamemnon in Myrat’s production of Katsanis’ play. Other members of the cast were Voula Zoumboulaki as Clytemnestra, Vyron Pallis as Orestes (?), and Elly Photiou as Electra (?). The music was by Yannis Markopoulos, and the set and costume design by Petros Zoumboulakis (Katsanis, interview, 9 June 2004, Athens). Significantly, an amateur theatre group consisting of leftist Greek political refugees in far-away Tashkent staged a 1965 production of

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used extreme circumspection. He curtailed the incendiary messages throughout the play, and he cut part of the outburst of revolutionary mayhem at the end.21 But the production was altogether poorly done and closed after only a few performances. The conservative critics and officials felt vindicated: they came out once again in full force to state with glee that the earlier ban had been deserved and that the play should never have seen the light of the stage.22

How to Do (in) Kings with Words The jury members had unanimously selected Katsanis’ Successors as a worthy modern Greek play that creatively reworked themes from ancient tragedy. They had seen only a classicising text, however, not a modern dramatic script, which proved to be much more explosive than a mere myth. Why did the liberal Greek government ban a play that, at first sight, seemed to stay within the Greek literary and theatrical classicising tradition? The first-time playwright covered, in three fast-paced acts, the main events of Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis, and the Electra plays. Despite this ambitious program and some unexpected plot developments, The Successors is consistently well-structured and operates with vivid character portrayals. Katsanis’ play could be that of a modern Seneca—lush in its gruesomeness but uncannily gripping. The author wrote in a deliberately elevated, classicising “high style”. He skillfully employed older but still intelligible registers of Greek Demotic prose, and his language reveals the influence of Ioannis Gryparis’ many Demotic

the play. The production is briefly mentioned by actress Olympia Papadouka [(2000) 420-421]. 21 V. Varikas, review “The Successors ...”, Ta Nea, 19 October 1964 [reprinted in Varikas (1972) 139-143]. The anonymous journalist of “Play, Once Banned, Given Athens Debut”, The New York Times, 16 October 1964, seems to miss the point when he or she called Myrat’s stage version of Katsanis’ play “mildly expurgated”. 22 A second wave of criticism followed at the time of the October premiere of The Successors; some of the venues and players-detractors remained the same, e.g., the conservative Chourmouzios, “The Successors ... of Mr. Evang. Katsanis”, HƝ KathƝmerinƝ, 17 October 1964. Short and negative comments appeared anonymously in Theatro 65 (1965) 50 (not the periodical edited by Kostas Nitsos but a homonymous publication edited by Thodoros Kritas). See further Papandreou (1964); Thrylos (1981) 152; N. Valavanidis, review “And a Fiasco”, Eleftherotypia: For a Truly Free Journalism 13 (1964) 45; V. Varikas, review “The Successors ...”, Ta Nea, 19 October 1964. Varikas called Katsanis’ play a satire or farce.

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translations of ancient Greek tragedy. 23 Katsanis also played with the effects of unusual vocabulary, potent word-formation, and irregular word order. He adapted his rhetoric, style, and syntax to the ancient subject matter, but also to his royal characters, who move about in their own lofty but outdated world of privilege. Katsanis further inserted many an ironic twist and some near-grotesque images of cruelty. Thus he deconstructed not only the myth of the Atreids but also the neoclassical ethos and language that had long supported revival tragedy in modern Greece. Even when speaking the kings’ language, the playwright dared to criticise and ridicule the kings. The Successors contains many instances of blind power-lust or of calculated monarchic ambition (the modern incarnation of the ancient atƝ), and it even parodies tyrants who pose as revolutionaries. The play is an unmistakable indictment of tyrannical power-mongers represented by the members of the house of Atreus. These power-mongers are not called “tyrants” or “dictators” (in their modern, fully negative meanings) but, instead, “monarchs”, “kings”, or “royals”.24 Their throne is visible on stage as a transparent metaphor for the royal-tyrannical power they seek to preserve at all costs. Katsanis employs the abstract and (incongruently) Demotic word vassiliki for the miserable “kingship” symbolised by this wooden prop. A recurring theme is the almost ritual killing or sacrifice of successive members of the royal family. These Atreids expect to extend their occupancy of the throne through bloodshed of multiple outsiders and of their own closest relatives. The play’s dominating force is Clytemnestra, and she is a queen with blood on her hands. Katsanis’ 23

The passages quoted below make the quality and nuances of Katsanis’ style abundantly clear, but the English translation of Valamvanos and MacKinnon (1979) that I have used here tends to be more sober than the original. Like many of his educated contemporaries, Katsanis had studied ancient Greek tragedy in the original in high school and was familiar with the extensive translating work on Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Plato conducted by Gryparis (1870-1942). From the early 1900s through the 1960s, Gryparis’ Demotic translations of Aeschylus were the best-known ones and were promoted by the publishing house of HestiaKollaros. The idiom of Gryparis’ renditions, however, began to be perceived as outdated by the younger, post-WWII generations. 24 In its archaic usage, the ancient Greek word tyrannos denoted a “king” or “monarch”; the word gained its negative connotation only gradually. According to Bushnell [(1990) 10-11], Plato’s moral and psychological characterisation of the tyrant (see below) was primarily responsible for this development in meaning, which came to oppose the irrational tyrant to the rational king. Seneca’s tragedies “gave the tyrant a language in which to express his criminality” [Bushnell (1990) 29 [quotation], 32-34]. See further Bassi [(1998) ch. 4 “The Theater of Tyranny”].

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uninhibited portrayal of her bloodlust (with a set of virtuoso variations on her cruelty) is what must have provoked the official interdiction. The strong-willed Greek Queen Mother Frederica (Freideriki) felt that she was being unfavourably compared with this grisly Clytemnestra and she, reportedly, exerted pressure to have the play banned.25 Katsanis spoke to troubles of the 1960s in which the royal family had been involved—and he did so vividly and eloquently. Rumours about Queen Frederica’s excessive influence on her husband and son, the actual kings, and of her alleged instigation of the murder of Grigoris Lambrakis, the popular left-wing deputy, had been circulating in Greece.26 In the popular Greek perception, Frederica had turned both the king and his successor son into mere figureheads. The monarchy’s standing had suffered also from the perception that it was behind the electoral manipulation of 1961 and that the Queen had demanded unconditional submission from her former Prime Minister, Konstantinos Karamanlis. Neovi Karakatsanis concludes: 25

The Greek nickname for Queen Frederica, “Friki” (“horror”), was telling enough of the public’s opinion of her. Telling, too, is the propaganda launched on behalf of Queen Frederica, as in the 1956 “study” by Panagis Zouvas, which amounts to one hundred pages of eulogy of the queen’s philanthropic initiatives and projects [Zouvas (1956)]. Queen Frederica is at pains to prove the Greek people’s devotion to her in her autobiography entitled A Measure of Understanding (1971). In the context of a public incident that took place in London in 1963, she speaks with a tenor of defensiveness about her relationship with the common Greek people and about the rumours of their hostility against her. Ironically, the queen’s mention of “voices” echoes Katsanis’ multiple references to “voices”, and she goes on to blame the Greek communists: “A time came when ill-disposed voices grew noisy in our lives. I was being accused of wanting political power and of dominating the family. I was accused of using the welfare organisation for our own glory and to influence Greek political life. . . . Communism . . . feeds on poverty and distress, therefore what we were doing to fight these conditions was a thorn in the flesh of the communists. It had taken the wind out of their sails in northern Greece” [(1971) 239]; “For the first time in my life I had looked hatred in the face. It was not pleasant” [(1971) 241]. 26 In May of 1963, the suspicious murder of Lambrakis shocked Greece. It soon became clear that the murder had been orchestrated, committed and covered up by ultra-right-wing elements in Greek society, in cooperation with the police and, it was rumoured, also with the palace. The Lambrakis affair became the subject of a book entitled Z by Vassilis Vassilikos (1966) and of the well-known (1969) movie Z directed by Costas Gavras (with Z standing for the verbal form zei, “he lives”). The Lambrakis murder and official cover-up, as well as other highly irregular events of the early through late 1960s, which were also phenomena of an exacerbating Cold War climate, “live on” and occasionally still stir up Greek sociopolitical debate.

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“Republicans stepped up their attacks on the royal family, accusing them of being, at best, an expensive and unnecessary luxury for Greece, and, at worst, a corrupt and repressive institution”.27 No open accusations were ever possible, but Katsanis’ play appeared to state no less. The Greek royal family could, of course, have refused to take the attacks personally but, with its drastic public intervention, it seemed to indict itself. Katsanis opened up new ways of radicalising ancient Greek myth. He used the saga of the house of Atreus to illustrate burning contemporary issues, which, inevitably, struck close to home. To a large degree, his reading dissociated itself from the authoritative ancient originals while engaging them in broader sociopolitical relations and modern resonances. Katsanis further presented the known mythic narrative through contemporary performance techniques and cultural codes, and he created a carefully balanced economy of theatrical and metatheatrical means. His inversion of ancient background and modern foreground was what rendered The Successors so relevant. But, in 1964, Greece was not yet ready for drastic verbal and visual subversions of the classics—and especially not of ancient tragedy.

Revival Drama and the Theatre Establishment What were some of the turning points that shook up traditional Greek dramaturgy and prepared it for more revisionist stagings? Earlier, I briefly referred to a breakthrough in the realm of Aristophanic comedy, with Koun’s legendary anticlerical and antigovernment production of the Birds of 1959. 28 Koun’s opening performance was based on the firebrand translation of Vassilis Rotas, who attacked the Greek conservatives and their ties to U.S. imperialism. The shocking premiere made the longstanding confrontation between the academic approach and the modernist treatment of Aristophanic performance come to a head, resulting in a debate about art’s autonomy in the face of an authoritarian and paternalistic government.29 With Koun’s Birds of leftist hue, Aristophanes had entered into, and captured, the symbolic economy of Greek popular 27

Karakatsanis (2001) 35. Koun’s staging allegedly offended the Greek people’s “religious feeling”. Antireligious sentiment is prominent also in Katsanis’ Successors, but it was not what provoked the ban. See also below. 29 For a detailed analysis of the scandal, its political context, and the immediate outcry and government ban, see Van Steen (2000) ch. 4 and (2007); the latter study also introduces the tenor of the official promotion of revival tragedy from the time of the Greek Civil War through the mid-1950s. 28

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dissidence and resilience, which helped to define the ideology of the Left throughout the twentieth century (while the rift between Left and Right widened), and which continues to exert a populist appeal on Greek society. Koun’s production of Aristophanes was perhaps the single most important indication that aesthetic choices and questions had become issues with political ramifications. After this landmark production, bold adaptations of classical tragedy followed, but they remained few in number. In his movie classic Electra of 1962, Michael Cacoyannis, the Greek-Cypriot film director, depicted rural men and women who discover, and increasingly thrive on, the politics of self-empowerment. 30 The traditional Greek engagement with classical tragedy had, up until that time, often been used and abused to create important links to the past but also to the West. Revival drama of the early 1960s, however, became a vital platform on which the Greeks redefined their cultural and political life. Young authors, actors, and theatre and film directors then dared with more radical deviations from the revival tragedy of the “theatre establishment”. What was that “theatre establishment”? Through the nineteenth century, “high-art” Greek theatre had desired to turn stagings of the ancient texts into exempla of patriotism and citizen spirit. The National Theatre of Greece, inaugurated in 1932 (after an earlier effort in the 1900s), still had a nationalist and patriotic mission to fulfill—patriotic, that is, in the definition of the successive, pro-Western and anticommunist, right-wing national governments. In 1946, George Vlachos, the founder and owner of the conservative Greek newspaper HƝ KathƝmerinƝ (and father of Eleni Vlachou), summed up the long-standing mission of the National Theatre in three characteristic words: Ethnos, technƝ, efprepeia, or “Nation, art, decorum”.31 In typical Civil War language, he explained that the first part of this mission was the National Theatre’s obligation to be a “weapon in the hands of the State”. Vlachos worked in conjunction with Dimitris Rondiris, a political conservative who had been placed at the helm of the National Theatre earlier in the year. Vlachos, Rondiris, and many of the contemporary self-styled patriots, all firmly ensconced in key positions of power and influence, considered it the patriotic thing to do to make classical tragedy a centerpiece of their active nationalist propaganda. Postwar opinion- and policy-makers once again steered Greek revival 30

See Bakogianni (2008) and Chiasson (2013). The Euripidean trilogy of Cacoyannis consists of Electra (1962); The Trojan Women (1971); and Iphigenia (1977). 31 Vlachos, “The National Theatre”, HƝ KathƝmerinƝ, 4 May 1946. See also Vlachos’ article, “A Parenthesis. The National Theatre”, HƝ KathƝmerinƝ, 13 June 1948.

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tragedy toward the conservative reconstruction of their country, which excluded a substantial part of the Greek populace. However, just as many a performance of a classical play has been applauded for classicising rather than for being a good performance, so did many Greeks of the Cold War era applaud “patriotic” theatre primarily for its stated “nationalist” or “national-minded” qualities. The critics who lashed out at Katsanis’ production, too, voiced opinions that were rooted more deeply in the national culture than in the artistic and aesthetic tradition. Their comments publicly endorsed the nationalist role that revival tragedy had served for decades. The combination of ancient drama and conservative patriotism proved, for many years, an impregnable combination, which was, however, barely more convincing politically than artistically.

A Close Reading of Katsanis’ Successors: “The year could even be the present”32 For a close reading of Katsanis’ intriguing play, I will quote extensively from the powerful English translation of Valamvanos and MacKinnon, which was published fifteen years after the play’s first publication date.33 My focus will be on Katsanis’ bold characterisations, his novel plot developments, and his careful use of aspects of metatheatricality. These last elements—and the off-stage theatrics that met The Successors—are important in that they set the terms of playing-with(in)-the-play, of watching, surveillance, and control, and also of political spectacle and spectacular politics. Katsanis’ warning against the deceptive illusion of plots or theatrics of any kind became a useful basis on which playwrights and others could build during the dictatorship years (1967-1974).

1. Act One: “It’s lonely at the top” Katsanis introduces Agamemnon first: the Greek leader dominates the first act, which is set in his tent at Aulis, shortly before the nighttime arrival of the unknowing Clytemnestra and Iphigenia. Agamemnon’s greed, calculation, and hypocrisy prevail in the following encounter with Odysseus and the other Greek kings:

32

The quoted line is my translation of the opening stage direction of The Successors. 33 Katsanis (1979).

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Chapter Seven Odysseus: You, Agamemnon, end your lofty game with me. . . . Come now. We are all thieves, and we’ve made the people we’ve gathered round us think as thieves. The expedition will take place. You know the pros and cons. Agamemnon: What if I place my paternal love above these pros and cons, above threats and panic. Odyss.: (Breaking into a harsh laugh.) Oh, no, Agamemnon, not with us. Save your big talk for others… Agam.: (Histrionically.) I speak of a parent’s pain, love… Ajax: You’re over-reacting, Atreid… End the comedy. Agam.: Only this comedy is reeking with blood. Odyss.: You win. Offer your daughter for the fatal sacrifice and you and your army may plunder Troy’s wealth before anyone else… Make your decision, kings. The gold of Troy for his daughter…34 Agam.: (With the tone of a man who speaks to himself, but loudly enough for the others to hear.) He’s asking them to decide about my own dear child. No, no… Nestor: You won’t get anything more… Agam.: (…He bows his head pretending to be sad.) You and those outside [i.e., the rebellious, shouting armies] have decided… Let it be… But for the country’s honor, not for gain. Odyss.: … Send for her. Agam.: I will... presently… (The kings…leave one by one. As Odysseus is about to exit, Memnon [Agamemnon’s aide-de-camp] rushes into the tent.) Memnon: Sire, your daughter and the queen are at the gates. (Agamemnon is startled. Odysseus laughs sarcastically.) Odyss.: Truly, you are a great king, Atreid. (39-41 [51-52])

From the beginning of this scene, Agamemnon is willing to sacrifice Iphigenia for purely personal profit but, as the perfect king of melodrama, he plays the game of dissimulating his true motives. Nearly all the stage directions here emphasise the dimension of play within the play, of Agamemnon’s deceiving under the pretense of being distressed. The king theatricalises his pretended suffering in front of the others. He sordidly manipulates and prolongs a Mediterranean-style bargaining game (pazari), which continues even after all leaders, including himself, have accepted the need for Iphigenia’s sacrifice. Agamemnon has already sent for

34

This last line does not appear in the original Greek text. In one of Agamemnon’s replies, however, Katsanis used the Demotic modern Greek word chrysafi for the term “gold” (52). He did not resort to the more formal chrysos, a word borrowed directly from ancient Greek, which was and is commonly used to refer to Troy’s gold treasures.

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Iphigenia before this scene begins. He never discloses this decision but, instead, holds out as long as possible: he plays the part of the tormented father to gain the special privilege of being allowed to plunder Troy’s riches first, before any of the other kings may do so. More than anything else, a “personal” sacrifice will make the others indebted to him and will strengthen his grip on power. He cannot resist. Leading up to this scene, the seer and priest Calchas, who is Katsanis’ representative of institutionalised religion, has shown the worst side of himself—and of Agamemnon.35 Calchas admits that it was his own oracle, not a divinely inspired one, that ordered Agamemnon to sacrifice Iphigenia. Then he suggests that he is willing to withdraw the oracle or to substitute it with a different one, if Agamemnon will let him gain something by it. But the ambitious king, who realises the opportunities for empowerment and enrichment that the personal sacrifice of his daughter will bring, declines (35-37). In his Iphigenia in Aulis 350-362, Euripides has Menelaus accuse his brother of a similar kind of scheming: he claims that Agamemnon refused to disband the fleet stranded at Aulis against the troops’ wishes and that he welcomed, with a sense of relief, Calchas’ destructive but timely oracle. However, central to the brothers’ argument is merely Agamemnon’s lust for power and glory, not his eagerness to be the first to plunder Troy. Notably, however, Euripides’ Agamemnon does not strain to unnerve Menelaus’ allegations of political expediency. Katsanis’ shrewd Odysseus catches Agamemnon in his act of pretending. With the others gone, however, Agamemnon has nothing to lose any more. The king collects himself after only a brief moment of panic, caused by Memnon’s announcement of the actual arrival of Clytemnestra and Iphigenia. Agamemnon must now confront his allperceiving wife and—even more difficult—his loving and doting daughter, who is too innocent to grasp the sinister truth. Iphigenia’s emotional reunion with her father (41-42), whose greatness she childishly exaggerates, follows (both verbally and structurally) the model of the corresponding scene in Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis 631-685. For the purpose of the present argument, however, the thematic differences between the subsequent encounters of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra prove to be more telling. The king is determined to convince his wife, too, 35

At the beginning of the first act, Calchas appears as a self-interested and destructive character, who boasts that religion can remedy any wrong, “especially if the church has committed it” (35 [50]). For the word “church”, Katsanis used modern Greek ekklƝsia, which in ancient Greek meant “assembly”. Many more examples prove that Katsanis skillfully played off modern versus ancient Greek meanings.

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of the need to sacrifice Iphigenia for the sake of the throne and for material gain. With her rests the obligation to play the part of the ambitious queen equally well. Without knowing yet whose death her husband has planned, Katsanis’ Clytemnestra confidently declares herself ready for what, for her, must be a lead role also in the act of killing: I held Mycenae in your place… I stood by your side in the square of Argos, facing those puffed up, base-born rebels who raised an outcry as if they had rights to demand;36 and I didn’t hesitate to slay my own victims. Speak… I’m the queen… I know how to bear the grief and fight it. How to bear killing. How to kill. Whenever I had to, I painted my nails not just with varnish but real, bubbling blood. And blood becomes me well, sire. Speak … my woman’s sex can become more manly than men’s. Worthier to climb the purple steps to the throne. From the day of my birth, I’ve been trained in the ways of a monarch. At your side, I learned to hold them dear... It’s a joint throne which unites us. Jointly let us share the wrong. Speak. (43 [53])

In her natural role of a lead character in killing, Clytemnestra has kept only one goal in mind: the throne. As a woman, she has outdone men in acting like a man. The costume and make-up that befit her in this protagonist role, which she can share only with an equal match, are “real, bubbling blood”.37 When Clytemnestra learns that it is her own daughter, Iphigenia, whom Agamemnon wants to slaughter, she reacts with extreme emotion. A dash of theatricality is mixed in with her overweening sense of power and superiority: Look here. You are the king. The gods want human blood. All right. Let them have it. Issue an order, dispatch men, get one, twenty, a hundred children, and slaughter them. All blood is the same on the altar; it appeases them just the same. But not my child. No. (45 [54]) 36

The Atreids of Katsanis live in the palace at Mycenae but hold sway over the territory of Argos as well. 37 Years later, Katsanis took issue with director Myrat’s poor handling of Clytemnestra’s statement of how she painted her nails not with varnish, but with real (literally: “undiluted”) blood. Katsanis wanted Clytemnestra to be a daunting force, but Myrat had her arrange her bed while speaking those words. Katsanis felt that Myrat “domesticated” the power-hungry queen, and that he deliberately “buried” the play in other ways, too (interview, 9 June 2004, Athens). Marios Ploritis, one of the original judges, expressed similar opinions in a review published in the Eleftheria newspaper of 24 October 1964 (“When the Atreids… of Vanghelis Katsanis”).

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Clytemnestra then reminds her husband of all the roles she has played, almost mechanically, for the throne’s sake, and she suggests that the two of them play a new, peaceful, and humane role together. But Agamemnon unnerves Clytemnestra’s sole moment of rebellion and heart-felt suffering: Clytemnestra: Blood, sleepless nights, tears, horrors, unholy acts… all these I bore for the throne. I became a painted doll for its sake, a machine, a puppet… Agamemnon: You freely chose it, Clytemnestra… Clyt.: Let’s free ourselves before it’s too late. We’ll find a quiet corner, sequestered and peaceful, where we can live together in love, you and I and the children, without blood, without nightmares… We’ll learn to sleep without the fear of being murdered in our beds, drink our wine without dread of poison… The children will be ours. We’ll see our grandchildren grow up… Come, there’s still time. Agam.: (Laughing harshly.) What a superb peasant woman Clytemnestra would make… Wonderful children we should have, too, Clytemnestra. Clyt.: They would live. Agam.: And so would we—so that on national holidays we could raise loyal cheers for some other monarch as he rides by in his gleaming chariot, we, his submissive people, his faithful subjects. (Clytemnestra gives a choked cry.) Aha! That hurts. That hurts most of all, doesn’t it, my queen?... Just remember this… As long as we can be cruel to ourselves and to others, we’ll be the rulers of the people—the chosen ones… Get up. The wailing is over. (46–48 [55])

Clytemnestra complains that this infanticide is too much for her husband to ask of her: she has already turned into a machine, a wooden statue (ancient and modern Greek xoano[n]), and she has long suppressed all natural human feelings. Here, however, Katsanis portrays a queen who, despite her complaints, still has some scruples left. His portrayal ironically prefigures an important plot development: only after the murder of Iphigenia will Clytemnestra transform into precisely the senseless and ruthless puppet that she describes here. But once her transformation is complete, she will fail to recognise in herself the painted doll that she has then become. Agamemnon sees Clytemnestra’s act of wailing as just that: an act. He reminds her that she has not played any part against her will. She claims that she now yearns for the quiet but much safer life of a peasant woman. Her wish may derive from a reference made by Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra after she has murdered her husband: she declares herself willing to give up her status in return for salvation (Agam. 1574-1575): “A few things | are all I need”. Clytemnestra’s quest for tranquillity recalls also her husband’s

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own desire to withdraw from political and military responsibility and thus to avoid sacrificing his daughter. This is not the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, however, but that of the prologue to Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis. In lines 16-27, Euripides depicts an Agamemnon in agony, who, paradoxically, envies the obscure life of his old servant and of other simple people, who do not have to fear the anger of the gods or the jealous scheming of mortals. Katsanis’ king knows his queen, and Agamemnon smashes Clytemnestra’s newfound humility in one fell stroke: the peasant’s role is also the role of a subject, of a near-slave to a monarch—another monarch. It is the role least like Clytemnestra. Agamemnon cannot take his wife’s wish for a modest, idyllic life seriously. Time proves him right. When he returns home after ten years, Clytemnestra reflects back on her final acceptance of Iphigenia’s sacrifice: I wept then, my lord, but now I know that if I had to lead another of my children to the block for the sake of the Atreides, I could do it without a tear. (60 [61])

As the Agamemnon of Euripides’ Iphigenia already suggested, ambitious kings and tyrants stand alone in society. They cannot trust anyone, not even the gods. They do not have any true friends or supporters. They live under the constant threat of attracting envy, or of being overthrown and killed. In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon 275, Clytemnestra, when asked by the chorus whether she believes in dreams, responds that “she would not accept the fancy of a slumbering mind”. The queen’s answer functions on two different levels of meaning, both marking a tyrannical disposition: first, she asserts that she is not the kind of woman who believes in dreams and irrational phenomena. She prides herself on being an untypical woman, a woman with a “manly-willed heart” (the androboulon kear, a theme introduced by the watchman in Agam. 11). Secondly, Clytemnestra’s statement is her own indirect confirmation that there is no peaceful sleep for tyrants, that she is a tyrant. Katsanis’ queen, too, may have to “learn” how to sleep without fear or nightmares (46, quoted above). The modern Clytemnestra has given the reader a glimpse of what the life of a tyrannical monarch is like—and of how determined she is, nonetheless, to maintain that lifestyle. Clytemnestra’s description of the fears and dangers that relentlessly threaten the tyrant bespeaks the influence of a long tradition of vivid characterisations of a tyrant’s life and—always near-imminent—death. Among the most prominent classical Greek sources that shaped this tradition are Herodotus 3.80, Xenophon’s Memorabilia 4.6.12 and Hiero

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6.8, and several passages in Plato’s works. 38 Plato and especially later Roman authors (such as Seneca, Suetonius, and Tacitus) emphasised the strong connections between tyranny, femininity (and effeminacy), and dramatisation, whether in the form of mimesis or of the narcissistic roleplaying that was a recurring trait of Roman emperors-tyrants.39 Plato was the first to elaborate on the theme of the pathology of the loathed tyrant, and provided a blueprint for many subsequent antityrannical arguments.40 His Republic described the unstable tyrannical soul as the prisoner and victim of its own excessive fears and uncontrollable appetites. Katsanis’ Clytemnestra, too, embodies the tyrannical nature whose greed and powerlust are insatiable. The key passages from the Republic (9.579b-e) also show how the tyrant’s private pathology is bound to infect public life. When Plato’s aberrant and devious tyrants reach public positions of power, they start terrorising others. Their rule, from which law, reason, and moderation are absent, throws the city into a state of disease. The theme of the diseased city ruled by a tyrant is common in ancient tragedy. Paradigmatic is Oedipus’ plague-ridden Thebes. The Argos and Mycenae of Katsanis’ modern tragedy, too, are in a sickly condition. Salvation and cure may come only from the purging of the tyrants. Being a monarch-tyrant is not an enviable position; yet all the members of Katsanis’ house of Atreus pursue it. This particular monarchy, however, stands at the very top of the power pyramid and should therefore fear more, not less. It is also tied to crime and grounded in inhumanity. “[Y]ou can’t stay at the top if you’re afraid of heights”, Agamemnon reminds his wife (46). Becoming a monarch is a learning process: it involves learning how to overcome one’s own humanity. For Katsanis, the reverse is true as well: by becoming humane again one may outgrow the monarchy. The playwright conveys a cynical view of the gathering and maintaining of royal power and of the concomitant dehumanisation of Clytemnestra as she grows older and becomes well established. He also blames the monarchs for failing to recognise just how irrelevant their privileged position has become in a changed society. In Greece of the mid-1960s, the theme of the need to abolish social and political privilege struck a resonant chord.

38

Bushnell (1990) 11-29. On the Roman authors whose descriptions of the horrors of tyranny influenced the political writers and tragedians of the Renaissance, see Bushnell (1990) 29-35. 40 Bushnell (1990) 27, 36. 39

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2. Act Two: Paramour and Para-state The second act, set in the palace at Mycenae, offers close-ups of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Aegisthus loves the queen and does all the dirty work for her. He is constantly trying to prove himself to her and, even though he is never without blood on his hands, he remains likeable. Aegisthus is a royal underdog and scapegoat, who differs from the many other underdogs only in that he is repeatedly told to kill them off. 41 Whenever he rebels against Clytemnestra, she demands new proof of the harshness that is not in his nature: Clyt.: For ten years I’ve kept you beside me on the throne, for ten years I’ve taught you how to rule. Now, you want me to listen to them [i.e., the people]? If I do, Aegisthus, I become one of them… No, kings go their way taking account of no one. The people have only to bow, slave, take arms and die—as I please… Aegisthus: Haven’t I shown the hardness, the cruelty you demanded?… I’ve become the children’s bogeyman, the old men’s Charon. What more do you want? (49 [56])

Clytemnestra does want more, a lot more. For her, Aegisthus has just been playing at being a monarch. Even his violent quelling of popular disobedience was mere kid’s play. The people, she threatens, can sense “a real king” (50), thus excluding her lover from “the chosen ones” (48), hoi eklektoí [55], as Agamemnon had called them. Aegisthus has been a puppet in Clytemnestra’s hands. Yet his name has already passed into story and bad dream: he has become a parable used to tame unruly children; 42 he is the elderly people’s worst nightmare. But nothing is enough for the insatiable Clytemnestra: for her, he must now act more dramatically and more drastically than ever before; he must show off and—paradoxically—play “real king” in order to quell popular unrest completely. She complains that she has tried hard to instruct him in the ways of monarchs but, after ten years, he is still not a protagonist: he is merely a monarch’s executioner (“butcher”, “exterminator”, in Aegisthus’ own words, 55) and hated sidekick—at best. “He thinks he is already king 41

Once Orestes has killed Aegisthus, Clytemnestra boasts over his dead body: “The dog has died a dog’s death. The slave has died by his master’s hand” (78 [67]). Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra revels shamelessly in Agamemnon’s bloody death (see below). 42 The modern Greek word for “bogeyman”, ArapƝs, literally “Arab”, is an ethnic slur and denotes darker-skinned Middle Easterners and Africans. This usage is now outdated.

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because he’s sleeping with a queen. Ha!”, Clytemnestra sneers (54 [58]). Aegisthus is just not cut out for the job. Because Clytemnestra sees no hope of improvement, she starts plotting with Electra to restore Agamemnon to power, as soon as he returns home from Troy. She feels the need to have a man on the throne, but this man is interchangeable: her preference goes from Aegisthus to Agamemnon and back, while she keeps fanning her hopes about Orestes, once he will be a grown man. Clytemnestra feels threatened by popular revolt and anarchy. Like Aeschylus’ queen, she fears “anarchy with popular clamor” (Agam. 883), or the people’s evil—because rebellious—nature, which she herself projects onto them: “the restless mob which raise[s] its head like a serpent, thinking the palace an empty shell it could crush in its coils” (53 [58]). Katsanis’ clever redeployment of Clytemnestra’s notorious boast over the freshly slaughtered body of Agamemnon (Agam. 1377-1394) may illustrate my point. In Aeschylus’ original, Clytemnestra’s blood-curdling revelry pertains to her killing of Agamemnon. She sarcastically describes her grisly deed and her husband’s death agony as a grotesque inversion of the sexual act, with the dying king ejaculating not sperm, but blood. The original passage gains special weight from the queen’s unmistakable reference to “cosmic marriage” as well: she exults in how her husband’s blood fell down upon her like a “black shower of blood-dew” (Agam. 1390). Katsanis, however, applies Clytemnestra’s boast to her proud ways of killing anyone who dares to go against her, especially popular revolutionaries, past and potential ones. The queen raves in the presence of the living Agamemnon, who has finally returned after ten years at Troy: Clyt.: [B]lood, slaughter, and death are no reasons to make kings fear. … Agam.: Voices—fires?… What are they, tell me?… Clyt.: Don’t imagine it’s a welcome from the people. It’s mine. Do you understand? Fires burning the fields and houses, Agamemnon, voices which bear witness to the death that I’ve let loose in the streets to wreak destruction like a lion that the foundations of the throne may remain unshaken. (61 [61])43

In the opening line of the above passage, Katsanis’ Clytemnestra uses the same Greek words for “blood” (haima) and “slaughter” (sfagƝ) as her ancient counterpart in Aeschylus’ description (Agam. 1389). Thematic 43 The original Greek text compares havoc-wreaking death to a vulture, not to a lion. A literal translation here might have resonated with the powerful bird imagery for which the Oresteia is known.

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analogues strengthen the lexical borrowings, and together they prove that the ancient source text functions as more than mere memory. First, murder does not frighten Clytemnestra, who claims full credit for the bloody slaughter and then expects her (internal) audience to rejoice with her—the chorus of Argive elders in the Aeschylean passage; the old and exhausted Agamemnon in Katsanis’ version. Another symbolic and thematic analogue is even more gruesome: as we saw, Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra employed language and imagery of sexual intercourse and cosmic marriage. In slaughter and destruction, Katsanis’ queen, too, has discovered a perverse procreative quality: blood sows stability. Therefore, she offers her husband the welcome gift of a surprise bloodbath—not his own, not yet. This Clytemnestra has become a ruthless male tyrant, and the changed old king (not the chorus, as in Agam. 1399-1400) characterises her as such: Agam.: What a cruel mother you have become, Clytemnestra. Clyt.: And you, what a soft king!… Agam.: Perhaps the king must kill, force the people to obey his will, but maybe there are other ways to stay unshaken on the throne… I’ll find a way. I’ll become good to them, I’ll give ear and be their father. Clyt.: Then say goodbye to the throne. (60–61 [61])

Agamemnon has just signed his own death verdict. Clytemnestra has no room in her heart or in her palace for a “soft” king, who is both physically and mentally exhausted. Memnon, his aide-de-camp, whispers that Agamemnon is seriously ill. No Cassandra appears on stage to detract further from the king’s character. 44 What detracts from him is his willingness to accommodate the people. But what upsets Clytemnestra most of all is that Agamemnon now, ironically, wants a quiet, withdrawn life—with her! He desires the simple life for which the queen once yearned, when she still had hopes of rescuing Iphigenia. For Agamemnon, the power game is no longer worth it: it is all in vain. Katsanis makes it cynically obvious that, if the king had reappeared as a strong, wealthy ruler, with or without a Cassandra, and not as a broken man, he would have survived Clytemnestra. Now, she sees no hope of propping him up and, instead, settles for more years with Aegisthus, the lesser of the two evils. Meanwhile, she deludes her lover into thinking that she will sacrifice her husband to please him. Once again, Clytemnestra manipulates 44 Katsanis retains only a hint of a possible Cassandra: Memnon tells Electra that, in a raid at Troy, Agamemnon took for himself an Eastern woman (62). Clytemnestra is absent from the stage at that very moment.

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Aegisthus’ love and ambition, only to make him more dependent on her. The queen and her paramour kill Agamemnon in the dark of his first night at home. Surprisingly, Electra is in on the plot, even though she does not take part in the actual murder: her mother has convinced her to accept this interim state of affairs and to take Orestes into exile. Their joint plan is that Orestes will return after several years to avenge Aegisthus and to reclaim the throne for its rightful owners: Clytemnestra, Electra, and Orestes himself. A perverse succession starts to manifest itself: Electra prepares to step into Clytemnestra’s position of absolute power, while Orestes will become the new royal male figurehead. The famous red fabric scene in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (931-943) shows to what extent his Clytemnestra directs the stage action and commands full verbal authority. She makes a public display of Agamemnon’s unfitness to rule, because of his hubris: the military triumph at Troy makes him commit hubris by stepping onto the purple-red fabrics.45 There is no corresponding scene in Katsanis’ Successors, which may surprise the reader, given the playwright’s penchant for theatricalisation. Or is there? His modern Clytemnestra, who skillfully masters words and deeds, does not ask Agamemnon to step on purple-red fabrics, yet she demands acts of hubris, that are, if anything, more horrific: she expects her husband to step into the trail of people’s red blood that the house of Atreus has left behind and that it will spread out again in the future. This theme of the people’s blood is more prominent in Katsanis’ play than the thematic scenes of bloodshed and red cloth are in Aeschylus’ original Oresteia. The two passages from Katsanis quoted immediately above show that, like Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, this modern king, too, finds himself in a battle of wills with his overbearing wife: he, too, hesitates, fights his fears, weighs his reputation against that of others, and even takes public opinion into account, but, in the end, he shows himself unable to step into the trail of blood. For Clytemnestra, this inability is sure proof that her husband is now unfit to rule—because he lacks the hubris to terrorise his people. Agamemnon then yields to his wife’s faked but persuasive concern for his state of physical and mental fatigue as she leads him inside to his death: Clyt.: Come… you are tired, my king… I’ll run you a perfumed bath. … Agam.: Tired of blood and fires and war… old, disgusted… help me, wife. Clyt.: (Leading him slowly, steadily, off-stage.) Come… my great king… my tired king… come. (62 [61]) 45

Foley (2001) 209-210.

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Katsanis’ Clytemnestra knows that she has won the standoff with Agamemnon, but she does not cry victory. She only exchanges glances with Electra. Aeschylus’ queen, on the other hand, insists on having her victory over the war-winner Agamemnon granted by him in public (Agam. 941-943): Clyt.: But the great victor—it becomes him to give way. Agam.: Victory in this… war of ours, it means so much to you? Clyt.: O give way! The power is yours if you surrender all of your own free will to me. (trnsl. R. Fagles)46

3. Act Three: Extermination Act three takes place in the palace at Mycenae, when another ten years have passed. Aegisthus is terrified by rumours he has heard that a stranger has entered the city. From sudden changes in Electra’s dress, make-up, and behaviour, he rightly gathers that Orestes has returned. Orestes has indeed come back, with Electra’s help and according to his mother’s plan. Clytemnestra still manages to assuage Aegisthus’ fears. Shrewdly, she wants him to prove himself, once again, by going out to confront the rumour-mongers and rebels in the streets. She hopes that he will be killed by the mob, which has grown more restless as time has passed. The people’s hatred of Aegisthus, which, she boasts, she has nursed carefully for many years, may be enough to eliminate him. “It’s always better that there should be some scapegoat for all, to bleed when the people, that many-headed monster, demands royal blood”, she explains coldly to her children (75 [66]). In case Aegisthus survives, Clytemnestra has a back-up plan: Orestes and Pylades will assassinate him upon his return to the palace. Orestes is not a determined executioner; instead, he repeatedly asks for his mother’s guidance: [M]other, lead me by your judgment on the right road… I’m ready, mother, to do whatever you command… Do you want me now, this very moment?… You say when… What do you wish me to do? (74-75 [66])

Katsanis teases out common expectations of Orestes as the legendary hero and warrior prince, and tests his readers’ acceptance of a plain, indecisive mortal. Orestes’ pleas for his mother’s guidance reveal a thematic—and psychological—analogue to the long exchange in 46

Part of the last line is corrupt. Denys Page, the editor of the OCT edition of Aeschylus, placed it in between cruces.

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Euripides’ Electra (598-670), in which Orestes seeks the advice of an old (former) servant of Agamemnon. This unlikely, plebeian hero counsels the prince in an insightful and constructive fashion, which leads to the desired outcome. Even though the Orestes of both Euripides and Katsanis is of aristocratic stock and is expected to act as a hero, he still needs all the advice he can get. Aegisthus does return to the palace, bloodstained and in a panic. He warns Clytemnestra to “wake from [her] delusions of power” (76 [66]), and he suggests that they commit suicide together, to escape the revenge of the murderous mob. An honorable death is, ironically, Aegisthus’ equivalent of the quiet, dignified life that the old Agamemnon had proposed to his wife upon his return. The queen haughtily declines this alternative, too. Orestes and Pylades rush out from their hiding place and strike Aegisthus as he prepares to kill Clytemnestra. She spurs Orestes on by calling her lover the sole murderer of Agamemnon and usurper of the throne. Now Clytemnestra hopes that the sight of Aegisthus’ corpse will appease the rebelling people, who are closing in on the palace, and that they will recognise Orestes as their “liberator” and as the legitimate successor to the monarchy: The dogs [i.e., the people] are barking … Show them, throw the bones to them and they’ll cease their howling. And when they cheer you [Orestes] as king and liberator and bow their head once again in homage, show them with the whip and the sword that it’s their master they’ve dared to disregard. (78 [67])

But the people led by Memnon thirst for Clytemnestra’s blood. Blinded as she is by her addiction to power, she is the last one to realise this: Clyt.: Slaves ... lice ... dirt ... they’re always after something . . . What else do they want from us? . . . Electra: You! They want you!… Clyt.: Ah, my worthy brave people… They want me—I who for so many years have watched over the throne—to share the cheers of victory with you… Electra: They want to parade your head, mother… (79–80 [68])

Electra’s laconic reply punctures Clytemnestra’s last hope and annuls her only positive comment about her subjects. The queen has been too deeply mired in her own myth to grasp the level of her self-delusion. This highly theatrical moment completes the turnabout in her daughter’s character. Katsanis’ Electra has, undoubtedly, made the most thorough transformation in the play: from the horrified young woman, who was appalled by her

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mother’s adultery and her scheming against Agamemnon, to Clytemnestra’s silent accomplice in her father’s death, to the successor-queen, who directs Orestes’ unwilling hand against their mother to secure the future of the throne—her throne. Throughout Katsanis’ play, Clytemnestra has used the language and imagery of teaching and instructing, and applied it to anyone in her immediate environment. Electra has taken her lessons to heart: Electra (to Orestes): Keep quiet. You’re still young and ignorant. You have a lot to learn… (to Clytemnestra): You taught me this. Understand it, mother. We have no more slaves and guards, but we still possess a shield beneath which to protect our throne and royalty. Your death… You taught me to hold the throne higher than all things human. (80-81 [68-69])

But Orestes hesitates to kill Clytemnestra. He suggests that they should all together try to escape from the throne room (81), in which they are entrapped. Electra calls her brother’s natural scruples the result of ignorance or lack of instruction. He has not received the same training she has from their mother, the master-teacher, who is about to fall victim to the impact of her own lessons. Electra then plays her last card: Electra: Strike her down… make the sacrifice. Orestes: Don’t ask for the impossible… She is my mother… how can I? Electra: As she did to father, Orestes. Orestes: What? (81-82 [69])

Electra, who had taken Orestes into exile, never told him that Clytemnestra bore the main responsibility for the murder of Agamemnon. Here, however, she uses this last and most cogent argument to spur Orestes on, in the same way in which Clytemnestra had employed it to have her son strike Aegisthus. This is an act of utmost calculation and supreme stage-directing on Electra’s part, who was, after all, a coconspirator. Orestes emerges as the ideal avenger on Electra’s behalf, in the role that the ancient myth had scripted for him. Yet, in a perverse twist of the mythical Electra’s motivation, Orestes’ matricide is, at the same time, entirely misdirected: here, his killing of Clytemnestra does not satisfy his sister’s long-nourished thirst to avenge past wrongs, but clears her own path to the throne—or so she thinks. When Clytemnestra rushes to Orestes to stop him, he starts up in great excitement and, as he rises, his sword pierces her chest. He realises in a panic that he has indeed killed his mother, though only half-consciously. Orestes, who clumsily botched up

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the historical role he was to perform, shows himself more and more alien to the murder scene. He has nothing of the stature of the mythical tyrannicide, not even his degree of torment. He has also never shown any sympathy for his people’s dire predicament. Within minutes of Clytemnestra’s death, Memnon and his throng tear down the doors to the throne room. Electra tries the act in which her mother also trusted. She shows the rebels Clytemnestra’s corpse and proclaims, pretending to speak for the people: [T]he adulteress has paid. The worthless have been purged. The wish of the people has been done, and King Orestes, the lawful, the honest, the just… (83 [69])

Electra has not learned much from her previous brief exposure to the angry mob, which both siblings first tried to placate by showing off Aegisthus’ corpse. Voices interrupt her: All of them… all of them … clear up this mess … both lawful and unlawful … good and evil … they are all the same … all of them … (83 [69])

Orestes, Pylades, and Electra die unheroically at the hands of the rebels. Katsanis has inverted the mythic regicide: his play ends with a climactic popular victory over all the tyrants. Like the murmurs of a chorus of Furies, the people’s voices, which perturbed Clytemnestra, have grown louder throughout the play. The people have never backed down, not even when suppressed by force. The relationship between Katsanis’ queen and her near-invisible subjects resembled that between an abusive master and her slaves. The play’s unseen masses can be heard cheering at the very end: “Memnon … Memnon … Memnon …” (83). The people have lent their full support to Memnon, who orders the bodies and the wooden throne removed and burned in the largest public square of Argos. The people not only conquer the house of Atreus, but they also take care to destroy all the symbols of the hated monarchical system: they burn the throne publicly, to express their abhorrence of the institution of kingship. But, with Memnon’s first dramatic appearance on the balcony where the Atreids used to appear, the reader is left wondering whether he will emerge as the next strongman (another revolutionary turned tyrant) or whether he stands for a truly new beginning. If Memnon’s name is at all an omen, the king’s sidekick may soon enough start to act with the same blind power-lust that characterised Agamemnon in the play’s first act.

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Katsanis introduces cynical but justifiable categories of justice, punishment, revenge, and righteousness. There is no Areopagus in his play, nor any other ritual or formal court procedure, to decide on the weight of murder and revenge. There is no divine sanction of the siblings’ violent actions, either.47 Yet the people pronounce their own judgment by killing off the entire royal family. Their final verdict lies not in divine ordinance or in official record, but in popular memory and justified anger. Thus Katsanis shows how potentially democratic justice displaces tyrannical law, and he presents popular support as a valid measure of the justice of a new state system. The people may be well-intentioned but Memnon’s ambitions remain deliberately unclear. Katsanis expresses skepticism about a popular movement and a regime change that reiterate bloodshed—perhaps in a critical reflection on Greece’s own communistled popular movement of the 1940s, complete with its own aftodikia or popular justice system, in which revolutionary fighters took the law into their own hands. Greece’s monarchical system had been unpopular since its inception in 1832; it lasted officially until the end of 1974 but had ended, unofficially, already in late 1967. By judging for themselves and for past and future generations, Katsanis’ liberated people will, hopefully, be able to establish new legacies. For this reason, Katsanis validates all the final killings and puts them in full public view on stage:48 first, Aegisthus’ murder at the hands of Orestes and Pylades; then Clytemnestra’s death; and finally the mob killing Electra, Orestes, and Pylades, who are the last ones to stand in the way of a radical political and societal change. The empowered people themselves bring an end to the curse of the Atreids, that is, to the curse that the Atreids have been to them. The tyranny of the house of Atreus, which has been devouring both itself and others, can be abolished only when all of its members have been murdered. The people have sought not to kill off a specific ruler or rulers, but to revoke the illegitimate power base of its royalty. But, for shedding blood themselves, have they not failed to make a better start? Katsanis’ phantasmagorical presentation of the myth of the Atreids as current history pivots on his bold reinterpretation of the finale of the Oresteia: he has transformed the trilogy that relates a myth of origins into three acts of extermination. Like the Oresteia’s finale, too, Katsanis’ play ends on a note not of confidence and 47

See the collective volume edited by Harris, Leão, and Rhodes (2010) for recent reflections on the mid-fifth-century BCE legal dimensions of Orestes’ trial and how these intersect with classical tragedy. 48 In the ancient performance practice, violence was conventionally shown offstage. Many Greek and foreign producers of modern stagings of the classics have chosen not to observe this convention.

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rationality but of lingering doubt as to whether the people have achieved true deliverance or a mere temporary relief. This modern tragedy, however, is never about universal truth; rather, it reclaims the universal right to doubt any top-down truths. Clytemnestra is the dominant partner in Aeschylus’ Oresteia: she pays mere lip service to Aegisthus as a ruler. The tyranny over Argos is de facto her regime and, because she is a manly woman supported by an effeminate male consort, her rule can only be highly unpopular.49 In Libation Bearers 973, Aeschylus’ Orestes has no qualms including his mother when he dramatically proclaims his victory over “the double tyranny”.50 Katsanis’ Clytemnestra is more extreme: she appears more androgynous, more domineering, more shameless, and altogether more evil than in the Aeschylean trilogy. With her penchant for theatricalisation, she controls all the highly dramatic scenes of the modern play, except for the last scuffle and murder scene, which she can no longer direct. But she still tries to affect her own killing—and her legacy. For this Clytemnestra, ruling equals acting and playing (at times undesirable) roles but, most of all, directing others in a world that is her private stage. This queen is consistent in a chilling way, because she is single-mindedly driven by lust for power. She is less given to falsehoods than her ancient prototype, and does not try to hide behind the cover of religion.51 As an unbridled manly woman, Clytemnestra transgresses the boundaries, not only of the fifth century BCE, but also of 1960s Greece. 52 By 1964, the most profound feminist and social emancipatory changes had not yet taken place in Greece. Katsanis’ Clytemnestra flouted proper female behaviour and proper queenly behaviour. Power struggle was men’s business; women

49 On the ancient Greeks’ parallel cultural assumptions about tyranny and women, see Foley (1999) xviii-xix, xxxiii. 50 The chorus of elders in Agamemnon unmasks the plot of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus to create a tyranny (Agam. 1354-1355; 1365; 1399-1400; 1633-1635). The tyrannical rule of the illegitimate couple is resented also by the chorus of the Libation Bearers, which continues to speak for the unwilling city of Argos (Agam. 1612-1616; Libation Bearers, 1046-1047: Orestes has “liberated” Argos from tyranny; 1051-1052: the chorus acclaims him as a loyal son and noble victor). 51 Foley [(1999) xxvi] draws attention to Clytemnestra’s ambiguous welcoming speech to Agamemnon (Agam. 855-913), her deceitful self-portrayal as a faithful wife, her inappropriate flatteries, and her duplicity in the act of praying (Agam. 973-974). On Clytemnestra’s speech as a rhetorical act in which she “performs” herself, see also McClure (1999) 79, 80, 102, 103, 106. 52 See further Zeitlin’s important essay, “The Dynamics of Misogyny: Myth and Mythmaking in Aeschylus’ Oresteia” [(1996) 87-119].

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who stepped onto that forbidden territory became male—or became the unwanted type of women that could be eliminated with fewer scruples. The Successors is a highly didactic play, if only because of the recurring metaphor of teaching both others and oneself. Katsanis further charges the royals with a willfulness that is immune to the lessons of historical experience, and that does not want to learn of limits or of fear of reprisals. Clytemnestra has internalised her own lessons and has taught herself and others to be harsh beyond human and mythical measure. Throughout the play, displaying humane sentiment is seen as symptomatic of the failure to learn. So obsessive-compulsive is Clytemnestra in her greed for power that she inevitably puts herself on public trial, along with her loved ones (if she really is capable of loving them). Yet, the queen remains living (and dead) proof that violence only begets violence and that tyranny begets tyranny. Katsanis’ Electra is the best disciple, or successor, of the raw Realpolitik that has been Clytemnestra’s trademark, mainstay, and downfall. In the panic of the family’s last hours, Electra is able to confront her mother in strictly political or business-like terms, without attachment, emotion, or guilt. She treats Clytemnestra on the same terms as her mother handled Agamemnon and Aegisthus. Clytemnestra begs for her life, but makes less of an effort than she did on Iphigenia’s behalf, twenty years earlier. An old tyrant now, she understands that the negotiation about her fate is a political or business deal, in which power preservation must win out. In her dying moments, she even approves of Electra’s matricide. The queen accepts to die but reminds her daughter that she must now steer the inexperienced Orestes, in order to fulfill her part of the bargain agreement: I shouldn’t have been a coward, but finished this myself. Take care of the throne. You can do it. He is still young and doesn’t know how. Help him, help the Atreides to go on. (82 [69])

Iphigenia’s sacrifice, Agamemnon’s killing, Aegisthus’ slaughter, and Clytemnestra’s murder at the hands of Orestes have now all taken place in Katsanis’ Successors in their conventional chronological order. The modern playwright, however, has inverted the traditional motivation behind each murder. All the killings prove to be doubly corrupted and corrupting. Instead of leading us back to the known plot, each killing directs us away from it. Every murder confirms, in a new way, that Katsanis’ Atreids want to preserve the monarchy at any price, even at the cost of sacrificing their own family members. The deaths of their many victims among the ordinary people hardly count. The unexpected final elimination of all the remaining Atreids holds the potential of a first real

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political overhaul. But Katsanis is too cautious to show us how this new, possibly democratic order would work in practice. Instead, the play ends with a first close-up of Memnon, who takes every initiative and speaks in imperatives.

Politics, History, Aesthetics—and Tyrannicide In the summer of 1964, then, Katsanis interrogated on stage institutional prerogative and the monarchy’s very existence, and he disturbed the complacency of the power-holders and their supporters. Soon he stood accused of abusing ancient myth to rail against the Greek royals, and of doing so with effrontery. The Successors stands as a trenchant protest against power-mongers who can easily divest themselves of any moral values. The playwright told me that he wrote his work after he had watched, with growing irritation, the pomp and circumstance that surrounded the funeral of King Paul, the husband of Queen Frederica, who had died in March of 1964. The official rhetoric and speech-making on the occasion of the funeral starkly belied the suffocating political climate that the young Katsanis perceived. He readily identified the milder King Paul with the old Agamemnon, and the young and indecisive Orestes with Crown Prince Constantine. King Constantine II was 24 years old when he succeeded his father to the throne. Katsanis’ Orestes is a weak son who is blatantly dependent on the fierce Clytemnestra. For the Greeks of the mid1960s, there was no doubt that this unheroic Orestes, who constantly looks to his mother for certainty, had to be the impressionable but conservative Constantine. 53 Using myth as a pretext, Katsanis predicted that, like Orestes, Constantine would soon be a spent force. Here, the drive for deliverance from the tyrants is the desire to depose the king and to install a republican state system (as happened in the mid- through late 1970s). For the elite, however, reared on the traditional revivals of classical drama, these portrayals, identifications, and predictions came as a shock. Katsanis successfully transformed the myth of the Atreids into a feud on display, or a family plot gone public, in which dysfunctional individual and family psychology stood for contemporary dysfunctional politics. For him, the family foibles of a self-seeking and unworthy royal house came with monstrous consequences. Katsanis’ play also ominously prefigured the

53 The rash Xerxes of Koun’s 1965 production of Aeschylus’ Persians was equated again with the inexperienced King Constantine, who was seen to interfere with Greek affairs to his own detriment.

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political turn that Greece would take less than three years later, when the military coup took place and conditions suddenly worsened. To make the parallels clearer, let me adduce a few contemporary reports that shed further light on the Greek royals and their conduct. In an interview with U.S. News & World Report of 21 April 1950, King Paul, who had ascended to the throne only three years earlier, stated confidently: You know, the Greek people brought us back each time [referring to prior plebiscites on the Greek monarchy]. We have a very close, intimate connection with the Greek people—and you can underline people … it was always the people who brought us back. We live on a very democratic basis with our people. Anyone who wishes it has access to me.

The interviewer, Robert Kleiman, knowingly responded: “This would seem to be the most voted-on monarchy in history, wouldn’t it?” King Paul was, nonetheless, given the last word on the matter (only to be disproved by subsequent Greek history): “I am assured by all the politicians these days that that question is over. I’ve even been told that by the extreme left”. Around that time, too, the king toyed with the idea of installing a royalist semi-dictatorship under General Alexandros Papagos, who had served as an effective military commander-in-chief with wideranging powers during the final months of the Civil War. U.S. Ambassador Henry Grady advised against pursuing such a non-parliamentary course of action. Grady recalled in his memoirs: The king seemed to feel that a semi-dictatorship under Papagos would not menace his own position, but I pointed out to him that little dictatorships tend to become big ones, and that the plan to give Papagos dictatorial powers, though he was a fine man and devoted to the king, might ultimately result in the king’s joining other ex-sovereigns on the Riviera.54

Grady further explained: “The Greek king is a constitutional monarch, and thus it is not correct for him to step into the political arena as he had done. The queen may have influenced him in this regard. She thinks in terms of ‘strong’ government . . .” 55 Grady was far from alone in identifying Queen Frederica as the real locus of power. John Peurifoy, the next U.S. Ambassador to Greece, let his predecessor know about his growing frustration with the king and queen’s political wrangling. In light of the September 1951 election, Peurifoy, not averse to interfering himself, 54 55

Grady (2009) 143. Grady (2009) 152.

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denounced the royal couple’s favouring of Sofoklis Venizelos now at the expense of Papagos, who had precipitously fallen from grace: You will be interested to know that the political pot is boiling here, particularly since Papagos announced that he would be a candidate in the coming elections. I regret to say, however, that the King and little Queen are active as bees trying to prevent his election. Some of the things they are doing are just appalling, and I must confess that little Venizelos [Sofoklis Venizelos, son of Eleftherios Venizelos] is aiding and abetting in all moves. I had my strongest talk with him yesterday, and I am seeing the King this morning, at which time I expect to tell him in no uncertain terms that not only is he being unfair but he is also jeopardising the whole structure here in Greece, including his own throne. The situation is very, very bad. I must say that it has taken me a long time to finally get on to these people, but I think now I am pretty well up to their tricks, and the Lord knows they have enough of them.56

Katsanis created a modern classical tragedy that showcased irrelevant grandeur and unforgivable hubris. The Successors is, therefore, not a simple intrigue play with royals for characters. This work operates on the level of unsentimental, impervious understatement; it is not gratuitously cynical, and never degrades into soap-opera or agit-prop. However, during a turbulent and crucial decade, from 1964 to 1974, Katsanis’ tragedy became a lightning rod for broader public debate. The playwright brought home key points about radical theatre and politics. He proved that a progressive ideology and militant social critique could effectively be propagated even via a conservative type of dramaturgy (one which stayed close to revival tragedy), even on the state-sponsored stage of the summer festivals, and even without an actual performance taking place. From early August through mid-October 1964, an excited reading audience kept attuned to a play it had yet to see. The authorial take on known texts and its reception by the public became as important as the classical originals. A new responsibility lay with the modern interpreter, translator, and stage director. Katsanis’ work, which theatricalised the newness of its characters and their motivations, inspired playwrights and other authors to use any form of ancient or modern drama in a similar polemic and critical vein, which would prove its effectiveness against the Greek military dictators. A novel freedom and responsibility lay with the audiences as well: public expectations were raised anew, as were the authors’ and artists’ expectations resting on the audience. The revisionism of Katsanis was less negative than it was critical and constructive: it prepared the reader and the 56

Peurifoy (1951).

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spectator for the enacted theatricality—and its pitfalls—that shaped theatre and public life under the military regime. Katsanis deflated the illusion of heroic leaders by divesting them of mythic proportions. He warned of deceptive and self-deceived heroes, who, once stripped of their stage setting and mythical guise, turned out to be just human or subhuman underneath. Thus Katsanis helped to prepare the Greek populace to look at the junta years through the prism of theatre, to watch spectacle and performance more closely, and to discover levels of meaning that broke down old stereotypes about the nature of leadership, public expectations, and the truth of political and moral claims. In concentrating on aspects of theatre and illusion, truth and irony, rather than on Hellenic or classicising perfection, Katsanis reacted against the narrow conception of mainstream conservative art and literature. Some of Katsanis’ techniques of dramatisation and demythologisation were inspired by the epic theatre and the metatheatrical framing devices of Bertolt Brecht: the plot’s rapid pace, the unmasking of the heroes, and the distancing process based on the use of the classical personae. Brecht had grown increasingly popular in Greece of the 1960s.57 Brecht’s distancing technique, or Verfremdungseffekt, was known to create a level of defamiliarisation within well-known, presumably organic myths or coherent stories, and thus to deliver indirect critical commentary. The resulting sense of disorientation then encouraged the audience to look at the myths and stories anew and to reconstruct their meaning from the now disparate, uneven elements in a dialectical, more critical, and more openended manner. Thus Katsanis’ appropriation of the myth of the Atreids was meant to diffuse as well as to reinforce historical similitude. The diffusion part, with myth signalling the modern play’s fictive nature, worked with the jury that rewarded Katsanis’ endeavour; the reinforcement, on the other hand, worked with the Greek public, which applied the myth to current political circumstances. Brecht employed anachronisms, undermined heroic prototypes, disrupted conventional expectations, and turned myths against themselves by juxtaposing opposites (which is often called “montage”, which challenges the spectator to connect the various pieces to illuminate the story). As a result, the audience lost confidence in both the established and the revisionist 57

Koun had given the start signal for a wave of Brechtian productions, Greek translations, and readings (occasionally in the German original) with his acclaimed 1957 Greek-language staging of the Caucasian Chalk Circle (Der Kaukasische Kreidekreis). Brecht was especially popular among students and leftist writers, artists, and theatre practitioners. From 1970 on, it appeared as if no theatre company was to be taken seriously unless it had performed its Brecht.

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reading, but it became acutely aware of the theatre’s presence and power. It participated in a political and cultural critique enacted on stage and, ultimately, in historically responsible theatre. In the hands of Katsanis, unorthodox inversion, metatheatricality, and the illusionary or play level of dramatisation became effective pointers to deceptive heroes and unfulfilled public expectations. The author exposed the royals’ enactment of power “play” and violence for all to see and suffer. As a re-creation of the traditional myth, Katsanis’ play did not take away from the ancient subtext, but deepened the modern encounter with it. His modern Greek production was a provocative demonstration of what the Greek theatre establishment of the time was incapable of doing. Katsanis successfully translated old problems of tyranny and victimisation into new forms of awareness, precisely at a time when the country’s fear of chaos as well as of dictatorship was ripe for examination. He used Greek texts and myths as analytic tools for conceiving a radical political and social reality. Other independent artists, too, made the narrative of the myth sustain their own, modern ideological views and transformed classical tragedy into effective radical theatre—or film. 58 Thus Katsanis was a precursor to theatre under the dictatorship, as was the public and critical attention that he received: he laid bare the language patterns, the motives, the obsessions, and other recognisable patterns of tyrannical behaviour, which he took to acerbic, yet memorable levels. He created an iconography of props and symbols and a cast of stage characters to provide ancient through modern tyrannies with a face. Equipped with this baggage, the myth of the Atreids could enter into and survive the turbulent junta years. In an unexpected ending, Katsanis’ fierce Clytemnestra was displaced, not by competing power-holders, but by the revolting people who were eager to set their own history and destiny free from the curse of a real-life tyranny. The playwright presented popular resistance as the only logical response to tyranny. To Katsanis, the saga of the Atreids also offered up a useful agitational myth of revolutionary tyrannicide. But, unlike other authors, he did not cast Orestes as the legitimate tyrannicide and rightful successor to the throne that the usurper Aegisthus had been occupying. Rather, he projected the victorious act of tyrant-slaying by the 58

The new-wave filmmaker Theodoros Angelopoulos produced an epic-style movie called The Travelling Players (O Thiasos, 1975), in which he used the myth of the Atreids to denounce the fascist practices of dictator Ioannis Metaxas (19361941), the Nazis, and the Right that triumphed in postwar Greece. He thereby unmasked striking similarities between the older oppressors and the colonels. Angelopoulos was given permission to shoot only after he had submitted a script that concentrated on the ancient myth, and not on its contemporary analogues.

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people and placed it in the spotlight of a theatrical venue. In Katsanis’ hands, the mythical archetype of tyrannicide grew from highly theatrical to self-consciously metatheatrical: it became a valid stage expression of a radical political ideology. Katsanis proved that the old myths of the origins of monarchical or tyrannical power had to be revisited in order for such power structures to be forever abolished.



CHAPTER EIGHT VERY TRAGICAL MIRTH: MYTH AND THE TRAGIC IN PAVLOS MATESSIS’ TOWARDS ELEUSIS IOANNIS M. KONSTANTAKOS

1. Introduction Pavlos Matessis (1933-2013), one of the most erudite authors of the Modern Greek stage, drew inspiration from ancient Greek myth and drama throughout his playwriting career. Especially in his mature works, from the 1980s and 1990s, Matessis was increasingly preoccupied with creating a genuine form of modern tragedy. His major plays from this period explore various paths towards an original, up-to-date revival of the tragic genre in contemporary Greek theatre. 1 Matessis never opted to rewrite straightforwardly an ancient tragic play—a process which has produced, in the course of time, such diverse masterpieces as Racine’s Phèdre, Hofmannsthal’s Elektra, and Soyinka’s Bacchae. Rather, Matessis preferred to freely remould the tragic material and entwine it with his own invented plots, so as to create original scenic fictions loaded with rich mythical resonances. Oddly enough, although Matessis was a prolific *

I am deeply grateful to the organisers of the “Eumenides Conference”, Professors Vayos Liapis and Antonis Petrides and Dr Maria Pavlou, for their invitation to this memorable event, their indefatigable care and assistance, and their valuable remarks on my text. Heartfelt thanks are also owed to the other participants who contributed inspiring comments on my paper, especially Professor Michael Paschalis and the great Cypriot poet Kyriakos Charalambides. For important bibliographical suggestions and material I am much indebted to Professors Walter Puchner and Theodoros Stephanopoulos. 1 On the tragic in Matessis’ plays, see Georgoussopoulos (1994); Pefanis (2001) 201-225; Puchner (2003) 14-20, 25.

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translator of almost every theatrical genre, including Aristophanic Old Comedy, 2 he never produced a Modern Greek rendering of an ancient tragic text, whether by Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides. His mature attempts to write contemporary tragedy are perhaps to be viewed as a kind of counteraction vis-à-vis this conspicuous gap in his translator’s curriculum. In his play Exile (Exoria, 1981), Matessis used tragic patterns in order to dramatise the recent historical experience of the Greek civil war and its aftermath.3 The heroine of the play, a Romanian-born Greek woman called Martha, has fought on the side of the leftist rebels in the 1940s and has suffered years of concentration camp, physical torture, and sexual humiliation as a result. Ultimately, she turns into a combination of Medea and Hecuba and performs serial child murders for vengeance; she aborts her own child, kills the charismatic young son of her former torturer, and entraps her grown-up adopted son into a perennial toddlerhood by pampering him to a grotesque degree and virtually depriving him of a mature man’s life. This is Martha’s revenge on the Greek state, which has violated her psyche and womanhood in the same way as Jason abused Medea, the alien northerner. Matessis’ heroine kills, physically or symbolically, the progeny of the Greek nation, in an attempt to eliminate the national posterity. The mythical archetypes resound under the experiences of humble, working-class characters, a technique that brings to mind Angelopoulos’ Travelling Players (1975)—another celebrated reading of the Greek civil war in terms of tragic myth, screened a few years before the completion of Matessis’ Exile. The Roar (HƝ VouƝ, 1996), an oneiric fantasy on the myth of the Atreids, telescopes the entire murderous history of this ancient family, from Thyestes’ cannibalistic feast to Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon and the revenge exacted by Electra and Orestes. The mythical personages, trapped within the ruins of Mycenae, which have been turned into a tourist attraction, are given leave to dream their story for one night and re-enact their fates in a complex game of role-playing, with the assistance of a travelling troupe of actors. The techniques of the “play within the play” 2

Matessis produced Modern Greek versions of eight Aristophanic plays and ranks among the most important and original translators of ancient comedy in our times. See Puchner (2003) 23-24, 246-286; Manteli (2007) 28-73, 105-163, 180-181, 186, 208, 212-214, 241-285, 294-296, 301-303, 315, 341-347, 356-357, 382; Konstantakos (2015) 57-60. 3 The tragic background of this play has often been discussed; see Pefanis (2001) 205-209, 341-342 (with further references, especially to journalistic reviews); Puchner (2003) 77-88.

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and the “dream within a dream” are rampant in this work, turning the action into an indescribable nightmare of ever-shifting images. The Roar does for the Oresteia what Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead did for Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In both cases, the classical tragic model provides a staple intertext that is submitted to a continuous reshuffling of episodes, ironical subversion of its familiar plotline, and constant metadramatic commentary on the part of the personages. With regard to Matessis’ play, however, it must be noted that metatheatrical playfulness is combined with large doses of horror—as though Stoppard were dreaming up a drama by John Webster. The most important play of this period is Towards Eleusis (Pros Eleusina), completed in 1992 and twice performed by Athenian companies in the 1990s. This is arguably Matessis’ best dramatic work and one of the most powerful pieces in the history of Modern Greek theatre. According to the author’s express acknowledgement, the plot is loosely based on William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying, although the story has been transplanted to a Greek peasant milieu and extensive changes have been made to the storyline and characters. Faulkner was indeed one of Matessis’ favourite authors. In his interviews and personal statements, Matessis repeatedly referred to Faulkner’s works, acknowledging them as a major source of inspiration, and described his encounter with the oeuvre of the great American novelist as a definitive moment in his intellectual formation.4 A decade after Towards Eleusis, Matessis would translate into Modern Greek another one of Faulkner’s masterpieces, The Sound and the Fury. The translation was published in 2002 by Kastaniotis under the title HƝ VouƝ kai hƝ Mania, which ominously recalls Matessis’ own play HƝ VouƝ (see above), written a few years earlier. Nevertheless, with regard to Towards Eleusis in particular, Faulkner’s narrative has inspired in essence only the general framework and some thematic elements of Matessis’ play.5 The main influence, as betrayed by the title, comes from a much earlier source, namely, the ancient myth of Demeter, her daughter Persephone, and their Eleusinian Mysteries. Significantly, in 1990, two years before the completion of his “Eleusinian”

4

See Phostieris and Niarchos (1994) 486, 488-489, and several of Matessis’ interviews in the press and the electronic media: e.g. HƝ AvgƝ, 8 December 1991 (to Maria Adamopoulou); Marie Claire, July 1998 (to Nikos Bakounakis); HƝ KathƝmerinƝ, 8 January 2003 (to Olga Sella); Ta Nea, 5 February 2003 (to Giorgos Sarigiannis); Lifo, 11 October 2007 (to Katerina Aggelidaki); Athens Voice, 21 January 2013 (to Dimitris Mastrogiannitis). 5 For a detailed comparison see Andrianou (1997); cf. Puchner (2003) 140-141.

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play, Matessis translated Aristophanes’ Frogs for a theatrical performance,6 a comedy which makes ample use of Eleusinian rituals and symbolisms. The task of this translation doubtless gave Matessis the opportunity to read widely about Demeter’s Mysteries and may have provided one of the basic motives for the creation of Towards Eleusis.7 According to ancient tradition, Persephone was abducted by Plouton or Hades, the god of the underworld, to become his wife. Demeter wandered the earth searching for her missing daughter, until the sun-god revealed to her the truth. In anger, Demeter shunned the company of the gods and continued her wanderings until she arrived at Eleusis, where she was offered hospitality by King Celeus and his family. There Demeter taught the people her secret Mysteries, which promise the initiates a happy fate after death. Still, the goddess persisted in her mourning and retreat from the world. For a year the land remained barren; men and gods were threatened with famine. At last, Zeus asked Plouton to give Persephone back. The cunning underworld god made his bride eat a pomegranate seed before she was led again to light. Persephone was reunited with her mother in great felicity. However, since she had tasted food of the dead, Persephone was obliged to return to Hades and pass there one third of the year. She spends the remaining two thirds with her mother, who joyously restores the fertility of the earth. This tale is narrated in many ancient sources, beginning with the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. 8 It was the mythical basis of the Eleusinian Mysteries, Demeter’s secret rituals, to which worshippers were admitted only after a solemn initiation. The cult 6

See Puchner (2003) 268-269. There is abundant scholarly bibliography on the Eleusinian and mystical elements in the Frogs; see most notably Segal (1961) 217-242; Bowie (1993) 228-253; Lada-Richards (1999) 45-122. Cf. also Matessis’ incisive remarks on the subject in his essay about Aristophanes [Matessis (1998)]. It is noteworthy that Matessis’ father was a classicist who taught Ancient Greek language and literature at high school. The author must have grown up in a milieu where incessant contact with classical Greek texts was part of everyday life and family livelihood [see Konstantakos (2015) 60]. Matessis’ entire oeuvre betrays his close familiarity with the ancient world, which presumably began in his childhood. Almost all the elements of Eleusinian myth and cult and of other ancient doctrines, which are adduced in this chapter as parallels to Matessis’ plot, are of the kind that is easily found in standard handbooks on these subjects. The learned Matessis, who regularly consulted scholarly commentaries and specialised bibliography [see Manteli (2007) 433 and Konstantakos (2015) with further references], could have read about them in a number of works. 8 For an overview of the myth and its sources, see Mylonas (1961) 3-6; Richardson (1974) 1-3, 68-86; Burkert (1985) 159-161; Gantz (1993) 64-70. 7

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had a wide popular appeal down to the end of antiquity; it was yearly celebrated in Attica and drew large crowds of pilgrims from the entire Greek-speaking world. The Eleusinian myth was not central in the repertoire of Attic tragedy, even though the tragic poets did occasionally touch upon it. For example, Sophocles wrote a play called Triptolemos, regarding the Eleusinian hero who received from Demeter the gift of agriculture. Euripides narrated the story of Demeter’s wanderings in a splendid choral ode in his Helen (1301-1368).9 Nevertheless, in Matessis’ eyes the story of Demeter and Persephone is the tragic myth par excellence, the genuine structure underlying all the other legends habitually dramatised by the ancient tragic poets. This becomes clear from Matessis’ next play, The Roar, in which elements of Eleusinian myth and ritual are intertwined with the tragic story of the Atreids at key points of the action. Electra and Clytemnestra repeatedly refer to a loud roar, from which the title of the play is derived. This turns out to be the sound of thirty thousand Eleusinian divinities who march towards Salamis to fight against the Persians, because the latter had disrupted the celebration of the Mysteries, when they invaded Attica (see Herodotus 8.65).10 In essence, Matessis employs the myth of Demeter as a model or matrix on which to refashion the Atreids’ family history. At the end of the play, Electra takes the place of her mother Clytemnestra, makes Orestes her son, and sacrifices him on the altar;11 similarly, in Towards Eleusis, the Daughter finally undertakes the role of her Mother and becomes the new Mother of the house. As for the chamber in which all the murders of the Atreid family take place, this is called throughout the play the “telestƝrion”; the same name was used in antiquity for Demeter’s Eleusinian temple, in which the Mystery rites were performed. 12 For Matessis, the Eleusinian myth is the source and mother of all tragedy. In this respect, Matessis’ choice to write a drama inspired from the Eleusinian myth can be read as a conscious innovation within the NeoHellenic movement for the revival of ancient tragedy. The greatest luminaries of our modern poetry and theatre, from Seferis (e.g. MythistorƝma, The Thrush, Three Secret Poems, “Helen”, “Pentheus”) and Ritsos (The Fourth Dimension) to Kambanellis (The Supper) and Ziogas (Philoctetes, Medea), have repeatedly striven to create contemporary variations of the familiar tragic myths and plays. They have adapted 9

Cf. Mylonas (1961) 20; Richardson (1974) 69, 76; Burkert (1983) 280. Matessis (1997) 22-23, 42, 92. 11 Matessis (1997) 91-94; cf. Pefanis (2001) 216-218; Puchner (2003) 186-192. 12 See Mylonas (1961) 320, 344; Richardson (1974) 328-330; Burkert (1983) 274277. 10

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Orestes and Electra, Antigone and Oedipus, Ajax and Philoctetes, to reflect on the agonies of our age and the tribulations of the Greek people. Matessis proceeds beyond these well-exploited traditions, to the deeper narrative that represented in his mind the original core and essence of the tragic experience. In a way, his venture is comparable to Euripides’ Bacchae, the late scenic revival of the original myth of Dionysus, produced at an age when tragic drama had long abandoned its primary Dionysian themes and turned to a variety of other tales. Like the ageing Euripides, Matessis comes at the end, and at the climax, of a long tradition of tragically inspired literature and seeks to be reunited with the roots of the tragic event, with the primeval and authentic myth which lies under the diverse materials of the usual stage practice. For Euripides, this myth was the story of Dionysus, the god of drama. Matessis opts rather for the Eleusinian mystic cult narrative with its fundamental teachings about human life and death, the perennial themes of tragedy. However, as will presently transpire, Matessis’ vision of Eleusis is also inextricably connected with Dionysus’ myth and theatrical rites.

2. Eleusinian symbolisms Towards Eleusis is full of Eleusinian symbolisms, which can be traced behind virtually every element of the plot and action. The characters bear no personal names but only archetypical family designations. The two central female figures are called Mother and Daughter (MƝtera and KorƝ); similarly in Eleusinian cult and myth, Demeter and Persephone were traditionally mentioned as MƝtƝr and KorƝ.13 At the beginning of the play, Mother lies terminally ill and soon dies. Her elder son slays his big horse in her honour, as a kind of sacrifice. Afterwards, all the living members of Mother’s family (husband, daughter, elder son, and younger son) begin a long journey to take Mother’s body back to her birthplace, near the sea, for burial. It was Mother’s stipulation to be interred there, next to her blood kinsfolk, as stated already in her marriage contract: “She will live with her husband; and when she dies, she will be returned to us” (ĬȐ ȗȒıİȚ ȝİIJȐ IJȠ૨ ıȣȗȪȖȠȣ IJȘȢ. ȀĮȓ ੖IJĮȞ ʌİșȐȞİȚ, șȐ ȝ઼Ȣ ਥʌȚıIJȡĮijİ૙).14 The play enacts this family journey to the seaside city and its graveyard. Gradually, quite a bit of family history is revealed. Mother’s husband, called Father in the script, has raped their Daughter and made her 13

See Nilsson (1967) 470; Kerényi (1967) 28-29; Richardson (1974) 14, 27, 317. Matessis (1995) 16. All references to the text of Towards Eleusis are to page numbers of the printed edition of the play [Matessis (1995)]. 14

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pregnant. He is keen on taking the journey to the city and hopes that Daughter will find there the medicine required for an abortion. The Elder Son suffers from developing insanity and is finally confined to the asylum. Throughout the script, he is portrayed as a kind of “shamanic” figure endowed with supernatural foresight and extraordinary psychic capacities. Both sons have very tormented relations of unrequited love towards their Mother. After her death, Mother appears as a ghost in the upper storey of the stage, follows her family’s journey, and comments on the action. Initially, the play presents a reversal of the standard Eleusinian myth. It is the Mother that goes to the world of the dead, not the Daughter. Conversely, the Daughter starts journeying in a search for the burial place of her Mother. In the process, the two figures will fully exchange roles. Mother, as soon as she dies and finds herself in the otherworld, turns into a daughter; she calls her own mother, engages in an imaginary dialogue with her, and relives the memories of her childhood at her mother’s side. She also recalls her mother’s advice about death: “Take your plaything and lie snugly down here beside me (…) because we are going to stay dead for ages” (ʌȐȡ’ IJȩ ʌĮȚȤȞȓįȚ ıȠȣ țĮȓ ȟĮʌȜȫıȠȣ ਕȞĮʌĮȣIJȚțȐ ਥį૵ ıIJȩ ʌȜȐȚ ȝȠȣ […] ȖȚĮIJȓ șȐ ȝİȓȞȠȣȝİ țĮȚȡȠȪȢ ʌȠȜȜȠȪȢ ʌİșĮȝȑȞİȢ).15 In the netherworld, this Mother becomes daughter and finds her mother again, while Persephone reunited with Demeter in the upper world; the Eleusinian model is turned upside down. Indeed, Matessis’ Mother resembles her mythical antonym, the KorƝ, in many respects. Mother asks to be brought back “to her own people” after she has completed her “term of service” (thƝteia) in life; her dead are her home. 16 Analogously, Persephone spends part of her time with the living, but then returns to the underworld, where she is queen. The Elder Son repeatedly compares the funerary journey towards the cemetery with a wedding trip, Mother’s “matrimonial voyage of return” (IJĮȟȓįȚ […] ȖĮȝȒȜȚȠ IJોȢ ਥʌȚıIJȡȠijોȢ).17 Similarly, Persephone’s abduction is simultaneously experienced as death (descent to the netherworld) and as marriage to Hades. Conversely, the Daughter of the play is eventually transformed into a mother, after her arduous initiatory journey. In the finale, she decides to keep her incest-born child, return to the family house, and undertake the maternal role: “Because the house needs a Mother” (ਫʌİȚįȒ IJȩ ıʌȓIJȚ ȤȡİȚȐȗİIJĮȚ ȝȓĮ ȂȘIJȑȡĮ).18 Her elder brother now affectionately calls her

15

Matessis (1995) 31-32, 34, 53. Matessis (1995) 20, 38, 88. 17 Matessis (1995) 33, 36. 18 Matessis (1995) 110. 16

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“Mother” and asks for her blessing, as though he were her son. 19 This reversal of the mythical pattern and exchange of places, which is highlighted from the start and runs through the script like a leitmotiv, will prove to be fundamental for the worldview of the play. It corresponds to an important dimension of ancient Eleusinian practice; in essence, Demeter and KorƝ were perceived as indiscriminate manifestations of a single being, to the point of being jointly named “the Demeters” (DƝmƝteres) or “the two goddesses”. In pictorial representations, they were intentionally made to resemble each other. 20 The action of the play expresses in dramatic terms this divine interchangeability. Other elements of the plot reflect Eleusinian symbolism more straightforwardly. The family transport Mother’s body from their inland village to the seaside. The great procession of the initiates from Athens to Eleusis, at the time of the Great Mysteries, similarly advanced towards the sea along the Sacred Way. Seaward movement was also a sanctioned part of the preliminary purification rituals. A few days before the procession, the initiates rode to a nearby coast (the Phalerum Bay or Piraeus) to cleanse themselves by bathing in the sea.21 Mother’s remains are carried in a coffin, which according to the stage directions has the shape of a box or kit conspicuously smaller than the human size.22 The family place the box on Mother’s deathbed, which is equipped with cartwheels and ropes and used as a carriage; the family members take turns in pulling it during their travel. The box-like coffin is probably meant to recall the mystic kistƝ, the sacred lidded container in which Demeter’s holy objects were kept, so as to be invisible to the common crowd. The great procession of the Mystai was headed by priests and priestesses who carried the kistƝ and, at least from the 4th century BCE, travelled on carriages. 23 The scenic image of the family similarly journeying with a makeshift carriage, which bears Mother’s ultimate receptacle, re-enacts the procession of the Eleusinian initiates. The coffinkit is Mother’s final and definitive abode; in ancient belief, the kistƝ was

19

Matessis (1995) 101-102. See Nilsson (1967) 463, 470-471; Kerényi (1967) 28-33, 147-151; Richardson (1974) 14; Burkert (1983) 289. 21 See Mylonas (1961) 249, 252-255; Kerényi (1967) 60-61; Nilsson (1967) 663664; Burkert (1985) 287. 22 Matessis (1995) 35. 23 See Mylonas (1961) 245-246, 252-255; Kerényi (1967) 62-63, 75, 199-200; Richardson (1974) 235; Burkert (1983) 279; Burkert (1985) 99, 287. 20

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also conceived as Demeter’s seat. A Roman sarcophagus relief shows Demeter seated on the closed kistƝ.24 Matessis further exploits the concept of the holy kistƝ in a pivotal scene of the play. In the fourth act, the family cross a swollen river with great difficulty; the coffin-box is nearly swept away by the bulging waters, but the Younger Son manages to save it. As soon as the kit is pulled out of the river, Father opens its loosened lid, to make sure that the corpse is still inside; then a number of kitchen utensils (knives, forks, pots and pans) fall out of the box on the stage-floor. Father exclaims with relief: “Phew! She is still inside!” (ਝȞȐıĮȞĮ. ȂȑıĮ ਵIJĮȞİ).25 This resembles a risqué, almost blasphemous parody of the ancient ritual. The opening of the kistƝ and the display of its sacred contents to the initiates was the culmination of the Mysteries; it was performed by the high priest (Hierophant) of Eleusis in awe and reverend silence. In Matessis’ episode the corresponding receptacle is revealed to contain only humble household paraphernalia. Nonetheless, a deeper symbolism is present. Although the contents of the Eleusinian kistƝ are not overtly described in ancient sources, allusions indicate that they were connected to the cereals, Demeter’s vital gift to humanity. They presumably included an ear of corn, which was shown to the initiates at the high point of the celebration. A passage of Theophrastus implies that the mystic kistƝ also contained tools for the grinding and procession of cereals, for example, a mortar and pestle. According to one theory, such artefacts might have been taken to represent the objects used by Demeter herself during her stay at Eleusis; they would thus be regarded as sanctified by their contact with the divinity.26 In the light of these traditions, the hidden meaning of Matessis’ scene may be decoded. The kitchen utensils enclosed in Mother’s box are tools for the preparation of food, like the contents of the holy kistƝ, which represented the production and processing of grain, the basis of human alimentation. In both cases, the sacred kit contains the materials for the sustenance of life.27 The cutlery and pots are presumably the equipment 24

Mylonas (1961) 207, fig. 84; Kerényi (1967) 54, 58, fig. 11; Richardson (1974) 23, 212; Burkert (1983) 269. 25 Matessis (1995) 80. 26 See Hippolytus Refutatio 5.8.39-40; Clement Protrepticus 2.21.2, 2.22.4; Theophrastus in Porphyry On Abstinence 2.6; Mylonas (1961) 245-246, 273-276, 303-306; Kerényi (1967) 75; Richardson (1974) 27-28; Burkert (1983) 251, 269273, 290-291; Burkert (1985) 285-286, 288. 27 In his note on the back cover of the printed edition, Matessis includes the “ear of corn” (ȈIJȐȤȣȢ) among the unnamed but dominant motifs of his text. He presumably has in mind this pivotal scene of revelation.

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which Mother used during her life in order to prepare food for her family; similarly, the objects of the kistƝ were supposed to have been handled by mother Demeter in the course of her earthly stay. What seems at first sight a baffling spectacle of parody turns out to possess a profound symbolic significance. Matessis invites us to discern the mystical archetypes even behind the most menial elements of existence. The commonest pots of a woman’s kitchen may encapsulate a revered ancient mystery, as they are sanctified by their role in the process of life. This is also why the family use Mother’s coffin-box as a table for their meal; they cover it with a tablecloth, place dishes of food on it, and have their dinner.28 Mother’s funerary receptacle is like the earth, Demeter’s element, which encloses dead bodies inside, while bearing corn, the food of men, on its surface. In the same spirit, the ancient Athenians sowed corn on graves.29 In the fourth act, the family undergo a sequence of two ordeals. First they traverse the swollen river and drench themselves in its waters to cross to the other side. Afterwards, they rest outside a small church, in which they depose Mother’s coffin. Then the Elder Son finds an opportunity to set the church on fire. The rest of the family rush to extinguish the flames, and the Younger Son salvages the coffin from the burning edifice.30 These two experiences are complementary; the family have to pass first through water and then through fire. The same sequence characterised the preliminary purifications of the Eleusinian ritual. Initially, during the socalled Lesser Mysteries, a preparatory festival celebrated in the early spring, the initiates were immersed in the waters of the river Ilissos. The Great Mysteries also began with a cleansing ritual wash; as noted above, the participants bathed together in sea water at a coast near Athens. The following stage was purification by fire in the form of lighted torches. This latter ritual is depicted on reliefs from Roman monuments, which show Heracles being prepared for initiation in the Mysteries. The hero sits with his head veiled, while a priestess holds a flaming torch close beneath him.31 Thus, Matessis’ family undergo the cathartic procedures of the Eleusinian initiates. This experience contributes to the ultimate “catharsis” of the family members from their sins and sufferings at the finale of the 28

Matessis (1995) 36-37. Cf. Puchner (2003) 159-160. Demetrius of Phalerum fr. 53, S-O-D (= Cicero De Legibus 2.25.63); Kerényi (1967) 132; Nilsson (1967) 675; Nilsson (1972) 59; Burkert (1985) 161. 30 Matessis (1995) 76-81, 88-91. 31 See Mylonas (1961) 205-208, 241, fig. 84; Kerényi (1967) 53-61; Nilsson (1967) 663, 668; Richardson (1974) 22-24, 166-167, 211-213; Burkert (1983) 258, 267-268; Burkert (1985) 78, 286. 29

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play—although not all of them are redeemed in the same degree. Daughter is granted the highest form of salvation through her assumption of the mother’s role. Her two brothers, however, are obliged to undergo worldly punishments for their aberrations and are confined to gaol or to the asylum, even though they gain spiritual deliverance and emotional fulfilment. As for Father, he remains entirely unredeemable (see below, section 3, for further discussion). The fire episode may also allude to the story of Demophon or Triptolemos, the Eleusinian king’s infant child, which is recorded in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and other sources. Demeter nursed this infant and strove to render it immortal by placing its body in the fire of the house hearth; the flames would gradually purge the child of mortality. However, the goddess’ work was interrupted by the frightened Metaneira, the boy’s mother, who could not understand the higher purpose of the magic rite. Thus the young prince lost the chance of eternal life, and Demeter bitterly denounced the ignorance and witlessness of humans.32 This myth resonates in the Elder Son’s attempt to burn the church along with his Mother’s corpse in it. The young man lights the flames with matches willingly offered him by Mother’s ghost. His aim is analogous to that of Demeter in the tale of Demophon. By placing his Mother’s body in fire, the Elder Son wishes to purge her relics from mortality and eliminate all her death-bound remnants. But the other family members cannot understand his intentions and frustrate them, like the foolish Metaneira; they unwittingly rush to quench the flames, and the younger brother snatches the coffin out, before the fire apotheosis is consummated. This is why the Elder Son answers his brother’s bewildered enquiry (“Why did you ignite the fire?”, īȚĮIJȓ ਩ȕĮȜİȢ IJȒ ijȦIJȚȐ;) with a sharp question of his own: “Why do you not love her?” (īȚĮIJȓ įȑȞ IJȒȞ ਕȖĮʌ઼Ȣ;). 33 In the Elder Son’s eyes, purging Mother’s mortal corpse through fire would have been the supreme deed of love. Once again, the Eleusinian mythical model is inverted. In the traditional myth, the mother goddess tried to immortalise by fire the nursling child. In Matessis’ script, conversely, it is the son that performs the task for the mother’s sake. The Eleusinian procession also entailed a piece of institutionalised mockery, the so-called gephyrismoi. As the initiates passed the bridge across the river Cephisus, at the borders between Athenian and Eleusinian territory, certain persons sitting there would taunt them with buffoonish

32 Hymn to Demeter 231-274; Richardson (1974) 23-24, 231-234; Burkert (1983) 280-281; Burkert (1985) 78, 288; Gantz (1993) 65-66. 33 Matessis (1995) 91.

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insults and indecent jokes. This apotropaic ritual recalled another episode of the ancient myth. At Eleusis, the sorrowful Demeter was induced to laughter by the ribald jests of a female servant, called Iambe or in later sources Baubo.34 Matessis includes a brief allusion to this custom. As the family approach the seaside cemetery, two passers-by notice the foul smell ensuing from Mother’s coffin and grossly taunt its bearers: “What are you carrying there on the bed? It stinks like the carcass of a cow eight days dead! (…) Have you brought a dead sow to sell in the market?”35 In a previous scene, villagers threw stones at the family because of the stench. 36 One Eleusinian festival, which was held in honour of prince Demophon and possibly belonged to the preliminaries of the Mysteries, apparently involved a mock battle, in which the participants threw stones at each other.37 As often in the play, mythical archetypes are concealed even behind the meanest experiences of the heroes. Matessis teaches his audience to trace the age-old and the sacred under every element of life. The climax of the Mysteries, with the revelation of the holy secrets, is reflected in many motifs of the plot, especially in the finale. According to the ancient sources, the Hierophant appeared before the opened gate of the Anaktoron, the innermost and holiest hall of the temple, surrounded by a brilliant light. The light presumably came from a great fire lit behind the high priest in the sacred hall.38 This luminous moment is echoed in two scenes of Matessis’ play, which are distinctively linked together by their common ritual background. In the first act, when Mother dies, the actress impersonating her is lifted up to the upper storey of the stage in a visibly enacted ascension; at the same time, the light becomes very intense, almost setting ablaze the Mother’s figure and her bed.39 The same directions are given at the finale, when Daughter announces her intention to return home and become the new mother; she then performs a solemn dance to honour her dead parent, while the light flares up.40 Through the repetition of the effect, these two pivotal moments are connected, and we realise their inner 34

See Mylonas (1961) 256; Kerényi (1967) 65; Nilsson (1967) 657-658; Richardson (1974) 23, 213-217; Graf (1974) 45-46; Burkert (1983) 278; Burkert (1985) 287. 35 Matessis (1995) 98. 36 Matessis (1995) 62, 68-69. 37 See Richardson (1974) 245-247. 38 See Plutarch Moralia 81e; Hippolytus Refutatio 5.8.40; Mylonas (1961) 228, 230, 273, 306; Kerényi (1967) 91-92; Richardson (1974) 26-27, 233; Seaford (1981) 255-258; Burkert (1983) 276-277, 291; Burkert (1985) 288. 39 Matessis (1995) 29-30. 40 Matessis (1995) 110-111.

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affinity. Daughter’s dance is of course a rite to mourn Mother’s death; but it also signifies that Daughter takes the place of Mother, and thus Mother’s demise is transcended through the inauguration of a new maternal figure. Significantly, in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter a great flash of light forms part of the mother goddess’ two epiphanies: first when Demeter enters Celeus’ house (188-190) and then when she reveals her true identity (275280). Similarly, in Matessis’ play, the increase of light accompanies the two most important manifestations of the mother figure: Mother’s apocalyptic ascension at the beginning and the appearance of the new mother at the end. Daughter’s closing dance also recalls the ending of the Eleusinian procession. After the initiates reached Eleusis, they danced under the light of torches throughout the night (pannychis, an all-night festival). It was an exultant celebration in honour of the goddesses, a fitting end to the exciting day, even though the participants would have been tired from their long march.41 Daughter’s final words, as she dances, stress precisely this latter motif; the pilgrim “has walked a long way” (਩ȤİȚ ijIJȐıİȚ ʌİȡʌĮIJȫȞIJĮȢ ȝĮțȡȩșİȞ) to come to the wake, and yet desires to honour his dead with a dance.42 The young heroine’s rite also lasts for the duration of a night; it is a holonychtia, a modern synonym of the ancient term pannychis.43 Finally, at the culminating moment of the Mysteries, the Hierophant made a jubilant announcement amidst the brilliant light: the goddess has given birth to a sacred boy. Thus the revelation was completed with the

41 See Mylonas (1961) 257; Graf (1974) 136-138; Richardson (1974) 23, 25, 215; Burkert (1983) 292. 42 Matessis (1995) 110-111. 43 Actually, the very word pannychis (in the form ʌĮȞȞȣȤȓįĮ) has survived in modern parlance, notably in villages of the Karditsa area, in western Thessaly (I am thankful to Professor Vayos Liapis for providing this valuable piece of information). It is interesting that, according to Matessis’ initial stage directions, the play must be imagined to be set in “a Mediterranean Greek location, from Thessaly northward” [IJȩʌȠ ȝİıȠȖİȚĮțȩ, ਦȜȜȘȞȚțȩ, ਕʌȩ ĬİııĮȜȓĮ țĮȓ ʌȐȞȦ, Matessis (1995) 9]. Of course, Matessis, a Peloponnesian without roots in northern Greece, may have been unfamiliar with the survival of the word pannychis in the northern Greek dialects. Alternatively, he may have preferred the form holonychtia because it is not a dialectically restricted idiom but a standard term of the Modern Greek koinƝ and hence easily understandable to all members of the audience. Throughout the play, the members of the family speak in regular Modern Greek without any traces of a Thessalian or other northern dialect. The couleur locale is to be found only in the dramatic setting, not in the language.

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renewal of life. 44 Matessis’ drama concludes on a similar hopeful note. Daughter declares that she will keep her child, refusing the abortion that was being planned all through the course of the action. She accepts the mother’s role and crowns the ending of the drama with the prospect of birth. The stigma of the incestuous conception of the child does not seem to matter any more in this redemptive finale. The infant has presumably been purged from the original abomination by means of its mother’s arduous initiatory course towards the ultimate mysteries of life and death.

3. Other mystic doctrines Apart from the Eleusinian background, Matessis also reworks material from kindred mystic doctrines and initiatory rites of antiquity. In most cases, these elements were associated with Eleusinian beliefs already by ancient writers. This factor provides internal coherence to Matessis’ mixture of symbolisms. The script does not offer simply a medley or anthology of diverse mystic ideas, but rather a complex cluster of interrelated and mutually influential mythical and cultic motifs. For example, Mother is presented as “mistress of the animals” (potnia thƝrǀn). As soon as she dies, the beasts and birds inhabiting her house (dog, cat, mice, nesting sparrows, and the household snake) leave for elsewhere with a great clamour. 45 Missing their lady, they are left orphaned and wandering for refuge. Such authority over animals was not properly a feature of the Eleusinian Demeter or KorƝ, although it did occur in Arcadian cults of these goddesses.46 It was mainly an attribute of the great Mother Goddess of Anatolia, whose cult was introduced into the Hellenic world from early on and merged with various local traditions. This all-powerful mistress of nature assembled a menagerie of beasts, birds, and fishes in her retinue. The Greeks usually called her simply MƝtƝr, the same name that Matessis gives to the maternal character of his play. Nonetheless, the Mother Goddess was syncretised with the Eleusinian Demeter already from the fifth century BCE. The dithyrambic poet Melanippides identified Demeter with the “Mother of the gods”,47 as did also Euripides in his choral ode about Demeter’s search for her

44

Hippolytus Refutatio 5.8.40; Mylonas (1961) 306-310; Kerényi (1967) 92-94; Nilsson (1967) 662; Richardson (1974) 24-28, 233-235, 316-318; Burkert (1983) 288-290; Burkert (1985) 288; Burkert (1987) 100. 45 Matessis (1995) 40. 46 See Nilsson (1967) 479-480, 497. 47 Fr. 764, Page.

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daughter;48 other ancient authors followed suit. A temple of MƝtƝr stood at the very precinct where the Lesser Mysteries were celebrated, by the river Ilissos. There was also an undercurrent of parallelisms and cult associations between the Eleusinian Mysteries and the rites of Cybele, the Mother Goddess of Phrygia.49 Orphic notions are also abundantly exploited. In the belief of the ancient Greeks, Orpheus was closely involved with the rites of Eleusis, sometimes even considered as the original founder of the Eleusinian Mysteries. He was also reported to have composed poems about the abduction of KorƝ and Demeter’s search. Orphic texts on this theme circulated in antiquity and are quoted in ancient sources. Modern scholars argue that the Eleusinian cult may have influenced the development of Orphic mystic teachings from the classical period onwards.50 The most conspicuous Orphic loan in Matessis’ mythopoeia is the incestuous rape of Daughter by her Father, a central motif in the plot, which results in the girl’s pregnancy and the hopeful prospect of childbirth at the end. This motif reflects an episode that must have been included in many of the so-called “Orphic theogonies”, a group of more or less interconnected compositions concerning the creation of the universe and the gods, which were compiled at various times, from the 5th century BCE to the Imperial age, and circulated in the ancient world. These largely lost Orphic texts are now known via excerpts or retellings made by several ancient authors, chiefly from Late Antiquity. According to one of the cosmogonic stories recorded in these remains, Zeus mated first with his mother Demeter (also known as Rhea), and their union produced Persephone/KorƝ. Later, the same god raped his daughter Persephone, who became pregnant and gave birth to Dionysus, called specifically Dionysus Zagreus in certain sources.51 48

Helen 1301ff. See Kerényi (1967) 50, 132; Nilsson (1967) 264, 298, 668, 725-727; Nilsson (1972) 91-92; Richardson (1974) 69, 83; Graf (1974) 76-77, 155; Burkert (1983) 263-266, 283-284, 290-291; Burkert (1985) 41-42, 124, 149, 154, 177-179, 278; Burkert (1987) 81. 50 See Orphic fr. 49-52, Kern; Pseudo-Euripides Rhesus 941-944; PseudoDemosthenes 25.11; Parian Marble FGrHist 239 A 14; Plutarch fr. 212, Sandbach; Diodorus 1.96.4-5, 5.64.4, 5.77.3; Guthrie (1952) 17-18, 133-137, 153-156; Graf (1974) 1-8, 19-39, 79-186; Richardson (1974) 77-85; West (1983) 23-24, 41-43; Burkert (1985) 296-298. 51 Based on the testimonia of ancient authors such as Damascius (Orphic fr. 28, 54, Kern), some modern scholars try to distinguish and reconstruct a number of such Orphic theogonies, of varying provenance and dating: the “Orphic Rhapsodies” or “Rhapsodic Theogony”, probably compiled in the late Hellenistic period; the so49

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In Matessis’ play, Father is a despicable and loathsome character, the only figure drawn without any touch of sympathy. He is a grotesque caricature of male individualism, a gluttonous, lustful, nasty man, a coward and a loafer, always intent on his own petty interests to the detriment of everything else. He has raped his innocent daughter in an outbreak of debauchery and presses her to have an abortion as soon as they arrive at the city, so as to avoid public scandal. Father is in fact a gross parody of the mythical Zeus patƝr, the male dominator of the universe, who notoriously lusts after every beautiful human creature. Nonetheless, the mythical archetype is once again discernible behind the parody. Even an abominable creature like Father may have a mystical dimension malgré lui. The lowest human specimen may yet incarnate the Zeus principle, the life force necessary for the fertilisation of the maternal womb and the renewal of existence. Even the drone has a vital part to play in the Creation. Father’s relationship with Daughter has its counterpart in the mystical union between Mother and the Elder Son, which is enacted midway through the play. The Elder Son, thanks to his mantic and shamanic abilities, is the only one who can still communicate with Mother’s ghost after her physical demise. He appears on the upper storey to converse with dead Mother, but she no longer recognises him as her child. Instead, she is attracted by his male beauty, demands to see him naked, and hands over to him her wedding ring, as a sign of their engagement. 52 As Mother reassures the young man, their metaphysical incestuous love-affair is not a “sin”. Indeed, it re-enacts the complementary part of the Orphic called “Prǀtogonos Theogony”, which was used by the author of the Derveni Papyrus and must go back to the 5th century BCE; the theogony mentioned by the Peripatetic Eudemus (4th century BCE); the so-called “Cyclic Theogony”, assumed to have been placed at the head of the Epic Cycle by its Hellenistic editors; and the theogony attributed to a certain Hieronymus. On all these works, see mainly West (1983) 68-264; Gantz (1993) 741-743. The tale about Zeus’ incest with Persephone and the resulting birth of Dionysus can be traced in the Rhapsodic, Hieronyman, and “Prǀtogonos” compositions. See Orphic fr. 58, 59, 145, 153, 195, 198, 303, Kern; West (1983) 72-74, 93-97, 100, 106-107, 152-154, 181-182, 217, 221, 242; Gantz (1993) 64, 112-113, 118-119, 742-743; Kouremenos, Parássoglou and Tsantsanoglou (2006) 24-25, 112-113, 270-271; and also Guthrie (1952) 82, 133-134, 139; Mylonas (1961) 228, 289-291; Kerényi (1967) 117-118, 133; Graf (1974) 74-76; Burkert (1985) 297-298. There is, of course, much scholarly debate with regard to the exact contents and reconstruction of each particular Orphic theogony; ultimately, however, such details are not important for the understanding and interpretation of Matessis’ symbolisms. 52 Matessis (1995) 54-55.

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cosmogonic myth, according to which Zeus mated with his own mother Demeter to generate Persephone.53 The Elder Son temporarily undertakes Zeus’ role in this mythical revival, which is needed to counterbalance the relationship between Father and Daughter and thus restore the Heraclitean harmony of the play’s structure. But the young man’s part as Mother’s lover will not last long. At the end, he delivers the engagement ring to Daughter, who will become the new Mother, and pursues his genuine mythical inclination, which (as we shall see in detail below) is of a different, Dionysian kind. Matessis’ scheme of investing even the plainest everyday objects with a sacred aspect is characteristically displayed in another prop of the family’s journey, the eggs. In the first scene, a female neighbour brings a basket of newly-laid eggs and entreats the family to sell them in the city. The greedy father immediately seizes and sucks one of the eggs, to enjoy it fresh. The family take the basket along and transport it on their carriage, next to Mother’s coffin-box. 54 Mystical symbolisms are plentifully accumulated here. Eggs were among the foodstuffs forbidden to those preparing for initiation in the Mysteries.55 By greedily sucking the egg and thus violating the ritual taboo, Father is cast from the beginning as the uninitiated and profane man, who remains alien to the spiritual experience of the Mysteries. He is the only character of the play that is entirely devoid of spirituality and acquires no deeper understanding in the course of the family’s initiatory journey. To the end, he remains bound to his crass materialism and egocentrism. On the other hand, it is hardly fortuitous that the eggs accompany Mother’s funeral kit in its last journey. In Orphic cosmogony the egg had an archetypical significance as a symbol of creation. The universe was supposed to have begun as a primeval egg, although the creation and provenance of this egg may have been differently described in the various Orphic cosmological compositions. In an important branch of the tradition, the egg was created by the great unaging Time (Chronos). According to one testimonium, when this egg was broken, its two halves were transformed into heaven and earth. In any case, from inside the egg the primordial god PhanƝs (“the one who becomes or makes manifest”) or Prǀtogonos (“first-born”) emerged, who then generated all the other

53

Cf. Puchner (2003) 168-171 on the hieros gamos. Matessis (1995) 12-18, 39, 60, 62, 99. 55 See Porphyry On Abstinence 4.16; Diogenes Laertius 8.33; Plutarch Sympotic Questions 635e-f; Macrobius Saturnalia 7.16.8; Mylonas (1961) 258-259; Kerényi (1967) 140; Burkert (1985) 301. 54

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divinities and created the material world for gods and men to inhabit.56 Following a different Orphic tradition, Night (Nyx) was the primeval entity from which the entire cosmos was derived; there may have been some version in which Night was presented as bringing forth the primordial cosmic egg.57 Such a concept is parodied in the parabasis of Aristophanes’ Birds (693-704); as the Birds’ Chorus argues, the blackwinged Night generated a wind-gotten egg, the first of all beings, out of which winged Eros was hatched; Eros then became the cause and creator of the gods and the physical world.58 In Orphic terms, therefore, the egg represents the beginning of things. It thus fittingly accompanies Mother’s journey back to her own beginnings in every sense—her return to her place of origin and her regression through death to the pre-natal condition of non-being.59 Under this light, Father’s sucking of the egg in the first scene acquires an additional ironic dimension. The gluttonous fellow appears once again as a travesty of the Orphic Zeus. In the former group of the Orphic theogonies mentioned 56 The creation of the egg by Time is attested for the Orphic Rhapsodies and for Hieronymus’ composition; it can arguably be traced back to the early “Prǀtogonos Theogony” (see above, n. 51). Time is said to have made the egg “of aither” or “in aither” (a heavenly substance which was born of Time, together with Chaos, and is presented as a primordial divinity in the Orphic theogony); the Greek poetic text (Orphic fr. 70) is syntactically ambiguous and can be interpreted in both ways. The formation of heaven and earth from the two halves of the split egg was recounted in Hieronymus’ theogony (Orphic fr. 57). In general, see Orphic fr. 57, 60, 66, 70, 72-76, 79, Kern; Guthrie (1952) 80, 92-104, 137; Nilsson (1967) 684-685; West (1983) 70-71, 86-87, 101-106, 111-112, 178-183, 198-203, 230; Gantz (1993) 742743; Kouremenos, Parássoglou and Tsantsanoglou (2006) 20-31. 57 Night was held to be the origin of the universe in the Orphic theogony mentioned by Eudemus (see above, n. 51). See Orphic fr. 28, Kern; West (1983) 116-119. 58 Significantly, Matessis translated Aristophanes’ Birds in 1991, shortly before the completion of Towards Eleusis. The best-known commentaries on the Birds at that time, by Kakridis [(19822) 138-141] and Sommerstein [(1987) 242], include informative notes concerning the Orphic resonances in the Chorus’ cosmogony. 59 It may also be significant that the eggs are carried in a basket [kalathi, Matessis (1995) 10, 12, 39, 99], which is placed next to the coffin-kit, the representative of the Eleusinian kistƝ. In the initiatory password (synthƝma) of the Eleusinian Mysteries, as recorded by Clement of Alexandria (Protrepticus 2.21.2), the kistƝ is mentioned together with a basket (kalathos), which was also handled in the rituals. See Mylonas (1961) 294; Kerényi (1967) 66; Nilsson (1967) 658-659; Richardson (1974) 23, 235; Burkert (1983) 269-271; Burkert (1987) 23, 94, 143. In Matessis’ dramatic re-enactment of the mystic rites, the kistƝ-coffin and the kalathos-basket coexist side by side.

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above, the story of the cosmic egg continued with Zeus swallowing the egg-born divinity PhanƝs/Prǀtogonos; in this way, Zeus absorbed the entire universe, so as to bring it forth again in a new act of creation.60 By gulping down the contents of the egg, Father re-enacts in a parodic manner Zeus’ cosmic part, as he had also done when he raped his own daughter. Another echo of Orphic eschatological beliefs is found in the final scenes of the play, when the boundaries between human and animal are repeatedly transgressed or blurred. Two of the characters visibly display animal patterns of behaviour. The Elder Son, as we recall, had sacrificed his horse to Mother at the beginning of the play; now he puts himself in the place of this animal, as his mental illness takes full hold of him. The young man wears the bridle and reins, falls on all fours, and imitates his horse, inviting Daughter to ride him.61 This is the final stage of the young man’s gradual slip into insanity, and it is based on a scenically materialised word-play which operates only in Greek. The Elder Son, losing his reason (logos), becomes a-logon, a word meaning both “irrational” and “horse”.62 Father, on the other hand, ends up resembling a different beast. He buys a bunch of bananas from the city market and spends the rest of his stage time pealing and chomping them with relish; he talks exclusively about his bananas and proposes them also to his children to taste, although they ignore him. 63 With these bananas in hand, the beastly and materialistic Father is finally looking like an ape; lacking the spiritual dimension that is distinctive of mankind, he experiences the ultimate Darwinian regression to the pre-human stage of development. This is what man amounts to, if spirituality is taken away. These animalistic aspects point to the doctrine of reincarnation or transmigration of souls, which was advocated in antiquity by Orphic and Pythagorean circles. According to this belief, after a person’s death, the soul passes into the body of another living being, which may well be an animal; a human being is liable to be reborn as a beast, bird, or fish, and vice versa.64 The symbolic transformation of Father and Elder Son into 60 See Orphic fr. 82, 129, 167, Kern; Guthrie (1952) 75-76, 81, 104-107, 140; West (1983) 72-73, 85-90; Gantz (1993) 742; Kouremenos, Parássoglou and Tsantsanoglou (2006) 20-31. 61 Matessis (1995) 96-98. 62 Cf. Puchner (2003) 136; cf. also Vayos Liapis’ chapter in this volume, for a similar pun in Marios Pontikas’ Neighing. 63 Matessis (1995) 99-107. 64 See Orphic fr. 223-224, Kern; Dodds (1951) 149-152, 170-171; Guthrie (1952) 164-175, 183-186, 216-218; Guthrie (1962) 198-203, 306; Nilsson (1967) 691-696, 701-703; Burkert (1972) 120-136; Graf (1974) 85-88, 93-94; West (1983) 18-20,

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different animals may be read as a staged illustration of this strange eschatological concept. The two characters enact on stage their animal metempsychosis, and each one chooses the particular creature which suits the idiosyncrasy of his soul. We are reminded of the underworld vision expounded at the end of Plato’s Republic, when the dead souls are asked to select the form of life into which they will be born again (617e-621a). Every soul makes its choice according to its peculiar nature, innermost desires, or previous life experiences. For example, the mythical singers Orpheus and Thamyras become respectively a swan and a nightingale, both famously musical creatures. Brave Ajax opts for the lion, and lordly Agamemnon for the eagle, the king of the birds. Matessis’ men select their animal metamorphoses accordingly. The mantic Elder Son, who communicates with the dead and is in contact with the supra-rational or extra-rational, naturally chooses the horse. This is an animal with prominent funerary and transcendental associations, both in the classical world and overall in ethnographical tradition. In various peoples, the horse is often thought to carry on its back the soul of the dead to the underworld; it also carries the shaman’s spirit in his travels into the beyond or his ascension to heaven.65 In Greek lore, in particular, the horse is associated with the netherworld and sacrificed to chthonic powers. Hades was shown carrying the souls of the dead in his horse-drawn chariot, in the same way he abducted Persephone.66 This is also why the Elder Son sacrificed his horse as soon as Mother died.67 The slain animal’s spirit will thus transport Mother on her last journey, as Hades’ horses carried Persephone to the underworld.68 In addition, as pointed out above, the horse’s name in Greek literally signifies the irrational (a-logon), which is the Elder Son’s peculiar spiritual province. By contrast, the ridiculous Father is well suited to the ape’s form; he is a caricature of a man, similar

75, 98-101, 107-112, 222-223, 259-260; Burkert (1985) 298-301; Burkert (1987) 87-88, 161. 65 See Malten (1914) 209-214, 233-235; Eliade (1989) 89, 151, 173-175, 182-183, 190-198, 324-326, 380, 404-408, 467-470; Stutley (2003) 31-35, 51, 103-104; Znamenski (2003) 44-47, 94, 114, 122, 264, 266; Walter and Fridman (2004) 147148, 510-511, 554, 723, 808; Pratt (2007) 6, 87, 151, 412, 446, 515, 519. Cf. Pefanis (2001) 218-219; Puchner (2003) 136, 155-158, 170, 180-181. 66 See Malten (1914); Nilsson (1967) 382-383; Richardson (1974) 151; Stutley (2003) 35. 67 Matessis (1995) 33. 68 See also Eliade (1989) 182-183, 190-198, 404-405 for a similar interpretation of horse-sacrifice in Altai shamanic and Brahmanic Indian cultures. Cf. Stutley (2003) 31-33, 103-104; Pratt (2007) 6, 412.

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to the monkey which resembles a grotesquely distorted imitation of humankind. The offspring of the incest between Father Zeus and Daughter Persephone was Dionysus. This brings us to Dionysian myth and cult, which are intrinsically connected with the Eleusinian symbolism in Matessis’ play. Dionysus, after all, was also part of the Eleusinian rituals, identified from early on with Iakchos, the divine being ceremoniously invoked by the initiates during the procession towards Eleusis. Dionysus was standardly associated with Demeter in the minds of the ancients; the two deities were perceived as companions and complementary entities.69 The Dionysian aspect is most conspicuous in the Elder Son, the gifted seer, who keeps throughout the play a close relation to the supernatural and the irrational.70 This young man follows his own course of initiation during the dramatic action, a course parallel to that of Daughter. Through the funerary journey and its mystic ordeals, Daughter is gradually initiated into the Eleusinian cult and prepared for the role of the new mother, which she will undertake in the finale. The Elder Son, on the other hand, undergoes training for the Bacchic rites, the Mysteries of Dionysus. The worship of this latter god culminated with a special kind of religious experience, the mania or bakcheia, Bacchic “frenzy” or “madness”, which consisted in an exaltation and intensification of psychical and spiritual operations to the point of visionary ecstasy. The initiate into the Dionysian Mysteries was turned into a bakchos by entering the state of sacred raving.71 This is also the Elder Son’s spiritual itinerary. Disentangling himself from the material and logical world, 72 the young man increasingly surrenders to madness,73 the “illness that glows”, as he calls it (ਲ ਕıșȑȞİȚȐ

69 See Pindar Isthmian 7.3-5; Sophocles Antigone 1119-1121, 1151-1154; Euripides Ion 1075-1086, Bacchae 275-280, 725-726 etc.; Mylonas (1961) 238, 277-278, 308-309; Kerényi (1967) 35, 50-52, 55, 64, 94, 140-141, 152-164; Nilsson (1967) 318, 599-600, 664; Nilsson (1972) 47-48, 62-64; Graf (1974) 5166, 198-199; Burkert (1983) 271; Burkert (1985) 287; Burkert (1987) 38; Seaford (1994a) 263, 381-382. 70 Cf. Puchner (2003) 150-151, 156-157, 164, 168-171. 71 See Dodds (19602) xi-xxv; Burkert (1985) 161-167, 290-295; Seaford (1996) 3044. 72 “I am not of this world”, the Elder Son declares. “You never wished to be”, is his brother’s answer [Matessis (1995) 65-66]. 73 Matessis (1995) 49, 56, 61, 76, 86-91, 96.

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ȝȠȣ ȜȐȝʌİȚ!).74 His disease is no common dementia, no mental degeneration or imbecility. His is rather the kind of “madness” that expands the spirit and makes the patient see the secret substance behind ordinary phenomena. This spiritual “illness” endows the Elder Son with mantic powers and prophetic insight into the minds of others; it enables him to converse with ghosts and demons and even perform physical miracles.75 In an emblematic scene, the young man falls into ecstasy, while a large bird’s wing slowly envelops him from behind;76 his madness is of the kind that gives the mind wings (cf. the powerful image of the winged soul that flies upwards to the gods in Plato, Phaedrus 246a-e). In the eyes of the common people, the Elder Son’s condition appears as clinical insanity and condemns him to confinement in a mental hospital. This is indeed his fate in the everyday world; in the end, the young man is willingly delivered to the nursing personnel of the asylum, where he will pass the rest of his days. 77 In truth, however, the Elder Son has reached the climax of his Dionysian initiation, Bacchic frenzy. Having completed his mystic course, he is admitted into permanent Dionysian ecstasy and becomes a bakchos for life. The Elder Son’s attempt to burn Mother’s body inside the church, interpreted above as an allusion to Demophon, can also be read in terms of Dionysian myth. Matessis may accumulate multiple mythical symbolisms in the same dramatic image and create complex scenic figures, which resonate on diverse mythical registers and produce a polyphony of simultaneous allusions. Thus, the burning scene also re-enacts the story of Dionysus and his mother Semele. According to the myth, Semele was burned to death when Zeus appeared before her in his true glory, equipped with his thunderbolts and lightning. As Dionysus himself explains in the prologue of Euripides’ Bacchae (6-12), his mother’s grave is situated at the very spot of her demise, amidst the ruins of the destroyed palace, which are eternally smouldering with the unquenchable divine fire. The stagecraft of the Bacchae is dominated by the powerful spectacle of Semele’s tomb, visible in the performance area and surrounded by flames and smoke (cf. 596-599). The Elder Son, in accordance with his Dionysian identity, wishes to turn his mother into a new Semele. This is why he sets 74

Matessis (1995) 24, 88. In the scene of the river, while the rest of the family are struggling to cross the swollen waves, the Elder Son simply passes to the other side with a couple of steps, as though he could walk on water [Matessis (1995) 76-77]. Later, he exclaims “Let it be night!” and night immediately falls [Matessis (1995) 87]. 76 Matessis (1995) 74. 77 Matessis (1995) 36, 62-64, 76, 84-86, 100-104. 75

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on fire the church in which Mother’s coffin is kept. The body of the Dionysian mother must be surrendered to the fire; her funerary receptacle must be enclosed in flames, replicating the stage imagery of the Bacchae. The Bacchic son strives to establish his mother’s funerary cult, in the same way that Dionysus incorporated Semele’s worship into his rites at Thebes.78 At this point the mythical registers of Demophon and Semele converge within Matessis’ composite dramatic construct. In both these symbolic paradigms, fire is used as a means for cleansing away the relics of mortality. Not accidentally, some ancient thinkers equated Semele with Mother Earth, i.e. another form of Demeter, the goddess of the earth and its crops.79 Ultimately, Demeter and Dionysus are mother and son; this is the secret staged in Matessis’ play. Dionysian mythical patterns also underlie another important leitmotiv of the action, namely, the abundant theatrical imagery, which extends to the “dramatisation” of life itself. This is presented as a result of dead Mother’s privileged vision from the world beyond. Looking down on the mortal existence she has just abandoned, Mother understands that it was a role she played; life is a drama with diverse parts, which are distributed at random to the members of a dramatic troupe, and everyone has to perform their assigned role. 80 This core metaphor is developed with further variations in subsequent scenes. Mother sees the various stages of her life passing before her in the form of the theatrical costumes she wore while playing her different parts in the drama of life. Without any sense of chronological order, since the dead are not subject to human time and causality, she successively reviews her dresses of peasant woman, pregnant wife, bride, schoolteacher, and baby-girl. Now, as she keeps saying, the show is over; her performance is finished, and she has nothing more to do with the wandering troupe of actors. 81 At the very end, however, Mother realises that even this was an illusion. In fact, she still has one more role to play, that of the dead woman—a part for eternity.82 All this sounds Shakespearean enough, and Matessis is doubtless indebted to the great Elizabethan master of metatheatre. His next play, The 78

See Euripides Bacchae 998, Phoenissae 1754-1756; Theocritus 26.6; Dodds (19602) 63-64, 202; Seaford (1996) 150. 79 Apollodorus FGrHist 244 F 131; Diodorus 3.62.7-9; cf. Nilsson (1967) 599-600; Kerényi (1967) 93, 155. 80 Matessis (1995) 32, 37. 81 Matessis (1995) 47-54, 72-73, 92-93. 82 Matessis (1995) 108-109. Cf. Pefanis (2005) 144. Generally on the theatrical metaphor of life in Matessis’ work, see also Bouchard (1994) 416; Rozi (1999) 2325; Puchner (2003) 160, 167.

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Roar, comprises abundant allusions to Hamlet and the visiting players of Elsinore. Towards Eleusis, however, is primarily founded in Greek myth and thought. The theatrical metaphor of life is inspired above all by the Dionysian undercurrent of the action. When Mother describes her former family as a theatrical troupe, she applies to them the Greek word thiasos.83 The same term was standardly used in ancient Greek for the mythical band of Dionysus’ followers, the Maenads and the Satyrs, and also for the organised associations of Dionysian cult in historical times.84 The whole world’s stage now hosts neither the touring actors of Elizabethan Elsinore nor the amateur mechanicals of a midsummer dream of Athens, but a thiasos of Dionysus, the archetypical god of theatre—a thiasos travelling around with a carriage, like Thespis and his company, the original performers of tragedy at the very dawn of drama.85 Next to Dionysus, another ancient figure looms in the background of Matessis’ theatrical metaphor: Plato, probably the first western thinker that viewed life as a form of drama, and in this respect, arguably, the most important precursor of the Shakespearean idea of the world as a stage— even though the metaphor of the theatrum mundi was exploited as a commonplace by numerous other authors in-between. It was Plato that spoke of “the entire tragedy and comedy of life” (Philebus 50b) and identified his ideal city as “the truest tragedy” (Laws 817b).86 This last-mentioned and famous passage, from the Laws, may also underlie an important cameo, which is significantly placed at the heart of the action, near the middle of Matessis’ play. The Younger Son remembers the family’s departure from their village and reports that he had paid the 83

Matessis (1995) 32, 37. See Dodds (19602) 70, 161-162; Burkert (1985) 166, 173, 291; Seaford (1994a) 259-275. 85 See Horace Ars Poetica 276; Pickard-Cambridge (19622) 75, 112-116. 86 It is noteworthy that Mother, in Matessis’ play, seems to have something of a “family tradition” of Platonism. Shortly before her death, she recalls her father’s words: “As my father used to say, life has only one purpose: to prepare you for the many years you will be lying dead” [ਯȜİȖİ ੒ ʌĮIJȑȡĮȢ ȝȠȣ, ਪȞĮ ıțȠʌȩ ਩ȤİȚ ਲ ȗȦȒ: Ȉȑ ʌȡȠİIJȠȚȝȐȗİȚ ȖȚȐ IJȐ ʌȠȜȜȐ ȤȡȩȞȚĮ ʌȠȪ șȐ țİȓIJİıĮȚ ʌİșĮȝȑȞȠȢ, Matessis (1995) 20]. To my eyes at least, this recalls to some extent Plato’s definition of the philosophical way of living as an “exercise for death” (or a “meditation on death”, meletƝ thanatou, Phaedo 64a-b, 67d-e, 80e-81a). I am aware that the Platonic concept has a far broader and deeper significance than Mother’s slightly platitudinous formulation. Still, there is a certain similarity, however superficial. We might conclude that Mother’s father was reading Plato, even though perhaps not fully comprehending the philosopher’s ideas. Mother’s theatrical conception of existence may have been similarly bequeathed to her by her Platonic ancestor. 84

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sexton to ring the church bell for the funeral procession. But the bell started sounding merrily, and the other villagers thought that it announced the arrival of a company of actors. They dressed in festive clothes, went out to the main street, and joyfully awaited the theatrical performance, while the family with their carriage and coffin were passing by. 87 The expectation for a troupe of players in the village brings to mind the description of the tragic poets in Laws 817a-d, who arrive with their company of performers at the city and ask permission to set up their stage and present their works. In Matessis’ play the show is acted by Mother’s family, who are travelling with their carriage, as though with a moving stage. They are the itinerant players, as dead Mother perceives from her otherworldly perspective. The piece they are acting is precisely the one described in the Platonic text, the truest tragedy of all: our own human life and death. The widespread Dionysian theatrical symbolism is not alien to the main mythical paradigm of the text, the Eleusinian rites. As has been argued by some scholars, the celebration of the Great Mysteries at Demeter’s temple included a ritual pageant or performance, which enacted the sacred narrative of Eleusis, viz. Demeter’s search for her daughter, KorƝ’s return from the underworld, and the joyous reunion of the two deities. This mystic ceremony, which was acted out through the night and was accompanied by music and dances, is explicitly called a “drama” by Clement of Alexandria;88 other sources also describe it in performative or theatrical terminology. The pageant could not have been a full theatrical representation, given that the Eleusinian TelestƝrion was hardly equipped for such a purpose; but it may have entailed dramatic elements, including some kind of role-playing by the priests.89 In a way, the family of the play are performing this mystic drǀmenon of Eleusis; they are re-enacting, albeit in a public space,90 the sacred quest narrative, as they wander and 87

Matessis (1995) 47-48. Protrepticus 2.12. 89 See Mylonas (1961) 261-265, 269, 272, 282, 310-311; Nilsson (1967) 656, 661663; Richardson (1974) 24-25, 162, 165, 302-304; Burkert (1983) 286-288. 90 As Dr Maria Pavlou points out, it is interesting that the family quest is pursued in prominently public areas, by contrast to the secretive and exclusive character of the Eleusinian drǀmenon. It must be kept in mind, though, that the family’s journey is primarily a dramatic construct, a piece of theatre. The supposedly open and public places, through which the characters are shown to move, are in fact only representations of such places within the closed space of the theatrical stage and the secluded world of the dramatic fiction. Analogously, Demeter’s search for her daughter was assumed, in myth, to have been carried out in open-air territories all 88

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seek Mother’s birthplace and ultimate habitation. In the end, Daughter and Mother will be reunited, as Daughter takes the place of Mother who has become again daughter in death. Thus, the Eleusinian and the Dionysian merge in the theatrical imagery of the play.

4. General interpretation As noted in section 2, Towards Eleusis begins with an inversion of the Eleusinian myth, in that Daughter and Mother exchange their places. This kind of reversal and interchange is the fundamental structural pattern which underlies the entire plot of the play and determines the characters’ relations to each other, the development of the story, and the scenic spectacle. Matessis once said that all his creations display “the disorderliness of galaxies”; they cannot be reduced to simple patterns but reproduce the chaotic freedom and complexity of true life. 91 Towards Eleusis, however, seems different. Under the disorder of superficial manifestations, a secret harmony can be detected, an “archaic” kind of geometry, not unlike the austerely patterned decoration of archaic vases.92 This dramatic geometry emanates from a Heraclitean conception of the universe and is based on the principle of the paradoxical unity of opposites. The entire cosmos of the play is constructed in pairs of contrasting items, which are yet shown to merge into, identify with, or take the place of each other. This phenomenon can be traced in every notional and scenic register. The family relations afford the most conspicuous case. It is not only Daughter and Mother who exchange their identities. Father also assumes the role of his Daughter’s lover, and this is exactly what transforms Daughter into a mother. In an act of harmonic counterpoise, the Elder Son enters into a metaphysical marriage to Mother, thus taking the place of his Father. Both the elder and the younger brother are transformed in the finale into sons of Daughter, their former sister, as she undertakes the part of Mother. The Elder Son addresses the young heroine as “mother”, while she calls the Younger Son her “child”.93 The members of around Greece; but it would have been re-enacted within the secluded precinct of the TelestƝrion, as part of a secret pageant for the initiates’ eyes only. For Matessis as well, the dramatic spectacle (and the play Towards Eleusis in particular) functions as a kind of initiation of the spectators into a form of otherwise inexpressible reality; see below, section 4. 91 See Phostieris and Niarchos (1994) 485-486, 490. 92 Cf. Bakonikola-Georgopoulou (2000) 136; and more generally Pefanis (2005) 150. 93 Matessis (1995) 101, 108.

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this archetypical family are engaged in a maypole dance of cyclically shifting interrelations, which brings each one of them to the position of his or her antonym. Not only the personages, but also the very elements of the material world exchange places. Dead Mother, holding a miniature effigy of her house, exclaims: “From this day on, I wear a stone garment” (ਝʌȩ ıȒȝİȡĮ, ijȠȡȐȦ ȡȠ૨ȤȠ ʌȑIJȡȚȞȠ).94 Pliable cloth and hard stone become one.95 Sea and land usurp one another’s location. From her exalted otherworldly viewpoint, Mother discovers that the sea surrounds her bed in her inland village, although this is invisible to the other characters. 96 Conversely, when the family reaches the marine cemetery, Mother can no longer smell the sea; the Elder Son, who is also gifted with supernatural sight, exclaims that the sea has left its place 97 —presumably to transport itself close to Mother’s bed, where it was seen in the beginning. The boundaries between human and animal are repeatedly transgressed in the final scenes, as discussed above. Father and Elder Son transform themselves respectively into a monkey and a horse. The equivalence of man and beast is also demonstrated by another chilling spectacle. The Younger Son slaughters three men and declares that his deed is a sacrifice for Mother, which corresponds to his brother’s sacrifice of his horse.98 Animal and human prove interchangeable in this horrific funerary ritual. In the end, Mother wonders whether it would have been less sorrowful to have lived as a tree, a bird, or an ant, instead of playing a human role in the world drama— although she cannot guess how much sadness may fall to the lot of these other creatures. 99 Human being, bird, insect, plant, all are alternating options in the manifestations of the cosmos. Emotions and their expression obey the same principle. The Elder Son rings the church bell, as Mother’s funeral procession is leaving the village. But he makes it sound joyously, as though the funeral were a merry celebration; and the inhabitants swarm out in festive clothing, capering as 94

Matessis (1995) 41. Mother presumably means the rocky earth that will envelop her dead body, or the tombstone that will presently cover her, when she is put in the grave. Professor Vayos Liapis also detects a possible allusion to the myth of Niobe, who turned into stone because of her grief, after her children were slain by Apollo and Artemis. In Matessis’ script, however, the mythical pattern is reversed once again; it is the stone-clad Mother that has died, while her children are alive. 96 Matessis (1995) 34. 97 Matessis (1995) 93-95. 98 Matessis (1995) 99. 99 Matessis (1995) 109. 95

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though in a rowdy peasant festival. 100 Joy has taken the place of grief. After all, the Elder Son has compared Mother’s burial procession to a wedding trip.101 Similarly in the finale, Daughter honours her dead mother by dancing;102 mourning and festivity are merged. Not restricted in words, the meeting of opposites is visibly illustrated in the manipulation of scenic space and the operation of stage effects. After her death, Mother is lifted up by means of a crane to the upper storey of the stage; from there she will look down on the adventures of the other personages in the rest of the play. According to the mythical paradigm of the Eleusinian kathodos, Mother should be going to the subterranean region of the dead, like Persephone, who disappeared under the earth, pulled by Hades into a chasm which suddenly opened in the ground. Yet Mother’s descent is staged as an ascension, a rise upwards instead of a downward fall. The sense of direction in space is reversed. We remember of course Heraclitus (B 60, Diels-Kranz): “The way up and the way down is one and the same”.103 Similarly, at the moment of Mother’s death the stage area is bathed in strong white light, so intense that it almost sets the actress and the props ablaze. Mother’s appearance on the upper storey is also illuminated by bright light.104 Commonly, death is associated with darkness and gloom— a metaphor with a very long history in Greek language and poetry. Already in the Homeric epics, dying heroes are described as “covered by darkness”; Persephone herself descended to the obscure underworld. Even in present-day parlance, a dead or murdered person is sometimes said to be “eaten by darkness” (IJȠȞ ȑijĮȖİ IJȠ ıțȠIJȐįȚ). 105 In Mother’s case, by 100

Matessis (1995) 47-48. Matessis (1995) 33, 36. 102 Matessis (1995) 110-111. 103 As pointed out by Professor Antonis Petrides, this scene also reflects the Christian concept of Assumption to Heaven, especially the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, the emblematic mother-figure of Christianity. Indeed, images, motifs, or figures from the Christian (especially the Eastern Orthodox) tradition can be traced throughout the rich spiritual texture of Matessis’ drama. These elements are syncretised with the ancient pagan material, so as to produce a composite and idiosyncratic amalgam that aspires to encapsulate the entire diachrony of Greek culture. However, Matessis’ exploitation of Christian motifs is a very large topic and should properly be the subject of another essay. 104 Matessis (1995) 29-31. 105 For the Homeric formula, see e.g. Iliad 4.461, 11.356, 13.672, 16.325, 16.607 etc. Similar expressions are also common in later Greek poetry: see e.g. Theognis 707-708; Euripides Trojan Women 1315-1316; Bernabé and Jiménez San Cristóbal (2008) 21-22, 55. For the Modern Greek idiom, see Babiniotis (1998) 1632 (s.v. 101

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contrast, the darkness cedes to light, and the customary blackness of death is transfigured into a blinding white. By analogy, Mother’s body is later revealed to have been placed upside down inside the coffin-box; her head lies on the side where the feet should have been.106 Up is down and down is up, as death becomes a reversed mirror image of the living world. In another scene, Father instructs the Younger Son to push the carriage away from the church, which is represented in the performance by a small model of a country chapel held by an altar-boy. Instead, the young man takes the altar-boy out of the stage; and the other family members act as though they have themselves moved to some distance from the church.107 In topographical terms the result is the same, whether the chapel moves away from the people of vice versa; only the point of view changes. In a later episode, the river comes of its own accord towards the human characters.108 Opposition is only a matter of contrasted perspectives; deep down, below sensual phenomena, the essence remains identical. Especially the ghost of dead Mother perceives this secret synthesis and interchangeability of opposites. It is one of the insights she gains due to her privileged view of things from the beyond. Examining the costume she wore for the role of the pregnant woman, she cannot remember if the occasion resulted in a birth or an abortion. 109 This should not be interpreted simply as a result of the forgetfulness which overtakes a deceased soul, but points again to a deeper affinity of contrasting realities. Birth and abortion, life and death are indistinguishable from the perspective of the otherworld. In the same monologue Mother also confuses the physical senses: “I had seen a scent”, she declares (ਡȡȦȝĮ İੇȤĮ įİ૙). Sight and smell exchange places, as for the dead spirit all senses merge into one all-embracing form of (non-)perception.110 This meeting of opposites, dramatised in various forms throughout the play, seems to represent for Matessis the secret structure of the universe; it belongs to the teachings of the playwright’s Mysteries, the deeper cosmic truth into which the characters, and the audience along with them, must be initiated by undergoing the experience of this drama. Antonyms are equated, contrasted elements are unified, boundaries are transgressed, and ıțȠIJȐįȚ). 106 Matessis (1995) 66. 107 Matessis (1995) 48. 108 Matessis (1995) 75-76. 109 Matessis (1995) 49-50. 110 On this peculiar kind of synaesthetic metaphor in ancient Greek poetry, cf. Stanford (1936) 47-62; Waern (1952); Segal (1977); and Marinis (2012) with abundant further bibliography.

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everything takes the place of something else in the primeval unity of Creation. Such a vision is characteristically associated with Heraclitus, the bold and enigmatic archaic thinker who forwarded a visionary metaphysical worldview in oracular style. 111 Inevitably, Matessis connects Heraclitus with the Eleusinian doctrine and integrates the Ephesian philosopher’s paradoxes into the mythical ideology of the play. Indeed, in spite of Heraclitus’ apparent disdain for popular Mystery and orgiastic cults, 112 certain of his pronouncements seem to converge with the Eleusinian sacred teachings on life and death. 113 Interestingly, one of the greatest modern authorities on Dionysus’ cult has argued that the experience of the merging of opposites formed part of Dionysian mystic initiation. While undergoing the rite, the initiand felt to be at once dead and alive, human and animal, male and female, mortal and immortal.114 Matessis has placed the same kind of universal harmonious paradox at the heart of his Mystery play. Towards Eleusis invites spectators to share in this illuminative revelation, so that they may themselves undergo an initiatory process through the rituals of theatre. What is the significance of all these mythical and cultic paradigms for the overall interpretation of Matessis’ text? How do they contribute to the construction of dramatic meaning? In essence, the Eleusinian Mysteries imparted a profound message about death and its relationship to life. Significantly, neither immortality nor resurrection seems to have been promised; death was recognised as the ultimate, irrevocable reality. 111

On Heraclitus’ exploration of the deeper harmony of opposites, see Guthrie (1962) 435-453, 459-464; Kahn (1979) 21-23, 108-110, 150-152, 182-210, 216227, 240-241, 267-271, 276-286; Kirk, Raven and Schofield (19832) 186-193, 208210. Cf. Vayos Liapis’ chapter in this volume for a parallel exploitation of the same Heraclitean notions by Marios Pontikas. 112 See B 14-15, Diels-Kranz. 113 On Heraclitus’ links with Mystery cult and concepts, see Guthrie (1952) 226231; Thomson (1953) 79-83; Thomson (19612) 131-135, 273-275; Guthrie (1962) 415, 425, 449, 473-482; Babut (1975); Kirk, Raven and Schofield (19832) 208210; Seaford (1986) 14-20; Seaford (1994a) 227-228, 321-322. Cf. the Derveni Papyrus, col. IV 5-9 with Kouremenos, Parássoglou and Tsantsanoglou (2006) 5057, 154-161, 233-241; and see also below. 114 See Seaford (1994a) 272-275, 282-293, 395-400; Seaford (1996) 31-33, 43-44. Matessis cannot have known Seaford’s relevant books, which appeared after the completion of Towards Eleusis; and it seems unlikely that he consulted earlier articles in highly specialised classical journals [e.g. Seaford (1981), (1986)]. Sometimes, nonetheless, artists can intuitively reach an interpretative or historical insight, which “wir Philologen” might need years of research and thought to develop.

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However, the ending of life was not viewed as a frightful evil. This was the deeper essence of the Mysteries, which effected reconciliation with death and showed the dreaded divinities of the underworld in a different, friendly perspective. The death of the individual was accepted as an integral part of communal existence and was inextricably combined with the continuation of life, not on the individual level but for the generations springing from one another. Through the myth of the periodic descent and return of the Maiden, the barrier between the living and the dead was transgressed and a kind of contact was established. In Burkert’s formulation, life gained a dimension of death, and death also contained a dimension of life.115 It is at this point that the Mystery teachings intersect with the vision of Heraclitus, who famously envisaged the convergence of life and death through the interchange of mortal and immortal in his untranslatable enigmatic epigram (B 62, Diels-Kranz): ਕșȐȞĮIJȠȚ șȞȘIJȠȓ, șȞȘIJȠ੿ ਕșȐȞĮIJȠȚ, ȗ૵ȞIJİȢ IJઁȞ ਥțİȓȞȦȞ șȐȞĮIJȠȞ, IJઁȞ į੻ ਥțİȓȞȦȞ ȕȓȠȞ IJİșȞİ૵IJİȢ.116 Matessis has not missed this analogy. Towards Eleusis spells out a similar message, adapted to modern conditions and to the author’s own worldview. Death is presented as the definitive and unavoidable reality. In the Elder Son’s words, set out in his personal gospel, which he reads aloud to the expiring Mother, “death is not a myth (…) but it exists and is coming to welcome you; death is something that happens” (੒ șȐȞĮIJȠȢ įȑȞ İੇȞĮȚ ȝȪșȠȢ […] ਕȜȜȐ ਫ਼ʌȐȡȤİȚ. ȀĮȓ ਩ȡȤİIJĮȚ ȞȐ ıȑ ʌȡȠȨʌĮȞIJȒıİȚ, ıȣȝȕĮȓȞİȚ ੒ șȐȞĮIJȠȢ). 117 In front of this ultimate truth, it would be dishonest to propagate gratifying falsities about immortality or resurrection. Matessis repeatedly stated in interviews that he does not believe in an afterlife,118 and he forcefully stresses this point in his script. The Elder Son’s gospel calls the immortality of the soul “a game of hypocrisy [...] a lie they have been telling you all your life to please you” (ਫ਼ʌȠțȡȚıȓĮȢ ʌĮȚȤȞȓįȚ […] ȥȑȝĮ ȖȚȐ ȥȣȤોȢ ਕșĮȞĮıȓĮ, ਩IJıȚ ੖ʌȦȢ ੖ȜȘ ıȠȣ IJȒ ȗȦȒ ȝȑ ȥȑȝĮIJĮ ıȑ İ੝ĮȡİıIJȠ૨ıĮȞ).119 At the end, Mother, taking her place 115

On these eschatological aspects of the Eleusinian cult, see Mylonas (1961) 283; Kerényi (1967) 13-16; Nilsson (1967) 674-678; Nilsson (1972) 44, 59-64; Richardson (1974) 29, 234; Burkert (1983) 255, 261-262, 294-296; Burkert (1985) 161, 289-290; Burkert (1987) 21-24, 75, 100-101. 116 See also B 88, Diels-Kranz; Dodds (1951) 152, 173; Guthrie (1962) 464, 478479; Nilsson (1967) 694; Kahn (1979) 23, 213-227, 253-254, 270-271; Kirk, Raven and Schofield (19832) 208; Seaford (1986) 14-17; Seaford (1994a) 321, 395-396. 117 Matessis (1995) 23. 118 See e.g. Phostieris and Niarchos (1994) 490. 119 Matessis (1995) 23.

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among her deceased ancestors in the cemetery, warns them: “This much I tell you for your own good. Take care and don’t let anyone fool you into being resurrected!” (ਫı઼Ȣ ਪȞĮ ı઼Ȣ ȜȑȦ, ȖȚȐ IJȩ țĮȜȩ ıĮȢ: ȀȠȚIJ઼IJİ țĮȜȐ, ȝȒ ı઼Ȣ ȟİȖİȜȐıİȚ țĮȞİȓȢ țĮȓ ਕȞĮıIJȘșİ૙IJİ). 120 In other words: don’t be fooled by the false hopes of resurrection propounded by the established consolatory religion. Death is the only truth. But death is not something evil or frightening. It is not an enemy to be vanquished and trodden down, as advocated by official Christianity. It is rather a friend with whom we can be reconciled, as in the Eleusinian rites the underworld acquired a friendly face. Mother accepts her death with contentment: “Everything is nice. (…) I had a good time, and now I will have a better one here” (ੲȡĮ૙Į ੖ȜĮ. […] ਯ, țĮȜȐ ʌȑȡĮıĮ. ȀĮȓ țĮȜȪIJİȡĮ șȐ ʌİȡȞȐȦ IJȫȡĮ ਥį૵).121 The demise of the individual is only the reverse side of the continuation and renewal of life, emblematically represented at the finale by Daughter who becomes the new mother by keeping and rearing her child.122 By assimilating the Eleusinian story and the ancient mystic doctrines into a powerful piece of scenic writing, Matessis has striven to offer our disillusioned age a suitable metaphysical myth, founded on age-old convictions of the Greek spirit. Towards Eleusis is an almost Aeschylean venture to forge a mythical archetypical order of belief as a basis for contemporary existence. In this respect, it is a rare thing in Modern Greek theatre: an original tragedy—not a rewriting or imitation of an ancient tragic piece, but an original dramatic fiction re-enacting the prototypical tragic myth and enlivening the truest tragedy of our mortal life. This is what makes Towards Eleusis such a moving experience, whenever one reads or watches the play in the theatre. This is not to say that Matessis’ proposed worldview is easy to endorse. Ultimately, this is a matter that each reader or viewer must decide for themselves. Writing, especially the writing of tragedy, is a way to come to terms with our insurmountable fear of death—an increasingly difficult enterprise at a time of general spiritual bankruptcy and total discrediting of religious systems. Modern scholars sometimes wonder how the “secret” of the Eleusinian Mysteries could have been kept for so many centuries, given the great popularity of the rites, which attracted every year crowds of initiates from all over the Hellenic world, down to the end of antiquity.123 There is an 120

Matessis (1995) 109. Matessis (1995) 108-109. 122 Cf. Andrianou (1997) 174-177; Bakonikola-Georgopoulou (2000) 139; Pefanis (2005) 143-146. 123 See e.g. Mylonas (1961) 226-227; Burkert (1983) 252; Burkert (1985) 285; cf. Graf (1974) 6-7. 121

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explanation: the secret could not really be talked about, because it could not properly be put into words. One might of course repeat the sayings of the priests, retell the sacred myths, or describe the various ceremonies, but this did not constitute the essence of the secret. Such accounts conveyed nothing significant outside the ritual context and the emotional atmosphere of the Mystery rite. The secret could only be performed, acted out as a sacred spectacle in the holy festival before the participants. Its substance lay beyond words. Trying to describe it in common language would be literally a profanation, in that it would take something deeply beautiful and solemn and turn it into a banal anticlimax.124 Matessis has understood this vital truth, and this is perhaps the deepest meaning of his drama. Towards Eleusis is an attempt to perform again the age-old secret of the Mysteries. The dramatic spectacle, richly charged with mythical and mystic symbolisms, gradually initiates the spectators into a form of reality which cannot be expressed by other means but can only be enacted as a living drǀmenon. The author makes his audience undergo a kind of mystic catechism, a peculiar spiritual experience that transforms the crowd of viewers into a band of initiates, worthy of watching the revival of a very ancient ritual. In this respect, Matessis reconnects again with the ancient tragic playwrights, who often evoke Mystery terminology and imagery. Aeschylus was accused of divulging the secrets of Eleusis in his tragedies.125 Euripides dramatised a Dionysian initiation in his Bacchae. Matessis daringly set himself the task of bringing again this ancient form of art to modern audiences. Here lies the second important truth that Matessis has grasped. The secret was never lost. It has remained with us for all these long centuries, buried deep in the Greek soul, drifting out of conscious memory, but never eliminated. It is up to us to remember it again, using the age-old art of the theatre, another ancient creation of our land and our people. Whether we know it or not, the secret has been irrigating our spirit and fertilising our life for the entire time of our collective existence. Some would say that by now it has become instinctive.

124

Cf. Richardson (1974) 29; Burkert (1983) 252-253, 294; Burkert (1987) 9, 69, 74, 90-91. 125 Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1111a 9-10; Mylonas (1961) 227; Richardson (1974) 76. On tragedy and the Mysteries, cf. Thomson (1935); Tierney (1937); Thomson (19612) 152-153; Kerényi (1967) 84-88, 99; Seaford (1981); (1994a) 373-382, 395-405; (1994b); Lada-Richards (1999) 237, 245-254.



CHAPTER NINE CASSANDRA AND THE CENTAUR: GREEK (TRAGIC) MYTH IN MARIOS PONTIKAS’ PLAY NEIGHING VAYOS LIAPIS

The playwright and screenwriter Marios Pontikas (b. 1942) is among a handful of modern Greek authors whose work neatly falls into two distinct periods. In the earlier, longer period—from his first play in 1970 (The Panoramic View of a Night Job, Ǿ ʌĮȞȠȡĮȝȚțȒ șȑĮ ȝȚĮȢ ȞȣȤIJİȡȚȞȒȢ İȡȖĮıȓĮȢ) down to Watch Them (ȀȠȓIJĮ IJȠȣȢ) in 1990—Pontikas’ dramatic writing consistently focuses on a distinct, rather circumscribed set of themes and attitudes: namely, the life of large, if invisible, swathes of petit-bourgeois Greeks or even of the Greek Lumpenproletariat, their vacillations between compromise and insecurity, their confusion and entrapment in daily drudgery, their despair and insensitivity, their petty ambitions. It is the pathology of these social classes that Pontikas dissects mercilessly, and often satirically.1 After his 1990 play Watch Them, however, Pontikas falls silent— theatrically silent, that is. In an interview for the Sunday edition of the Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia (11 February 2001, Effie Marinou), 2 Pontikas attributed his long silence to the collapse of the social and *

This is a revised and enlarged version of an article originally published in Greek in ȁȠȖİ߿ȠȞ / Logeion 4 (2014) 321-342 as “ȉȠ ȋȜȚȝȓȞIJȡȚıȝĮ IJȠȣ ȂȐȡȚȠȣ ȆȠȞIJȓțĮ: ʌȡȫIJĮ ĮȡȤĮȚȠȖȞȦıIJȚțȐ ʌȡȠȜİȖȩȝİȞĮ” [“Marios Pontikas’ Neighing: First Antiquarian Prolegomena”]. I am grateful to Logeion’s editor-in-chief, Professor Stavros Tsitsiridis, for allowing me to use material from that paper here. I am also grateful to my co-editors Maria Pavlou and Antonis Petrides for suggestions that improved the argument. All errors are mine. 1 See Grammatas (1987) 167-168; Georgoussopoulos (1996) 12; Mavromoustakos (2005) 138, 204. 2 The interview is reprinted in Pontikas (2007) i.39.

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political certitudes that had informed his earlier dramatic output (as well as that of his contemporary playwrights): At the time [i.e., in the 1970s and 1980s], we were “sociologists”. We had all the answers, the right way. It was the time when the leftist movement promised a future. We were also a bit didactic. You could write a denunciatory play. Now, we are experiencing total confusion. We are struggling to understand this oncoming unknown—and, mark my words, this is what will produce great plays. It is confusion that gives rise to the best texts. One thing’s for sure: the certitudes of the 1960s are no longer valid. Even the ideological tools have become unreliable, up to a point. I have experienced this void.3

The Murderer of Laius and the Crows Pontikas’ long silence came to an end in 2004, when he resumed writing for the theatre to produce The Murderer of Laius and the Crows (ȅ ǻȠȜȠijȩȞȠȢ IJȠȣ ȁȐȚȠȣ țĮȚ IJĮ țȠȡȐțȚĮ),4 a play that explicitly engages with the Oedipus myth, although from a violently revisionist angle. If in his earlier output Pontikas had dissected the pathology of the lower social classes in contemporary Greece, in The Murderer of Laius he turns to the pathology of human logos instead—logos in the sense both of innate intellect and of articulate speech. The Murderer of Laius falls into two parts. In the first part, a befuddled, anonymous peasant gradually realises, or perhaps admits what he had suspected all along, namely that he may be a modern incarnation of Oedipus: that he may have shot his father dead, that he may have married his mother, and that he may have confronted the Sphinx and (as it turns out) suffered defeat rather than defeating her as his mythical forebear had done. In the second part of the play, a “Crow-Woman”, a figure that is in many ways homologous to the mythic Sphinx, announces the impending arrival of a dismal future, in which human language will give way to the inarticulate caws of crows.5 Human language, the Crow-Woman proclaims, is an arbitrary construct, which is ultimately incapable of producing meaning; it is a system of arbitrary signs, inherently isolated from any real referent and thus thereby incapable of revealing anything about reality; linguistic signs merely keep deferring meaning ad infinitum. In this 3

Translations of Greek texts are mine, unless otherwise indicated. The play premiered on 24 February 2004 at the Stoa Theatre of Athens (dir. Yannis Anastassakis). It is published in Pontikas (2007) iii.224-242. 5 Cf. Pontikas (2007) iii.236, 237, 238. 4

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respect, human language is inferior even to the elemental noises of crows, which at least have the advantage of not pretending to be meaningful.6 The fundamental mistrust in the effectiveness of human speech—indeed, the despair about the ability of human speech to communicate meaning— seems to have been part and parcel of Pontikas’ growing mistrust towards the stylised (or fossilised) dialogue techniques of conventional theatre. Here is an excerpt from a 2001 interview (Eleftheria newspaper, 26 January 2001, Dimitra Petropoulou):7 If speech [on the stage] were to be limited even further, I would be delighted. I find this classic manner extremely irritating: I talk, you talk, they talk, they reply, I talk, you talk, they talk. This never happens in real life. This stylisation is our doing, and I find it tiresome. I would like to break free from the fetters of speech—something I see happening in a good number of performances. Of course, it isn’t all that simple. I can’t just abolish speech by replacing it with movement or sounds. Theatre is speech too, but it can’t be just that.

Neighing Pontikas’ pessimistic (indeed, almost nihilistic) attitude towards human logos in The Murderer of Laius turns into something much more pervasive and fundamental in his latest play, entitled ȋȜȚȝȓȞIJȡȚıȝĮ, or Neighing. 8 Here, it is not merely human logos but humanity itself that is being violently rejected and treated with undisguised contempt. The human race, the complacently self-proclaimed “Crown of Creation”, is subjected to incessant derision, to scornful disparagement, especially by the play’s “chorus” of the three Erinyes, Megaera, Alecto, and Tisiphone. Neighing continues and extends Pontikas’ engagement with Greek tragic myth in his characteristically aggressive, deconstructive manner. To be sure, the target of Pontikas’ deconstructive aggression is not Greek 6

On the problematisation of logos in The Murderer of Laius see also Leandros Polenakis’ review in Greek daily HƝ AvgƝ (21 March 2004), reproduced in Pontikas (2007) iii.316–318. Cf. also Diamantakou-Agathou (2010) 73-74; Moundraki (2011) 140-141. 7 Reprinted in Pontikas (2007) i.39. 8 The play was written between 2007 and 2010. In its current form [Pontikas (2015)] it is a “stage triptych” (ıțȘȞȚțȩ IJȡȓʌIJȣȤȠ, according to the subtitle), but it grew out of the original one-act play Cassandra Addresses the Dead (Ǿ ȀĮııȐȞįȡĮ ĮʌİȣșȪȞİIJĮȚ ıIJȠȣȢ ȞİțȡȠȪȢ), first performed by the Attis Theatre company in Athens (11 May – 3 June 2007) and directed by Theodoros Terzopoulos.

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myth per se, but rather its conventional reading as a component of postRenaissance, post-Enlightenment Western “humanism”. In Neighing, as in The Murderer of Laius that preceded it, classical antiquity is not invoked as a quasi-transcendental authority, from which the later work supposedly draws legitimisation; classical antiquity does not validate, and does not ratify. Rather, Pontikas’ engagement with ancient Greek texts provides the starting point and the means for dangerous and often self-subversive reflection. As we shall see in detail below, Pontikas achieves this not least by experimenting with the aesthetics of post-dramatic theatre, mainly through the invasion of dramatic space by the incoherent, the inarticulate, the fragmentary, and the paradoxical (see esp. pp. 215-217 below). Thereby, Pontikas creates a visual parallel to the central themes that permeate Neighing: the negation of articulate speech, its shattering under the burden of the ineffable discourse of prophecy, and the eclipse of all the certitudes that make up our complacent, self-congratulatory perception of ourselves as supremely rational beings.

Neighing: Part I: “Cassandra: Discourse to the Dead” Neighing is set in a space that explicitly defies the attributes of conventional stage configurations by breaking free from the aesthetics of mimetic representation: it has no solid identity, nor does it offer any recognisable signposts. It is literally utopic: it is explicitly described, in the introductory stage-directions, as an ou topos, a non-place—a utopia which, however, seems decidedly dystopian. 9 It resembles Hades but is not Hades; it is populated by living people, who are nonetheless dead; it looks vaguely familiar, but is like nothing you have ever seen before. The very first words of the play, uttered by the Centaur Chiron, abruptly introduce us to this disturbing, destabilising coincidence of opposites: Somewhere around here there and everywhere light from somewhere. And darkness. Dark light. Luminous darkness. A sunless sun. Darkness shining on the sun which shines on the earth something like that.10

This appears to hark back to Sophocles’ Ajax (394-395): “O darkness, my light, | O gloom, most luminous in my eyes”. The Sophoclean hero is, nominally, still among the living (those who “see the light”, as the tragic 9

“Centaur Ch(e)iron finds himself in a non-place” [Pontikas (2015) 18; trnsl. Penny Fylaktaki]. 10 Pontikas (2015) 27.

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cliché has it); in fact, however, he is practically already a denizen of the Underworld, and his invocation of “gloom most luminous” is a prelude to his impending descent into Hades. Likewise, in Pontikas, dramatic space is a paradoxical fusion of Upper- and Underworld: CENTAUR CHIRON: Yet you wouldn’t say you are here, above. Yet you wouldn’t say you are here, below, on the other side. Even if you knew, had seen, words couldn’t say—that this is Hades.11

Of course, the coexistence of opposites in a state of perennial flux is very much a Heraclitean idea. There can be no doubt that Pontikas here deliberately appropriates Heraclitus: his Centaur practically quotes Heraclitus’ famous fragment 60 D-K: “The way up and the way down are one. And the same”.12 The paradoxical, fluid nature of the landscape in which Neighing is enacted is described most explicitly by the Centaur: Nor are persons what that word signifies. Nor are they phantoms.13 Also, they are not shadows. Still, you can recognise. Him, her, the next one—as though you’re alive, as though they’re alive. As though they’re alive and they’re dead, but alive. Something like that. Nor are they dead. Living dead, something like this, you might put it this way: you’re already dead while still alive, you don’t know, you wouldn’t swear by it, you’re alive but you don’t know—that you’re dead. It’s complicated, you’re dead but you don’t know—that you’re alive.14

The idea that life and death interpenetrate, and coexist with each other is, once again, derived ultimately from Heraclitus: fr. 62, Diels–Kranz: ਝșȐȞĮIJȠȚ șȞȘIJȠȓ, șȞȘIJȠ੿ ਕșȐȞĮIJȠȚ, ȗ૵ȞIJİȢ IJઁȞ ਥțİȓȞȦȞ șȐȞĮIJȠȞ, IJઁȞ į੻ ਥțİȓȞȦȞ ȕȓȠȞ IJİșȞİ૵IJİȢ, “Immortals mortal, mortals immortal, living the others’ death, dead in the others’ lives”. fr. 26, D–K: ਡȞșȡȦʌȠȢ ਥȞ İ੝ijȡȩȞૉ ijȐȠȢ ਚʌIJİIJĮȚ ਦĮȣIJ૶ ਕʌȠıȕİıșİ੿Ȣ ੕ȥİȚȢ ȗ૵Ȟ į੻ ਚʌIJİIJĮȚ IJİșȞİ૵IJȠȢ İ੢įȦȞ, ਥȖȡȘȖȠȡઅȢ ਚʌIJİIJĮȚ İ੢įȠȞIJȠȢ, “At night, man strikes a light for himself when his vision is extinguished; when alive, he is in touch with the dead in his sleep; when awake, he is in touch with the sleeping”. 11

Pontikas (2015) 27. Pontikas (2015) 29: “ȠįȩȢ ȐȞȦ țĮȚ țȐIJȦ ȝȓĮ. ȀĮȚ ĮȣIJȒ”. The Heraclitean fragment is only slightly different: ੒įઁȢ ਙȞȦ țȐIJȦ ȝȓĮ țĮ੿ ੪ȣIJȒ. 13 The word used by Pontikas here is İȓįȦȜĮ, which seems to allude to the Homeric İ੅įȦȜĮ țĮȝȩȞIJȦȞ, “images of the dead”, i.e. the shadows of the dead in Hades. 14 Pontikas (2015) 27. 12

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After a brief interlude, in which the three Erinyes take turns reciting, with manifest glee, snippets from Hamlet’s “What a piece of work is a man!” monologue (Hamlet Act 2, sc. 2), 15 Cassandra enters the play’s space. Immediately, we are confronted with a prophetess struggling to express the inexpressible, to utter the unutterable. Her discourse is manifestly ecstatic and extravagantly disjointed: she delivers a delirious monologue that verges on the edge of the abyss—the abyss of non-language—, just as her Aeschylean forebear in Agamemnon had broken out of her long silence with a resounding, inarticulate cry: ototototoi popoi da (Aesch. Agam. 1072 = 1076). Typically an agent of authoritative discourse, Cassandra the prophetess is now reduced almost to inarticulacy. Ultimately, Cassandra will come to renounce her prophetic gift by trampling and spitting on her mantic insignia, just as her Aeschylean forebear had done in Agamemnon: How am I now to utter the unutterable, hapless that I am? In what unfound words am I to put it? Should I say: fetuses will devour fetuses in battlefield wombs? In laboratory wombs, should I say? Why then am I wearing these scepters and these mantic wreaths, for people to laugh at me? Get lost, you, down with you, that’s what you deserve, I trample on you, spit on you in anger and contempt. I don’t want your words, Apollo. Let an inarticulate discourse be heard. The words you gave me are a trap: I don’t need them and I despise them. Let an inarticulate, unutterable discourse be heard, then! Terrible reminiscence of mine, voice of a swallow, don’t let yourself be heard, don’t take my voice, I’d rather have my tongue twisted a thousand times, and untwisted a thousand more, and have it crawl, and keep crawling until it breathes its last, if ever in words I speak again, I, man– Cassandra.16

As if to point to her literary origins in the Aeschylean Cassandra, Pontikas’ Cassandra incorporates snippets of her ancient forerunner’s discourse: “Why then am I wearing these scepters and these mantic wreaths, for

15

Pontikas (2015) 29: “MEGAERA: What a piece of work is a man! TISIPHONE: How noble in reason! ALECTO: In action how like an angel! TISIPHONE: In apprehension how like a god! MEGAERA: The beauty of the world! ALECTO: The paragon of animals! TISIPHONE: Yet, man delights not me!” 16 Pontikas (2015) 35.

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people to laugh at me?” is a quotation, in translation, of lines 1264-1265 from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon:17 IJȓ įોIJ’ ਥȝĮȣIJોȢ țĮIJĮȖȑȜȦIJ’ ਩ȤȦ IJȐįİ, | țĮ੿ ıțોʌIJȡĮ țĮ੿ ȝĮȞIJİ૙Į ʌİȡ੿ įȑȡૉ ıIJȑijȘ; Why then do I bear these mockeries of myself, this wand, these prophetic chaplets on my neck? (trnsl. H. W. Smyth)

Likewise, her reference to the “terrible remembrance of mine, voice of a swallow” is indeed a “remembrance”, a reminiscence of Clytemnestra’s comment on Cassandra’s long silence in Agamemnon 1050-1051: ਕȜȜ’ İ੅ʌİȡ ਥıIJ੿ ȝ੽ ȤİȜȚįȩȞȠȢ įȓțȘȞ | ਕȖȞ૵IJĮ ijȦȞ੽Ȟ ȕȐȡȕĮȡȠȞ țİțIJȘȝȑȞȘ…, “Well, if her language is not strange and foreign, even as a swallow’s…” (trnsl. H. W. Smyth). In the climax of her monologue, Pontikas’ Cassandra comes full circle back to her Aeschylean forebear, by adopting, often verbatim, the latter’s delirious cries as she is being invaded by Apollo’s prophesying ecstasy, and as her power of speech is being reduced to halfarticulate utterances (since, after all, her prophetic speech had been, in myth, characteristically ineffectual): “You, dead ones, take the trouble to guess, a birth of horrendous sounds is in the works iou iou kaka papai hoion to pur eperkhetai alalalalalaaaalala…” Cassandra’s inarticulate (though affectively charged) cries here reproduce those of her Aeschylean counterpart (Agam. 1214, 1256-1257): ੁȠઃ ੁȠȪ, ੫ ੫ țĮțȐ [...] ʌĮʌĮ૙ǜ ȠੈȠȞ IJઁ ʌ૨ȡ ਥʌȑȡȤİIJĮȚ [...] ੑIJȠIJȠ૙, ȁȪțİȚ’ ਡʌȠȜȜȠȞǜ Ƞ੃ ’Ȗઅ ’Ȗȫ Ah, ah! Oh, oh, the agony! […] Oh, oh! What fire! It comes upon me! Woe, woe! Lycean Apollo! Ah me, ah me! (trnsl. H. W. Smyth)

The collapse of articulate speech under the crushing weight of the unutterable discourse of prophecy acquires a chillingly physical dimension in a harrowing narrative in which Cassandra describes how the tongues of such legendary prophets as Amphiaraus and Calchas cut themselves off: And then famed Amphiaraus says, “Cassandra, anthropomorphic daughter of Hecuba and Priam, your utterings will reach the tip of your tongue, and your tongue will stretch out to catch them, but they’ll escape and come 17

The quotation is signalled in a footnote in Pontikas (2015) 35.

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crashing down into your entrails, and your tongue will roll back trying to plunge in there in case it might get hold of them, and the same thing all over again, and all that effort will make your tongue to come off”, said Amphiaraus, looking at me sadly. And then I notice—listen to me—their tongues become unstuck, hang out, wriggle among the daffodils, only Manto still has her tongue, Calchas’ tongue hangs out, blood trickling through his sparse teeth.18

The gory imagery of Cassandra’s vision is balanced, at the end of this first part of Neighing, by yet another disturbingly physical image, now described by the Centaur: The birth of the unutterable begins. A futile childbirth, I’m afraid. Breath. An effort to breath. Great difficulty. Sandbags pushed in and then pushed out again. They trail slowly in the breast, and the revolving door gets stuck. Grating sand trickling out of pierced bags.19

The meaning of this dark childbirth remains ambiguous until the end, in line with the play’s overarching ambiguity between the utterable and the unutterable. What does come across clearly are the Erinyes’ jeering comments on the intellectual pretensions of the human race. Man, they proclaim, is “a self-glorifying mindless mind”, “a deviser of blind hopes”, and “an inventor of enlightenments”. 20 These deprecations will be expanded into a full-fledged castigation of Enlightenment ideology in the second part of Neighing.

Neighing, Part II: “Centaur Ch(e)iron: Abasement” In this part, the post-dramatic aesthetics of fragmentation take on a grotesquely visual aspect: we see a literally fragmented Centaur Chiron crawling onstage, his horse half having run away, leaving his human torso behind, as a sorry remnant of his former fullness. (Significantly, the Greek for “horse”, alogo, originally meant “non-rational”: Chiron’s mutilation is a direct result of his disastrous separation from his “non-rational” half.) Adding insult to injury, the “Greek chorus” of Erinyes offer sarcastic comments: “An outstanding humanist once, a fervent ideologue”,21 they say, Chiron used to embody a “Promethean” (i.e., smugly triumphant) belief in Enlightenment-style human progress and self-improvement. (Here 18

Pontikas (2015) 33. Pontikas (2015) 39-41. 20 Pontikas (2015) 39. 21 Pontikas (2015) 47. 19

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Pontikas seems to capitalise on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s image of Prometheus as “Nous”, or “Mind”, as an abstract force of Reason instilling into human beings the unalterable and self-multiplying fire of theoretic and practical rationality.) 22 Now, however, his mutilated body—“a sad … remnant, in a crimson stain that spreads and congeals slowly, without congealing”23—is a palpable sign of the pathology of human logocentrism. Resisting Chiron’s pleas for mercy, the Erinyes continue sardonically to compare the Centaur with Prometheus, that “so-called benefactor of humanity”, that “industrialist of hopes”. 24 Still, as the Erinyes remark, even Prometheus had to admit, in the end, that his principal achievement consisted in “causing blind hopes to dwell in the breasts of people”: ALECTO: […] that so-called benefactor of humanity, the renowned Prometheus, that is, the industrialist of hopes, when he was still fettered on a rock in the middle of bloody nowhere, in the back of beyond, with an eagle feasting on his liver, and his liver growing back again, “Blind hopes did I plant in men”, the industrialist suddenly shouts, blind, which is to say that no hope can see its future, only its own promises, nothing more, can’t see beyond its nose, it’s bat-blind, can’t see […].25

22

Coleridge’s interpretation of the Prometheus myth was presented in a lecture entitled “On the Prometheus of Aeschylus” before the Royal Society of Literature in London (May 1825); see Podlecki (2005) 56-57. In Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Prometheus, or the poet’s forethought” (1858), Prometheus is the prototype of those enlightened humans who “Hold aloft their torches lighted, | Gleaming through the realms benighted, | As they onward bear their message” [Podlecki (2005) 58]. Podlecki [(2005) 41-68] gives a concise but extremely informative overview of the reception of the Prometheus myth in literature and the arts; for more extensive treatments see, e.g., Raggio (1958); ‫ދ‬Awaঌ (1963); Kreitzer (1994); Trousson (20013). 23 Pontikas (2015) 49. 24 My co-editor Dr Maria Pavlou reminds me that, in Greek myth, Chiron’s immortality was transferred to Prometheus (Apollodorus 2.5.4, 11), so that the former might find, in death, release from his unbearable pains. Interestingly, as will be seen immediately below, Pontikas’ association of Prometheus and Chiron focuses on their pandering to people’s desire for immortality. 25 Pontikas (2015) 51.

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The transparent allusion to Prometheus Bound 250-253 is explicitly acknowledged, both in the italicised quotation and in a footnote by Pontikas:26 ȆȇȅȂǾĬǼȊȈ: șȞȘIJȠȪȢ Ȗ’ ਩ʌĮȣıĮ ȝ੽ ʌȡȠįȑȡțİıșĮȚ ȝȩȡȠȞ. ȋȅȇȅȈ: IJઁ ʌȠ૙ȠȞ İਫ਼ȡઅȞ IJોıįİ ijȐȡȝĮțȠȞ ȞȩıȠȣ; Ȇȇ. IJȣijȜ੹Ȣ ਥȞ Į੝IJȠ૙Ȣ ਥȜʌȓįĮȢ țĮIJ૴țȚıĮ. ȋȅ. ȝȑȖ’ ੩ijȑȜȘȝĮ IJȠ૨IJ’ ਥįȦȡȒıȦ ȕȡȠIJȠ૙Ȣ. PROMETHEUS: Yes, I caused mortals to cease foreseeing their doom. CHORUS: Of what sort was the cure that you found for this affliction? PR. I caused blind hopes to dwell within their breasts. CH. A great benefit was this you gave to mortals. (trnsl. H. W. Smyth)

In a striking departure from his mythical image as a benefactor of humanity, Prometheus is here implicitly denounced as a “promoter”, “a middleman of hopes”,27 in essence a self-proclaimed Messiah dangling in front of clueless humans the hope of resurrection. 28 In the Prometheus Bound, the blindness of hopes is cast in a benign light: blind hopes prevent mortals from “foreseeing their doom”; although they do not cancel death, they at least mitigate the agony of its painful anticipation. By contrast, in Pontikas the blindness of hopes is a woe to be deplored: hope for immortality, or resurrection, is but a bait to lure mortals into surrendering themselves to the “slaughtering machine” that “recycles dead meat”:29 TISIPHONE: The product is back on the market, buy a hope, try another one, swallow hopes, generous doses of hope, rampant and unbridled is the merciful one,

26

Pontikas (2015) 53. Pontikas (2015) 57. The words are applied to Chiron, but are equally applicable to his prototype, Prometheus. 28 In the Marxist Greek poet Kostas Varnalis’ poetic drama The Light That Burns (ȉȠ ijȦȢ ʌȠȣ țĮȓİȚ), Prometheus, nailed on Caucasus, is juxtaposed to Jesus, crucified on Golgotha, and both of them are exposed as false Messiahs by the character of Momus (“Reproach”), who taunts them for consolidating the power of the ruling classes. See Varnalis (1956) 11-53. 29 Pontikas (2015) 31 (Cassandra’s words in the first part of Neighing). 27

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As its title indicates, the second part of Neighing enacts Chiron’s humiliation. The Centaur repents, and abases himself begging for mercy and forgiveness. He renounces his human nature and his messianic aspirations (“I no longer wish to save. I no longer wish to enlighten”),32 and espouses the denial of all hope—he who had been denounced as “the drug-pusher of hopes”: I am now properly in despair. I’m going to enjoy my despair. [. . .] I let myself be conquered by my despair, deep breaths, and I breath it in, me and it, the two of us, I’m sick of blind hopes, they’ve seduced me and I’ve seduced them [. . .] Despair, I persecuted it so doggedly, a ceaseless persecution, I fought against it mercilessly, rampant fool that I was, I went after it tirelessly, so I would no longer see it, so I would avoid its look, so it wouldn’t have time to address me, so it wouldn’t say a word about my mistakes, so that “wisdom from suffering” (pathei mathos) wouldn’t be heard.33

In the last line, the verbatim quotation from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (177178 IJઁȞ ʌȐșİȚ ȝȐșȠȢ | șȑȞIJĮ țȣȡȓȦȢ ਩ȤİȚȞ) shifts the emphasis from the 30

Cf. Jesus’ words in Matth. 8:34 “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me”. This is a transparent allusion to both Prometheus’ and Chiron’s faux-messianic pretensions. 31 Pontikas (2015) 57. 32 Pontikas (2015) 61. 33 Pontikas (2015) 61-63.

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conceited “Promethean” knowledge of the earlier part to knowledge as the result of a lived, painful, even catastrophic experience. Knowledge is no longer a means to, and an indicator of, (sham) progress and (spurious) selfimprovement: it is rather an end unto itself—and far from being a guarantee of unclouded happiness, it is the culmination of a long process of suffering. In Aeschylus’ words, it is “Zeus who sets mortals on the path to understanding, Zeus, who has established as a fixed law that ‘wisdom comes by suffering’”.34 Echoes from the Oresteia continue to inform the latter portion of the second part of Neighing, especially in the climactic scene in which Pontikas’ Erinyes re-enact, in condensed form, the ੢ȝȞȠȢ įȑıȝȚȠȢ, the “binding song” that their counterparts sing and dance in Aeschylus’ Eumenides: ALECTO: For this one here, who whines playing the victim, this song, frantic, it drives people out of their wits, frenzied, the Hymn of the Erinyes, a song without a lyre, binding the mind, causing humans to wither away, no glory no fame no title when we rush forth, clad in black, stomping our feet, the mind goes blank it crashes—35

The first five lines paraphrase the first ephymnion from the first stasimon of Eumenides (328-333 = 341-346): ਩ʌȚ į੻ IJ૶ IJİșȣȝȑȞ૳ IJȩįİ ȝȑȜȠȢ, ʌĮȡĮțȠʌȐ, ʌĮȡĮijȠȡȐ, ijȡİȞȠįĮȜ੽Ȣ ੢ȝȞȠȢ ਥȟ ਫȡȚȞȪȦȞ, įȑıȝȚȠȢ ijȡİȞ૵Ȟ, ਕijȩȡȝȚȖțIJȠȢ, Įਫ਼ȠȞ੹ ȕȡȠIJȠ૙Ȣ This is our song over the sacrificial victim—frenzied, maddened, destroying the mind, the Furies’ hymn, a spell to bind the soul, not tuned to the lyre, withering the life of mortals (trnsl. H. W. Smyth) 34 35

Agamemnon 176-178; trnsl. H. W. Smyth. Pontikas (2015) 65.

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The rest of Alecto’s song synopsises the third strophe, the third ephymnion and the third antistrophe of the same Eumenides stasimon (367-380): įȩȟĮȚ į’ ਕȞįȡ૵Ȟ țĮ੿ ȝȐȜ’ ਫ਼ʌ’ ĮੁșȑȡȚ ıİȝȞĮ੿ IJĮțȩȝİȞĮȚ țĮIJ੹ Ȗ઼Ȟ ȝȚȞȪșȠȣıȚȞ ਙIJȚȝȠȚ ਖȝİIJȑȡĮȚȢ ਥijȩįȠȚȢ ȝİȜĮȞİȓȝȠıȚȞ ੑȡȤȘıȝȠ૙Ȣ IJ’ ਥʌȚijȩȞȠȚȢ ʌȠįȩȢ And men’s thoughts, very proud under the sky, waste away and dwindle in dishonour beneath the earth, at our attack in black robes and the vindictive dance of our feet. (trnsl. H. W. Smyth)

This second part of Neighing concludes with repeated and successive references to the Erinyes’ deleterious effect on the human mind, which is thus thrown into irrevocable disintegration, in tandem with the disintegration of speech into inarticulacy—as suggested by the incomplete last line of Alecto’s monologue (“the mind goes blank it crashes—”). It is no coincidence that Chiron’s earlier monologue, too, had concluded with a violent renunciation of language—except that Chiron had resorted not to Aeschylus but to Beckett: “That’s right, wordshit, bury me, avalanche, and let there be no more talk”.36 Utter and complete silence is the Centaur’s last and only refuge. He promises to descend “into the innermost sanctum of silence”,37 and adds that should he ever come across his horse half he would address it not by speaking but by neighing. Both Cassandra’s inarticulate cries and Chiron’s neighing are two sides of the same coin: the bankruptcy, the disintegration, and the ultimate failure of logos and logocentrism.

Neighing, Part III: “The Persistence of Silence: Epilogue” The third, extremely short part of the triptych is mainly a synopsis of the themes that have permeated Neighing. The Erinyes question the sincerity of the Centaur’s repentance and self-abasement, and foretell that he will not be able to stay away from speech for very long. For in order to do so, he will also have to renounce thought—“something difficult for an 36

Pontikas (2015) 65. The quotation is from Samuel Beckett’s Texts for Nothing no. 9 [Beckett (1967) 118]: “That’s right, wordshit, bury me, avalanche, and let there be no more talk of any creature, nor of a world to leave, nor of a world to reach, in order to have done, with worlds, with creatures, with words, with misery, misery”. 37 Pontikas (2015) 63.

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intellectual”38 like him. In other words, Centaur has worked himself into a corner, or into a vicious circle, from which he cannot disentangle himself: he is condemned perennially to fight speech, trying to annihilate it, but will keep coming back to it—“over and over again, like a newborn”.39 For the time being, however, as the final stage directions put it, the Centaur “enters into Cassandra’s inarticulate discourse, until his tongue is cut off. He has become Cassandra”. 40 Indeed, Chiron’s assimilation to Cassandra’s inarticulacy is sealed with his final cry, which concludes the play: Alalalaliouioupapailllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Neighing as Post-Dramatic Theatre: Preliminary Remarks As has been intimated above, Neighing represents an important landmark in Pontikas’ gradual approach to the aesthetics of post-dramatic theatre— an approach whose origins may be traced, perhaps, in the mid-1990s, when Pontikas first becomes conversant with Heiner Müller. 41 A few points of contact between Neighing and post-dramatic aesthetics may be mentioned here, as starting points for future discussions: x In its use of a non-conventional, non-identifiable stage space, Neighing expressly foregoes representative aesthetics in favour of a post-dramatic idiom that pushes the limits of drama beyond mimesis.42 x Neighing aggressively moves away from the unified, well-wrought coherence of conventional drama to espouse fragmentation, lack of cohesion, and disconnectedness.43 Fragmentation is even physically embodied in Chiron’s hybrid body and in its subsequent bisection. x Leaving well behind it the “closed form” type of drama, which Pontikas had practiced in the earlier part of his career, Neighing espouses the post-dramatic exploration of incertitude, non-clarity, 38

Pontikas (2015) 71. Pontikas (2015) 71-72. 40 Pontikas (2015) 73. 41 See Pontikas (1996) 61, 65. On Heiner Müller as an emblematic author of postdramatic theatre see Lehmann (2006) 26-27, 32, 113-114, 123, 147; cf. also Kalb (2001). Especially on Müller’s experimental construction of scenic space as against traditional stagecraft see Fuchs (1996) 98, 105-106, 136-138. 42 On the renunciation of representationism in post-dramatic theatre see Lehmann (2006) 22, 37, 127; Sugiera (2004) 21. 43 On the aesthetics of fragmentation in post-dramatic theatre see Lehmann (2006) 82-83, 86-87; Sugiera (2004) 24. 39

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ambiguity, and paradox.44 Characteristically, this takes the form of quotations of Heraclitean fragments, in which the paradoxical “coincidence of opposites” is affirmed and celebrated. x Whereas in conventional theatre visuality is subsumed to the dominance of the spoken word, in post-dramatic theatre the visual breaks free from the fetters of logocentrism and follows a course of autonomous development. The sequence, the distribution and the condensation of stage signs becomes a fundamental component of drama, and the physical aspect of performance is no longer merely a vehicle for the dramatic text.45 A peculiarity of Neighing is that it replaces post-dramatic theatre’s emphasis on the visual by a (perhaps homologous) emphasis on the aural (an emphasis already evident in its very title). In his author’s note at the end of Neighing, Pontikas insists that his play’s soundscape consists not only of the characters’ articulate speech but also of “a symphony of sounds”, of “both inarticulate and articulate speech, often in whispers, of moans, cries, sobs, shrieks”.46 Neighing is a programmatically polyphonic artifact, which resists the temptation of an ordered, unified construction, and deliberately ventures into an exploration of a multitude of potential meanings, none of which is prioritised, so that the text manifestly refrains from any claims of ideological hegemony.47 In view of its avoidance of any sort of hegemonic discourse, it may seem inconsistent that Neighing repeatedly resorts to emblematic, foundational texts of classical antiquity—notably Greek tragedy and Heraclitus. Authors and intellectuals, especially those comfortably ensconced in post-Renaissance or post-Enlightenment traditions, have time and again turned to Greek antiquity with a view to enlisting its authority in order to bolster the validity of their own politics (in the broadest sense of the term) and to legitimate their own claims to canonicity. The authority of the classic can easily be turned into a hegemonic tool, by predetermining the actualisation of a modern work, at the point of reception, as a structure based on specific ordering principles, on an (often implicit) set of underlying, self-legitimising assumptions. In Neighing, however, Pontikas resists and even challenges this politics of appropriation. If he enlists the intertextual medium of Greek tragedy, it is in order to subvert it—or at 44

See Lehmann (2006) 85. See Lehmann (2006) 89-94 (esp. 93-94), 95-97. 46 Pontikas (2015) 73. 47 Cf. Sugiera (2004) 20. 45

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least in order to subvert the specious if time-honoured usurpation of Greek tragedy and tragic myth as the foundation of Western-style humanism— that hoary mantra, which discussions of classical antiquity (and its reception) so often fall back to, and which has become so vague as to be essentially meaningless. By violently questioning logocentrism, by ceaselessly lampooning the self-perpetuating, vapid and stereotyped “humanist” approaches to antiquity, Pontikas launches a frontal assault against a deep-rooted Western tradition; if his deconstructing enterprise appears nihilistic or cynical, it has at least the advantage of shaking us out of our smug certainties and lazy assumptions.



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GENERAL INDEX

absurdity, 85, 86, 97, 99 acculturation, 48, 135 Achilles, 17, 19, 22, 63, 66, 74, 75, 76, 77, 82, 84, 91 adaptation(s), 2, 4, 10, 11, 123, 124, 144 Aegisthus, 128, 152-162, 167 Aeschylus, 4, 5, 6, 8, 27, 31, 67, 102-121, 126, 127, 132, 133, 134, 140, 141, 149, 150, 152, 153-156, 161, 163, 170, 201, 207, 208, 210, 212, 213, 214 Agamemnon, 4, 27, 127, 150, 155, 161, 207, 208, 212-213 Eumenides, 213, 214 Libation Bearers, 161 Oresteia, 4, 8, 127, 132, 133, 134, 140, 155, 160, 161, 171, 213 Persians, 104, 108, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 119, 120 Prometheus Bound, 211 Supplices, 31 aesthetics, 8, 24, 109, 128, 205, 209, 215 Agamemnon, 66, 126, 128, 145163, 170, 188 Ajax, 55, 66, 146, 173, 188 Andromache, 7, 123, 125, 126 Angelopoulos, Theodoros The Travelling Players, 167, 170 anguish. See Sartre Anouilh, Jean Antigone, 6, 39, 44, 46 Antigone, 4, 6, 39-46, 52, 57, 58, 61, 125, 173 appropriation, 5, 10, 17, 37, 41, 120, 166, 216

Aristophanes, 3, 113, 143, 144, 169 Acharnians, 109 Birds, 135, 143, 186 Clouds, 109 Frogs, 108, 109, 171 Atreids, 7, 58, 129, 135, 136, 141, 159, 160, 162, 163, 166, 167, 170, 173 audience, 11, 49, 122, 123, 125, 126, 129, 130, 131, 135, 154, 165, 166, 180, 197, 201 Austin, John. See speech-act Bacchants, 26, 32, 34 Bacchic, 35, 189, 190 bad faith. See Sartre bakchos, 189 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 23 chronotope, 23 Barthes, Roland, 49 Beauvoir, Simone de, 39, 48, 50 Beckett, Samuel, 214 being-for-itself. See Sartre being-for-others. See Sartre being-in-itself. See Sartre Bien, Peter, 63 body, 20, 22, 23, 48, 49, 50, 53, 56, 60, 61, 69, 90, 117, 118, 153, 174, 176, 179, 187, 190, 196, 210, 215 Bountoures, Vassilis The Other Medea, 130 Brecht, Bertolt, 41, 43, 59, 61, 166 alienation effect, 61 distancing technique, 166 Butler, Judith, 43, 48, 49, 50, 51, 54, 56, 61 Antigone's Claim, 61

Debating with the Eumenides Cacoyannis, Michael Electra, 127, 144 Calchas, 147, 208, 209 Calypso, 14 Camus, Albert, 65 and the absurd, 86 Carlson, Marvin, 124 Cassandra, 8, 154, 205-209, 214, 215 Cavafy, C. P., 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 1524, 102, 104 "Young men of Sidon, 400 AD", 107 and Homer, 10, 19-20 Archive, 16 censorship, 39, 55-56, 133, 137, 139 Centaur Chiron, 8, 205, 206, 209-215 Nessus, 95 Charalambides, Kyriakos "Aeschylus son of Euphorion’s Valour", 103, 104, 105-110 "Dialogue of the Melians", 103 "Knowledge of history", 104 "Palinody", 103 "Sappho in Leucas", 103 "Studius dei ਥȞ įȪıİȚ", 104 "The Glasswork of the Sultans", 103, 104, 110-117, 120 "ȈȣȞIJȣȤȚȐ", 104 and the "tragic feeling", 116, 117, 120 Coast of the Achaeans, 117 Famagusta, Reigning City, 117 historiomyth(s)/historiomythical, 103, 116, 117 The Dome, 117 chorus, 26, 28, 31, 32, 35, 109, 134, 150, 154, 159, 161, 186, 204, 209 Christianity, 196, 200 Virgin Mary, 42, 114, 196 Chrysothemis, 42 classical, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 13, 18, 24, 102, 123, 124, 125, 127, 135, 136, 139, 144, 150, 160, 163,

245

165, 166, 167, 171, 172, 183, 188, 198, 205, 216, 217 Clytemnestra, 4, 7, 66, 123, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 134, 137, 139, 141, 142, 145-163, 148, 163, 167, 170, 173, 208 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 210 comedy, 192 Aristophanic, 113, 143, 169-170, 172 New, 104 Constantine II, King of the Greeks, 163 conversation(s), 6, 8, 10, 17, 21, 22, 70, 102 Creon, 42, 43, 53, 55, 56, 57, 60 cross-dressing, 51 crown of creation, 8, 204 Cybele, 183 Dante, 16 debate, 1, 6, 12, 24, 43, 56, 104, 120, 121, 132, 143, 165 Demeter, 8, 36, 171-180, 182-183, 184, 189, 191, 193 Demophon, 179, 180, 190, 191 Demou, Akis, 125, 126 Andromache or Woman's landscape in the height of night, 125 demythologisation, 132, 166 Derrida, Jacques, 46, 51, 54 dialogue(s), 2, 5, 10, 12, 15, 23, 24, 44, 60, 65, 67, 102, 103, 119, 122, 126, 127, 175, 204 "contrarian", 103, 104, 113, 120, 121 Dionysus, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35, 37, 38, 174, 183, 188-192, 198 discourse, 47, 118, 127, 205, 207208, 215 hegemonic, 216 philosophical, 46 psychoanalytic, 46 religious, 57 dissonance, 24 drag, 51, 53, 57

246

General Index

Electra, 4, 42, 55, 125, 126, 129, 153, 155-160, 162, 170, 173 Eleusinian Mysteries, 171-183, 189, 193, 194, 196, 198, 200 Eleusis, 172, 176, 177, 179, 181, 183, 189, 193, 201 Eliade, Mircea, 62 Erinyes, 8, 159, 204, 207, 209, 210, 213, 214 Eteocles, 58 Euripides, 4, 6, 26, 27-35, 125, 126, 132, 170, 173, 174, 182 Bacchae, 26, 27, 28, 30, 33, 34, 35, 174, 190, 201 Electra, 157 Helen, 29, 173, 182 Iphigenia at Aulis, 140, 147, 150 Trojan Women, 125, 196 existential freedom. See Sartre existentialism, 7, 58, 77, 86, 90 Kierkegaard, 65 Ritsos, 7, 65, 66, 70, 71, 89 Sartre, 72 fatalism/fatality, 58, 61 Faulkner, William, 171 As I Lay Dying, 8, 171 The Sound and the Fury, 171 femininity, 6, 42, 44, 46, 47, 49, 50, 53, 56, 151 Foucault, Michel, 46, 50, 55, 56 Frederica, Queen of the Greeks, 7, 142, 163, 164 Furies. See Erinyes gender, 48-51, 54, 58, 62 gephyrismoi, 179 glancing/glance, 9, 10, 15, 22, 24, 102, 104 Gorky, Maxim The Mother, 42 Grady, Henry, 164 Great Mysteries. See Eleusinian Mysteries Guthenke, Constanze, 24 Hades, 84, 172, 175, 188, 196, 205, 206 Haemon, 45, 52, 59, 60

Hall, Edith, 133, 134 Hall, Peter Oresteia, 134 Hector, 19, 20, 22, 125 Hegel, Georg, W.F., 42, 50 Heracles, 67, 94-98, 178 Heraclitus, 196-199, 206, 216 Herodotus, 104, 113, 150, 173 Hierophant, 177, 180, 181 historiomyth(s)/historiomythical. See Charalambides Hofmannsthal, Hugo von Electra, 169 Homer and Irish poets, 13, 22 Iliad, 16-20, 22 Odyssey, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20 Homeric, 20, 84 "ghost", 13 ante-text, 19 narrative, 14 poetry, 9, 10, 19, 23, 196 themes, 19 Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 172, 179, 180 hubris/hubristic, 45, 113-119, 155, 165 humanism, 205, 209, 217 Iakchos, 189 Iambe, 179 identity, 3, 20, 41, 43, 48, 49, 53, 54, 62, 64, 89, 109, 181, 190, 205 ideology, 63, 108, 128, 144, 165, 168, 198, 209 influence(s), 5, 6, 10, 17, 38, 96, 99, 102, 116, 125, 140, 142, 144, 150, 171, 183 interaction(s), 10, 11, 102 intertext / intertextual / intertextuality, 5, 9, 13, 41, 45, 63, 102, 116, 118, 120, 125, 126, 127, 130, 171, 216 Iphigenia, 126-128, 145-150, 154, 162 Ireland / Irish, 3, 5, 13, 22, 102

Debating with the Eumenides Irigaray, Luce, 43, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 54 Ismene, 40-49, 52-58, 60 Kambanellis, Iakovos, 126, 127 Letter to Orestes, 127 The Supper, 126, 173 Kavanagh, Patrick, 14 Kierkegaard, Søren, 65 "leap of faith", 83 aesthete, 76 kissos (“ivy”), 37 kistƝ, 176-177 Koun, Karolos Birds, 135, 143-144 Theatro TechnƝs, 4, 44, 134 Krikos-Davis, Katerina, 35 Kristeva, Julia, 50 "abjection", 44 Kyriaki, Maria Medea-De Profundis, 130 Lacan, Jacques, 46, 47, 50 Lambrakis, Grigoris, 142 Leivaditis, Tassos, 66 Lemnos, 67, 68, 69, 71, 85, 89, 92, 96, 101 logocentrism, 8, 210, 214, 216, 217 Logos/logos, 8, 46, 54, 109, 187, 203, 204, 214 Longley, Michael, 5, 13, 14, 20-24 Mackridge, Peter, 9 Mahon, Derek, 5, 13-15, 20-24, 102 "Alexandria", 15 "Calypso", 13 "Ithaca", 14 Margariti, Anna-Maria Backstage, 128 mask(s), 6, 40, 47, 50, 52, 60, 61, 62, 65, 84, 88, 96, 99, 101 masquerade, 46-47, 50, 55, 60, 61, 62, 73 Matessis, Pavlos, 169 Exile, 170 The Roar, 170, 173, 191 Towards Eleusis, 7-8, 169-201 matricide, 158, 162

247

Medea, 7, 123, 125, 126, 129, 130, 170 Memnon, 147, 154, 157, 159, 160, 163 memory/memories, 1, 7, 12, 78, 117, 122-131, 154, 160, 175, 201 metamorphosis, 53, 100, 101, 188 metatheatre / /metatheatrical/ metatheatricality, 132, 143, 145, 166, 167, 168, 171, 191 metempsychosis, 187 mimesis/mimetic, 47, 51, 52, 54, 151, 205, 215 mnemonic, 122, 123, 125, 126, 127, 129, 130 Mnouchkine, Ariane Les Atrides, 134 Modern Greece, 2, 136, 141 Civil War, 58, 135, 144, 164, 170 Dictatorship (1936-1941), 167 Dictatorship / Junta (1967-1974), 39, 55, 137, 145, 166, 167 monarchy, 7, 138, 141, 142, 150, 151, 152, 157, 159, 160, 162, 163, 164, 168 Mt Oeta, 79, 85, 97 Müller, Heiner, 215 Myrat, Dimitris, 138, 139, 140, 148 myth, passim as disguise, 39 mythology, 62, 130 Neoptolemus, 60, 63-101 Newton, Esther, 53 nihilation/negation. See Sartre nostos, 10, 18 O’Neill, Eugene, 127 Odysseus, 14, 29, 67, 84, 85, 145, 147 Oedipus, 4, 52, 62, 125, 151, 173, 203 Orestes, 55, 59, 65, 132, 133, 134, 153, 155-163, 167, 170, 173 orientalism/orientalising, 113, 116, 119

248

General Index

Orpheus, 183, 188 Orphic cosmogony, 185 notions, 183, 184, 187 text, 183 theogonies, 183, 186 tradition, 186 pannychis, 181 Papagos, Alexandros, 164, 165 Paul, King of the Greeks, 163, 164 performance(s), 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 23, 27, 41, 54, 62, 122, 124, 126, 127, 133, 135, 136, 138, 140, 143, 145, 165, 166, 171, 190, 191, 192, 193, 197, 204, 216 Persephone, 8, 171-175, 183, 184, 188, 196 Peurifoy, John, 164 PhanƝs, 185, 186 Philoctetes, 7, 55, 59, 63, 67, 74, 84, 85, 101, 173 Plato, 192 Laws, 192, 193 Phaedo, 192 Phaedrus, 190 Philebus, 192 Republic, 151, 188 Plouton, 172 poetics, 9, 14, 18, 24, 104, 108, 109, 122 politics, 12, 13, 24, 41, 54, 70, 136, 144, 145, 163, 165, 216 Polynices, 43, 58 polyphony, 22-24, 120, 190, 216 polyvalency, 24 Pontikas, Marios, 8, 202 Neighing, 204-217 The Murderer of Laius and the Crows, 203 The Panoramic View of a Night Job, 202 Watch Them, 202 pre-reflective awareness. See Sartre Priam, 19, 20, 22 Prometheus, 210, 211 Prǀtogonos, 183-186

Pylades, 156, 157, 159, 160 Racine Phèdre, 169 reception, 1-8, 42, 132, 133, 135, 136, 165, 216 models of, 9-13, 18, 24, 102, 120 reconstruction, 71, 122, 145 reflective awareness. See Sartre Ricks, David, 17 Ritsos, Yannis, 6, 7, 124, 126, 173 "Agamemnon", 65 "Ajax", 65 "Chrysothemis", 42, 55 "Epitaphios", 42, 64 "Ismene", 6, 39-42, 54, 58-59, 62 "On Mayakovsky", 40 "Orestes", 65, 66, 100 "Phaedra", 39 "Philoctetes", 60, 63-101 "Teiresias", 54 "The Dead House", 58 "The Moonlight Sonata", 40, 55, 60 "The Return of Iphigenia", 91 "Under the Shadow of the Mountain", 58 The Fourth Dimension, 39, 41, 58, 60, 63, 64, 65, 66, 124, 173 translation of Sophocles' Antigone, 41, 56 Rivière, Joan, 46, 47, 50 Rondiris, Dimitris, 144 Rotas, Vassilis, 143 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 39, 59 authenticity, 7, 66, 71, 89, 91, 96, 100 bad faith, 57, 66, 78, 81, 82, 88, 96, 98 being-for-itself, 81, 83, 100 being-for-others, 72 being-in-itself, 81-82 Dirty Hands, 39 existential freedom, 58, 66, 74, 90, 91, 100, 101 facticity, 50, 71, 90, 91

Debating with the Eumenides immanence, 57 look of the Other, 72, 76, 89, 98 Nausea, 66 nihilation/negation, 83 pre-reflective awareness, 50, 81 reflective awareness, 81 The Flies, 65, 66, 72 transcendence, 57 Savvidis, G. P., 26 Schein, Seth, 17, 19 Searle, John. See speech-act Seferis, George, 1, 26, 27, 56, 104, 118, 173 "Delphi", 33 "Euripides the Athenian", 28 "Helen", 28, 173 "Pentheus", 28, 38, 173 "Salamis of Cyprus", 118, 119 and Cyprus, 34 and Gennadius Library, 27 and Vikelaia Library, 26 Logbook III, 28, 29, 118 MythistorƝma, 103, 173 Semele, 190, 191 Shakespeare, William, 192 Hamlet, 171, 191, 207 Sidiropoulou, Avra Clytemnestra's Tears, 126, 127 Solomos, Dionysios "Glory", 42 Sophocles Ajax, 205 Antigone, 6, 41, 43, 45-46, 53, 55, 58, 59-60 Electra, 42, 129 Philoctetes, 67-70, 77, 81, 84, 85, 92, 95, 96 Soyinka, Wole Bacchae, 169 spectator(s), 7, 61-62, 122, 123, 127-130, 166, 198, 201 speech-act, 49, 51 Sphinx, 203 Staikos, Andreas, 127, 129 Stein, Peter Oresteia, 134

249

Stoppard, Tom, 171 subversion(s), 143, 171 symbolism(s), 32, 172, 174, 190, 193 Eleusinian, 174-182, 188 mystic/mystical, 185, 201 Teiresias, 33, 35, 38, 53, 54 telestƝrion, 173, 193 Tennyson, Alfred, 16 The Look of Others. See Sartre theatre/Theatre as "art of memory", 122 Cambridge Arts, 27 conventional, 204, 216 Greek Popular, 137 Herodes Atticus, 137 Kotopouli-Rex, 139 Lycabettus, 41 Myrat-Zoumboulaki, 139 National in London, 134 National of Greece, 4, 127, 144 National of Northern Greece, 4 patriotic, 145 political, 59 post-dramatic, 205, 215, 216 Stoa, 203 theatrum mundi, 192 Theophrastus, 177 thiasos, 192 Thrylos, Alkis [Eleni Ourani], 41, 56-57 Thyestes, 170 time, 65 Chronos, 185 dramatic, 123, 125, 128 human, 191 mythic, 7, 123 objective, 125 theatrical, 7 totalitarianism, 6, 40, 43, 58 tradition, 103, 104, 120, 140, 150 post-Enlightenment, 216 post-Renaissance, 216 Western, 217 tragedy, 34, 37, 56, 59, 63, 64, 113, 119, 123, 124, 130, 133, 140,

250

General Index

141, 143, 144, 145, 161, 165, 167, 169, 170, 173, 174, 192, 193, 200, 216, 217 tragic, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 30, 42, 54, 55, 57, 65, 67, 68, 112, 113, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 130, 169, 170, 171, 173, 174, 193, 200, 201, 204, 205, 217 transculturation, 135 transformation, 5, 9, 11, 16, 19, 22, 24, 41, 43, 53, 71, 75, 100, 104, 123, 149, 157, 187 transmission, 9, 11, 12, 19, 22, 24 triangulate / triangulation, 102, 104, 107, 121 Triptolemos. See Demophon Trojan horse, 82-85, 94, 99

tyrant(s), 56-57, 141, 150, 151, 154, 159, 162, 163 Tziovas, Dimitris, 3, 12, 64, 69 utopia/utopic, 125, 205 Venizelos, Sophoklis, 165 Vitali, Lia Roast Beef. Clytemnestra’s Hesitation before the Murder, 128, 129 Vlachos, George, 144 Volanakis, Minos, 27, 91 Walcott, Derek, 16 womanisation, 49 Xenophon, 150 Xerxes, 113-120 Yatromanolakis, Yorgis, 26, 27 Yeats, W. B., 13 Yourcenar, Marguerite, 127 Ziogas, Vassilis, 173