Greek Laughter and Tears: Antiquity and After 9781474403801

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EDINBURGH LEVENTIS STUDIES 8

Previously published Edinburgh Leventis Studies 1 Word and Image in Ancient Greece Edited by N. Keith Rutter and Brian A. Sparkes Edinburgh Leventis Studies 2 Envy, Spite and Jealousy: The Rivalrous Emotions in Ancient Greece Edited by David Konstan and N. Keith Rutter Edinburgh Leventis Studies 3 Ancient Greece: From the Mycenaean Palaces to the Age of Homer Edited by Sigrid Deger-Jalkotzy and Irene S. Lemos Edinburgh Leventis Studies 4 Pursuing the Good: Ethics and Metaphysics in Plato’s Republic Edited by Douglas Cairns, Fritz-Gregor Herrmann and Terry Penner Edinburgh Leventis Studies 5 The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations Edited by Jan N. Bremmer and Andrew Erskine Edinburgh Leventis Studies 6 Greek Notions of the Past in the Archaic and Classical Eras Edited by John Marincola, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Calum Maciver Edinburgh Leventis Studies 7 Defining Greek Narrative Edited by Douglas Cairns and Ruth Scodel Edinburgh Leventis Studies 8 Greek Laughter and Tears: Antiquity and After Edited by Margaret Alexiou and Douglas Cairns

EDINBURGH LEVENTIS STUDIES 8

GREEK LAUGHTER AND TEARS ANTIQUITY AND AFTER

Edited by Margaret Alexiou and Douglas Cairns

Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © editorial matter and organisation Margaret Alexiou and Douglas Cairns, 2017 ∫ the chapters their several authors, 2017 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/13pt Times NRMT by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 0379 5 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 0380 1 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 0381 8 (epub) The right of Margaret Alexiou and Douglas Cairns to be ­identified as the editors of this work has been asserted in ­accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations  Preface Notes on Contributors    1 Introduction  Margaret Alexiou and Douglas Cairns

viii xi xv 1

PART I  ANCIENT KEYNOTES: FROM HOMER TO LUCIAN   2   3   4

Laughter and Tears in Early Greek Literature  Richard Seaford Imagining Divine Laughter in Homer and Lucian Stephen Halliwell Parody, Symbol and the Literary Past in Lucian Calum Maciver

27 36 54

PART II  ANCIENT MODELS, BYZANTINE COLLECTIONS: EPIGRAMS, RIDDLES AND JOKES   5 ‘Tantalus Ever in Tears’: The Greek Anthology as a Source of Emotions in Late Antiquity 75 Judith Herrin   6 ‘Do You Think You’re Clever? Solve This Riddle, Then!’ The Comic Side of Byzantine Enigmatic Poetry 87 Simone Beta  7 Philogelos: An Anti-Intellectual Joke-Book 104 Stephanie West

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PART III  BYZANTINE PERSPECTIVES: TEARS AND LAUGHTER, THEORY AND PRAXIS   8 ‘Messages of the Soul’: Tears, Smiles, Laughter and Emotions Expressed by them in Byzantine Literature 125 Martin Hinterberger   9 Towards a Byzantine Theory of the Comic? 146 Aglae Pizzone 10 Staging Laughter and Tears: Libanius, Chrysostom and the Riot of the Statues 166 Jan R. Stenger 11 Lamenting for the Fall of Jerusalem in the Seventh Century ce187 Ioannis Papadogiannakis 12 Guiding Grief: Liturgical Poetry and Ritual Lamentation in Early Byzantium 199 Susan Ashbrook Harvey PART IV  LAUGHTER, POWER AND SUBVERSION 13 Mime and the Dangers of Laughter in Late Antiquity 219 Ruth Webb 14 Laughter on Display: Mimic Performances and the Danger of Laughing in Byzantium 232 Przemysław Marciniak 15 The Power of Amusement and the Amusement of Power: The Princely Frescoes of St Sophia, Kiev, and their Connections to the Byzantine World 243 Elena Boeck 16 Laughing at Eros and Aphrodite: Sexual Inversion and its Resolution in the Classicising Arts of Medieval Byzantium263 Alicia Walker PART V  GENDER, GENRE AND LANGUAGE: LOSS AND SURVIVAL 17 Comforting Tears and Suggestive Smiles: To Laugh and Cry in the Komnenian Novel Ingela Nilsson 18 Do Brothers Weep? Male Grief, Mourning, Lament and Tears in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Byzantium Margaret Mullett

291 312

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c ontents vii 19 Laments by Nicetas Choniates and Others for the Fall of Constantinople in 1204 Michael Angold 20 ‘Words Filled With Tears’: Amorous Discourse as Lamentation in the Palaiologan Romances Panagiotis Agapitos 21 The Tragic, the Comic and the Tragicomic in Cretan Renaissance Literature David Holton 22 Belisarius in the Shadow Theatre: The Private Calvary of a Legendary General Anna Stavrakopoulou 23 Afterword Roderick Beaton Appendix    CHYROGLES, or The Girl With Two Husbands Bibliography Index Locorum Index Rerum

338 353 375 390 403

413 420 472 482

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  7.1 Drawing by Tomasz Łowicki from Łanowski 1986: 25, illustrating joke 21.113   7.2 Drawing by Tomasz Łowicki from Łanowski 1986: 97, illustrating joke 41 = 156.113 15.1 Church of St Sophia (Kiev, Ukraine), south-western turret, view of the ‘minstrels’ fresco (photo by George Majeska), BF.S.1979.87 49a, Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, dc.244 15.2 Church of St George (Staro Nagoričino, Macedonia), the Mocking of Christ (photograph by Ivan Drpić). 250 15.3 Church of St Nicholas (Curtea de Argeş, Romania), view from the west (photo by author). 252 15.4 Church of St Nicholas (Curtea de Argeş, Romania), the Mocking of Christ (photo by author). 252 15.5 Church of St Nicholas (Curtea de Argeş, Romania), Christ administering the eucharist (lower register), the Old Law (upper register), painting in the apse (photo by author). 254 15.6 Church of St Nicholas (Curtea de Argeş, Romania), the Old Law or the Ark of the Covenant, painting in the apse (Beljaev 1930: pl. XLVI). 255 15.7 Church of St. Sophia (Kiev, Ukraine), southwestern turret, reconstruction of the orchestra, after Totskaia and Zaiaruznyi 1988 (artwork by Brian Boeck). 259 16.1 Veroli Casket, Byzantine, Constantinople (?), second half of tenth century or eleventh century, wood overlaid with carved ivory and bone plaques with traces of polychrome and gilding, h. 11.5 cm, l. 40.3 cm, w. 16 cm, Victoria and Albert Museum, no. 216–1865. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 264

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illustrations ix 16.2 Detail Veroli Casket showing scenes of Aphrodite and Ares and erotes with animals. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.268 16.3 Detail Veroli Casket showing scene of Aphrodite and Ares and erotes with animals. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 268 16.4 Detail Veroli Casket showing scene of erotes with animals. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 271 16.5 Rabbit attacked by hunting dogs, Great Palace, Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey), Byzantine, mosaic, sixth century. © Pavle Marjanovic/ Shutterstock.com.273 16.6 Hunters attacking a tiger, Great Palace, Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey), Byzantine, mosaic, sixth century. © Pavle Marjanovic/Shutterstock.com. 273 16.7 The punishment of Eros by Aphrodite, Hippolytus Hall, Madaba (Jordan), Byzantine, mosaic, sixth century. © Robert Harding Picture Library Ltd/Alamy. 274 16.8 Censer, Byzantine, Constantinople (?), twelfth century, silver, 36 × 30 cm (c. 14 × 12 in), Treasury of San Marco, Venice, Italy. © Photo: Per gentile concessione della Procuratoria della Basilica di San Marco, Venezia, Italia. 279 16.9 Detail of the San Marco Censer showing the ­personifications Andrea and Phronesis flanked by a lion (left) and a griffin (right). © Photo: Per gentile concessione della Procuratoria della Basilica di San Marco, Venezia, Italia. 280 16.10 View of the San Marco Censer showing depictions of animals, Eros in a basket, an amorous couple, and a centaur. © Photo: Per gentile concessione della Procuratoria della Basilica di San Marco, Venezia, Italia.282 16.11 A peasant feeding a donkey, Great Palace, Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey), Byzantine, mosaic, sixth century. © Pavle Marjanovic/ Shutterstock.com.283 16.12 Detail showing Herakles and the kine of Geryon, from Pseudo-Oppian’s Cynegetica, Byzantine, c. 1060, pigment on vellum, Venice, Biblioteca Marciana cod. Gr. Z 479, fol. 24r. © Biblioteca Marciana, Venice. 283 16.13 Detail of the San Marco Censer showing sirens playing instruments flanked by a lion and a griffin. © Photo:

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Per gentile concessione della Procuratoria della Basilica di San Marco, Venezia, Italia. 284 16.14 Detail of the San Marco Censer showing an amorous couple, a centaur attacking a lion, and a griffin. © Cameraphoto Arte, Venice/Art Resource, NY. 285 22.1 ‘Karaghiozis as general Belisarius’ jester, with hearty laughs’ (from Vassilaros’ Notebooks). 395 22.2 ‘The bloody Antonina, wife of Belisarius, who destroyed him, 554 C.E.’ (from Vassilaros’ Notebooks). 395 22.3 ‘The king of the Persians, Khosrow I, who was captured by Marshal Belisarius’ (from Vassilaros’ Notebooks).396 22.4 Belisarius blind and Maria, his daughter (from Vassilaros’ Notebooks). 397 22.5 ‘Ten years later, Belisarius naked with his daughter in the desert’ (from Vassilaros’ Notebooks). 398 22.6 ‘Karaghiozis kills the wife of Belisarius, Antonina’ (from Vassilaros’ Notebooks). 398

PREFACE PREFACE

The papers presented in this volume represent the completely revised and rewritten record of the Eighth A. G. Leventis Conference in Greek, Edinburgh, 7–10 November 2013. That conference, in turn, was one of the many highlights of Professor Margaret (Meg) Alexiou’s tenure of the University of Edinburgh’s A. G. Leventis Chair in Greek. The conference and its surrounding events featured not only the scholars whose papers are presented in this volume, but also a diverse array of musicians and artists whose contributions turned the biennial Leventis Conference into a celebration of Greek culture. Meg’s tenure of the Chair in general constituted something of a festival of Hellenic and Celtic civilisations, with frequent crossovers between the Greek and the Gaelic in the presentations and performances by which her presence in Edinburgh was marked. Our premise was that Greek laughter and tears, if explored at key stages of recorded history, afford insights into the range and complexity of human emotions and interactions, modes of transmission, and potential for expressing and inciting opposite emotions, joy and sadness, sympathy and discord, sometimes both at once. We invited scholars, musicians and artists from diverse periods, with emphasis on the transitions from late antiquity (making the most of Edinburgh’s international distinction in that field), while introducing Byzantium and modern Greek in what we hope will prove an enduring manner, thanks to the generosity of the A. G. Leventis Foundation. For their assistance in making the conference the huge success that it was, we have to thank Dimiter Angelov, Alexander Lingas  and Panagiotis  Roilos, who presented at the event but whose papers could not, for various reasons, be published in this volume. As we noted above, however, the conference was in this case more than just a single academic occasion: its social programme began with Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and Lucy Macrae in their presentation of Greek wonder-tale The Girl With Two Husbands (see jacket illustration and

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Appendix) and culminated, at the conference dinner, in a splendid performance of scenes from Euripides’ Trojan Woman, directed by Ms Lydia Koniordou of the Greek National Theatre. The initiative to bring Lydia to Edinburgh to work with students and Scottish theatre practitioners was developed by Professor Olga Taxidou, of English Literature at Edinburgh, in conjunction with Douglas Cairns, and funded by a Knowledge Exchange Grant from Edinburgh’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences. All through the conference and beyond, moreover, ran an exceptional exhibition of contemporary works by Greek and other European artists, entitled ‘Myths, memories, and mysteries: how artists respond to the past’, curated by Roger Wollen with financial support from the University of Edinburgh and Arts Council (England). After Edinburgh, this exhibition toured to Bede’s World in Jarrow, the Museum of Classical Archaeology in Cambridge, and beyond. For her help and industry in preparing this volume for submission, the editors are deeply grateful to Dr Divna Manolova. For their care in seeing it through to publication, we should also like to thank Carol Macdonald and Fiona Sewell. For preparing the indexes, we are very grateful to our friend and former colleague, Dr Stephanie Winder. But as in all previous cases, our greatest debt is to the A. G. Leventis Foundation itself, for funding the Visiting Chair and thus enabling the conferences that each Professor presents and the volumes that result from those conferences. The Eighth A.  G.  Leventis Conference in Greek was a particular success in the way that it and all its surrounding events highlighted the continuing vitality of Greek civilisation from the ancient world to the present day. It is especially fitting that the tenure of our first Byzantinist as Leventis Professor contributed in no small way to the eventual establishment of a permanent A. G. Leventis Chair in Byzantine Studies at Edinburgh. We hope for great things in future as a result of this appointment, not least because this will be one way in which the University of Edinburgh’s Classics department can go some way towards repaying the faith that the A. G. Leventis Foundation has invested in it. Douglas Cairns and Margaret Alexiou Edinburgh, October 2016 Meg Alexiou adds: When Douglas Cairns invited me ‘out of the blue’ to become Eighth Leventis Professor of Greek, I accepted at once, because it gave us the chance to organise an international conference on a topic I had always wanted to address, in collaboration with a scholar whose work is forging new paths for the study of the emotions in ancient Greek

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preface xiii literature. I had the privilege of attending Douglas’ class on Homer’s Iliad, along with a group of about twelve students, and so was able to feel again the tears, rage and power of bodily expressions in books 1, 9 and 24, as I had almost sixty years ago when preparing for Finals at Newnham College with Pat Easterling. The purpose of my research has been to explore how cultural forms have been transformed and transmitted in Greek, especially when in contact with other peoples, histories and languages. My first book (The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, 1974/2002b), argued that the ritual and poetics of tears and lament have proved interdependent throughout their history, despite shifts in language, religious dogma and historical/ethnic changes. The second book (After Antiquity: Greek Language, Myth, and Metaphor, 2002a), explored interactions between utterance and ritual in shaping mythical and metaphorical building blocks, with illustrations from stories as told in modern tales and songs, and in Byzantine hymns, poetry and prose. Interlocking ritual and metaphorical systems include shifting oppositions between birth, marriage and death, leading to rebirth and renewal of the cycle. My valedictory lecture from Harvard University emphasised the nonverbal and non-rational dimensions of ritual, subsequently published as ‘Not by words alone’ in Greek Ritual Poetics (ed. Yatromanolakis and Roilos, 2004). Implicit is a debt to my identical twin sons, Dimitri and Pavlos, whose autism (each a mirror image of the other) has taught me how little words may count when it comes to measuring intelligence and emotion. There is a need to explore different modes of vocal expression, φωνή and λόγος (Cavarero 2005). Thirty years’ work on twelfth-century begging poems (‘Ptochoprodromos’) with my late husband, Michael Hendy, whose expertise and scholarship in the Byzantine economy (monetary and other) are beyond question, has taught me the importance of food and drink, bodily needs and functions, everyday realia and imperial ceremony, as well as the need for hard evidence from all available sources (copperware, kilims and woven goods), in interpreting the past (see especially Hendy 1985). Completion of our work on these poems was cut short by Michael’s sudden death in 2008, but he was convinced ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ (his phrase) that their core lay in the twelfth-century Komnenian court, ‘laughing seriously’ and ‘weeping humorously’. There is also the physical and unifying centrality of dance in coping with life and death, as on our jacket illustration by Katerina Samara, born in the same year the tragic tale from Skyros she illustrates was first published (1943). Greek reaction to crisis to this day is well expressed by a Guardian cartoon of July 2015, with grim-faced ‘Mutti’

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Merkel atop Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras, who grins broadly as if he hasn’t just lost an all-night battle in the Greek debt crisis, as if to say – what the hell, let’s dance! My time in Edinburgh has been the highlight of my career, almost the realisation of a dream to help bring Greek and Celtic studies together. I thank all colleagues and friends for their support, especially Keith and Wendy Rutter, Jenny Nimmo Smith, Stephanie Winder, Margaret Mackay, Emily Lyle (Edinburgh), Ruth Macrides (Birmingham) and Chris Stray (Swansea). Alas, alacrity in accepting the Edinburgh appointment was matched only by tardiness in completion of my co-editorial tasks. Best to enjoin silence, like the Watchman in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon,1 βοῦς ἐπὶ γλώττῃ (‘ox on tongue’), for fear of what else old age may portend. I dedicate my meagre contribution to this volume to the memory of Michael Hendy, and thank Douglas Cairns for his patient understanding and hard work. Frailties are mine alone, and it is time to hand over to the next generation. Walmer, Kent, August 2016

1 Given the discrepancy of practice in ancient, Byzantine and modern Greek scholarship, we have sought to impose consistency in the spelling and abbreviation of Greek names and titles within but not between chapters.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Panagiotis Agapitos is Professor of Byzantine Literature at the University of Cyprus. He has published widely on Byzantine learned and vernacular literature, with special emphasis on narratology, poetics and genre studies. He is currently writing a history of Byzantine literature. Margaret Alexiou is George Seferis Professor (Emerita) of Modern Greek Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University. She began her work in Greek with the ancient lament, then explored interconnections between ritual and poetry, metaphor and language, voice and emotion, across other ages and genres. Her final work on twelfth-century begging poetry, most probably by Theodore Prodromos, is nearing completion. Michael Angold is Professor Emeritus of Byzantine History at the University of Edinburgh. His translation of the works of Nicholas Mesarites is in press. Roderick Beaton is Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King’s College London. He has published widely on Greek literature, culture and history from the twelfth century to the present. His most recent books are Byron’s War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution (2013) and, in Greek, The Idea of the Nation in Greek Literature: From Byzantium to Modern Greece (2015). Simone Beta is Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Siena. He has published books and articles on ancient Greek comedy and its reception. His most recent publication is Il labirinto della parola: Enigmi, oracoli e sogni nella cultura antica (2016).

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Elena Boeck is Director of Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks and Professor of History of Art at DePaul University. She has published on cross-cultural exchange and contestation of established cultural narratives in the Byzantine world. She recently published Imagining the Byzantine Past: The Perception of History in the Illustrated Manuscripts of Skylitzes and Manasses (2015). She is currently writing a cross-cultural biography of the equestrian monument of Justinian which stood by the Hagia Sophia. Douglas Cairns is Professor of Classics at the University of Edinburgh. He has published widely on ancient Greek literature, society and ethics, especially the emotions. His most recent publications are Sophocles: Antigone and (ed. with Damien Nelis) Emotions in the Classical World (both 2016). Stephen Halliwell is Professor of Greek and Wardlaw Professor of Classics at the University of St Andrews. His books include The Aesthetics of Mimesis (2002), Greek Laughter: A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Christianity (2008) and Between Ecstasy and Truth: Interpretations of Greek Poetics from Homer to Longinus (2011). Susan Ashbrook Harvey is the Willard Prescott and Annie McClelland Smith Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University. She has published widely on Christianity of the Byzantine and Syriac traditions, particularly with respect to women, asceticism, hagiography, hymnography, and religion and the senses. She is the author of Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (2006) and co-author of Jacob of Sarug’s Homilies on Women Whom Jesus Met (2016). Judith Herrin is Professor Emerita of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies and Constantine Leventis Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London. Her recent publications include Margins and Metropolis: Authority across the Byzantine Empire and Unrivalled Influence: Women and Empire in Byzantium (both 2013). In 2016 she was awarded the Dr A. H. Heineken Prize for History. Martin Hinterberger is Professor of Byzantine Literature at the University of Cyprus. He has published widely on Byzantine literature, especially the emotions, hagiography, autobiography and language. His most recent publications are Phthonos: Mißgunst, Neid und Eifersucht in der byzantinischen Literatur (2013) and The Language of Byzantine Learned Literature (2014).

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notes on contributors xvii David Holton is Emeritus Professor of Modern Greek at the University of Cambridge. He specialises in the Renaissance literature of Crete and Cyprus and the history of Greek. He is directing a project to produce a substantial reference grammar of Medieval and Early Modern Greek (publication expected in 2018). Calum Maciver is a Lecturer in Classics at the University of Edinburgh. He has published on imperial literature, especially Greek epic, and is author of Quintus Smyrnaeus: Engaging Homer in Late Antiquity (2012). Przemysław Marciniak is Professor of Byzantine Literature at the University of Silesia. He has published on Byzantine performativity, humour and satires, as well as on the reception of Byzantine culture. His most recent publications include  The Reception of Byzantium in European Culture since 1500 (ed. with Dion C. Smythe, 2015) and A Dance in the Role of Thersites: A Study on Byzantine Satires (in Polish, 2016). Margaret Mullett was Professor of Byzantine Studies at Queen’s University Belfast and then Director of Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks. She is working on tents, laments, the Holy Apostles in Constantinople and the Christos Paschon, and editing (with Susan Harvey) Managing Emotion in Byzantium: Passions, Affects and Imaginings. She is currently Professor of Byzantine Social History at the University of Vienna. Ingela Nilsson is Professor of Greek and Byzantine Studies at Uppsala University. She has published widely on questions of narrative and imitation in Byzantium, with a special focus on the twelfth century. Her most recent publications include Raconter Byzance: La littérature au XIIe siècle and (ed. with Paul Stephenson) Wanted: Byzantium – The Desire for a Lost Empire (both 2014). Ioannis Papadogiannakis is Lecturer in Classics and Theology and Religious Studies at King’s College London and specialises in late antique and Byzantine intellectual and religious history. His most recent publications include Defining Identities and Beliefs in the Eastern Mediterranean and Emotions in Patristic Literature (both to appear in 2017). Aglae Pizzone is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Medieval Literature, University of Southern Denmark, Odense. Her research

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interests revolve around middle Byzantine literature (literary theory, fiction, commentary literature). Her most recent publications include The Author in Middle Byzantine Literature (ed., 2014). Richard Seaford is  Professor of Ancient Greek Emeritus at the University of Exeter. His most recent monograph is Cosmology and the Polis: The Social Construction of Space and Time in the Tragedies of Aeschylus (2012). He is currently preparing a monograph that compares early Indian with early Greek thought. Anna Stavrakopoulou is Associate Professor of Theatre Studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She has published articles in both English and Greek on modern Greek literature and theatre, especially on the shadow theatre, comedy and theatrical translation. Her most recent publication is a translation with introduction of a 1785 Phanariot play, Alexandrovodas the Unscrupulous (2012). Jan R. Stenger is Douglas MacDowell Professor of Greek at the University of Glasgow. He has published on Greek lyric poetry, late antique literature and culture and ancient education. Recent publications include articles on John Chrysostom and the co-edited volume Cityscaping: Constructing and Modelling Images of the City (2015). Alicia Walker is Associate Professor in the Department of History of Art at Bryn Mawr College. Her current research focuses on cross-­cultural artistic interaction between the Byzantine and medieval Islamic worlds and gender issues in Byzantine art and material culture. She is currently at work on a new book provisionally entitled Christian Bodies, Pagan Images: Women, Beauty, and Morality in Medieval Byzantium. Ruth Webb is Professor of Greek at the Université Lille 3. She has published widely on the popular theatrical traditions of late antiquity and on the rhetorical theory and practice of the imperial period, particularly the use of words to appeal to the imagination and thus to the emotions. Stephanie West is an Emeritus Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1990, and a Foreign Member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (PAU) in 2012. Her principal research interests are in Homer, Herodotus and Lycophron. She is currently working on a commentary on Herodotus book 4.

1 INTRODUCTION Margaret Alexiou and Douglas Cairns

Οὔτε γάμος δίχως κλάματα, οὔτε κηδεία δίχως γέλια No wedding without tears, no funeral without laughter. (modern proverb) ‘Greek laughter and tears’ is a rich and fascinating topic. We hope our volume will open up new areas for discussion among Hellenists, with material of scholarly interest for the humanities, social sciences and sciences, as well as food for thought among general readers. In this Introduction we try to explain what led us to embark on such a venture; to give guidance as to the nature and organisation of material; and to suggest possible future directions. WHY TEARS AND LAUGHTER? The last few decades have seen a burgeoning of studies on the emotions across all disciplines, including the humanities.1 In Classics, William Fortenbaugh’s pioneering study of 1975 was followed in the 1990s and 2000s by a spate of monographs and edited volumes.2   1 The field of emotion research as a whole is too vast to survey. The journal Emotion Review publishes regular ‘views from a discipline’ and is an excellent repository of current approaches. For recent, stimulating and accessible overviews (with a philosophical bias), see e.g. Goldie 2010, Deonna and Teroni 2012, and Colombetti 2014. Note also the large, multidisciplinary emotion research projects at the Free University of Berlin (http://www.loe.fu-berlin.de/en/) and the University of Geneva (http://www.affective-sciences.org). For an encyclopaedic and interdisciplinary overview of research in emotion and affective science, see Sander and Scherer 2009.   2 Monographs: e.g. Cairns 1993; Harris 2001; Konstan 2001; 2006; 2010; Graver 2002; 2007; Kaster 2005; Sternberg 2006; Munteanu 2012. Edited collections: e.g. Braund and Gill 1997; Braund and Most 2003; Konstan and Rutter 2003; Sternberg 2005; Fitzgerald 2007; Munteanu 2011; Sanders et al. 2013. See also the monographs by the philosophers Bernard Williams (1993) and Martha Nussbaum (1994; 2001). Fortenbaugh 1975 was expanded as Fortenbaugh 2002.

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margaret alexiou and douglas cairns

A central strength of these works was their focus on the ancient emotional lexicon and the construction, conceptualisation and valorisation of emotion in ancient authors, genres, belief systems and societies.3 In more recent years, the impetus given to the historical study of emotions by scholars such as William Reddy and Barbara Rosenwein has led to a dramatic upsurge in interest in historicising approaches,4 with the establishment of major research projects and centres for emotion history in Australia, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.5 In that connection, the landmark development in Classics has been Angelos Chaniotis’ Oxford University European Research Council project, ‘The Social and Cultural Construction of Emotions: The Greek Paradigm’, which has so far yielded two substantial volumes  of essays (with more forthcoming) and which has considerably broadened the evidence base and focus of emotion research in Classics, away from virtually exclusive concentration on literary and philosophical sources and towards a wider range of non-literary and sub-literary documents and a much greater use of visual and material culture.6 A substantial additional focus, to which Classicists can make a distinctive contribution, is the cross-cultural study of emotion: conferences and workshops have begun to examine similarities and differences between Greek and Arabic, Greek and Chinese classical traditions;7 attention has recently been paid also to the obvious, but regularly overlooked, interface between the Greek and Roman worlds.8 By contrast, only a few pioneering attempts have been made to   3 For recent and valuable studies in the same vein, see e.g. Fulkerson 2013; Sanders 2014.   4 See Reddy 2001; Rosenwein 2006; among earlier works, note especially Stearns 1989, 1994; Stearns and Stearns 1986; see also Dixon 2003; 2012; for overviews, see Stearns and Stearns 1985; Frevert 2009; 2011; Plamper 2010; 2015; Hitzer 2011; Matt 2011; Rosenwein 2011; Matt and Stearns 2014; Schnell 2015.   5 See the websites for the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotion (http://www.historyofemotions.org.au), Les Émotions au Moyen Âge (EMMA, http://emma.hypotheses.org), The History of Emotions project of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development,  Berlin (https:// www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/en/research/history-of-emotions) and the Queen  Mary University of London Centre for the History of Emotions (http://projects.history. qmul.ac.uk/emotions).   6 See http://emotions.classics.ox.ac.uk, with Chaniotis 2012; Chaniotis and Ducrey 2013.  7 For the former project, see http://nyuad.nyu.edu/en/news-events/abu-dhabievents/2015/02/emotions-across-cultures.html, with working papers at https:// archive.nyu.edu/handle/2451/33966. For ancient Greek and Chinese emotions in a wider intellectual-historical context, see Boquet and Nagy 2016.   8 See especially Cairns and Fulkerson 2015. For recent studies that also engineer an explicit confrontation between the affective worlds of Greek and Roman societies, cf. Konstan 2010 and Fulkerson 2013.

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introduction 3

investigate the cultural expression and conceptualisation of emotions in the Byzantine world.9 Given the continuities and discontinuities between the ancient Greek and the Byzantine worlds, the interface between the emotional universes of Greek antiquity and Byzantium is another neglected topic. This is the dialogue to which this volume seeks to make a contribution, with particular reference to the phenomena of laughter and tears. These are fundamental topics for many reasons. First, as expressions of emotion, both seem to be uniquely or at least quintessentially human phenomena. Land animals shed tears, but only as a means of lubricating and protecting the eyes. Darwin – who sought a purely mechanical origin for the function of weeping in humans, regarding the phenomenon as a by-product of the constriction of the muscles that surround the eyes – accepted anecdotal evidence that the Indian elephant was known to shed emotional tears,10 and, over the years, similar anecdotes have been recorded for both elephants and other species.11 But the sum total of such evidence is not impressive, and, though the emotional lives of animals are unquestionably rich and complex,12 it seems that only human beings shed – or at least, as a species, regularly and typically shed – emotional tears.13 It has been alleged that the emotional tears of human beings differ in their chemical composition from non-emotional tears (although initial findings that this is the case have not been replicated), and scientists have investigated whether there are differences of the same sort between tears of happiness and tears of sadness.14 Human infants cry from birth, but do not begin to shed tears until some time later.15 Studies of patterns of weeping in individuals in modern, western societies indicate significant age-related and gender-related variance  in the ­ frequency of ­ episodes and the range of eliciting   9 See especially Hinterberger 2006; 2010; 2013 (and in this volume); also Pizzone 2013a; 2013c (and in this volume); cf. Mullett in this volume. For the visual arts, see Maguire 1977. See also the conference website (with bibliography) ‘Managing Emotion: Passion, Emotions, Affects, and Imaginings in Byzantium’ http:// www.doaks.org/research/byzantine/scholarly-activities/past/managing-emotionpassion-emotions-affects-and-imaginings-in-byzan​t​i​um (publication in progress); and now the Leverhulme International Research Network ‘Emotions through Time: From Antiquity to Byzantium’ (http://emotions.shca.ed.ac.uk). 10 Darwin 1998: 168–9. 11 Masson and McCarthy 1994: 133–6. 12 See e.g. Masson and McCarthy 1994; Bekoff 2007; De Waal 2009; Balcombe 2010. 13 See e.g. Lutz 1999: 17–18; Vingerhoets, Bylsma and Rottenberg 2009: 440, 447–8; Trimble 2012: 1–3; Vingerhoets 2013: passim, esp. 11–23. 14 See Frey et al. 1981; Van Haeringen 2001; discussion in Kappas 2009: 423; Trimble 2012: 43–4; Vingerhoets 2013: 30, 51–2. 15 Darwin 1998: 155; Vingerhoets 2013: 23.

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conditions.16 Historical surveys reveal significant shifts in the conceptualisation and cultural valorisation of tears, beginning with normative differences in parental responses to crying children and encompassing wide variation between periods in the cultural permission afforded male and female tears.17 Cross-cultural variation is similarly wide.18 Aristotle famously argued that only human beings laugh (Part. an. 673a8). Not everyone in antiquity agreed.19 And the general consensus among contemporary researchers is that, though laughter is found in all human societies, it is paralleled also in our nearest primate relatives, the apes, who may also be said to smile.20 Both tears and laughter probably evolved before language.21 But as elements of the behaviour of language-users, namely human beings, both are embedded, in profound and complex ways, in culture and history. Neither tears nor laughter is an emotion; and the emotions they express cover a strikingly wide range of paradigm scenarios and eliciting conditions. Tears of laughter may, no doubt, sometimes be a simple matter of physiology; but tears of joy are a different matter, even if it is plausible that they have an immediate cause in the poignant note of sorrow or vulnerability that can intrude at moments of happiness and seems to do so with greater regularity the older one gets.22 Stephen Halliwell has given us a rich and thorough survey of the range of forms and elicitors of laughter, both in Greek literature and in modern research:23 it may bring a group together and promote the formation of social bonds, but it may also divide, expressing hostility and aggression. For some ethologists, indeed, aggression is fundamental to laughter.24 It can be healthy to laugh, but laughter can also be a sign of insanity.25 There are social and cultural norms about how much laughter is enough, in individuals and in groups or 16 See Vingerhoets 2013: 55–96, 162–82, 187–202 (gender: mainly modern, western evidence but with historical and cross-cultural data too); cf. Vingerhoets, Bylsma and Rottenberg 2009: 447–59; Vingerhoets and Bylsma 2016. 17 See Lutz 1999: 151–92; Vingerhoets 2013: 237–58. For British history and the myth of the ‘stiff upper lip’ see Dixon 2015. 18 See Lutz 1999: 192–224; Vingerhoets 2013: 139–59. The wider bibliography on cultural variations in ritualised weeping – the very stuff of cultural anthropology – is of course vast. 19 See Halliwell 2008: 1–4, 582. 20 Darwin 1998: 131–3 (with Ekman’s note, 144–5), 197–8 (with Ekman’s note, 198–9), 206, 356; cf. Halliwell 2008: 527; De Waal 2009: 47. 21 Trimble 2012: 69. 22 Cf. Vingerhoets, Bylsma and Rottenberg 2009: 456–7; Vingerhoets 2013: 87–91; Vingerhoets and Bylsma 2016: 2–4. 23 Halliwell 2008: 10–19, 38–50. 24 Halliwell 2008: 11–12, with n. 31 on Konrad Lorenz and Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt. 25 Halliwell 2008: 16–18.

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societies.26 Just as there are tears that express no sorrow, so there is laughter that expresses no joy, but only cruelty or embarrassment, relief or nervous insecurity. Both tears and laughter, moreover, involve more than just the spontaneous expression of occurrent emotions. Tears cover a spectrum from purely physiological reactions (e.g. as a mechanism for lubricating the eyes) through the act of weeping as an expression of emotion to the performance of grief and the enactment of elaborate social processes of grieving and mourning. Laughter is deeply implicated in cultural norms of humour and amusement and in the institutions in which these norms are embedded, from ritual mockery to comic drama and beyond. Much of the best existing work on tears in Greek communities and Greek literary forms has concentrated on the institutional, performative and ritual end of the spectrum.27 The bibliography on various forms of institutionalised mockery, jesting and play, from iambus to comedy, is similarly mature, and even more vast. There have, however, been works that have ­concentrated specifically on tears and laughter as such: for the former the rich collection by Fögen (2009b) is indispensable; for the latter, the monumental contribution of Halliwell (2008) represents a landmark in scholarship.28 We cannot claim to be the first to tackle both together: already in 1947 Ludwig Radermacher published a volume entitled Weinen und Lachen: Studien über antikes Lebensgefühl. Stewart Flory’s 1978 article discusses laughter and tears in Herodotus, while Arnould (1990) treats both in literature from Homer to Plato and Kenner (1960) surveys their depiction in art. Several of the contributors to Thorsten Fögen’s (2009b) volume touch on ancient views on the pleasures of weeping, and David Konstan in particular, in an incisive chapter on the sweetness of tears in the Hellenistic epigrammatist 26 Halliwell 2008: 38–50. 27 See (on the lament) especially Alexiou 1974/2002b; Holst-Warhaft 1992; Schauer 2002; Dué 2002; 2006; Suter 2008a; cf. Seremetakis 1991 on modern Greece; on iconography, see Shapiro 1991; Huber 2001; Oakley 2004; on  grief, mourning, funerary ritual and funerary customs more generally,  see Vermeule 1979; Garland 1985; Loraux 1990/1998; Seaford 1994a; Engels 1998; Derderian 2001; cf. Danforth 1982 and Panourgia 1995 on modern Greece. 28 Among other prominent studies, see also (on tears) Monsacré 1984a; 1984b; Waern 1985; Van Wees 1998; (on laughter) Levine 1982; 1983; 1984; David 1989; Lateiner 1995; Bremmer and Roodenburg 1997; Tredé and Hoffmann 1998; Desclos 2000. Conybeare 2013 examines the intertwined spirituality and physicality of laughter in Greek and Hebrew biblical exegesis, and affords fresh but not uncritical insights from the perspective of modern feminist  theory. Though the Roman world is beyond the remit of this volume, Beard 2014 cannot go without mention, especially as a complement to Halliwell 2008.

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Meleager of Gadara, also includes a rich survey of the coincidence of tears and laughter in a selection of ancient Greek sources.29 What our present volume does is to take this conversation forward, to juxtapose these antithetical emotions and paired opposites in a way that encompasses the dialogue between the Byzantine world and Greek antiquity, on the one hand, and between the Byzantine world and modernity (including the Renaissance), on the other. What makes us laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time? How do these two primal, non-verbal, proto-human and seemingly discrete modes of expression intersect in everyday life and ritual, and what range of conflicting emotions do they evoke among gods and humans, humans and animals? (See especially the chapters by Halliwell, Maciver and Pizzone.) How differently may they be voiced, shaped and coloured in literature and liturgy, art, music and mime? (See the chapters by Harvey, Walker, Boeck, Webb and Marciniak.) What happens when laughter and tears slip into each other and back again? What can we learn from them about human emotions and communicative modes across different ages and cultures? Granted that bodily functions have always played a key role in expressions and exhalations of humour and grief, what roles have gestures, noises and images played, including robust vocal invective, rude puns and jokes, alongside icons, frescoes and caricatures? Laughter and tears may be physiological, non-verbal and preverbal responses to gratification and stress, convulsive to the point of death. But they can also be feigned, as ploy or decoy in domestic conflicts, on stage, or at a funeral or wedding, when opposing emotions on all sides are acted out in public, laughter stimulated by obscene display, tears by hyperventilation. Whether in words or song, secular or sacred, laughter and tears may be at once involuntary and staged, true and false. WHY GREEK? This volume, and the conference from which it derives, set out on the premise that Greek laughter and tears, if explored at key stages of recorded history, can afford insights into the range and complexity of human emotions and interactions, their modes of transmission, and their potential for expressing and inciting opposite emotions, 29 Konstan 2009. See especially p. 312 on Soph. fr. 910 Radt (‘Delightful things and painful things occupy the same place in a man’s mind, for he weeps even when something pleasant happens to him’, tr. Lloyd-Jones 1996: 391) and [Alex. Aphr.] Probl. 1.31 (‘Why do those who are in pain and those who laugh in pleasure weep?).

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introduction 7 joy and sadness, sympathy and discord, sometimes both at once. The project was conceived as a way of exploring the shifting shapes and functions of Greek laughter and tears across more than two and a half millennia of linguistic, historical and religious changes, of ethnic and cultural upheavals and interactions, thereby affording an overview of Greek laments for the fall of cities across the Near Eastern and Mediterranean areas since prehistoric times (Seaford, Stenger, Hinterberger, Angold, Stavrakopoulou). We have given weight to the visual and performative arts, as well as to written records, literary and historiographical, but the primary academic focus is on late antiquity and Byzantium. It is not practical to cover the whole of the Greek-speaking world from antiquity to the present day in a single volume, but we can try to set forth principles for looking at Hellenism from more diverse comparative perspectives.30 Laughter and tears, as recorded in words and music, art and monuments, can only enhance understanding of cultural transmission. What do we mean by ‘key stages’? Antiquity forms our starting point, beginning with Homer and including drama (tragedy and comedy), history and satire. We encompass the eight centuries between the formation of the Hellenistic kingdoms (fourth century bce) and the fall of Rome and the foundation of Constantinople (fourth–fifth centuries ce), spanning the period of the expansion of Greek civilisation and language as far east as India and Afghanistan, with monuments and culture which long outlasted the territorial conquests of Alexander the Great. The transitions from late antiquity to Byzantium, and from Byzantium to the Renaissance, form twin points from which to look backwards, forwards and sideways, with minds open for dissonances and discontinuities, complications and contradictions, as much as for common features (Stenger, Hinterberger). ‘Byzantium’ encompassed the ever-shifting frontiers of ethnic interactions and religious conflicts on all sides during the eleven centuries from the fourth century ce until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Nor was that the end of the story. The Renaissance did not happen in what we now call ‘Greece’. Yet on the island of Crete under the Venetians there flourished from around 1400 until 1700 a wealth of poetry and drama in Cretan dialects, inspired by Byzantine and Italian models (Holton). Greek verbal, dramatic and visual wit was not silenced by Ottoman rule from 1453, but rather sharpened by ‘Karaghiozis’, the central character of shadow theatre (itself known as Karaghiozis), whose hybrid origins still inspire the bitter-sweet edge of the Greek will to survival through combative discourse (Stavrakopoulou). 30 See, most recently, Beaton 2015.

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Most space is accorded to Byzantium, so as to reassess and establish its crucial role (if as yet only partially acknowledged) in the transmission of Greek classical tradition to the ‘Renaissance’ (an invented category) and beyond. As Peter Frankopan has recently reminded us regarding the fall of Constantinople, ‘The demise of the old imperial capital presented an unmistakeable opportunity for the legacy of ancient Greece and Rome to be claimed by new adoptive heirs – s­ omething that was done with gusto.’31 We hope to rectify this longstanding bias, and to surprise readers with the audacity, variety and aesthetic qualities of Byzantine works, which exploit classical traditions in ways, sacred and secular, not easily slotted into categories familiar to us. Today, in our postmodern, liberal world, many classical and Byzantine works would be rejected as ‘racist’, ‘sexist’ and definitely ‘politically incorrect’. It was under the Christian Franks, not the Byzantines, that Sappho’s poems were burnt in the aftermath of the fourth crusade in 1204. Contrary to common assumptions, the Byzantines did have a sense of humour, even if it has sometimes proved impenetrable to Byzantinists. It is found in music;32 in art, private and public, secular and sacred (Walker, Boeck); in performance (Webb, Marciniak); and in collections of epigrams, riddles and jokes (Herrin, Beta, West). Moreover, it is possible to reconstruct from Byzantine sources theories of the comic (Pizzone), and various strategies for tears (Agapitos, Harvey, Hinterberger, Holton, Mullett, Nilsson, Papadogiannakis, Stenger). Tears belonged to male and female domains alike, from persons of lowest to highest status, and encompassed a wide range of conflicting emotions (Mullett, Angold). Not polar opposites, laughter and tears have interacted to create new genres between comic and tragic, with far-reaching socio-cultural and political, ritual and religious repercussions (Stenger, Hinterberger, Papadogiannakis). Parody and paradox have proved paramount, if not always easy to detect or interpret (Halliwell, Maciver, Nilsson, Marciniak, Agapitos, Holton, Stavrakopoulou). And what of that – always sly and ­enigmatic – smile (Halliwell, Herrin, Hinterberger)? The answers suggested raise further questions, particularly on the bewildering and conflicting range of emotions evoked by tears and laughter. Not all of these can be encompassed in this book. We should like to have included at least one chapter on the portrayal of tears and grief in Byzantine art. Yet since art studies have hitherto focused so much more on sacred grief than on secular humour, our two chap31 Frankopan 2015: 219. 32 See below, p. 17.

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introduction 9 ters on merriment and mirth in art in the tenth to twelfth centuries (whether for amusement or power) open up new paths of inquiry. Walker shows both the allure and dangers of outrageous (including bestial) female desire in the decoration of intimate objects. Boeck casts light on male games and play in the politics of power as depicted in the Kiev frescoes, with acrobats and musicians – and strange musical instruments. In this volume, we see how disjunctures between image and word, sound and meaning, ideal and actual, as expressed through laughter and tears, begin in Homeric epic with Andromache ‘laughing through tears’ in Iliad 6 (Seaford) and the laughter of the gods (Halliwell), and continue to characterise Greek grief and humour, in the Komnenian novel (Nilsson) and Palaiologan romance (Agapitos), in Renaissance Cretan drama (Holton), in shadow theatre (Stavrakopoulou) and in paramythia folktales (see Appendix and cover illustration). The past cannot be interpreted without hard-core archaeology, history of all kinds (art, music, texts) and philology. There can be no universally applicable theoretical approach, although our contributors have ventured beyond safe territories to consider fresh questions. Ritual and performance, history and context provide vital clues, and that is why the diversity and longue durée of Greek culture offer such rich resources. We have divided the volume into five parts, arranged in thematic rather than strict chronological sequence. What follows comprises a series of themes, questions and reflections on the part of the editors (above all Alexiou), not authorial summaries. PART I  ANCIENT KEYNOTES: FROM HOMER TO LUCIAN This part sets the parameters. Richard Seaford (Chapter 2, ‘Laughter and Tears in Early Greek Literature’) cites from epic, drama and historiography to show how and why tears and laughter may be combined to manifest opposite moods and emotions. The proximity of physical symptoms in tears and laughter is enacted in Greek rituals  for family and community, private and public, death and life,  unmarried and married status; and such fusion of opposites is embodied in Greek thought. In the Iliad (6.484), Andromache is described as ‘laughing through her tears’ as she brings the infant Astyanax to Hector at the  walls of Troy, in what proves to be their last encounter – as the audience knows but she does not. Her lament for Hector while still alive expresses ambivalence between private and  public grief, as in Attic tragedy. Electra, in Sophocles’ ­eponymous play, swings from violent tears of grief at what she thinks

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is news of Orestes’ death to tears of joy as she holds him alive in her arms, while reassuring him  that their mother will mistake her tears of joy for tears of grief. A comparable mixture of laughter and tears is recorded by Xenophon (Hellenica 7.2.9) at the repulse of the invasion of a city: tears for the vanquished mean joy for the victors. The motif is found in Byzantine laments for the fall of cities (Stenger, Angold, Papadogiannakis), and perhaps most evident in the Greek material.33 As for comedy: a cook boasts that by making ‘those weeping laugh’, he can turn a funeral into a wedding (Hegisippus fragment 1). The transformative power of food to provoke laughter is found in twelfthcentury poems by Ptochoprodromos,34 and in modern shadow theatre (Stavrakopoulou). Laughter and tears have the power to cross the boundaries of life and death, this world and Hades. Just as Demeter’s involuntary laugh in the Homeric Hymn, provoked by Baubo’s lewd display, reaches down to Hades to bring back Persephone for the survival of humankind, so Mary’s cry of exultation at the birth of Christ wakens her foremother Eve, and leads, through Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection, to salvation and redemption in the hymns of Romanos (Harvey).35 Stephen Halliwell (Chapter 3, ‘Imagining Divine Laughter in Homer and Lucian’) argues that the idea and practice of laughter cannot be reduced to universal principles of psychology but should be interpreted in relation to the values and habits of particular cultures. His emphasis on religious imagination rather than on doctrinal belief (‘mythico-religious tradition’) allows us to distinguish between dogma on the one hand, and imagination and its representation in art and ritual on the other. These mythico-religious patterns persist across ethnic and dogmatic divisions, while stories told in words and art can be infinitely varied, subversive, or just kept for private use (Walker). Such is the case with the Homeric episode of the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite, where the gods laugh both with and against each other, but at the expense of us mortals, as encapsulated in the homophonous antinomy ἔργα γελαστά/ἔργ᾽ ἀγέλαστα. The readings sound the same but their meanings are conceptual opposites. Surely that is intentional, much as Easterling has suggested is the case with the positive and negative connotations of σεμνός?36 33 Bachvarova 2016: 36–78; Bakewell 2016: 106–26; Jacobs 2016: 30–2. 34 Alexiou 1986; 2002a: 127–48. 35 Similarly, the laughter of Sarah crosses barriers of sound, space and emotion (including sexuality) in biblical exegesis and current literary and feminist theory (Conybeare 2013). 36 Easterling 2014: 120–5.

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introduction 11 Calum Maciver (Chapter 4, ‘Parody, Symbol and the Literary Past in Lucian’) investigates the intellectual content and literary forms of humour in one of the most readable authors, a Syrian whose Greek works (many in dialogue form) were creatively imitated by some of the finest Byzantine writers especially during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, including Theodore Prodromos, possibly for dramatised use in schools (Marciniak). Favourite themes include fantasy travels between our world, the underworld and the moon, where everything operates in mirror image, and we laugh from afar at the world as a stage. Humour depends on imaginative detail, reversal and surprising oppositions which tinge our laughter with double-edged bitterness. The dialogue form allows the kind of linguistic variation and verbal play that came to be such a strong component of Byzantine humour (Pizzone). PART II  ANCIENT MODELS, BYZANTINE COLLECTIONS: EPIGRAMS, RIDDLES AND JOKES Compilations of all three ancient forms date from c. 300 bce, and remained live throughout Byzantium. Judith Herrin (Chapter 5, ‘“Tantalus Ever in Tears”: The Greek Anthology as a Source of Emotions in Late Antiquity’) casts a historian’s eye on the thematic variety, performative contexts, authors (where known) and literary appeal of the epigram, a genre which never ceased to celebrate (perhaps with more tears than laughter) food and wine, love and loss, life and death, as well as to mark the erection and restoration of buildings and monuments. Dialogue, ekphrasis and impersonation, combined with skilled use of intricate verse forms and variable literary dialects, have made the Greek epigram one of the most enduring genres in world literature. Thanks to revered classical models, devotion to Aphrodite and Dionysus (and other pagan deities) was allowed free expression long after Christianity became the dominant religion in the later fourth century ce. Simone Beta (Chapter 6, ‘“Do You Think You’re Clever? Solve This Riddle, Then!” The Comic Side of Byzantine Enigmatic Poetry’) addresses both the serious and the comic side of riddles (ainigmata), which turned from potentially life-threatening (as in the Sphinx’s riddle for Oedipus) to playful (πρόβλημα παιστικόν, ‘a problem put in jest’) after the fifth century bce in the contexts of comedy and symposiastic discourse. The idea of the riddle as playful and serious at the same time goes back to the earliest Greek examples. Its doubleness as both funny and fatal, depending on your skill of response, is well expressed by the verb παίζειν (‘play, toy with’) and its cognates, which

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include the shifting opposites ‘tease’ and ‘torment’. Such ambivalence, as Beta reminds us, allowed Byzantine authors to compose conundrums in jest of the most sacred texts. Riddles (ainigmata) and proverbs (paroimiai) are similar in form and content (paradox resolved by devious wordplay) and survive to this day in orally transmitted tales, jokes and sayings, freely exchanged in everyday discourse, where poverty and death can be kept at bay with wit and laughter, tears and laments. For poetic succinctness and ambivalence, the following proverb (or riddle?), as recorded from Kerkyra, can scarcely be surpassed:37 Χέρι, μαχαίρι και τρεχούμενο νερό. Hand, knife and running water. There is no fixed meaning; but the line is terse, rhythmic, assonant, its contrasting objects evoking death and life, tears and laughter, and a possible resolution. Local interpretations include ‘the hand’ (of friendship), ‘the knife’ (of discord) and ‘the running water’ (of forgetting). Riddles and proverbs carry the accumulated wisdom of generations across time and place. They are memorable yet antithetical in sound, image and meaning, and may be conveyed in dreams, visions and oracles, as well as in everyday discourse, always conducive to debate, according to processes that Charles Stewart has defined as forms of ‘affective history’.38 Interpretation is elusive, as in the widespread ‘Man may meet but mountains never’, a proverb which fascinated the Greek and Irish scholar George Thomson for its geographic and linguistic diffusion, perhaps owing more to trade on the Silk Road than to Indo-European philology. He collected this and other proverbs in as many languages as he could trace (including Chinese and Irish) from his youthful years on the Blasket Islands until the very end of his life (unpublished to the best of our knowledge, but preserved in manuscript notebooks). As for Greek proverbs, he pointed to their potential for dramatic irony in ancient theatre, as in the allusion to the proverb πῦρ, θάλασσα, γυνή˙ τὰ τρία κακά (‘fire, sea, woman: the three evils’) at A. Ag. 650–1, where the Herald proclaims Agamemnon’s triumph over fire and sea, leaving chorus and audience to wonder: and what about the woman?39 37 See Alexiou 2002a: 160. 38 On dreams and visions, their associations with particular items and landmarks that have shaped local perceptions of time and events (especially disasters) over many centuries on the island of Naxos, see Stewart 2012: 1–21, 189–206. 39 Thomson 1938: ii. 77 = 1966: ii. 58.

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introduction 13 Stephanie West (Chapter 7, ‘Philogelos: An Anti-Intellectual JokeBook’) scrutinises with a sharp philological eye the only collection of ancient Greek jokes to have survived, dateable to c. 248 ce, drawing attention to medieval and modern parallels, as on crackers and matchboxes. She notes the absence of racial humour (although ethnic and local dislikes abound), but homes in on the butt of most jokes, namely, the grammatikos or scholastikos (‘schoolmaster’, ‘pedant’) who has no common sense and is too clever by half to save his own skin. This persona may be satirised, yet merges with the ζουγλός (‘juggler’, ‘clown’) of later Byzantine and medieval western begging poetry to create prototypes for Lear’s fool and Malvolio in Shakespeare, for the pederastic schoolmaster in Cretan Renaissance comedy (Holton), and for Karaghiozis in shadow theatre (Stavrakopoulou) – tragicomic, vituperative and self-castigating. We may also recognise gender transformations into the hypersexualised schoolmistress of modern Greek paramythia (folktales) and prose fiction such as The Girl With Two Husbands (see Appendix) and Stratis Myrivilis’ novel Η Δασκάλα με τα Χρυσά Μάτια (Schoolmistress with the Golden Eyes), both composed in the shadows of World Wars I and II. Despite his name, Myrivilis’ protagonist, Leonis, sees himself as anti-hero thanks to his ‘inner karaghiozis’ voice that (twice) mocks his past wartime exploits as bombastic, yet seems not to question his sexual obsession with schoolteacher Sappho (his dead war comrade’s golden-eyed widow) on the island of Lesbos, and in the context of Greek refugees who reached the island during and after the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922. At the end, he violates her body on rocky shores where they have been collecting crabs (and people also get washed up). A happy ending? Only if you are one of the crabs liberated as Sappho gradually loosens grip on her kerchief into which they were knotted as she succumbs. Their happy cackling (χαρούμενο χαρχάλεμα) as they scuttle back to their rockpools ‘with clipped claws erect’ closes the novel. Laughter does not ensure ‘happiness ever after’, any more than tears in The Girl With Two Husbands spell tragedy. Novel and tale alike demonstrate the doubleness of tears and laughter, comedy and tragedy, yet prove redemptive – if seductive – qualities of female learning and beauty across the ages in contexts of war, loss and displacement. In the five begging poems transmitted under the appellation ‘Ptochoprodromos’ (or ‘Poor Prodromos’) during the lifetime of ‘Theodore Prodromos’ (c. 1100–80), the author adopts the multi-­ faceted personas of a jester/clown/buffoon and a starving scholar/ learned teacher/priest.40 As for games and play, rude jokes and 40 Alexiou 1986; 1999.

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g­ estures, Phaidon Koukoules (1955) and Ethelyn Orso (1979) have collected enough material to suggest associations of particular animals, plants and foods with sexuality in Greek texts across the ages back to Aristophanes, but without analysis.41 That sexual innuendo and political satire continue to sharpen the edges of Greek gossip, cartoons and theatre, not least in the dark political times on our own world stage, is not surprising. What is needed is proper classification and analysis of such associations, images and metaphorical switches in Greek jokes (sexual and other), and how they operate, often beyond the boundaries of rational thought.42 PART III  BYZANTINE PERSPECTIVES: TEARS AND LAUGHTER, THEORY AND PRAXIS This section surveys diverse attitudes and modes of behaviour, and examines differences between theory and practice, that is, theories, prescriptions and proscriptions, whether theological, philosophical or political, as opposed to what actually goes on in art and rhetoric, literature and music, insofar as we can try to interpret. Reading between the lines of theory and practice, as attempted here, may set new guidelines. Martin Hinterberger (Chapter 8, ‘“Messages of the Soul”: Tears, Smiles, Laughter and Emotions Expressed by Them in Byzantine Literature’) provides a succinct overview of the range of emotions expressed in the literature of the entire Byzantine period, considering moral and religious shifts and exploring new words alongside old concepts (often paired) for grief and sorrow – words such as κατάνυξις (‘compunction’), χαρμολύπη (‘bitter joy’)/γλυκύπικρο, πόνος/ πάθος (‘pain, suffering’), μειδιάω/χαμογελῶ (‘smile’). The twin senses of γελῶ (‘laugh, mock’), implicit in the laughter of the gods and others (Halliwell, Maciver), suggest that the semantic shift (so strange for us) in the modern transitive sense of γελῶ as ‘lie, deceive’ has a long history (Beaton). Aglae Pizzone (Chapter 9, ‘Towards a Byzantine Theory of the Comic?’) tackles head-on the hardest question of all: Byzantine laughter from a theoretical perspective. Hitherto untranslated ­ sources  – including obscure and difficult texts – are analysed with meticulous yet always relevant detail to show how authors from the tenth to thirteenth centuries considered three major issues of what we now call anthropology, psychology and literature: the importance 41 See Henderson 1991 on Aristophanes; cf. Bancroft-Marcus 2013 on Cretan drama. 42 Alexiou 1986; 1999. On Byzantine material, see Koukoules 1948–57: vi. 505–39; for modern Greek, Orso 1979.

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introduction 15 of humour in everyday life; laughter as comic and educative among humankind even if only neighing noises for horses; reader–writer humorous intercourse in twelfth-century novels (Nilsson) and after (Agapitos). Puns and wordplay are constant verbal features which underline the unity of opposites and the opposition of unities, a keynote theme of this book. Pizzone’s material demonstrates the range, depth and originality of the Byzantines’ contribution to Greek culture and its transmission. Jan Stenger (Chapter 10, ‘Staging Laughter and Tears: Libanius, Chrysostom and the Riot of the Statues’) replays dramatic scenes from the riot of the statues in 387 ce at Antioch in Syria, as described from the viewpoints of the rhetorician Libanios and his former pupil John Chrysostom, a pagan and a Christian respectively. At the riots, the crowds switched from mocking laughter to bitter wailing when confronted with the punitive consequences of their actions. Libanios uses laughter and tears primarily for rhetorical and literary purposes, whereas Chrysostom expands on their differences so as to encourage his congregation to ‘look heavenwards’. Both authors well understood the political, social and dramatic powers of laughter and tears in public management and education, but Chrysostom’s prioritisation of tears points firmly in the Christian direction, such as is found in the sixth-century kontakia (sung verse homilies) of Romanos the Melodist (Harvey). Common to both is the interdependence of laughter and tears, and their performative power to cross boundaries of space and time, as in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Seaford). Ioannis Papadogiannakis (Chapter 11, ‘Lamenting for the Fall of Jerusalem in the Seventh Century ce’) introduces the otherwise littleknown Strategius’ Capture of Jerusalem and shows how the author intertwines classical and biblical citations with historical events, then injects vivid details from the carnage he claims to have witnessed, so as to lament the holy city’s fall in 614 ce, while celebrating its past in the hope that the community may come together again in joy through shared mourning. Stock citations and rhetorical conventions may irk modern tastes, but do not detract from veracity. Rather they serve to remind us how much we still have to learn from past devastation of cities, displacement of peoples, as recorded from all sides and in all languages, in words and images, monuments and music, from Homeric times (Seaford) to the fall of Constantinople to the Latins in 1204 (Angold) right up to the present day.43 A study by Tim Greenwood draws on an Armenian lament of the ninth century ce, which may 43 See Bachvarova, Dutsch and Suter 2016, esp. Holst-Warhaft 2016 and Karanika 2016.

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have been inspired by Byzantine models, reminding us how past and present merge into each other, through art and monuments, as well as in words and song.44 Susan Ashbrook Harvey (Chapter 12, ‘Guiding Grief: Liturgical Poetry and Ritual Lamentation in Early Byzantium’) draws attention to Near Eastern Christian liturgy and hymnography in Syriac and Greek, from the late fourth to the mid-sixth centuries ce. Prose homilists (e.g. John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzos) condemned lamentation as a ‘mad and wild disease of women’, urging contrition and contemplation upon the bereaved in their congregations (Stenger, Hinterberger). Meanwhile, verse homilists composed  for  liturgical performance antiphonal hymns sung between  cantor and choir, with responses from the congregation. Through dramatic dialogue, fictionalised speech and monologue (external and internal), Romanos’  hymns, for instance, explore, debate and re-enact in performance the extremes of joy and grief, loss and ­penitence, as experienced by biblical characters such as Mary for Christ, Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, and Peter for his denial of Christ. Sensory imagery (including touch, sound and smell) conveys an inner tumult through outer expressions of gesture, posture, disarray of dress and hair, and howls: Peter, on hearing the cock crow, ‘let out a howl (κωκυτός)’, then ‘put his hands over his head and wailed (ἐβόησεν)’. A worthy precursor in words and music to J. S. Bach. Lamentation was not exclusive to women (Mullett, Nilsson, Angold, Agapitos, Holton). Early Byzantine liturgical hymns engaged the congregation through shared ritual performance of biblical sorrows, guiding them from family grief to divine consolation. ‘Romanos’ is hardly a household name, but his hymns rank among the world’s greatest religious musical and poetic compositions. Enduring qualities derive both from the context of early Christian liturgy (Syriac and Greek) and from the religious, literary and musical traditions of the Near East, where laments on themes pagan, Hebrew and Christian are recorded from Hellenistic sources and beyond, in west and east,  in learned and vernacular tongues.45 Romanos’ hymns have been excerpted, integrated and transmitted 44 Greenwood 2012. On the fall of cities in the east, from Jerusalem (1099) to Constantinople (1204), and their consequences for Byzantium, see also Frankopan 2015: 136–57. 45 Alexiou and Dronke 1971 (Jephtha’s daughter); Dronke 2012 (Adam). For an exceptional collection of such material in Italian Renaissance arias sung to lyre accompaniment, hear Erin Headley, Reliquie di Roma 1: Lamentarium, Atalante, Nimbus Alliance, NI 6152.

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until the present day through liturgies for daily, festive and penitential occasions. Their antiphonal qualities and ritual/metaphorical significations have  fed  into, and  are  shared with, traditional songs of the life cycle, at multiple and not  always conscious levels of cultural transmission.  Antiphony involves oppositions of sound and sense in contrasting voices, and hinges on performance. Lifecycle imagery is determined by ritual as  well as poetry.46 Liturgical laments have continued to inspire poems such as Yannis Ritsos’ Epitaphios, Kostas Varnalis’ Η Μάνα του Χριστού (‘Mother of Christ’) and Odysseas Elytis’ Ἀξιον Εστί (‘It is worthy’), set to music in several versions (including male voice for female mourner) by Mikis Theodorakis.47 Greek liturgy and hymns are best known for tears; yet humour, laughter and dance (spiritual and sexual) are never absent, thanks to wordplay and paradoxical juxtapositions of sound and meaning, including a plausible (if theologically dubious) embryological pun on God’s seminal fluid curdling Christ in the Virgin’s womb, ‘as David prophesied’ in Psalm 67 (Romanos 19).48 Likewise, Sarah laughs, first in mocking disbelief, then in jouissance at her senile fertility (Romanos 41, 10.1–3), just as Christ’s Crucifixion is not only for penitence and salvation, but ἵνα χορεύῃ ὁ Ἀδάμ (‘that Adam may dance’), as in the refrain to his Hymn on the Passion (20). Dance (χορός) even more than laughter is perhaps the fullest expression of Christian joy (χαρά), in antinomic antithesis to Χάρος, as the Greek figure of death has been personified across the ages. PART IV  LAUGHTER, POWER AND SUBVERSION This part suggests how laughter subverts even as it diverts and amuses, in cultural, linguistic and social contexts ranging from low to high. Performance commitments prevented Alexander Lingas from submitting his chapter on musical subversion in the genre of ‘parahymnography’ (parodic hymns) with vocables and ludic words set to angelic melodies. None who heard the oral version at the conference will forget his sung display. There is no binary opposition between sacred 46 Alexiou 2002a: 52–65; 2004. 47 Holst-Warhaft 1992: 171–94. For dramatic intervention by a mourning woman in liturgical space during the Deposition from the Cross, see the material collected by the ethnomusicologist Mary Vouras from the island of Nisyros in 1968, as summarised by Alexiou 2002a: 327. 48 6.4–5: ἐτυρώθην . . . τὸ τετυρωμένον ὄρος, where the play on ὄρος (‘mountain’) and ὁρός (‘whey, curd; seminal fluid’) gives an extra dimension to the unusual verb ἐτυρώθην (‘I was curdled’) in the context of LXX ‘cheese mountain’ of Psalm 67, corrected in modern translation from Hebrew to ὄρος πῖον or ‘rich mountain’.

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and secular within Byzantine musical culture, because hymn tunes were often derived from secular melodies, as in the early Christian west. It is worth noting that ‘The Body Song Project’ (Radio 3, ‘Why Music?’, Friday 25 September 2015) rapped and sang their way up, down and throughout heart, kidneys, larynx, liver, lungs in modern London’s African manner, the bodily parts not unlike those specified in Lingas’ ninth-century Byzantine chants, because these are the organs we sing with.49 Ruth Webb (Chapter 13, ‘Mime and the Dangers of Laughter in Late Antiquity’) reminds us that although anti-theatrical views predominate in extant sources, other sides of the debate have not been entirely excised from early Christian texts. In Syriac, Jacob of Serugh (Harvey) presents arguments from a Christian perspective which mention the benefits of dance and laughter, games and play, while his Greek contemporary Chorikios of Gaza argues for the therapeutic value of mimes on medical grounds: better, perhaps, to enjoy a good laugh at the theatre than go to your doctor!50 Webb mentions three key words on a slippery slope of meanings with sexual undertones which stand out from late antique and early Byzantine condemnations of laughter: eutrapelos or ‘easily shifting’, ‘witty’, ‘lewd’; malakos or ‘soft’, ‘yielding’, ‘effeminate’; diachusis or ‘pouring forth’, ‘merriment’, ‘ejaculation’. In each case it is the sexual sense that predominates in common usage today. Slippage between clever words and obscene acts is implied in the official condemnations of the kind of laughter provoked by mimes. Similar vehemence against lamentation suggests that the dangers of laughter were no easier to quell than those of tears, whether on stage or in public view, with the difference that tears were more easily guided towards remorse and penitence, as Byzantine monastic typika (foundation documents) constantly remind us. Mime subverts by questioning transcendent values and beliefs and affords lessons for every age, not least our own. Webb suggests that extant papyrus fragments may be found ‘not very funny’ – but can we trust contemporary reactions? Thanks to interdisciplinary discussion, there is now an increasing awareness of comic/tragic episodes in Byzantine high and low styles, and much remains to be explored. Mikhail Bakhtin has been censured for parachronistic 49 For texts, see Mitsakis 1990. For parallels in contemporary music and body/vocal research, see Cavarero 2005. 50 Georgios Vizyenos (1849–96) exploits to dramatic and ironic effect the physiological as well as psychological aspects of laughter and tears in his six stories, especially in ‘Who was my brother’s killer’. For a translation, see P. Mackridge (Vizyenos 2014b).

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a­ pplication of medieval western carnival models to late antiquity,51 but he got key points right: laughter is about subversion and inversion of power roles, as told in myths and tales, songs and imagery, especially in relation to food and sex. Przemysław Marciniak (Chapter 14, ‘Laughter on Display: Mimic Performances and the Danger of Laughing in Byzantium’) treads a cautious yet bold path through sparse, scattered and conflicting evidence on mimes (the term mimos is used for both actor and performance) and jesters. The impact in real life of the anti-theatrical legislations of the Council in Trullo (692 ce) may have been exaggerated, and from the eleventh and certainly the twelfth centuries, there existed various kinds of performance, on the streets if not formally staged, involving mock fights and skits mingled with coarse invective and horseplay. Evidence for what made the Byzantines laugh can be corroborated by a body of literary texts (Nilsson), above all in the high-style novels of Theodore Prodromos and Niketas Eugenianos, whose comic episodes in Drosilla and Charikles include an old lady singing and displaying on a table-top, and the five low-style begging poems by ‘Ptochoprodromos’, where the term zouglos is used in court contexts.52 Laughter thrives on low, learned and other tongues for multilingual puns and double entendres, then as now.53 Elena Boeck (Chapter 15, ‘The Power of Amusement and the Amusement of Power: The Princely Frescoes of St Sophia, Kiev, and Their Connections to the Byzantine World’) examines the famous but hitherto largely obscure fresco decorations of the princely towers in Kiev’s St Sophia, created for the Rus’ prince Iaroslav ‘the Wise’ (d. 1054). The so-called ‘minstrels’ scene’ turns out after a twentiethcentury cleaning to reveal a sophisticated and multi-sensory acrobatic and musical performance, complete with organ and an orchestra of eleven members. Iconographic and historical evidence shows how pageantry and spectacle promote imperial laughter at the Byzantine court, and thereby appear to assert power. Theodore Prodromos (who boasts descent on his father’s side from the archbishop of Rus’)54 composed for the Komnenian court 51 Beard 2014: 59–65. 52 See Theodore Prodromos’ so-called ‘Maiuri’ poem, line 65 (Maiuri 1919). 53 For two recent historical and cultural reassessments of the anonymously transmitted Lucianic dialogue Timarion (twelfth century), see Krallis 2013 and MacDougall 2016: their arguments depend precisely on their awareness of double entendres from multiple literary, historical and political perspectives. 54 Theodore Prodromos in Hörander 1974: 479–80, lines 184–9. On the probability of said archbishop being uncle rather than father to Theodore, see Kazhdan and Franklin 1984: 98–100.

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encomia and epigrams in diverse high styles,55 and five begging poems (using street slang in his persona as ‘Ptochoprodromos’), which are expressly intended to make the emperor ‘laugh seriously’.56 Some vignettes, especially in the poem against monks, have been obelised as nonsensical by philologists, but make visual – if surreal – sense in the light of the Kiev fresco.57 Byzantine literary texts often mean more when read according to aesthetic perspectives inclusive of art objects, as in ekphrasis (Walker, Nilsson). Alicia Walker (Chapter 16, ‘Laughing at Eros and Aphrodite: Sexual Inversion and its Resolution in the Classicising Arts of Medieval Byzantium’) shows how strategies of inversion, distortion and exaggeration form the basis of parody, burlesque and humour in art (and music too, if ‘parahymnography’ is taken into account) in ways that supplement and illuminate literary texts: images and sounds merely suggest what words tend to make specific. Graeco-Roman mythological and epic narratives provided the artist with secular themes not just to amuse but subtly subvert the patriarchal conventions of Byzantine society. What has been decried as mimesis by critics proves the secret instrument of artistic craft.58 Both Walker’s art objects – the Veroli casket and the San Marco censer (twelfth century) – draw from wellknown Homeric precedents (Halliwell), but in their secularity point sideways to prose fiction (Nilsson), and forwards to vernacular verse romance (Agapitos) as well as to Cretan Renaissance drama (Holton) and modern shadow theatre (Stavrakopoulou). PART V  GENDER, GENRE AND LANGUAGE: LOSS AND SURVIVAL This part explores the range of emotional and verbal expressions for tears and laughter as recorded in the voices of men and women, in fiction and history, verse and prose, letters and drama, from the twelfth century onwards. Chapters 17–19 cover the revival of fictional, epistolary and historical genres up to 1204, while Chapters 20–2 mark subsequent cultural links and shifts in response to loss. Ingela Nilsson (Chapter 17, ‘Comforting Tears and Suggestive Smiles: To Laugh and Cry in the Komnenian Novel’) traces links between ancient and Byzantine prose fiction, and draws attention to their humorous dimensions, not always explicit. As in postmodern fiction, complicity between writer and reader (at the expense of 55 For the latest full critical edition of the neglected epigrams, see Zagklas 2014. 56 See Alexiou 2015. 57 Alexiou 2016. 58 Angelov 2013; Krallis 2013; MacDougall 2016.

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protagonists) is engaged even when the hero is ego-narrator, as in Eustathios Makrembolites’ ‘Hysmine and Hysminias’. Laughter and tears alike can be comic, sexual and serious at the same time, as when, at the end of book I, Hysminias tells his companion Kallisthenes how obnoxiously Hysmine tickled his feet (only to stimulate his sexuality, as Kallisthenes points out), then discloses to us readers at the end of book V how the crew ‘catapulted’ (κατεσφόνδισαν) Hysmine somewhat jauntily overboard as sacrificial victim during a storm after their elopement, then dumped him too at the next landing place because his tears were so insufferable! Rarely can a single novel have been regarded over generations from the eighteenth to the twentieth century so diversely as rubbish, sex manual, pornography, Christian allegory, Platonist/neo-Platonist tract, as well as easy reading in learned Greek – condemned by Byzantinists but widely read, as was the ‘Timarion’!59 Margaret Mullett (Chapter 18, ‘Do Brothers Weep? Male Grief, Mourning, Lament and Tears in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Byzantium’) questions the assumption that Byzantine ritual, lamentation and mourning belonged exclusively to woman’s domain. Since prehistoric times, men and women have played interlocking roles, in public and private, as recorded from ancient sculptures, vase-­ paintings and rhetoric, Byzantine frescoes and texts, modern photographs and songs.60 The searing beauty of the pair of poems composed by Theophylact of Ochrid in the early twelfth century demonstrates the polysemy of male tears in complex verse forms and high language. Is it our loss that laments are not performed across ranges of gender, genre and register? Michael Angold (Chapter 19, ‘Laments by Nicetas Choniates and Others for the Fall of Constantinople in 1204’) examines four different types of men’s lament related to 1204 and its aftermath, and ­demonstrates the range, depth and variety of emotional responses and  rhetorical expressions. Personal loss intensified collective grief, generating different kinds of tears: outrage, humiliation and contrition, mingled with anguish, as men strove to recover their Christian faith and prove moral superiority over the Latins. Interaction between personal and public lamentation ‘guided their grief’ (Harvey), and handed on memories of people and place from one generation to the next. Panagiotis Agapitos (Chapter 20, ‘“Words Filled With Tears”: Amorous Discourse as Lamentation in the Palaiologan Romances’) 59 Alexiou 1977; 2002a: 111–27; Plepelits 1989; Roilos 2005. 60 Cf. e.g. the geometric vase-paintings in Ahlborg-Cornell 1971 and the photographs from modern Greece by Alexander Tsiaras in Danforth 1982.

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discusses the vernacular verse romances of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, with particular reference to their literary and linguistic craftsmanship. Western and eastern parallels are scrutinised, as are interconnections with laments in learned prose novels of late antiquity and the twelfth century (Nilsson) on the one hand, and with laments recorded from modern folk tradition on the other. What may strike contemporary readers as new in Greek fiction here is the figure of the lone soldier/wanderer (ξένος), estranged from his homeland and ladylove by wars and upheavals beyond his control, as in Lyvistros and Rhodamne. ‘Plot’ is furthered not by action between the eponymous protagonists, but in letters exchanged between Lyvistros and his erstwhile companion in battle, Kleitophon. Maleto-male bonding plays at least as strong a role as sexual encounter between male and female. Tears do not just express alienation through lost love, but are also caused by lonely wanderings in a hostile world, as in Schubert’s Winterreise. Tenor Ian Bostridge (2015: 207–37 on Rast) reminds us with concrete historical detail that the weary traveller’s loss of love takes place in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. David Holton (Chapter 21, ‘The Tragic, the Comic and the Tragicomic in Cretan Renaissance Literature’) surveys the ebullience of poetic and dramatic expression in Cretan dialect that ensued from Venetian colonisation (1204–1669), especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Interaction with Italian culture was strong and mutual, allowing the revitalisation of some of the oldest Greek dramatic oppositions: death and marriage, wedding and funeral, tears and laughter (Seaford). Anna Stavrakopoulou (Chapter 22, ‘Belisarius in the Shadow Theatre: The Private Calvary of a Legendary General’) introduces us to a known performer from the island of Crete, whose diverse repertoire included scenarios from all periods of Greek history, with emphasis upon domestic disputes, amatory engagements, military prowess – and, of course, food. ‘Karaghiozis’ is a much-loved figure, whose jokes, moans and boasts – and above all witty dialogues rich in multilingual double entendres – never fail to raise laughs in live performance, however bitter their edge. Three more questions suggest themselves on the basis of these contributions. First, language: how has the expression of emotions through laughter and tears (verbal, vocal and other) affected the variegated registers of Greek? Second, cultural transmission: how might ‘tradition’ and ‘folklore’ be redefined in more contemporary terms? Third, ‘Hellenism’: can boundaries be redrawn? It has been customary to separate ‘Greek’ culture into three categories: ancient, Byzantine, modern.

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Chronological and disciplinary boundaries have never been clear-cut: at one end, ‘Byzantine’ overlaps with ‘late antique’; at the other with ‘early modern Greek’.61 Averil Cameron has drawn attention to questions of definition at the earlier end of the scale, while Roderick Beaton has succinctly summarised literary and linguistic perceptions and practices from the late eleventh century, taking into account historical and demographic changes.62 Greek remained the major written language, but in increasingly diverse forms, including common speech, especially after 1171, when Greek became the predominant spoken language in the Byzantine empire.63 Writers such as Theodore Prodromos, John Tzetzes and Eustathios of Thessaloniki continued to display virtuosity in classical and Homeric metrical and poetic forms, but took an active interest in debating and recording vulgar forms.64 Laughter and tears continued to inspire Greek poets and dramatists after Constantinople lost central control of what was left of the Byzantine empire. The result? A burgeoning of literary texts in modern Greek which drew from earlier models alongside interaction with western and eastern cultures (Agapitos). Even before the city’s fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, we see the rise of literary experimentation with local dialects in Crete and Cyprus, especially in poetry and drama (Holton). Issues of language, metre and ‘folklore’ are complex, and remain contentious.65 Three general observations are pertinent. First, spoken Greek forms have always been changing, yet since Homer variable oral and literary registers have endured. Elements of ‘modern’ Greek can be traced back in writing to the Hellenistic koinē, elevated to literary expression in New Testament Greek. Vernacular language and rhythms shape musical and written usage in Byzantine Greek and the Orthodox liturgy. Second, ‘folklore’ as a term and concept is parachronistic, and should be replaced. Common features of early modern vernacular literature and the corpus of songs and tales recorded largely from the early nineteenth century onwards might better be described as ‘traditional’. Even the term ‘popular’ is misleading, since it is evident from the twelfth century at the latest that experimentation with the vernacular began in Constantinopolitan court circles. Third, underlying themes, conventions and life-cycle imagery can be found in Romanos, as also in ancient Greek. ‘Slippage’ between learned and vernacular voices 61 Cameron 2016. 62 Beaton 2015: 37–65. 63 Beaton 2015: 32–4. 64 Alexiou 2015. 65 Details of debates are summarised in Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 40.1 (2016).

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occurs in diverse ways precisely when emotions are heightened, as happens with tears and laughter. In Greek this has never been a simple top-down process, rather a series of interacting and regenerative systems. These are themes for future research.66 The need for scholars of ancient, Byzantine and modern Greek to engage with each other, not only in terms of the transmission of texts and models, but also in examining the ways in which successive stages of Greek culture represent and tackle issues and topics that have been or will be prominent also at other stages, is increasingly recognised.67 We hope that the present volume might be regarded as a stimulus to further investigation. We shall let our last words be spoken by ‘Maria’ and her storyteller and judge, Andronikos, as in the twelfth-century dialogue poem of 165 lines in Marcianus Graecus 524, transcribed, edited and translated with commentary on literary, historical and legal matters by Ruth Macrides.68 Maria is from a Byzantine province in what is now south-western Turkey, a supplicant nun in the Great Church, Constantinople, where she makes confession to Andronikos. Driven by famine, she has not only killed but also eaten flesh from her mother and child, along with that of other dead bodies found in their tombs. There is humour as well as grief and tears, as Maria is asked, which and how many bits of her victims did she eat, guts, bugs and all? She owes her redemption to citations from ancient drama, especially Euripides. It may not matter if we never know who ‘Maria’ was,  or  whether words so crafted were her own or invented, fact or fiction. Macrides concludes, ‘Was this [her acquittal] not humanism in the fullest sense of the word?’69 We cannot answer, but diverse forms of laughter and tears, as shared, interpreted and debated across  peoples, languages and ages, may help us better to understand each other.

66 For further thoughts on these and other topics, and on the findings of this volume, see Roderick Beaton’s Afterword (below, pp. 403–11). 67 See (most recently) Jeffreys 2014. 68 Macrides 1985. 69 Macrides 1985: 168.

2 LAUGHTER AND TEARS IN EARLY GREEK LITERATURE Richard Seaford

Xenophon describes the reaction at Sparta to the news of a victory in which vast numbers of the enemy were killed without the loss of a single Spartan:1 ἀρξαμένους ἀπὸ Ἀγησιλάου καὶ τῶν γερόντων καὶ τῶν ἐφόρων πάντας κλαίειν· οὕτω κοινόν τι ἄρα χαρᾷ καὶ λύπῃ δάκρυά ἐστιν. Beginning with Agesilaos and the elders and the ephors, they all wept: in this way are tears common to joy and to grief. Laughter and tears, however caused, embody release of tension,2 and may occur together. The ancient Greeks were struck by the facts that tears of joy and tears of grief may be indistinguishable, that even tears of grief may be pleasant,3 that the same tears may seem to express joy and grief, and that laughter may occur along with grief. I will focus on a series of striking passages in early Greek literature which combine manifestations (whether tears or laughter) of opposite moods. The combination of opposites inherent in these passages often has much pathos, and in several of the passages the contradiction between negative and positive emotion is associated with a contradiction or transition pertaining to personal identity (between family and community, death and life, unmarried and married). The fundamental transitions of the rites of passage (in particular mystic initiation and wedding ritual) from grief to joy were intensified and dramatised by the expectation and promotion of manifestations of the opposed emotions that were not necessarily the less genuine for being expected. And in the ritualised inevitability of these poignant transitions the  1 Hellenica 7.1.32 (368 bce).   2 Vingerhoets 2013: 80, 107, 148.  3 For example, Od. 4.102, 10.398; E. El. 126, Tro. 607.

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striking physiological similarity of grief and joy may have played a part. Characteristic of tragedy (in contrast to real life) is the failure of these transitions,4 in which the ambivalence of tears may be exploited (I will give examples). Not all the passages I discuss concern rites of passage. But the social importance of the rites of passage may have been influential in embedding the combined manifestation of grief and joy in the Greek tradition.5 In the sixth book of the Iliad Andromache rushes with her infant son Astyanax to the city gate, and with tears (405) urges her husband Hektor to stay within the walls. He refuses, giving as his reasons for refusing not only the shame he feels before the Trojans but also his courageous spirit (thumos) (441–6). He then expresses special concern for what will happen to Andromache after his death, and reaches out to Astyanax, who shrinks back and cries out in fear of the plume nodding on his father’s helmet. Mother and father both laugh (471 ἐκ δ’ ἐγέλασσε πατήρ τε φίλος καὶ πότνια μήτηρ). Hektor puts his helmet on the ground, kisses and rocks his child, prays that he will be a better warrior than his father, and gives him back to his mother. ‘And she received him in her fragrant bosom, laughing6 through her tears’ (484 δακρυόεν γελάσασα). This laughter must seem to continue the laughter inspired by the infant’s fear, but it is laughter now not only of amusement but also – given the fleeting but intense family solidarity – of joy, with the result that her tears seem to be simultaneously tears of grief (for the  imminent death of Hektor, as at 405) and tears of joy. It is worth adding that the combination of tears and laughter seems childlike, appropriately here. And the audience too could hardly fail to feel simultaneous sadness and joy. The phrase δακρυόεν γελάσασα unites the opposites of grief and joy. Such oxymoronic phrases are rare in Homer, in contrast to their frequency in Athenian tragedy.7 The ambivalence of tears is rare in Homer too, although we will soon come to another famous example. It is more common in tragedy, for instance in the passage of Sophokles’ Elektra which we will also shortly discuss. Much of book 6 of the Iliad, including our passage, is relatively late, closer to tragedy than is the bulk of the epic, and from a later stage of the developing polis. I have argued this in detail elsewhere.8 Suffice it here to note briefly that there are in this passage three combinations (or confusions) of opposites that are characteristic of tragedy. First, there is the fusion   4 See e.g. Seaford 1987.   5 See esp. Alexiou 1974.  6 γελάσασα shoud not be translated (as it sometimes is) ‘smiling’: cf. 471.   7 Seaford 2003: 147.   8 Seaford 1994a: 330–42.

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of life and death in the lamentation by the women of the household for Hektor while he still lives (498–500).9 Second, there is the potential confusion of male and female, in the comparison of Andromache – as she leaves domestic space for the public space of the male world – to a maenad (389),10 before being sent back home by her husband to continue her weaving (491–3). The third contradiction, again expressed in Andromache entering public space, is between family and community: on the one hand the fear and pity that Hektor feels for Andromache as a potential widow, and on the other the public duty that – along with his thumos11 – impels him to fight in the forefront (441–65). In the phrase δακρυόεν γελάσασα the tears are for an imminent death caused by the claim of the community, and the laughter expresses the joyful solidarity of the family destroyed by the death. Compare the aftermath of the mutual fratricide in Aeschylus’ Septem. The polis has been saved, says the messenger, but the royal brothers have killed each other. He continues thus: τοιαῦτα χαίρειν καὶ δακρύεσθαι πάρα, πόλιν μὲν εὖ πράσσουσαν, οἱ δ’ ἐπιστάται δισσὼ στρατηγὼ διέλαχον σφυρηλάτῳ Σκύθῃ σιδήρῳ κτημάτων παμπησίαν· Such things are there for rejoicing and weeping, the polis faring well, but the overseers, the two generals have divided up with hammered, Scythian iron their whole property. (814–17) Shortly thereafter the female chorus ask πότερον χαίρω κἀπολολύξω σωτῆρι πόλεως ἀσινείᾳ,12 ἢ τοὺς μογεροὺς καὶ δυσδαίμονας ἀτέκνους κλαύσω πολεμάρχους. Will I rejoice and cry in triumph at the saving unharmedness of the polis, or will I weep for the wretched and ill-starred, childless war-lords? (825–8)   9 Cf. e.g. the praise, bathing and robe for Agamemnon in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, and the funerary dress for Pentheus at E. Ba. 857–8. 10 Cf. Il. 22.460; Seaford 1994a: 330–8. 11 On the complexity of this combination see Cairns 1993: 80–1. 12 I reproduce Herman’s emendation.

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Here too, as in the Iliad passage, a striking combination of happiness with tears of lamentation expresses a contradiction between community and royal family. In the Iliad passage the contradictory emotions are created by the joy of family threatened by imminent death for the sake of the community. But in Septem – from the polis perspective characteristic of tragedy – the conflict between royal brothers threatened the polis, which is saved along with their demise; and so the contradiction between community and royal family is directly mirrored in the contradictory emotions of citizens. My other tragic example is Sophokles, Elektra 1309–15. Elektra, having finally suddenly recognised Orestes, reassures him that her mother will not see her laughing. μῖσός τε γὰρ παλαιὸν ἐντέτηκέ μοι, κἀπεί σ’ ἐσεῖδον, οὔ ποτ’ ἐκλήξω χαρᾷ δακρυρροοῦσα. πῶς γὰρ ἂν λήξαιμ’ ἐγώ, ἥτις μιᾷ σε τῇδ’ ὁδῷ θανόντα τε καὶ ζῶντ’ ἐσεῖδον; εἴργασαι δέ μ’ ἄσκοπα. For an ancient hatred has melted into me, and since I saw you, I will never cease weeping with joy. For how would I cease, who saw you on this one journey dead and living? You have done to me unfathomable things. Her mother will not see her laughing, but weeping. They will be tears of joy, but will be taken to be tears of grief. She has been lamenting continuously (122–3, 165–6, 283), and her mother will not notice that the tears are now of joy. Besides this striking indistinguishability of tears of joy from tears of grief, there are two more things here to notice relevant to our theme. The first is the intensity of feeling caused by the reversal of grief into joy, on the recognition of her long-lost brother who was just reported to have been killed. The pleasure of, and need for, tears (whether of grief or joy or even of laughter) are in release – from suffering, anxiety or tension.13 Just as tears of grief may provide (pleasurable) release from the grief, so tears of joy are more likely to be occasioned by sudden release from anxiety or suffering than simply by joy that is not preceded by anxiety or suffering. But this means that, so long as such tears of joy persist, they arise from the partial persistence of the anxiety or suffering from which the tears embody release. It is in the 13 Vingerhoets 2013: 80, 107, 148.

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midst of her joy, just after recognising Orestes, that Elektra refers to her mother’s murder of her father as a cloudless evil never to be dispelled, never to be forgotten.14 And she says that she will never stop weeping. We cannot help feeling that in the release and joy expressed in her tears Elektra’s grief nevertheless persists.In the Odyssey the old nurse suddenly recognises Odysseus by his scar: τὴν δ’ ἅμα χάρμα καὶ ἄλγος ἕλε φρένα, τὼ δέ οἱ ὄσσε δακρυόφιν πλῆσθεν. Joy and pain simultaneously took her mind, and her eyes filled with tears. (Od. 19.471–2) The tears presumably express both the joy and the pain. Similarly, when suddenly Telemachus recognises Odysseus, ἀμφιχυθεὶς πατέρ’ ἐσθλὸν ὀδύρετο δάκρυα λείβων. ἀμφοτέροισι δὲ τοῖσιν ὑφ’ ἵμερος ὦρτο γόοιο· κλαῖον δὲ λιγέως, ἁδινώτερον ἤ τ’ οἰωνοί, φῆναι ἢ αἰγυπιοὶ γαμψώνυχες, οἷσί τε τέκνα ἀγρόται ἐξείλοντο πάρος πετεηνὰ γενέσθαι· ὣς ἄρα τοί γ’ ἐλεεινὸν ὑπ’ ὀφρύσι δάκρυον εἶβον. he embraced his good father and lamented, shedding tears, and desire for the lament arose in them both. Then they wept with a shrill sound, more continuously than birds, ospreys or vultures, whose children countrymen took away before they could fly. Such was the pitiable flow of tears from their eyes. (Od. 16.214–18) Here too the tears of joy are exactly like tears of grief, and the joy is inseparable from memory of loss:15 Xenophon (Hell. 7.2.9) describes how, after the men of Phlius narrowly succeeded in repelling invaders, they clasped each other’s right hands, while the women brought wine 14 1246–50: ἀνέφελον ἐνέβαλες οὔποτε καταλύσιμον, / οὐδέ ποτε λησόμενον ἁμέτερον / οἷον ἔφυ κακόν. The ‘cloudless’ permanent memory evokes mystic initiation (see below): cf. E. Hipp. 191–2; Seaford 1994b: 281. 15 So also at Od. 22.500–1: Odysseus is reunited with the serving women of his household, and τὸν δὲ γλυκὺς ἵμερος ᾕρει / κλαυθμοῦ καὶ στοναχῆς, γίνωσκε δ’ ἄρα φρεσὶ πάσας (‘the sweet desire for weeping and groaning seized him, and he recognised them all’).

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and wept for joy, and everybody present was seized by κλαυσίγελως (‘weeping laughter’). The unusual reaction is attributable to the intensity of the terror suddenly dissolved but vividly remembered. The other point to notice about the reversal in the Elektra passage is that it evokes the reversal that occurred in mystic initiation. I have argued elsewhere that mystic initiation is evoked at several points in the play in connection with the imaginary death and ‘birth’ of Orestes and Elektra’s reaction to them.16 For instance, with the words of Elektra quoted above (1314–15) compare the mystic formula (on a fourth-century bce funerary gold leaf):17 νῦν ἔθανες καὶ νῦν ἐγένου, τρισόλβιε, ἅματι τῷδε. Now you died and now you came onto being, thrice-blessed one, on this day. The mystic initiate – like Elektra – passes suddenly from lamentation to salvation, as a result of the return of someone to life. For instance, Firmicus Maternus (De Err. 22) records a ritual in which the initiands lament an image on a bed, after which a light is brought in and the priest says ‘take courage, initiates, the god having been saved, for there will be for you salvation out of suffering’. Demeter’s search for Korē (lost to the underworld) was accompanied or imitated by the Eleusinian initiands, ‘and when she is found the whole rite concludes with the celebration and throwing of torches’.18 The search for Korē has been identified with the confused wanderings of the initiands in the darkness described by Plutarch as transformed by a wonderful light into entry into beautiful places.19 In the sixth-century bce Homeric Hymn to Demeter (an aetiology of the Eleusinian mysteries), the mourning Demeter is made by Iambe to smile and laugh and be cheerful (204 μειδῆσαι γελάσαι τε καὶ ἵλαον σχεῖν θυμόν).20 Mystic initiation is a context for the sudden reversal of suffering into joy, but also for their simultaneous co-existence: even in their initial suffering, and despite the secrecy of the ritual, the initiands must have believed 16 59–60, 65–6, 1223, 1228–9, 1232–3, 1246–50, 1285–7, 1314–15, 1354–6, 1489–90: Seaford 1994b. 17 No. 26 in Graf and Iles Johnston 2007. 18 Lactantius Div. Inst. Ep. 18.7; for other ancient sources for the ritual and discussion see Parker 2005: 355–6. 19 Plutarch fr. 178; Sourvinou-Inwood 2003, followed by Parker 2005: 355–6. 20 Plutarch’s idea (Mor. 565f) of souls in the underworld indulging in bacchic revelling and laughter (βακχεία καὶ γέλως) reminds us of the Eleusinian initiates in the underworld in Aristophanes’ Frogs (and cf. Plut. Mor. 1105b). Compare the Christian risus paschalis.

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in a positive outcome to the ritual, with the result that the fearful suffering was mixed with hope: according to Plutarch ‘they taste of joy such as is had by those being initiated, joy mixed with disturbance and fluttering anxiety along with sweet hope’.21 And according to Aelius Aristides good hope is, in mystic initiation, present together with the fear.22 It is worth mentioning here the extraordinary reaction of Socrates’ friends to his imminent death, about which he is so cheerful that they alternate between laughter and tears (Phaedo 59a τοτὲ μὲν γελῶντες, ἐνίοτε δὲ δακρύοντες). The rites of passage that were in Greek antiquity no less central than mystic initiation to an individual life were the wedding and the funeral. And they might be, like mystic initiation, the site of opposite emotions. ‘No wedding without tears, no funeral without laughter’, proclaims the proverb from Pontos cited in both the Introduction and the Afterword to this volume. From antiquity onwards the funeral of an unmarried girl may be imagined as a wedding.23 Ancient Greek wedding songs are largely lost. But there is scattered evidence for the resistance of the bride being expressed in tears.24 Both Catullus’ wedding songs have many Greek elements, and they both mention the tears of the bride. But both songs are full of praise, encouragement, and comfort for the bride. All ritual must end well, including (or especially) the rite of passage. The brides must express initial reluctance: in Catullus it is claimed that their complaints are feigned (62.36–7), and his translation of Callimachus refers to the ‘false little tears’ of brides (66.16). But in the end the encouragement must surely be seen to be effective, a process in which laughter may well have played a part. Here then is another rite of passage in which, as in mystic initiation, the fundamental transition is expressed in opposed emotions either simultaneously or in quick succession. As for the funeral, even this must end well. For example, the Iliad ends with the feast that concludes the funeral of Hektor. Earlier, after the Myrmidons lamented Patroklos, Achilles provided for them a ‘heart-pleasing’ funeral feast (23.8–29). The contrast is best expressed in a fragment of new comedy by Hegesippus (fr. 1.11–16 K-A), in which a chef boasts as follows: ὅταν ἐν περιδείπνῳ τυγχάνω διακονῶν, ἐπὰν τάχιστ’ ἔλθωσιν ἀπὸ τῆς ἐκφορᾶς, 21 Plutarch Mor. 943c γεύονται χαρᾶς, οἵαν οἱ τελούμενοι μάλιστα θορύβῳ καὶ πτοήσει συγκεκραμένην μετ’ ἐλπίδος ἡδείας ἔχουσι. 22 Aelius Aristides 48.28 παρεστώσης ἅμα τῷ φόβῳ τῆς ἀγαθῆς ἐλπίδος. 23 Alexiou and Dronke 1971; Alexiou 1974; Seaford 1987. 24 Seaford 1987: 106–7, 113–14.

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τὰ βάπτ’ ἔχοντες, τοὐπίθημα τῆς χύτρας ἀφελὼν ἐποίησα τοὺς δακρύοντας γελᾶν. τοιοῦτος ἔνδοθέν τις ἐν τῷ σώματι διέδραμε γαργαλισμὸς ὡς ὄντων γάμων. When I happen to be officiating in the funeral feast, as soon as they return from the carrying-out wearing dyed clothes, I – taking the lid from the pot – made those weeping to laugh. Such is the tickling that ran through their body, as at a wedding. Finally, we return briefly to mystic initiation. In Euripides’ Herakles, Herakles returns from the underworld just in time to save his family from being killed by the usurper Lykos. Herakles reveals that before descending to the underworld he was initiated into the mysteries (613). Indeed his Eleusinian initiation was an important tradition at Athens.25 The association of salvation with the return of someone (notably Persephone) from the underworld is a feature of mystic initiation, which is evoked by several passages of the drama.26 And as Lykos enters the house (to be killed by Herakles) the chorus sing that Herakles has returned from Hades and that now there will be justice, continuing χαρμοναὶ δακρύων ἔδοσαν ἐκβολάς· πάλιν ἔμολεν, ἃ πάρος οὔποτε διὰ φρενὸς ἤλπισ’ ἂν παθεῖν, γᾶς ἄναξ. Joys of tears gave their outflows; there has come back – what previously I would never have hoped to experience – the king of the land. (742–6) The joyful tears are justified by the (initiation-like) reversal, but in this context cannot fail to evoke also the catastrophe about to be imposed by the gods on Herakles, his frenzied destruction of his own family. Similarly, Elektra’s outlandish claim that she will never stop weeping for joy (now that she has seen Orestes come to life) evokes the permanence of the happiness bestowed by mystic initiation, but is one of the many expressions – in the conclusion of the play – of ambivalence: 25 Parker 2005: 345, 363 n.159. 26 531, 562–4, 839.

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along with victory, the horrors of the past continue in and beyond the matricide.27 It is characteristic of tragic pathos to evoke a rite of passage in a situation in which, in contrast to that rite, there is in fact no transition to permanent happiness.28 In Herakles and Elektra the tears are declared to be of joy, but seem (because tears also express grief) to presage disaster: they turn out to partake – even though joyful – of the striking and fundamental ambivalence of tears, like an oracle that seems to predict victory but actually predicts defeat.29 Tears and laughter absorb the soul but are involuntary, and so may seem to be divinely imposed. In the Odyssey they are imposed on the suitors by Athena as a presage of impending doom:          μνηστῆρσι δὲ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη ἄσβεστον γέλω ὦρσε, παρέπλαγξεν δὲ νόημα. οἱ δ’ ἤδη γναθμοῖσι γελώων ἀλλοτρίοισιν, αἱμοφόρυκτα δὲ δὴ κρέα ἤσθιον· ὄσσε δ’ ἄρα σφέων δακρυόφιν πίμπλαντο, γόον δ’ ὠΐετο θυμός.   In the suitors Pallas Athene aroused unquencheable laughter, and made their thinking wander. They laughed with jaws no longer their own, and ate meat mixed up with blood, and their eyes filled with tears, and their heart imagined lamentation. (20.345–9) The impression given is that the laughter produces tears, which in turn produce the thought of lamentation. Theoklymenos then correctly interprets this to signify a mass descent to the underworld. As in Herakles and Elektra, the tears (here along with laughter) presage disaster, but here this is made clearer by the transition to lamentation. Foreshadowed in the same way were the two greatest military disasters recorded for us by the Greek historians of the fifth century bce. On the way to Greece, and surveying the Hellespont hidden by his fleet and the shores and plains of Abydos full of men, Xerxes first called himself blessed, and then wept, writes Herodotus (7.45). When the Athenian expedition sailed off to Sicily, almost everybody in the city went down to the Peiraeus to see them off, writes Thucydides (6.30.2), with hope and at the same time with lamentations (καὶ μετ’ ἐλπίδος τε ἅμα ἰόντες καὶ ὀλοφυρμῶν). 27 Note esp. 1246–55, 1487–90, 1498; in general Seaford 1985. 28 For example, Seaford 1987. 29 For example, Hdt. 1.53.

3 IMAGINING DIVINE LAUGHTER IN HOMER AND LUCIAN Stephen Halliwell

Οὔτε ἄρα ἀνθρώπους ἀξίους λόγου κρατουμένους ὑπὸ γέλωτος ἄν τις ποιῇ ἀποδεκτέον, πολὺ δὲ ἧττον ἐὰν θεούς. So we should not accept it if a poet depicts respectable people being overcome by laughter – and far less so if the gods are depicted in this way. (Plato Rep. 3.388e–9a) ἐπιτιμᾷ δὲ αὐτοῖς ὁ Ζωΐλος, ἄτοπον εἶναι λέγων γελᾶν μὲν ἀκολάστως τοὺς θεοὺς ἐπὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις, τὸν δ᾽ Ἑρμῆν εὔχεσθαι ἐναντίον τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τῶν ἄλλων θεῶν ὁρώντων δεδέσθαι σὺν τῇ Ἀφροδίτῃ. οὐκ εἰσὶ δὲ οἱ ποιητικοὶ θεοὶ φιλόσοφοι, ἀλλὰ παίζονται. Zoïlus criticises the lines, stating that it is out of place for gods to laugh licentiously at such things and for Hermes to wish he had been tied up with Aphrodite in front of his father and with the rest of the gods looking on. But the gods of poetry are not philosophically serious, only a playful fiction. (schol. T Hom. Od. 8.332 = Zoïlus FGrHist 71 F18) There are two fundamentally different ways of trying to make sense of the functions of laughter both as a phenomenon in its own right and as a component of broader patterns of social and cultural behaviour.1 The first, whose roots lie in certain tendencies of Enlightenment thought, treats laughter as an expression of universal operations of

It was a great pleasure to contribute to the conference in honour of the Leventis Professorship of Meg Alexiou in Edinburgh in 2013: I am grateful to her and to Douglas Cairns for the invitation and for the congenial nature of the event.   1 For some recent reflections on different approaches to laughter, compare Beard 2014: 23–48. My own views are developed at length in Halliwell 2008, which the present chapter presupposes throughout.

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the human mind and therefore as essentially intelligible by means of universalising principles of psychology and sociology. A presupposition of this kind was basic to the diffuse body of writings about laughter, humour and comedy which appeared in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and it also underpinned two famous and formative works of the early twentieth century: Henri Bergson’s Le rire (1900), which explains the comic in terms of the power of laughter to chastise deviation from social norms, and Sigmund Freud’s Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewusstsein (Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, 1905), which takes the most significant kinds of joke (those involving aggression and/or sexuality) to afford a pleasure that arises from a saving of psychic energy normally expended on inhibiting the instincts in question. The tendency towards universalising theory has been inherited and developed, most recently, in the approach taken to laughter within cognitive science, as well as by various schools of thought – linguistic, psychological, sociological – which attempt to bring systematic analysis to bear on the workings of humour in general.2 I do not wish to deny that there is much to be learnt from this first approach, or family of approaches, to laughter. But it can take us only so far, since it is by definition ahistorical: it has no need of history (with the special exception, at any rate, of evolutionary assumptions), and it is indeed striking that while occasional historical illustrations crop up in the work of its proponents, historical inquiry and interpretation are usually conspicuous by their absence or else reduced to the subordinate level of mere surveys of the past. By sharp contrast, the second type of approach to laughter treats both its practice and its meanings as having their own intricate history – a history enmeshed with the habits, mentalities, and values of particular cultures. There are three great modern thinkers who have contributed especially telling insights to this alternative line of approach: the Italian romantic Leopardi, whose extraordinary notebooks, the Zibaldone, contain numerous aperçus on the subject and whose Operette Morali are the most important neo-Lucianic works of the past two hundred years; Friedrich Nietzsche, himself (like Leopardi, whom Nietzsche much admired) both a practitioner and a theorist of laughter’s multiple possibilities; and, finally, Mikhail Bakhtin, who was the first thinker actually to translate a historicising approach to laughter into a substantive   2 Recent psychological literature can be sampled and followed further in Provine 2000 and Scott 2013, both of whom supply interesting information but privilege a narrow band of empirical findings at the expense of the messier, more complex evidence of cultural history. The whole field of modern ‘humour studies’ can be tracked through Attardo 2014.

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model (contestable, for sure, in some respects, but nonetheless incisive and fruitful) of the dynamics of laughter-associated behaviour within specific cultural contexts.3 One thing relevant for my purposes about all three of those figures is that they were influenced in their thinking on this subject (as on others) by Greek antiquity. Although I will not be discussing Leopardi, Nietzsche and Bakhtin directly in this chapter, they remain essential intellectual reference points for the approach to the history of laughter which I pursued in my own book Greek Laughter and to which my present argument continues to owe an allegiance. The case of Greek culture, in the whole of its longue durée from ­antiquity to Byzantium and beyond, provides abundant reason to regard the subject of laughter, in its numerous forms and associations, as deeply embedded in culturally distinctive frameworks of thought and behaviour. For ancient Greek minds, the manifestations of laughter can be shown to have acquired a significant place in everything from the lives of infants to the existence of the Olympian gods, and gave subtle expression to some of the salient preoccupations of the culture, including matters relating to the definition of friendship and enmity, play and aggression, pleasure and pain, body and soul – even, ultimately, life and death. Cultures are webs of connections (and, sometimes, contradictions) between practices and ideas, behaviour and values, forms of life and ways of thinking. The richness and complexity of Greek cultural traditions mean that in order to make satisfying sense of their dealings with laughter, we need to be willing to move across and between the realms of poetry, mythology, religion, philosophy, art, politics, law, as well as social history in general. The ramifications of laughter can be traced at a whole series of levels, from the messy contingencies of street life to the abstract reflections of philosophers; from the instinctive laughter of children to the highly self-conscious worldviews of those who (anticipating, as I see it, modern conceptions of ‘the absurd’) conceived of human existence itself as intrinsically risible; and from the ‘unquenchable laughter’ of the Homeric gods to the view of some Christian Church Fathers (writing and thinking in Greek) that Jesus, god incarnate, never laughed at all. My specific concerns in the present chapter will straddle two of the  3 See Leopardi 1982 for a bilingual edition of the Operette, Leopardi 2013 for the first ever complete English translation (comprehensively indexed) of the Zibaldone. Lippitt 1992 and 1996 provide a helpful entry into Nietzsche’s thinking about laughter. The most pertinent of Bakhtin’s views to the history of laughter in antiquity are his (erratic but stimulating) reflections on the ‘Menippean’ traditions of satire: see Bakhtin 1984a: 106–37, with Rösler 1986 for some basic discussion.

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imagining divine laughter in homer and lucian 39 areas just mentioned: first, the religious, in the form of the kinds and uses of laughter imagined as playing a part in the lives of the Olympian gods; second, ‘the existential’, that is, the scope of laughter to express attitudes to, and evaluations of, life in general. I want here to focus on a very difficult cluster of questions. What are we to make of the longlasting tendency of the pagan religious imagination (and I shall concentrate throughout on matters of religious imagination rather than belief) both to attribute a capacity for laughter to the gods, and to bring the gods themselves within the ambit of what may be considered possible objects of laughter? Is there a special god’s-eye perspective on the world from which laughter can serve to signal a gulf between the conditions of gods and mortals? Or can the idea of divine laughter somehow ‘limit’ the gods by subjecting them to inescapably human modes of understanding? To provide a necessarily restricted but coherent focus for such questions, I wish to put together a number of thought-provoking examples of divine laughter from both ends of the large cultural spectrum indicated by the second half of my title. Needless to say, the point of juxtaposing Homer and Lucian for present purposes is not to override the far-reaching differences between them. It is, rather, to allow myself to set up certain issues in a way which I believe is all the more challenging for being applicable, with appropriate modifications, across such a wide expanse of Greek cultural history. Let me begin, then, with a reminder of some pertinent Homeric material. There are, in fact, over twenty references to divine laughter/smiles in Homer (alongside more than a dozen references in the Homeric Hymns and two in Hesiod).4 My first passage comes from near the start of the Iliadic theomachy in book 21. As the gods clash with immense sound and fury, Zeus sits watching on Olympus and is described as laughing in his heart with joy at the spectacle. σὺν δ᾽ ἔπεσον μεγάλῳ πατάγῳ, βράχε δ᾽ εὐρεῖα χθών, ἀμφὶ δὲ σάλπιγξεν μέγας οὐρανός. ἄϊε δὲ Ζεὺς ἥμενος Οὐλύμπῳ· ἐγέλασσε δέ οἱ φίλον ἦτορ γηθοσύνῃ, ὅθ᾽ ὁρᾶτο θεοὺς ἔριδι ξυνιόντας. They clashed with immense clamour, the broad earth groaned, And around them the great sky trumpeted. Zeus heard it all   4 Friedländer [1934] 1969 offers a range of subtle remarks on much of this material, stressing the combination of ‘sublime’ and ‘comic’ elements in the Homeric depiction of the gods. The sweeping claim of Powell 2014: 36, with apparent reference to the Iliad as a whole, that ‘Homer’s [sc. original] audience . . . finds the behavior of the gods absurd and quite funny’ is breathtakingly simplistic.

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As he sat on Olympus; and he laughed in his heart With joy, as he watched the gods coming together in strife. (Il. 21.387–90) Zeus’ laughter is here pointedly internalised, hence metaphorical as well as symbolic. It is all the more telling for being a kind of ‘silent’ if hearty laughter in reaction to the cosmically magnified tumult of the gods’ battle itself. Like much else about the Homeric Zeus, its significance is partly inscrutable. It is evidently a response to his contemplation of divine force and power in action within a specially ‘protected’ environment, but the image of his laughter might be thought suspended somewhere between seriousness (Zeus’ thrill of joy at the sheer display of his divine family’s potency) and humour (a sense of the battle’s almost parodic status as one in which no one will or could be killed). This ambiguity immediately brings with it the problem of whether Homeric gods are to be imagined as laughing ‘just like us’ or, rather, in special ways of their own which are only superficially anthropomorphic. The problem will recur. But certainly the inward laughter of Zeus at this juncture adds to, as well perhaps as indirectly reflecting, the more general uncertainty that might affect the responses of the human audiences of Homer’s theomachy. Zeus’ laughter, we might say, echoes across the scene as a whole. As it happens, there are two other instances of divine laughter within the theomachy itself. Just a little later on, it is Zeus again who laughs, this time ‘audibly’, when the tearful Artemis seeks solace from her father after receiving a beating from Hera (who, moreover, had smiled as she struck Artemis with her own weapons, 21.491). δακρυόεσσα δὲ πατρὸς ἐφέζετο γούνασι κούρη, ἀμφὶ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἀμβρόσιος ἑανὸς τρέμε· τὴν δὲ προτὶ οἷ εἷλε πατὴρ Κρονίδης, καὶ ἀνείρετο ἡδὺ γελάσσας· τίς νύ σε τοιάδ᾽ ἔρεξε, φίλον τέκος, Οὐρανιώνων μαψιδίως, ὡς εἴ τι κακὸν ῥέζουσαν ἐνωπῇ; In tears the maiden goddess sat on her father’s knees, And her immortal dress trembled around her. He drew her to him, Her father, son of Kronos, and laughing with pleasure asked her: ‘Which of the gods in the sky, my dear child, has done this to you So rashly, as if you were openly committing some wrong?’ (Il. 21.506–10)

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My translation makes a point of rendering ἡδὺ γελάσσας as ‘laughing with pleasure’. Contrary to a widespread misconception, this type of phrase does not mean ‘laughing sweetly’, i.e. in a way which the object or recipient of the laughter might find ‘sweet’, but always connotes something about the enjoyment of the one who laughs.5 But that in itself does not fully decipher Zeus’ laughter for us; in the truncated account of the scene,6 we are still left unsure what that reaction tells us about the god’s view of the incident. Any reading of the passage must certainly factor in the gesture of paternal tenderness on Zeus’ part, but that poses parallel or related questions to the one about his laughter. Why, after all, should Artemis sit like a child on her father’s knees? Is this a kind of infantilisation, and if so is Zeus’ laughter in keeping with the temporary sentimentalisation which that entails?7 My final example from the theomachy, at an earlier stage than the previous passage, involves a different deity, Athena, indulging in laughter. This occurs at the moment where she flattens the war god Ares himself by hurling a boulder at his neck. τῷ βάλε θοῦρον Ἄρηα κατ᾽ αὐχένα, λῦσε δὲ γυῖα. ἑπτὰ δ᾽ ἐπέσχε πέλεθρα πεσών, ἐκόνισε δὲ χαίτας, τεύχεά τ᾽ ἀμφαράβησε· γέλασσε δὲ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη, καί οἱ ἐπευχομένη ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα·. . . With this boulder she struck immense Ares in the neck and loosened his limbs. As he fell he covered seven acres and rolled his hair in the dust, And his armour clanged around him. Pallas Athena laughed And boasting over him spoke the following winged words . . . (Il. 21.406–9) Athena’s gelastic expression of triumph is self-evidently in keeping with her role at this point as a victorious warrior on the battlefield.8 Unlike   5 See Halliwell 2008: 68 with n.41, 99 n.110.   6 After Artemis has answered Zeus’ question, the narrative moves away from the encounter between them (21.514); we are denied any further information about Zeus’ feelings on the matter.  7 The obvious parallel is with Aphrodite falling on (or at?) her mother Dione’s knees at Il. 5.370 (the parallelism being reinforced by the shared lines, 21.509–10 ~ 5.372–4), another scene in which some scholars detect humour; cf. e.g. Kirk 1990: 99–100. But Aphrodite’s behaviour is less straightforwardly like that of a child (despite the evocation of precisely that image in the same scene, at 5.408) than Artemis’. For other Homeric images of infants/children on adults’ knees, see Il. 9.455, 22.500, Od. 19.401.  8 Compare e.g. Paris’ laughter of triumph after hitting Diomedes at Il. 11.378.

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the two cases of Zeus’ laughter which are found on either side of it in the course of the theomachy, Athena’s vocal gesture suits a psychology of aggressive contempt. That is not in itself out of place in a poem in which the gods are indeed divided in their allegiances by the war. But one can still wonder about its encoded significance, especially as it follows relatively soon after Zeus’ inward laughter of joy at line 389. We are arguably confronted here with something half-­recognisable, but half-strange, in its relation to human laughter. Athena’s laughter is tied to its context, and that context is one which resembles but does not precisely reproduce the conditions of the human battlefield. In the particular case of Athena and Ares, this is underlined by at least two details. The first is the fact that, after crowing over him, Athena does not follow up her successful strike against Ares in the physical manner in which a human warrior would do so; treating her blow more like part of a game in which she has scored a victory, she simply turns her gaze away from her opponent (21.415). The second is that Athena’s assertion that Ares’ defeat at her hands means he will ‘fully repay the avenging spirits’ of his mother Hera (οὕτω κεν τῆς μητρὸς ἐρινύας ἐξαποτίνοις, 21.412), for supporting the Trojans rather than the Greeks in the war, is surely tinged with parodic colour: a reference to a mother’s ‘avenging spirits’ or ‘furies’, elsewhere in Homer associated with such darkly tragic son–mother relationships as those between Oedipus and Epicaste or Meleager and Althaea, seems curiously anomalous and melodramatic for Ares’ temporary biting of the dust.9 However we construe these details, Athena’s laughter, like that of her father elsewhere in the same episode, is incompletely intelligible by the conventions of human laughter. The three cases so far considered all involve exchanges between individual deities. But what are we to make of the famous Homeric motif of the Olympian gods’ collective and ‘unquenchable’ laughter, presumed by many to be an emblem of the shared gratification they take in their immortal conditions of existence? The motif in question occurs in two passages, one in each epic. The first is in the banquet scene at the end of Iliad 1, where the gods collectively react to the sight of Hephaestus serving as their cupbearer. αὐτὰρ ὃ τοῖς ἄλλοισι θεοῖς ἐνδέξια πᾶσιν οἰνοχόει γλυκὺ νέκταρ ἀπὸ κρητῆρος ἀφύσσων· ἄσβεστος δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐνῶρτο γέλως μακάρεσσι θεοῖσιν ὡς ἴδον ῞Ηφαιστον διὰ δώματα ποιπνύοντα.   9 For the Erinyes of Epicaste and Althaea see, respectively, Od. 11.280, Il. 9.571–2; cf. Telemachus’ hypothetical anticipation of Penelope’s Erinyes at Od. 2.135, with Sommerstein 1989: 7–8 for a useful resumé of references to Erinyes in Homer.

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imagining divine laughter in homer and lucian 43 Going round the rest of the gods from left to right, He poured their sweet nectar which he drew from the mixing-bowl. Unquenchable laughter then arose among the blessed gods As they saw Hephaestus moving busily round the room. (Il. 1.596–9)

Many scholars have taken the view that the gods here erupt into laughter at the sight of Hephaestus’ awkward movements as a semicrippled figure, thus taking their reaction to be one of amusement at his bodily infirmity. But the verb ποιπνύειν is quite normal in application to the assiduous bustle of servants.10 What’s more, Hephaestus has found himself in this situation as the result of deliberately assuming a peacemaking role between his parents, Zeus and Hera, at a moment of acute tension on Olympus. He has already elicited a smile from Hera (1.595–6) by the manner in which he has eagerly placed a cup in her hands and persuaded her not to pursue her quarrel with Zeus.11 It is preferable, therefore, to take Hephaestus’ nectar-serving role as a piece of self-conscious role-playing, a semi-comic assumption of the function which should properly be Hebe’s (cf. Il. 4.2–3), and to take the gods’ collective laughter as a corresponding recognition of this choreographed incongruity in the protocols of divine feasting. The Odyssean instance of the gods’ ‘unquenchable laughter’ is part of Demodocus’ song about the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite  in book 8. The outburst of laughter is represented specifically at the point where (again) Hephaestus, as cuckolded husband, has ingeniously set a trap to catch the lovers in flagrante with invisible metal  netting and has then summoned the other gods to witness the scene. ἔσταν δ᾽ ἐν προθύροισι θεοί, δωτῆρες ἑάων· ἄσβεστος δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐνῶρτο γέλως μακάρεσσι θεοῖσι τέχνας εἰσορόωσι πολύφρονος Ἡφαίστοιο. The gods, givers of good things, stopped in the doorway: Unquenchable laughter then arose among the blessed gods As they saw the crafty trick of scheming Hephaestus. (Od. 8.325–7) 10 Il. 18.421 (Hephaestus’ mechanical servant women), 24.475, Od. 3.430, 20.149. The verb is also used of busy activity in other contexts as well, including the battlefield: Il. 8.219, 14.155. 11 Hephaestus’ eagerness, perhaps itself to be taken as a gesture of playacting, is signalled by the verb ἀναΐξας at line 584. Halliwell 2008: 58–63 offers a fuller reading of Hephaestus’ role in this scene.

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Once again, interpretation of divine laughter finds it hard to escape ambiguity. In this case, the ambiguity arises partly from an intriguing textual issue in the preceding description of Hephaestus’ summons to his fellow gods. After calling upon Zeus and the rest of the gods (Ζεῦ πάτερ ἠδ᾽ ἄλλοι μάκαρες θεοὶ αἰὲν ἐόντες, 8.306), Hephaestus asks them to come and see – but see what? Exactly the same sequence of letters in the Greek text can be made, according to word division with or without elision, to yield either of two contrary readings: either ‘things which merit laughter’ (ἔργα γελαστά) or ‘things not to be laughed at’ (ἔργ᾽ ἀγέλαστα).12 Is, then, Hephaestus inviting the gods to indulge in punitive humiliation of the adulterous couple, and perhaps (also) relishing his own crafty ingenuity in trapping them, or is he attempting actually to pre-empt and block the laughter of salacious ribaldry? Ancient scholars disagreed over the textual reading at Od. 8.307, and modern scholars have done likewise; for example, the two most recent editions of the Odyssey are split on the point.13 How, if at all, can one decide? The decision depends, in a way typical of many hermeneutic quandaries, on how we match up our own expectations and assumptions with the text’s cues. My own strong inclination is for the reading ἀγέλαστα, ‘not to be laughed at’. The prime reason for this is that Hephaestus’ speech as a whole is heavily marked by a mixture of anger and grief (including even – remarkably, for a deity – the wish that he had never been born) and is without any trace of gleeful enjoyment.14 This factor was ignored by Walter Burkert, with resulting detriment to his larger argument, in a well-known article on the song of Ares and Aphrodite to which I shall later return.15 It is worth stressing, however, that with either reading at Od. 8.307 both the idea and the practice of divine laughter remain intriguingly unstable. As we have seen, there is actual laughter in the scene at 12 The two versions of line 307 are: δεῦθ᾽, ἵνα ἔργ᾽ ἀγέλαστα καὶ οὐκ ἐπιεικτὰ ἴδησθε, δεῦθ᾽, ἵνα ἔργα γελαστὰ καὶ οὐκ ἐπιεικτὰ ἴδησθε. Cf. Garvie 1994: 301–2. 13 See Von der Mühll 1962 (reading ἔργ’ ἀγέλαστα); van Thiel 1991 (reading ἔργα γελαστά). 14 Recalling his physical infirmity, which he contrasts with the beauty and strength of Ares, Hephaestus blames his parents and wishes they had never begotten him, τὼ μὴ γείνασθαι ὄφελλον (8.312). Hephaestus’ grief and anger are explicitly indicated at 272, 276, 303–4, 314. 15 Burkert 1960: 137 (cf. 140) states that in the adultery episode laughter overcomes the negative atmosphere (‘siegt das Lachen über die Verstimmung’; see English translation in Wright and Jones 1997: 255), but he fails to consider the text of Od. 8.307 or the attitude of Hephaestus more generally.

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the point where several male gods arrive (the goddesses being too bashful to come with them, 8.32416 – a supplementary detail which will soon be placed in an ironic light by what follows: see below) and are confronted by the spectacle of the trapped, naked lovers. On my own preferred reading of ἔργ᾽ ἀγέλαστα in line 307, the notion of ‘unquenchable’ or ‘inextinguishable’ (ἄσβεστος) laughter at 326 acquires a special significance which is absent from the same phrase at Iliad 1.598: the gods are unable to suppress their laughter even though Hephaestus had warned them against it in advance. Even so (or, perhaps, in consequence), the gods’ reaction to the sight of the naked lovers is equivocal, since it is followed by two contrasting snippets of divine conversation: the first in the language of morality (‘evil deeds win no reward’, οὐκ ἀρετᾷ κακὰ ἔργα, 329), the second in the form of a salacious exchange between Apollo and Hermes, the former enticing the latter into agreeing that it would be well worth getting caught in Ares’ predicament for the sake of having sex with Aphrodite herself. This second exchange prompts further divine laughter among the gods (8.343–4), with the single exception of Poseidon (who proceeds to broker a settlement between Hephaestus and the adulterous couple). But this time the equivocation is removed: the shared laughter is an unmistakable reaction to Hermes’ candid admission that he would happily suffer a still greater penalty for the opportunity to sleep with Aphrodite, even if that meant being publicly exposed to all the Olympian goddesses as well as their male counterparts (341). Hermes is saying, in effect, that he would be prepared to abandon all shame in such a scenario, and the other gods’ laughter expresses collusion in such a sentiment. Yet the contrast between the other gods’ mirth and Poseidon’s refusal to laugh – or better, on my reading of the scene, the triangular relationship between those two things and Hephaestus’ own grim state of mind – leaves Homer’s audience in an uncertain position vis-à-vis divine laughter. There is no straightforward evaluative stance for us to occupy.17 At this stage, I would like to widen (as well as complicate) my perspective by jumping to Lucian’s treatment of this same episode of divine adultery in his Dialogi Deorum. Here the whole story is presented as a conversation between Hermes and Apollo. Crucially, it is thereby turned into something uniformly deserving of laughter. 16 Cf. Cairns 1993: 123 on the goddesses’ bashfulness at 8.324 in relation to general Homeric notions of women’s sexual shame. 17 Hainsworth, in Heubeck, West and Hainsworth 1988: 370 (note on 344), states that Homer ‘laughs with the gods, not at them’ (his italics), but he oddly deduces that from ‘the solemn note’ of Poseidon’s refusal to laugh; he also confuses matters by irrelevantly adducing the laughter of ‘derision’ in his note on 343.

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[Ἀπ.] τί γελᾷς, ὦ Ἑρμῆ; [Ἑρμ.] ὅτι γελοιότατα, ὦ Ἄπολλον, εἶδον. [Ἀπ.] εἰπὲ οὖν, ὡς καὶ αὐτὸς ἀκούσας ἔχω ξυγγελᾶν. [Ἑρμ.] ἡ Ἀφροδίτη ξυνοῦσα τῷ Ἄρει κατείληπται καὶ ὁ ῞Ηφαιστος ἔδησεν αὐτοὺς ξυλλαβών . . . [Ἀπ.] ὁ δὲ χαλκεὺς ἐκεῖνος οὐκ αἰδεῖται καὶ αὐτὸς ἐπιδεικνύμενος τὴν αἰσχύνην τοῦ γάμου; [Ἑρμ.] μὰ Δί᾽, ὅς γε καὶ ἐπιγελᾷ ἐφεστὼς αὐτοῖς. (Lucian, DDeor. 21.1–2) [Ap.] Why are you laughing, Hermes? [H.] Because I’ve seen the most hilarious sight, Apollo. [Ap.] Do tell me, so that I can share your laughter when I hear the story. [H.] Aphrodite has been caught making love with Ares; Hephaestus trapped and bound them . . . [Ap.] But isn’t that blacksmith embarrassed at helping to give publicity to the shame done to his marriage? [H.] Not at all – he stood over them and laughed. Hermes is already laughing at the outset; that trigger question from Apollo, ‘Why are you laughing, Hermes?’, is a favourite of Lucian’s. And by making Hephaestus himself laugh, Lucian seems implicitly to align his version of the story with the reading ἔργα γελαστά, ‘things which merit laughter’, at Odyssey 8.307. Or does he? Does Lucian simply reactivate what might be thought the existing comic tonality of Demodocus’ song, or does he deliberately change its atmosphere by stripping away its emotional chiaroscuro and converting it into an entirely frivolous prose fabliau? How do we decide? I wish to emphasise that testing issues are at stake here not only about the interpretation of individual texts but also about our models and paradigms of different phases of Greek culture.18 Certainly Lucian is addicted to both the idea and the enactment of divine laughter. Take two other token examples from the same work. In one, Ares is talking to Hermes (who, as we have seen, had always lent himself to somewhat oblique or sidelong glances at the society of the gods) about recent physical threats made by Zeus against the other Olympians; but when he recalls how some of the gods had themselves once conspired to bind Zeus (Lucian’s text alludes to the episode famously recalled by Achilles in Iliad 1 when asking Thetis to intercede with Zeus), he is unable to resist laughter at what he 18 See Branham 1989: 135–63 for a sophisticated reading of Lucian’s Olympians in relation to those of Homer, a reading which (esp. 157–63) successfully avoids the superficial conclusion that Lucian’s treatment of the gods is simply an assault on piety. Cf. van Nuffelen 2011: 179–99 on some of the complexities of Lucian’s satire of various schools of religious and philosophical thought. See also Maciver in this volume for a different approach to the dynamics of laughter in Lucian’s work.

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perceives as the gap between Zeus’ vulnerability and his arrogant threats.19 In the second example, Dionysus relates to Apollo how, after a recent symposium of heavy drinking as a guest of Priapus, the latter had sexually propositioned (or even tried to assault) him in the night. Dionysus, faintly purporting to feel some embarrassment at the incident, nonethless explains to Apollo that his reaction was simply one of laughter (τί γὰρ ἄλλο ἢ ἐγέλασα; ‘what else could I do but laugh?’). He does not elaborate on the significance of that reaction but reinforces it by describing the story he tells Apollo as γελοῖον, in other words one that might arouse an echoing laughter on the part of his listener – as indeed it implicitly does, given that Apollo and Dionysus extend the theme with quips about whether Priapus might proposition Apollo as well.20 It is very easy – too easy, I submit – to regard the laughter of Lucian’s gods as merely the parodic or satirical mockery of a religious tradition that had become an empty shell and was culturally ‘dead’. That type of interpretation was espoused with pithy forcefulness by the young Karl Marx in a memorable formulation of 1844 which anticipates his more famous later remark about history repeating itself (the first time as tragedy, the second as farce). It runs as follows: ‘The final phase of a world-historical form is its comedy. The gods of Greece, who had already been fatally wounded in tragic form in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Vinctus, had to die a second time, comically, in Lucian’s dialogues.’21 One can readily find equivalent views among academic Hellenists: Albin Lesky, for example, is in no doubt that divine scurrility in Lucian shows that for the author and for many of his educated contemporaries the Olympian gods were utterly ‘dead and finished’.22 But at a certain level it is similarity, not difference, between the Homeric and Lucianic imaginings of ‘laughing/laughable gods’ in episodes such as the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite which remains so striking and calls for explanation. And that point applies equally to the longrange comic axis between Lucian and Aristophanes. Why should one diagnose a complete difference between the sensibility which created 19 Lucian DDeor. 1.1–3: ‘As I thought about this I was overcome by an impulse to laugh at his empty boasts’ (ταῦτα λογιζομένῳ ἐπῄει μοι γελᾶν ἐπὶ τῇ καλλιρρημοσύνῃ αὐτοῦ). The Iliadic allusion is to 1.396–406. 20 Lucian DDeor. 3.2. 21 ‘Die letzte Phase einer weltgeschichtlichen Gestalt ist ihre Komödie. Die Götter Griechenlands, die schon einmal tragisch zu Tode verwundet waren im gefesselten Prometheus des Aeschylus, mußten noch einmal komisch sterben in den Gesprächen Lucians.’ Marx and Engels 1966: 21, from the introduction to Marx’s ‘Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie’ of 1844. I first encountered the quotation in Prawer 1976: 64–5; it is also quoted by Branham 1989: 128–9 (cf. 162). For a translation of the full introduction see McLellan 1977: 63–74. 22 Lesky 1961: 33 (Lucian’s gods as ‘ab und tot’).

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the Dionysus quoted above from the Dialogi Deorum and the cultural mentality which made possible the Dionysus of Aristophanes’ Frogs? Yet modern scholars in general have no trouble taking the latter’s gods as compatible with a culture of authentic piety while drawing the very opposite inference from Lucian’s depiction.23 If we re-approach such difficult questions from the other end of the story, we have no good reason not to accept that the traditions of laughing and/or laughable gods were available to the Greek mythicoreligious imagination from an early stage. Those scholars who have tried to treat episodes such as Demodocus’ tale of divine adultery in Odyssey 8 or the theomachy in Iliad 21 or the sexual deception of Zeus by Hera in Iliad 14 (episodes, of course, not simply of the same kind in all respects) as ‘late’ elements, or even post-Homeric interpolations allegedly influenced by ‘Ionian’ scepticism and contaminating an older and purer form of Greek religion, are doing little more than sidestepping, not solving, the challenges of cultural interpretation with which the texts confront us.24 Interestingly, however, such modern views have clear ancient precedents. We learn from the scholia on Odyssey 8 that some ancient copies of the text censored the story of Ares and Aphrodite rather brutally by just excising Hermes’ ribald remarks; we also gather that some critics deemed the ethos of the scene νεωτερικόν (‘more recent/modern’), which means here ‘post-Homeric’, and we know from other evidence that some editors athetised the whole episode (i.e. marked it as spurious, though without removing any lines from the text).25 Like so many other attempts, both ancient and modern, to introduce into the Homeric epics a supposedly improved 23 See again Lesky 1961: 33–7, who locates the difference in Aristophanes’ case entirely in contextually circumstantial considerations, i.e. the performance of the play within an official cult of Dionysus. But that guarantees nothing about the mentality of either author or (different) members of the audience. The thesis of Höfler 1971: 383–4 (cf. 375–8), that in Frogs Aristophanes mocks not the authentically Dionysiac but only the reductively anthropomorphic representation of it, raises issues about Greek religion too large to pursue here. 24 For a cogent critique of such views see Calhoun 1937b: esp. 262–74; cf. Calhoun 1937a for exemplary remarks on the richly multi-layered nature of the Homeric gods, including their sometimes laughing/laughable nature (though even he is over-confident in distinguishing between theologically ‘primitive’ and ‘advanced’ elements, 16–17). Note, in sharp contrast, a view like that of Reinhardt 1960: 23 (with his n.13) that the traditions of divine ‘farce’ (‘Götterschwank’) actually represent a genre older than epic itself. 25 See schol. H on Od. 8.333–42, ‘in some copies these ten lines are not included because of their indecency; for their mentality is later than Homer’ (ἐν ἐνίοις ἀντιγράφοις οἱ δέκα στίχοι οὐ φέρονται διὰ τὸ ἀπρέπειαν ἐμφαίνειν. νεωτερικὸν γὰρ τὸ φρόνημα): for the term νεωτερικός, see Nünlist 2009: 14, with Hainsworth, in Heubeck, West and Hainsworth 1988: 369–70, on the textual issue. Cf. schol. RVΓ on Ar. Pax 778 (= Apion FGrHist 616 F40), recording rejection of the athetesis of (apparently) the whole episode by the grammarian Apion (here called Mochthus).

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consistency of religious and moral attitudes, such responses betray expectations arising more from preconception than from sensitivity to the multiplicity of strands which come together to produce the poems’ intricate character. But if laughing and sometimes laughable gods were a very old part of the repertoire of Greek myth, they were also, I venture to suggest, probably always potentially problematic, even before individual figures like Xenophanes, Zoïlus and Plato (not to mention various later readers, both pagan and Christian) took offence at them.26 I think it is possible to press this point further in a way which does more justice to the mythological and poetic material than can any speculative theory that treats scenes such as the Homeric ones in question as hypothetical additions to, or deviations from, an older, purer stratum of Ur-myth. To accept that laughter is an intrinsic resource of the Greek mythico-religious tradition of anthropomorphic gods (as it is, indeed, of other comparable traditions),27 and not some sort of intrusive supplement to it, is to recognise, au fond, the imaginative dynamics of anthropomorphism as such. And if divine laughter is (potentially) problematic, that is because anthropomorphism involves a religious mentality that is itself potentially problematic for those who do not accept all of its (perceived) implications. This is not to say that the nature of anthropomorphism is transparent to reason or can be decoded into a series of rationally consistent propositions. Far from it. Indeed, it seems to be part and parcel of an anthropomorphic religious imagination that it contains an irresolvable tension between the literal and the symbolic and that it must unavoidably live with the unstable consequences of imagining gods who are simultaneously like and unlike human beings. 26 Xenophanes’ well-known critique of anthropomorphically immoral gods (B11–12 DK) explicitly cites stories of adultery and therefore encompasses Demodocus’ song of Ares and Aphrodite. For the critiques of Zoïlus and Plato, see the two epigraphs to this chapter, with n. 25 above for other pagan critics. Christian reactions are exemplified by Clem. Al. Protr. 4.58.3–4, who complains about the ‘godlessness’ (ἀθεότης) of pagan myths, including ‘songs about the gods’ adulteries, and comedies about their feasting, and scenes of laughter introduced at their drinking parties’, and tells pagans ‘you have made the sacred into a comedy with the mask of demons, travestying true piety as a satyr-play through your superstition’ (καὶ μοιχεῖαι ᾀδόμεναι καὶ εὐωχίαι κωμῳδούμεναι καὶ γέλωτες παρὰ πότον εἰσαγόμενοι . . . τὸ ἅγιον προσωπείοις δαιμονίων κεκωμῳδήκατε, τὴν ἀληθῆ θεοσέβειαν δεισιδαιμονίᾳ σατυρίσαντες). 27 See e.g. Höfler 1971 on Germanic/Nordic and Indian myth (arguing that anthropomorphism can develop an ironic sense of its own inadequacy to represent the nature of the divine); Gurevich 1991: 160–76 (partly modifying Höfler and arguing for the unity of the sacral and the comic in archaic religion); Burkert 2003: esp. 110–14 (in the context of a comparison between Greek and Near Eastern materials); and some briefer references in West 1997: 278, 310.

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On the basis of the considerations so far advanced, I believe that there is no unitary, let alone simple, inference to be drawn about the significance of divine laughter in Homer (or in Lucian, to whom I shall shortly return). That may seem a baldly negative conclusion, but it draws its force partly from its acknowledgement of imaginative complexity, which I tried to illustrate in my earlier comments on some examples of divine laughter, and partly from what it denies or rules out. As regards the latter, take for instance a well-known article on Demodocus’ song of Ares and Aphrodite by Walter Burkert, a scholar of immense erudition and sophistication. Burkert develops a two-pronged thesis in this article. He takes the divine laughter in Demodocus’ song to have affinities with three separate scenes in the Iliad and thereby deliberately to echo an ‘Iliadic’ conception of the gods which the Odyssey as a whole has, he thinks, abandoned: a conception of the gods, that is, as serenely happy, infinitely powerful, and securely removed from trouble – in a phrase, so he proposes, ῥεῖα ζώοντες, ‘living in ease’.28 Even if we leave aside the small matter that that last phrase is found only once in the Iliad (6.138) but twice in the Odyssey (4.805, 5.122), Burkert’s argument, as I mentioned earlier (see n. 15), ignores the ambiguous nuances of the gods’ repeated laughter in Demodocus’ song (8.326, 343) when read against the turbulent emotions of the cuckolded Hephaestus himself. The argument also glosses over the larger fact that there is no sustained impression of serenely happy gods at all in the Iliad, let alone an impression of their ‘infinite freedom’, as Burkert strangely calls it.29 If the banquet scene at the end of Iliad 1 comes closest to an ideal of eternal ‘ease’, it nonetheless frames the occasion as no more than a temporary withdrawal from the gods’ involvement in the bitter conflicts of the war, and sets the moment in decidedly uneasy counterpoint with the prospect of the gods’ continuing involvement in human affairs. If laughter is salient in this scene, it is shadowed, as in Odyssey 8, by the inescapable existence of conflict within the divine world itself.30 There is, then, contrary to Burkert’s thesis, no simple Homeric con28 See Burkert 1960: 139–40 for the ῥεῖα ζώοντες motif and the supposedly Iliadic conception of divine ease. I do not have space here to examine the points of detail which Burkert uses to connect the song of Ares and Aphrodite with three particular Iliadic scenes of the gods (the banquet at the end of book 1, Hera’s deception of Zeus in book 14, and the theomachy in book 21), but I do not believe that the links require or justify his overarching thesis about divine laughter. 29 Burkert 1960: 141 (‘unendliche Freiheit’). 30 The irony that the Olympians are supposed, on one level, to be eternally ‘blessed’ (μακάριοι) and yet, on another, are constantly immersed in conflict is explicitly cited by Momus at Lucian JTr. 20 (with allusions to some of the Homeric scenes I have adduced) as a reason for human mockery (καταγελῶσι) of the gods.

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ception, Iliadic or Odyssean, of the Olympians as enjoying a serenely detached existence, and therefore no sense of divine laughter as embodying a god’s-eye view of the world that celebrates its own consciousness of immunity to suffering. But that point acquires further force when we add to it another consideration, this one relating to the gods’ stance towards the human realm itself. Although, in the Greek tradition, the laughter of ridicule can play a part in the depiction of a divine sense of superiority, even antagonism, towards human beings, it is never, I believe, a vehicle of sheer belittlement of human existence per se. In archaic and later Greek literature one can find instances, for sure, of divine laughter (and smiles) of gloating, menace and even cruelty towards humans: a small but indicative selection of these might include Zeus’ malicious, self-satisfied laughter in Hesiod’s Works and Days as he prepares to create Pandora (whose status as an affliction that humans will nonetheless be lured into welcoming seems the particular cause of Zeus’ relish); Apollo’s supercilious smile, in the major Homeric Hymn in his honour, at the ‘childish’ ignorance of the Cretans he has brought to found his temple at Delphi; the Erinyes’ vignette, in Aeschylus’ Eumenides, of the god (daimōn) who ‘laughs’ at the sight of an arrogant human life drowning helplessly in ruin; the Bacchants’ invocation to Dionysus in Euripides to manifest laughter as he casts a deadly noose round Pentheus’ neck; and the secret gloating of Aphrodite as she comes to the dying Daphnis in Thyrsis’ song in Theocritus.31 But none of these cases, to repeat, involves a laughter which conveys belittlement of human existence per se, still less (and even more importantly) a belittlement of a world from which the gods take themselves to be serenely detached. On the contrary, all these examples of divine laughter belong to contexts in which the gods are actively, keenly concerned with human affairs. Even when Greek gods draw attention to the chasm of power and value between their own existence and the finitude of human beings, as Apollo does to Achilles at the start of Iliad 22,32 they never do so in order simply to turn their back on the worthlessness of the mortal domain. But here we must face a paradox which will take us back to Lucian. If it is true that the ancient Greek cultural imagination does not project onto its Olympian gods a laughter (either of mirth or of derision) which marks a sheer gulf between divine ‘ease’ and mortal misery, this makes it all the more remarkable that Greek culture does attribute a laughter expressive of the absurdity of life to certain humans themselves. We 31 Hes. Op. 59, h.Ap. 531, A. Eu. 560, E. Ba. 1021, Theoc. 1.95–6 (the latter a vexed case open to more than one interpretation). 32 Il. 22.8–13.

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are dealing here with certain cases of what I earlier called ‘existential’ laughter, a laughter (whether literal or metaphorical) which serves as a medium for the display of evaluative attitudes to life in its totality. Once again, an indicative selection of relevant examples will have to stand for a fuller discussion of a large and rich body of material: I would include here, among much else, the subversive advice given to Pheidippides by the Unjust Argument (supposedly representative of a new ‘immoralism’) in Aristophanes’ Clouds to ‘indulge your instincts, cavort, laugh, count nothing as shameful’; Aristotle’s rejection of the rationale behind ideas of life as mere ‘play’ (together with a reference to a supposed remark of Simonides that nothing in life is worth taking seriously); the Cynic outlook which purported to put a view of that last kind into sustained practice as a whole lifestyle of mocking insouciance towards established social mores; an aphorism of Epicurus which recommends laughter as a necessary accompaniment even to philosophy; and finally, the ne plus ultra of existential laughter, the full-blown ‘philosophy of the absurd’ which became crystallised in the legendary figure of the ‘laughing Democritus’.33 Such material brings us back aptly, and in conclusion, to Lucian, since within his particular brand of so-called Menippean satire, with its distinctively serio-comic (σπουδ(αι)ογέλοιος) mixture of Aristophanic, Cynic and other components, the image of laughing Democritus finds a suitable place as part of a whole spectrum of shades of existential laughter. In Lucian’s version, the legendary Democritus (paired with his polar opposite, the ‘weeping’ Heraclitus) supposedly derives his conviction that nothing in life is worth taking seriously from the tenets of atomist physics, with their picture of a cold, value-empty universe consisting of nothing but atoms and infinite void: ‘that’s how things are,’ he explains, ‘there is nothing serious in these matters, everything is mere void and movement of atoms and infinity’.34 This Lucianic Democritus, one might have thought, ought therefore not to believe in 33 Ar. Nu. 1078 (χρῶ τῇ φύσει, σκίρτα, γέλα, νόμιζε μηδὲν αἰσχρόν), Arist. EN 4.8, 1176b27–77a4 (cf. Simon. 646 PMG, ‘Simonides urges treating life as play and taking nothing at all seriously’, παραινεῖ Σιμωνίδης παίζειν ἐν τῷ βίῳ καὶ περὶ μηδὲν ἁπλῶς σπουδάζειν), e.g. Plu. Mor. 466e (‘Crates, with his bag and little cloak, spent his whole life playing and laughing as if at a festival’, Κράτης δὲ πήραν ἔχων καὶ τριβώνιον παίζων καὶ γελῶν ὥσπερ ἐν ἑορτῇ τῷ βίῳ διετέλεσε), Epicur. Sent. Vat. 41 (‘we should laugh as we philosophise and tend to our households’, γελᾶν ἅμα δεῖ καὶ φιλοσοφεῖν καὶ οἰκονομεῖν), and, for the laughing Democritus, e.g. Hippol. Haer. 1.13.4 = (pseudo-)Democr. A40 DK (Democritus ‘used to laugh at everything, on the grounds that all human affairs merit laughter’, οὗτος ἐγέλα πάντα, ὡς γέλωτος ἀξίων πάντων τῶν ἐν ἀνθρώποις). All this material is cited and discussed in Halliwell 2008. 34 ὧδε ἔχει· σπουδαῖον γὰρ ἐν αὐτέοισιν οὐδέν, κενεὰ δὲ πάντα καὶ ἀτόμων φορὴ καὶ ἀπειρίη (Lucian Vit. Auct. 13).

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gods at all, and yet the statement just quoted occurs ironically on the occasion of an auction of philosophers organised by none other than Zeus and Hermes! I suggested earlier that Lucian’s treatment of the gods themselves as figures who both engage in and invite laughter is not simply to be dismissed as a symptom of the cultural ‘death’ (in Marx’s terms) of Olympian religion. That aspect of his work manipulates traditional motifs and (potential) problems that had always inhered in the Greek anthropomorphising mentality.35 But what one can now add is that Lucian more than any other ancient writer sets those traditions of ‘divine laughter’ in pointed juxtaposition and interplay with the possibility of a laughter of existential absurdity on the part of humans themselves. The resulting paradox, of which we have just glimpsed one example, stands out perhaps most clearly in Icaromenippus, where Menippus himself – a key figure in Lucian’s own self-styled ancestry, and a symbolic representative of the whole serio-comic tradition of writing in which Bakhtin was so interested – is made to voice the risible nature of human existence when his fantasy journey into space lands him on the moon and allows him to gaze down on earth (like Zeus himself): what he sees in the ‘theatre’ of life arouses in him nothing but laughter at the ‘anthills’ of human cities below.36 However, when he reaches the gods themselves (here imagined as inhabiting not Olympus but the higher reaches of the heavens), he finds that, far from living in self-contained serenity, they are in fact perpetually obsessed with – and in Zeus’ case, one might say, ‘neurotic’ about – their relations to the life of those very same humans on earth. In an especially delicious twist, Menippus listens as Zeus warns a divine assembly about the particular threat posed to them precisely by Epicureanism’s tenet that the gods have no interest at all in the human world.37 In the fabric of multiple threads woven, and in part tangled, together by Lucian’s intertextual imagination, we can discern the sardonic exposure of a dialectic that had always played a crucial role in the workings of Greek anthropomorphism: the gods themselves, for the definition and efficacy of their powers, need humans just as much as humans need gods.

35 See, again, Branham 1989: 135–63 for some probing thoughts on this question. 36 For the kinds of ‘view from above’ in Greek philosophy on which Lucian is playing here, see Hadot 1995: 238–50. 37 Lucian Icar. 11–19 (gazing down on ludicrous human affairs like anthills), 24 (Zeus’ warning about Epicurean theology).

4 PARODY, SYMBOL AND THE LITERARY PAST IN LUCIAN Calum Maciver

By Lucian’s era, the second century CE, to write about Greek laughter and tears was to write after centuries of tradition of tragic and comic theatre, after Aristotle and (later) Alexandrian scholars had dissected, labelled and theorised the main canon of texts. Similarly, philosophical schools and their key expositors, the prime target of Lucian’s many satirical guises, had spawned commentaries, imitations and adaptations. The idea of ‘being Greek under Rome’,1 or in the term most scholars adopt, to write within ‘the Second Sophistic’,2 meant that paideia, politics and literary culture all consisted of a sustained backward glance, a marked indebtedness and (often ironised) appropriation of the glory that was Greece. Even the written language used to describe the classical past was an anachronistic, classicising marker of elite education and culture:3 Attic prose to reflect the erstwhile summit of Greek style. Lucian is himself as much a partaker of this appropriation of Greek past, both in his style and in the subjects of his discourses, as the contemporaries he satirises.4 Yet it is how Lucian receives and styles this past that is vital for understanding

I would like to thank first and foremost the editors (and organisers of the Leventis conference) Meg Alexiou and Douglas Cairns, for the invitation to contribute to this volume. A version of this chapter was given at the Gießen-Bochum-Zürich colloquium in Gießen in 2013: I would like to thank its participants and especially Peter von Möllendorff and Manuel Baumbach for their comments. I am indebted to the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung for funding my fellowship in Gießen (2013–14), which allowed me to pursue my research on Lucian.   1 I allude to the title of Goldhill 2001, whose introduction in that volume gives an excellent overview of how Greek paideia was employed in the Roman empire.  2 On the misuse of the term, see the recent discussion of Whitmarsh 2013: 1–4.   3 Cf. Swain 1996: 17–33.   4 See above all Lucian’s Lis Consonantium for the absurd lengths Lucian’s contemporaries would go to in their atticising. Cf. Whitmarsh 2001: 265 on Lucian’s selfconsciously imitative writing as a symptom of the culture he attempts to satirise. On Lucian’s lack of fit with the (perceived) imperial elite cultural norm, see Swain 1996: 311.

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the nature of his satire.5 In this chapter I will analyse the literariness of Lucian’s satire, and in particular his representation of the literary past as a lens for laughing at the less educated; that is, Lucian’s depiction of famous figures, literary and mythical, who view earth’s happenings from a privileged distance, mimics the very process a pepaideumenos of Lucian’s era experiences in utilising his paideia to understand, and mock, the present.6 In the True Stories, on the other hand, this experience is fixed on parody of famous representations of truth, especially historiographical and philosophical. Thus, laughter, one of the two themes that motivate this volume, is represented in and provoked by the re-enactment of the past to undermine the cultural and literary trends of the present in which Lucian’s readers, ancient and modern, find themselves. I will discuss key scenes from four of Lucian’s works, the Charon, Icaromenippus, Nigrinus and especially the Verae Historiae, to demonstrate that fantastical journeys fail to provide insight into the operations of humanity without the inevitable accompaniment of literary history.7 THE MIRROR ON THE MOON Lucian’s True Stories is his most complicated work, and one that comes closest in resemblance to novelistic form.8 Its main narrative consists primarily of a fantastical journey to the moon, a crash-­ landing back on earth with a subsequent stay within a giant whale and then a journey to the Isles of the Blessed, where Lucian, as egonarrator of the adventure, meets various key figures from the Greek past. He frames his narrative of the True Stories with a preface, a paratext with discourse as much on the historical debates on fiction and truth as on the nature of the main narration which follows it.9 For the purposes of my discussion, there are three points in the preface which   5 For Lucian’s literary programme, see Double Indictment ch. 33 (with Swain 1996: 310–11; Camerotto 2014: 288–90): he sets out there the various literary guises which he amalgamates to define what he writes.   6 On the importance of paideia, and the dangers of the lack of it, in Lucian, see, above all, the Adversus Indoctum 3, Imagines 16 and Piscator 6.   7 This is precisely how Lucian represents his own writing in Prometheus Es 3: everything must be read against literary exemplars. For definitions of parody, see n. 20, below. I do not include in this chapter exploration of tears in Lucian, but the aporetic moments experienced by the main characters of the dialogues Charon, Icaromenippus and Nigrinus all represent moments of anguish brought about by the puzzling pronouncements and deliberations of ancient philosophers: such moments of bewilderment are the literary grounds for Lucian’s comic satire in those works.   8 It is in fact included in the Collected Ancient Greek Novels (Reardon 2008).   9 On the preface, see, above all, von Möllendorff 2000: 30–61.

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have particular import. First, Lucian begins by emphasising the readership of his work: this narrative will be suitable for the highly educated, as a light repose from the more serious literary tomes which they are accustomed to read (1.1–2). Lucian’s text will not be without its own learning, a sort of display (epideixis) of novelty and charming style (1.2). Lucian thus invites readers who, like himself, have that particular paideia which will allow them to unlock the complexities of a text. He lays down a challenge to these readers to put their education to the test with his text. Second, the reader is encouraged to decipher the many enigmatical allusions to poets, philosophers and writers of history, allusions set forth in a not uncomedic manner – ἀκωµῳδήτως ᾔνικται (1.2). Lucian will not make his allusions obvious, but as parody they will nevertheless provide humorous entertainment. Third, and finally, Lucian closes the preface by reversing the tropes of historiography found in Herodotus, and declares that all that follows must not be believed (1.4): διόπερ καὶ αὐτὸς ὑπὸ κενοδοξίας ἀπολιπεῖν τι σπουδάσας τοῖς µεθ’ ἡµᾶς, ἵνα µὴ µόνος ἄµοιρος ὦ τῆς ἐν τῷ µυθολογεῖν ἐλευθερίας, ἐπεὶ µηδὲν ἀληθὲς ἱστορεῖν εἶχον – οὐδὲν γὰρ ἐπεπόνθειν ἀξιόλογον – ἐπὶ τὸ ψεῦδος ἐτραπόµην πολὺ τῶν ἄλλων εὐγνωµονέστερον· κἂν ἓν γὰρ δὴ τοῦτο ἀληθεύσω λέγων ὅτι ψεύδοµαι. οὕτω δ’ ἄν µοι δοκῶ καὶ τὴν παρὰ τῶν ἄλλων κατηγορίαν ἐκφυγεῖν αὐτὸς ὁµολογῶν µηδὲν ἀληθὲς λέγειν. γράφω τοίνυν περὶ ὧν µήτε εἶδον µήτε ἔπαθον µήτε παρ’ ἄλλων ἐπυθόµην, ἔτι δὲ µήτε ὅλως ὄντων µήτε τὴν ἀρχὴν γενέσθαι δυναµένων. διὸ δεῖ τοὺς ἐντυγχάνοντας µηδαµῶς πιστεύειν αὐτοῖς. Therefore, as I myself was also eager, because of my vanity, to leave something behind for posterity, that I alone might not be without my share in the freedom to mythologise, since I had nothing to record that was true – for I never experienced anything worthy of mention – I turned to lying, but of a kind much more honest than the others. For I shall tell the truth in this single respect at least, namely, in saying that I lie. And so I think I will escape the censure of others when I myself confess that not a word I say is true. And so I write about things which I neither saw nor experienced nor learned from others, things which in fact do not exist at all and which in principle cannot exist. Therefore it is necessary that my readers do not believe them at all.10 10 The Greek text of Lucian throughout is that of Macleod 1972–87. All translation is my own.

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Lucian, in the guise of this authoritative narrative voice of the preface, states that he neither saw, experienced nor learned from others the things about which he will write, as they are things which do not exist. This obvious parody of Herodotus’ carefully stated methodology is bound up with the most emphatic statement of that section, that he tells the truth in one respect only, namely in stating that he is lying (κἂν ἓν γὰρ δὴ τοῦτο ἀληθεύσω λέγων ὅτι ψεύδοµαι: ‘for I shall tell the truth in this single respect at least, namely, in saying that I lie’).11 The preface, in the form of a pseudo-historiographical declaration of methodology, ends with the injunction that the reader should believe nothing that follows. A contrast is then formed throughout the main narrative: Lucian, now no longer narrating in his guise of author-narrator but as participant in his own fictional tale, repeatedly insists that what he is describing is true.12 As a result, any attempt to unlock the enigmatical allusions to earlier texts and genres must be played against the warnings of the preface: if nothing that follows is true, then even the parodic reenactments of styles of historiographical narrative, and their potential for signification of further, secondary meaning, are part of the lies which Lucian fabricates. In a sense, the mirror on the moon epitomises the ainigmata promised in the preface: many have tried (unsatisfactorily) to solve the puzzle offered by the scene. The episode comes to a conclusion with a summary by the narrator of the many wonderful things he saw on the moon, including a mirror: καὶ µὴν καὶ ἄλλο θαῦµα ἐν τοῖς βασιλείοις ἐθεασάµην· κάτοπτρον µέγιστον κεῖται ὑπὲρ φρέατος οὐ πάνυ βαθέος. ἂν µὲν οὖν εἰς τὸ φρέαρ καταβῇ τις, ἀκούει πάντων τῶν παρ’ ἡµῖν ἐν τῇ γῇ λεγοµένων, ἐὰν δὲ εἰς τὸ κάτοπτρον ἀποβλέψῃ, πάσας µὲν πόλεις, πάντα δὲ ἔθνη ὁρᾷ ὥσπερ ἐφεστὼς ἑκάστοις· τότε καὶ τοὺς οἰκείους ἐγὼ ἐθεασάµην καὶ πᾶσαν τὴν πατρίδα, εἰ δὲ κἀκεῖνοι ἐµὲ ἑώρων, οὐκέτι ἔχω τὸ ἀσφαλὲς εἰπεῖν. ὅστις δὲ ταῦτα µὴ πιστεύει οὕτως ἔχειν, ἄν ποτε καὶ αὐτὸς ἐκεῖσε ἀφίκηται, εἴσεται ὡς ἀληθῆ λέγω. 11 See e.g. Herodotus 1.22, 1.52, 1.66 and 2.99, with the comments of Georgiadou and Larmour 1998: 58. For a succinct summary of Herodotus’ methods, see e.g. Flower and Marincola 2002: 16–19. This particular statement, as a number of scholars have shown, is itself a parodic allusion to Socrates’ famous statement in Plato’s Apology 21d, where Socrates refuses to accept the oracle’s declaration that he was the wisest of all. Further, cogent, discussion in Ní Mheallaigh 2005: 121. 12 A list of such statements can be found in Fusillo 1999: 360–1. The strongest example occurs at 1.26, where he challenges the reader to come and see the mirror on the moon for themselves, to judge whether he spoke the truth or not. For the distinction between author-narrator and actor-narrator I follow Fusillo 1999: 360; both narrators are Lucian, but different narrative voices of Lucian.

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And furthermore, in the same connection, I saw in the royal precincts yet another marvel. There lies a huge mirror above a well which is not very deep. If, then, one goes down into this well, and listens to all the things spoken by us on earth, and if one looks into the mirror, he sees all cities as well as all nations, just as though he himself were standing among them. And then I saw my own family and my whole country, but if they saw me, I am not able to say with certainty. Whoever does not believe that these things are so, will know that I speak the truth, if at some point he himself also gets there. (Lucian, Verae Historiae, 1.25–6) Given the extraordinary nature of this mirror – it is more of an audio-mirror chamber than a simple mirror – and especially given its ability to reveal activity on earth, the device has been interpreted as the vital symbol for unlocking the function and purpose of the True Stories as a whole. It has been taken, inter alia, as a distorting mirror of Greek society,13 a sort of book of books activated according to the varying educational backgrounds of the reader,14 or, a symbol of Pythagorean thought.15 Despite these interpretations, the question still remains: why has Lucian included this description of the mirror, and what part does it have in entertaining his educated readers? One central facet of the description is its mock-historiographical character. At 1.22, shortly before the mirror account, the narrator, in Herodotean manner, lists the great range of unusual creatures and habitats which he saw during his stay (1.22–6), from flea-archers and garlic-fighters to men with removable eyes. The emphasis on novel and paradoxical things (ἐν τῇ σελήνῃ κατενόησα καινὰ καὶ παράδοξα, ταῦτα βούλοµαι εἰπεῖν: ‘on the moon I perceived novel and paradoxical things, and I wish to speak about such things’, 1.22) brings to mind the paradoxa of Antonius Diogenes and Iambulus, advertised already in the preface (1.3). Lucian is also fulfilling a promise of his preface, entertainment for his readers through the novelty and exoticness of his narrative (οὐ γὰρ µόνον τὸ ξένον τῆς ὑποθέσεως οὐδὲ τὸ χαρίεν τῆς προαιρέσεως ἐπαγωγὸν ἔσται: ‘for not only will the foreignness of my subject matter nor the gracefulness of my design be enticing’, 1.2), which he has taken to an extreme in the description of the mirror, which is the culmination of the novel forms on the moon: καὶ µὴν καὶ ἄλλο θαῦµα ἐν τοῖς βασιλείοις ἐθεασάµην: ‘And furthermore, in the same connection, I saw in the royal precincts yet another marvel’, 1.25. 13 Fusillo 1999: 372. 14 Von Möllendorff 2000: 186–7. 15 Georgiadou and Larmour 1998: 144 for a list of (ancient and modern) scholarship.

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A fundamental target of Lucian’s moon narration is undoubtedly Herodotus. On the one hand, one thinks, principally, of the historiographers and ethnographers such as Herodotus and Ctesias who stressed the truthfulness of what they saw, despite the outlandishness of their descriptions.16 Lucian begins his main narrative with a strongly Herodotean stamp,17 with allusions to book 1 of the Histories, and is careful to bind the opening sentences closely to the key information of the preface. See 1.5: Ὁρµηθεὶς γάρ ποτε ἀπὸ Ἡρακλείων στηλῶν καὶ ἀφεὶς εἰς τὸν ἑσπέριον ὠκεανὸν οὐρίῳ ἀνέµῳ τὸν πλοῦν ἐποιούµην. αἰτία δέ µοι τῆς ἀποδηµίας καὶ ὑπόθεσις ἡ τῆς διανοίας περιεργία καὶ πραγµάτων καινῶν ἐπιθυµία καὶ τὸ βούλεσθαι µαθεῖν τί τὸ τέλος ἐστὶν τοῦ ὠκεανοῦ καὶ τίνες οἱ πέραν κατοικοῦντες ἄνθρωποι. For starting out, once upon a time, from the pillars of Heracles heading out into the western ocean I embarked on a voyage with favourable wind. The cause and reason behind my journey was curiosity of intellect and a desire for new adventures, and the wish to understand what the limit of the ocean was and who the peoples were who dwelt beyond the edge. And now compare with Herodotus 1.29–30: Σόλων ἀνὴρ Ἀθηναῖος, ὅς Ἀθηναίουσι νόµους κελεύµασι ποιήσας ἀπεδήµησε ἔτεα δέκα, κατὰ θεωρίης πρόφασιν ἐκπλώσας . . . αὐτῶν δὴ ὦν τούτων καὶ τῆς θεωρίης ἐκδηµήσας ὁ Σόλων εἵνεκεν ἐς Αἴγυπτον ἀπίκετο. Solon was an Athenian man who went travelling for ten years after he had established the laws by his own commands. He set sail with the pretext of seeing the world . . . for this reason, and to see the world, Solon voyaged, then, and came to Egypt. Theoria is included within the preface as one of the aims of Lucian in writing the Verae Historiae (1.2). Within its context in the preface, this substantive is associated with a staged spectacle (from θέαοµαι), and as von Möllendorff has shown, in conjunction with οὐκ ἀκωµῳδήτως (‘not without its comedic aspects’, 1.2) the reader is led to classify 16 See the discussion and references of Georgiadou and Larmour 1998: 122. 17 Already in the preface, at 1.4, the narrator states that he had nothing true to report (that is, write in the manner of Herodotus – historia is the key word in Herodotus’ preface – µηδὲν ἀληθὲς ἱστορεῖν εἶχον).

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what will follow as a work which draws upon and is generically linked with staged comedy.18 Another meaning of theoria, however, is ‘seeing the world’ or ‘sight-seeing’.19 Solon leaves the Athenians with the laws he has established and visits new lands, just as the narrator sets out at the beginning of the narrative with this desire for new things and to know what was at the end of the ocean. The parallels are clear, and the use of aitia would be associated immediately by Lucian’s readers with the preface of Herodotus. If the mirror fulfils any function, it is surely the parodic,20 especially of historiography. Within the Spiegelchamber, one sees and hears, just as Lucian’s quasi-Herodotean persona stated, in the preface, that he neither saw, nor experienced, nor heard from others. If one looks into the mirror, one can see and hear one’s family, neighbours and country, as well as all cities and lands. It is not entirely clear if the people on earth can see the viewer in return, but Lucian makes clear, by implication, that the moon-men are a distorted image of what consists on earth.21 Lucian’s moon is, as a result, full of Herodotean distortions. Women do not give birth, men do. Baldness is beautiful. Men have beards growing from their knees. Instead of snot, honey runs from their noses; they make cheese from the milk they sweat. Of other creatures, we read of vulture-dragons, flea-archers, garlic-fighters and sparrow-acorns – and the list goes on. As noted, the mirror is the climax of the series of paradoxa. Accordingly, Fusillo, in particular, has taken the mirror as a metaphor for Lucian’s satire of his own contemporary world.22 An emblem, an inverted parody of another 18 Von Möllendorff 2000: 49–51. The explicit commendatory reference to Aristophanes by the actor-narrator at 1.29 cements this reading. 19 See LSJ s.v. θεωρία III. 20 A full discussion of parody in Lucian, in its many and varied imports, is outwith the scope of the present chapter, but the topic has been covered in depth by others. For parody, I follow the discussion of Rose 1993: 5–53, and especially the function ascribed at 39: ‘The work to be parodied is “decoded” by the parodist and offered again (or “encoded”) in a “distorted” or changed form to another decoder, the reader of the parody.’ This first decoding, in Lucian, is most often a comic refashioning of the original. On the etymology of ‘parody’ and its development by Lucian’s era, see Rose 1993: 6–19 (esp. 19: ‘comic quotation and textual re-arrangement’), Camerotto 1998: 16–17 (who builds on Quintilian’s definition at 9.2.35 and 6.3.97) and Householder 1944: 2–6. Camerotto 1998: 25 proves that Lucian’s Homeric pastiches, littered throughout his work, are not satire of Homer, but rather (following Bouquiaux-Simon 1968: 359) a deictic performance of paideia, along the lines of an ancient rhapsodic performance. 21 The narrator (1.22) remarks that the Greeks probably got the name of γαστροκνηµία from the moon folk – i.e. there is some measure of cultural exchange and indebtedness. 22 Fusillo 1999: 372: ‘This embryonic telescope . . . is the key to Lucian’s work: the inverse world of the moon, amplified in a grotesque manner, is the deforming mirror through which the author gnaws away at the contemporary world.’

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world it certainly is, yet not of Lucian’s world of the second century. Fusillo does not support his argument with any substantive examples for such mirrored satire. To what extent, for example, is cheese made from sweat a parody, through inverted description, of Lucian’s contemporaries? Lucian’s parody is first and foremost literary, and functions as such only because it is parasitical:23 it feeds off the multitude of descriptions of earlier historiographical accounts, promised in the preface, and parodied from the beginning of the narrative. Lucian has comically validated Herodotus’ researches. The only way Herodotus could have so clearly inverted the practices of the Greeks to describe, for example, the Egyptians in book 2 of his work would be through a distorting mirror: the Selenites can view the Greek world through this mirror, and adopt, though in absurdly skewed ways, Greek practice. Lucian has rationalised Herodotus’ narrative, and by so doing has, by two millennia, anticipated, and concretised, Hartog’s structural analysis of Herodotus.24 Hartog’s thesis, that non-Greeks in Herodotus’ narrative tend to be the mirror image (that is, exact reverse) of their Greek counterparts, seen most clearly in Herodotus’ account of the Egyptians and Scythians,25 has been seen already by Lucian in his creation of a new other, the moon, but with the mechanism of the mirror for validating such descriptions. Only a mirror such as this could, in Lucian’s ‘True’ Stories, bear out the ridiculous ‘discoveries’ of Herodotus and Ctesias, both of whom are depicted by Lucian as punished in the Isles of the Damned for the false accounts (2.31). Lucian’s primary target for parody is the literary past (even the creatures on Lucian’s moon resemble those in the Homeric parody the Batrachomyomachia).26 His preface promises exactly that: he would enigmatically allude in a comic way, that is, parody, the genres of epic poetry, historiography and philosophy. In the case of the moon and its mirror, historiography is the primary target. Lucian’s mirror is the exact opposite of the mirror of truth that Lucian describes in his essay On How to Write History, 51, namely that a true historian’s work should be a mirror of facts.27 Instead, Herodotus is emulated in Lucian’s On How Not to Write History. This obvious conclusion, one which addresses the promises raised in the preface, but, surprisingly, one which has not been raised by scholarship on the passage, is surely the primary reason behind the mirror. 23 See Fusillo 1999: 361 for the term. 24 Hartog 1988. 25 See e.g. Hartog 1988: 214–16 for his theory of inversion for the accounts of others in Herodotus. 26 Cf. Fusillo 1999: 367. 27 Georgiadou and Larmour 1998: 144.

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The mirror has also been viewed as an embodiment of Pythagorean thought, as a key to the idea of the moon as a netherworld location.28 Georgiadou and Larmour argue for such an interpretation given that, for example, in Plutarch’s De Facie 920a the moon is described as mirror-like.29 The Pythagorean significance of the moon as a mirror has also been proposed through discussion of the scholion to Aristophanes Nubes 752.30 This philosophical background must surely be another reason for Lucian’s inclusion of the mirror, if, as in the case of historiography, he is targeting the history of philosophical writings too. A passage in the Icaromenippus contributes more than any other in Lucian to an understanding of the function of the mirror vis-à-vis philosophical tradition (Icaromenippus 20–1): Selene: ‘I’ve had enough, Menippus, of all the terrible things I hear from the philosophers about me, who have nothing else to do other than nosy themselves about me, about who I am and how big, and why I become semi-circular or crescent-shaped. And they say that I am inhabited, and that I hang over the sea like a mirror – essentially whatever comes into each man’s head they ascribe to me [καὶ οἱ µὲν κατοικεῖσθαί µέ φασιν, οἱ δὲ κατόπτρου δίκην ἐπικρέµασθαι τῇ θαλάττῃ, οἱ δὲ ὅ τι ἂν ἕκαστος ἐπινοήσῃ τοῦτό µοι προσάπτουσι] . . . But yet how much do I know about them and the shameful and abominable things they get up to at night . . . and although I see all these things, I remain silent.’ Menippus, the Cynic satirist of the third century bce, goes airborne in the Icaromenippus in a quest to understand the workings of the cosmos from afar, despondent as he has become with the philosophies he hears on earth.31 Selene asks Menippus to communicate to Zeus on Olympus that a final end must be put to the philosophers and their 28 See Plutarch Moralia 942, based on Odyssey 4.563–4. 29 Georgiadou and Larmour 1998: 144. 30 I do not include detailed discussion here, as it can be found in von Möllendorff 2000: 186–7, but I include translation of the scholion: For the circle of the moon [is] of round form, just like mirrors. And they say that they [? the Thracians] are very good at such things, namely, at bringing down the goddess [Selene]. And there is also the following game of Pythagoras, by means of a mirror [ἔστι δὲ καὶ Πυθαγόρου παίγνιον διὰ κατόπτρου τοιοῦτον]. When there is a full moon, if someone were to write in blood their desires on to a mirror, and after instructing someone else, he were to stand behind him, pointing the letters to the moon, that other man staring fully into the circle of the moon would read all those things which are written on the mirror as though written on the moon. 31 For a recent study of the dialogue, see Camerotto 2009.

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theories about the moon. They say (note the indirect statement) that the moon is inhabited and that she hangs over the earth like a mirror. In the True Stories the moon is indeed inhabited, that is, there are constructed the very theories about which Selene complains. Lucian goes one step further and creates a mirror-chamber on the moon to emphasise such theorising. Selene asserts that she is not a mirror, since she denies the philosophers’ theories, yet she admits that she can see what they get up to at night – in a sense the moon is a perfect vantage point to view the deeds of men from afar. The reader must decide whom to side with, and to decide whom Lucian qua narrator is siding with: to what extent is the mirror simply an enlargement of the accusations of the philosophers, or, rather, a satire of the accusations of the philosophers? Matters seem to become more complicated if one considers other accounts of mirrors in authors such as Pausanias, relatively contemporary with Lucian. Von Möllendorff has argued that the moon’s mirror is a true, un-distorting mirror, a symbol, evolved from a long philosophical tradition, for the unadorned truth, basing his conclusions on a passage at Pausanias at 7.21.12, where a mirror is lowered down to touch a stream in front of the temple of Artemis in Patrae.32 If a sick person should look into the mirror, he or she would see a living or dead image of themselves, that is, according to Pausanias, an infallible representation of the outcome of their illness (µαντεῖον δὲ ἀψευδές, ‘an un-lying prophecy’). Von Möllendorff adduces a number of Platonic passages (the account of Thales’ well at Theaetetus 174a4– b6 and the mirror metaphor at Resp. book 10, 596d4–e4, as well as the Pythagorean scholion to Aristophanes, discussed above) to argue that the mirror on the moon represents a true mirror, a metaphor or key for the function of Lucian’s True Stories. By looking at Lucian’s text one sees there discourse on a multitude of texts, reliable commentary on all other philosophies, histories and poetry which the True Stories encapsulates as a book of books, all of which is bound up in the interaction between the reading backgrounds and competencies in the author–reader exchange.33 In the case of this mirror, set against the warnings of the preface,34 but more significantly against the indications of the Icaromenippus, this type of interpretation is precisely that against which Lucian warns. One cannot deny that when ‘Lucian’ goes down into this mirror and sound chamber he sees true representations of his own world, of things 32 Von Möllendorff 2000: 182–8 (esp. 182–3). 33 I summarise the arguments found at von Möllendorff 2000: 186–7. 34 Cf. Ní Mheallaigh 2008: 421: ‘This is a text in which we have been warned from the start that nothing, no matter how plausible, can be true.’

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he knows to be true, and that this is the case for anyone who enters the chamber (1.26) – ‘just as though one were standing among them oneself’ (ὥσπερ ἐφεστὼς ἑκάστοις). Yet this mirror is just as false and ridiculous as the strange creatures on the moon with their false eyes and beards below the knees. The καὶ µὴν καὶ ἄλλο (‘and furthermore, in the same connection’, 1.25) which starts the description of the mirror connects this mirror inextricably with the list of such wonders on the moon. Similarly, the narrator’s insistence on the truth for this mirror description reminds us of the preface’s warning that he is in actual fact telling lies. Of course the mirror does not exist, but by extension, neither do any interpretations appended to the mirror have any value. The episode must be set against the arguments put forward against the philosophers’ theories in the Icaromenippus, and especially Selene’s complaint followed through by Menippus, the forerunner and chief exemplar for Lucian.35 Each person, looking into this mirror, will see on earth what he wishes to see. It depends on each separate viewing: just so have various leading philosophical figures of the past seen in the moon what best fitted their philosophical system.36 It is essential, in this relation, to unpack the full force of the term αἰνίττοµαι (‘I hint at’) in the preface (1.2). As Georgiadou and Larmour have shown,37 the verb is associated directly with allegory in a number of authors. Porphyry, for example, uses ainittesthai as a synonym for allēgorein in his allegorising interpretations of the Odyssey,38 of the type one finds, for example, in ps.-Heraclitus Homeric Problems 70.1: καθόλου δὲ τὴν Ὀδυσσέως πλάνην, εἴ τις ἀκριβῶς ἐθέλει σκοπεῖν, ἠλλογορηµένην εὑρήσει (‘You will find that Odysseus’ wanderings are entirely allegorical, if you wish to look closely’).39 Undoubtedly, the potential exists, and is in fact encouraged, to see in this mirror a reflection of reality: Lucian sees his own land from the moon, by means of this mirror. The nature of the riddling hinting which ainitthesthai connotes, however, suggests an alternative reading: what is surely being parodied here is the search for the truth in or on the moon. If we seek some greater significance, a key to the work, a key to Lucian’s 35 On Lucian’s satire and its close connection with Menippus, see, most recently, Camerotto 2014: 63–6. 36 Similarly, Homer on the Isles of the Blessed is depicted as having suffered defacement at the hands of pseudo-grammarians: cf. the discussion of Fusillo 1999: 252–3. 37 Georgiadou and Larmour 1998: 5–6. 38 305F, 372F and 382F (Smith). See, too, Aristotle Rhetoric 1046b for sophists such as Alcidamas who allegorise the Odyssey as a katoptron of human life. 39 I will show in my discussion below that the interlocutors in the Charon and Icaromenippus appropriate the allegorical tradition on Homer to inform their interpretations of human life.

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parody, symbol and the literary past in lucian 65 writings, then the reader has fallen into the trap that was laid for him or her: we have over-interpreted the symbol, which should have been avoided at all costs. It is all too obvious. Lucian warned us already in the Icaromenippus that philosophers so abused the moon with their interpretations that she was ready to have them all destroyed. Lucian of the prologue would not put himself on that hit-list of the moon. Lucian the lying narrator of the main narrative would. This narrator easily locates a mirror on the moon and states that it seems to reflect exactly what we see and do on earth. This is the joke. This is satire of interpretation through representation, parody of journeys and quests for truth: literary interpretation through satire and allegory is precisely what is set forward here by Lucian. The ainittomai hint in the preface is here enlarged to point to those who practise to ainittesthai. If the mirror on the moon is anything, it is a reflection of false mirrors, of distorted historiographical methods, of misplaced philosophical ‘truths’. LAUGHING FROM AFAR

The True Stories is to be interpreted, therefore, against the literary past which it sets forward in the preface, a past divided specifically into the three genres of epic, historiography and philosophy. In many other Lucianic works – for the purposes of this chapter the Icaromenippus, Charon and Nigrinus – telescopic views of the world are appropriated to provide laughter at its inhabitants, but as in the case of the True Stories, this laughter is always embedded within a re-setting of the literary past. I have already discussed the interchange between Menippus and Selene in the Icaromenippus, but I wish to examine what Menippus learns from his viewing the earth from afar. The aerial flight of Menippus comes as a solution to the aporia he experiences in his ability to decide between the varying philosophies about the cosmos. On landing on the moon, Menippus is disappointed to find he cannot view the earth as much as he had anticipated – he gets only a general, kaleidoscopic view.40 Plain viewing from afar brings no benefit. It is only then that philosophy, and in particular Empedocles, seems to triumph in helping Menippus overcome his initial aporia. The post-mortem appearance (ch. 13) of the philosopher, burnt to a crisp, on the moon which he himself had described in his poetry41 helps Menippus gain a more accurate view: Empedocles tells him to flap his 40 Ch. 11: ἐς τὴν γῆν ἄνωθεν ἀποβλέπων . . . ἐξ ὧν ἁπάντων ποικίλης τινὸς ἡδονῆς ἐνιπιµπλάμην. 41 Cf. Plutarch Mor. 922d – for Empedocles the moon was a hail-like congelation of air encompassed by fire.

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eagle wing only,42 and not the vulture wing (Menippus had tied on one of each to gain ascent to the moon). Suddenly he can see everything clearly, including even the adulterous affair of Ptolemy (ch. 15).43 By following Empedocles, at last Menippus can view the cosmos aright. What the Empedoclean influence actually helps Menippus see becomes clearer, however, when he goes on to describe the nonaristocratic folk and their antics on earth (ch. 16): πάντα µὲν ἑξῆς διελθεῖν, ὦ φιλότης, ἀδύνατον, ὅπου γε καὶ ὁρᾶν αὐτὰ ἔργον ἦν· τὰ µέντοι κεφάλαια τῶν πραγµάτων τοιαῦτα ἐφαίνετο οἷά φησιν Ὅµηρος τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς ἀσπίδος· οὗ µὲν γὰρ ἦσαν εἰλαπίναι καὶ γάµοι, ἑτέρωθι δὲ δικαστήρια καὶ ἐκκλησίαι, καθ’ ἕτερον δὲ µέρος ἔθυέ τις, ἐν γειτόνων δὲ πενθῶν ἄλλος ἐφαίνετο. To go through everything from first to last, my friend, would be impossible, where even to see all those things was an ordeal. The key points, however, of those matters appeared just so as Homer describes them on the shield [of Achilles]. For in one place there were banquets and marriages, in another place court-cases and assemblies, in one place a man was sacrificing, and in a place near to it another man appeared in mourning. Following so soon after the instruction of Empedocles is the summation of human life as seen from the moon by Menippus as, in the main points, Homer’s shield description in Iliad 18. The term κεφάλαια (‘key points) bespeaks essence:44 the shield of Achilles is to be understood as containing, in epitome, the sum of human life, as Menippus now interprets from his privileged telescopic position, like Zeus in Homer. The imago mundi according to Menippus is represented as the shield of Achilles, not the other way round as it usually is in ancient scholarship on Homer,45 as he recounts, in ekphrastic style,46 the various scenes just as they are described on the Homeric shield. This line of summation conjures up in the reader’s mind 42 It is no coincidence that is the wing of the bird of Zeus which facilitates viewing: Menippus (ch. 11) states that he looked down on earth in the manner of Homer’s Zeus (cf. Il. 13.4). This paves the way for further Homeric paradigms to describe the act of viewing, as I discuss. For further correspondences between the viewing of Menippus and that of Zeus, see the references and discussion of Camerotto 2014: 177. 43 The personages Menippus sees are all Hellenistic kings and their contemporaries committing murder or adultery. 44 LSJ s.v. κεφάλαιος II.2 ‘sum, gist of the matter’. 45 On the shield of Achilles and the history of allegorical interpretation and adaptation, see the excellent article of Hardie 1986. 46 Note, for example, ἑτέρωθι, καθ᾽ ἕτερον, ἐν (ch. 16).

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(that is, the mind of the pepaideumenos) the tradition of allegorical interpretations of the shield of Achilles, and given the importance and proximity of Empedocles in this scene, the central love–strife dichotomy so central in the history of interpretation of the shield.47 Menippus never had to leave earth. The futility of telescopic viewing is represented through recourse to the Homeric shield. Menippus both validates the cosmic readings of the Homeric ekphrasis and substantiates the recurring Lucianic utilisation of the history of literature as already containing the answers. By Lucian’s era there is nothing that was not already put forward. Menippus gives no insight into the workings of the cosmos, or of the activities on earth. Everything he narrates is bound up with literary history: even the tales of the Hellenistic aristocracy and philosophers are summaries of earlier historical accounts. Precisely the same template is used in the Charon. In his attempt to understand human conversation and discourse, from and of which he is absent and ignorant in the underworld, Charon the ferryman seeks a distant view as the solution to his problem. Like the sons of Aloeus who piled Ossa and Pelion on to Olympus, Hermes and Charon do the same, slamming Parnassus on the very top. By quoting Homer, they find they can do this easily (ch. 4). Charon, however, needs further help (chs 6–7, excerpts): ΧΑ: Οὐδὲν ἀκριβὲς ἐγὼ γοῦν ἀπὸ τοῦ ὑψηλοῦ ὁρῶ· ἐδεόµην δὲ οὐ πόλεις καὶ ὄρη αὐτὸ µόνον ὥσπερ ἐν γραφαῖς ὁρᾶν, ἀλλὰ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους αὐτοὺς καὶ ἃ πράττουσι καὶ οἷα λέγουσιν. I see nothing accurately from on high. I don’t need to see cities and mountains just so as though in pictures, but people themselves and the things they get up to and the sort of things they talk about. Hermes: Hold still! I will cure that for you and shortly will make you sharp-sighted by taking a charm (ἐπῳδήν) from Homer for this very purpose. When I say the words, remember not to be short-sighted any longer, but to see everything clearly. Charon: Say them then! Hermes: Ἀχλὺν δ’ αὖ τοι ἀπ’ ὀφθαλµῶν ἕλον, ἣ πρὶν ἐπῆεν, ὄφρ’ εὖ γινώσκοις ἠµὲν θεὸν ἠδὲ καὶ ἄνδρα. [Iliad 5.127–8] 47 On this, see e.g. ps.-Heraclitus Homeric Problems 49.2, with the discussion of Russell and Konstan 2005: xxii–xxiii.

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calum maciver ‘I have taken away the mist from your eyes, which was there before, That you might recognise clearly god and man.’

If what Charon wanted to see and hear was human interaction, then obviously the further away he is the less likely he is to experience that. This passage is emblematic for the need to apply one’s paideia to understand the world around one. Although Homer works here as a kind of charm, this scene must surely be reflective of what can be seen to an extent in the Icaromenippus: despite the seemingly advantageous position for viewing humanity, even with Hermes as guide, Charon needs Homer to achieve a clearer vision. Menippus sees the world according to Homer’s shield, and what Charon can see from that point in the dialogue is entirely literary. He asks Hermes to explain each person as he sees them, entirely in the manner of the teichoskopia from Iliad 3.48 In fact, the very words of Priam are quoted from that scene, as Charon, as Priam, asks Hermes, intertextually in the role of Helen, to elaborate the view before him.49 But the people viewed, Croesus and Solon, are Herodotean (chs 9–13), specifically in the guise presented by Herodotus. Charon continues to re-cast Homeric verse to describe other historical figures, for example (ch. 14) Polycrates of Samos, and receives the acclaim of Hermes for his expertise in parody (εὖ γε παρῳδεις, ὦ Χάρων: ‘you are good at parody, Charon’).50 It is not only the figures of history who are derisorily laughed at by Charon (ch. 14),51 but in each case he utilises literary constructs to facilitate his amusement (chs 16–17: παγγέλοια ταῦτα . . . καταγέλαστα: ‘these things are ridiculous . . . laughable’):52 once again, in order to appreciate the absurdities of human interaction and behaviour, a proper perspective is achieved through paideia, that privileged platform which is seen in metonymy in the re-enactment of the teichoskopia, where the knowledgeable Charon can laugh at humanity, humanity figured in the literary exemplars of Herodotus. In Charon’s desire to see and understand (and then laugh at) human interaction, Lucian has him become a pepaideumenos, albeit on the top of several mountains piled high.53 48 Cf. Camerotto 1998: 20–3. 49 Ch. 8, where Charon quotes Iliad 3.226 (of Ajax). 50 On the signification of parody here, see Camerotto 1998: 23–5, and esp. 25. 51 Emphasised in particular by (ch. 14): καῖε αὐτούς, ὦ βελτίστη [sc. Klōtho], καὶ τὰς κεφαλὰς ἀπότεµνε καὶ ἀνασκολόπιζε, ὡς εἰδῶσιν ἄνθρωποι ὄντες. 52 On the satiric import of geloion, and its Menippean heritage, see Camerotto 1998: 108–10. The Hellenistic setting suggests that the mockery of these figures is derived from Menippus. 53 Halliwell 2008: 450–3 perhaps overstates the point of Lucian’s satire and provocation of laughter. As he states (p. 452) ‘psychologically and cognitively, no human

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Just as the shield of Achilles in the Icaromenippus is, apparently, the sum of human life as we know it, so Charon’s summary of all human life, as bubbles which increase and then burst,54 is lauded by Hermes as just as good as another famous Homeric paradigm, the simile of the leaves in Iliad 6 (146–8).55 What the reader learns from Charon and Hermes about human life is entirely mediated through literary discourse, of which, of course, those divine beings are themselves a construct.56 Menippus and Charon see the cosmos through texts: Homer (and other berühmte authors such as Herodotus) not only makes the impossible possible, that is, telescopic viewing from the moon and mountain top, but is the reference point for framing what is seen. As such, these characters in Lucian’s texts mimic the very process Lucian himself is engaged in, as they describe the world as already read, constantly an earlier world from a textual point of view. They are caught within a literary world where the past, as already constructed, is something they cannot escape from, and the sum of human knowledge is taken as essentially complete – even when Charon invents his own simile, recourse is made immediately to the Homeric simile, of leaves. This fictional world, a web of connections with Homer or Herodotus as centre, is seen too in the True Stories, where Lucian invites us to extrapolate the tangle of ainigmata, a mix of indebtedness and creativity, through construction of his own fiction, itself highlighted as parody and/through a reception of the past. ‘ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE’ The most concrete metaphor in Lucian for the viewing the world from an educated standpoint is the theatre.57 Much has been written evaluation of life can be made from outside life’; but that surely was never the point of the Charon. We are never really laughing at life itself, but at depictions of life, filtered through the multiple textual layers of Lucian’s allusive work. We laugh with Charon as we rely on our shared paideia to appreciate past literary paradigms. 54 τοῦτό ἐστιν ὁ ἀνθρώπου βίος· ἅπαντες ὑπὸ πνεύµατος ἐµπεφυσηµένοι οἱ µὲν µείζους, οἱ δὲ ἐλάττους (ch. 19). 55 Ch. 19: οὐδὲν χεῖρον σὺ τοῦ Ὁµήρου εἴκασας, ὦ Χάρων, ὃς φύλλοις τὸ γένος αὐτῶν ὁµοιοῖ. 56 Cf. Menippus’ surprise at the physical impossibilities and contradictions in Olympus – how can the sun be present at the feast when he is supposed to be lighting the world (Icaromenippus 28)? Even Lucian’s Zeus has read the Homeric and Hesiodic poems which construct him: see Jupiter Confutatus 1. 57 See esp. Lucian Somn. 13, Menippus 16 and Astrol. 13–19, as well as the moon episode in the VH. Brief discussion of the phenomenon is found in Whitmarsh 2001: 272. Cf. Dio Chrysostom 32.4 on the theatre as the manifestation of a people’s outlook, and the lack of seriousness of performances in the theatre in Alexandria as a reflection of the populace’s impiety.

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on the running theatrical metaphor in the Nigrinus, and especially on Nigrinus’ emphasis on the inferiority of Rome to Athens.58 I wish to focus briefly, in conclusion, on chapter 18 of the Nigrinus, which is a particularly clear example of the possibilities which correct philosophical contemplation offers by way of theatrical entertainment. Nigrinus, a philosopher of renown according to the eponymous dialogue, but of whom nothing is known (he is most likely fictional),59 describes how he was trapped in Rome and at a loss to deal with the temptations against virtue which the madness of the city and its inhabitants offered. Instead he withdraws to his home, and converses with Plato, Philosophy and Truth (αὐτῇ φιλοσοφίᾳ καὶ Πλάτωνι καὶ ἀληθεία προσλαλῶ: ‘I converse with Philosophy herself, and Plato and Truth’, ch. 18), an act which is approximated to sitting high up in the theatre, which allows one to get much entertainment and laughter.60 Lucian creates a metaphor for the usefulness of paideia, and especially one aspect, philosophy. This key to a virtuous life is also one which will provide amusement at the expense of those who do not engage in such intellectual pursuits. Nigrinus’ contemplation of life through these abstract interconnected lenses of Philosophy, Plato and Truth involves Greek ideals, symbols of superiority in a Roman world which may be master, but which can be laughed at by these means. There is no better defence against Roman vices than Greek virtue, emblematised in the superiority of Athens to ‘present-day’ Rome.61 If one were to go to Athens, all pretensions and fakeness would dissipate in the face of true paideia (chs 13, 16); the contrary case holds in Rome, where pseudo-paideia leads to, and is symbolised by, a glut of theatricality (ch. 24).62 The Nigrinus not only describes Rome as physically full of theatres (clear especially from ch. 29), but enacts a running metaphor of its inhabitants as being part of a large-scale performance, masked and playing roles, developed from the point at which Nigrinus describes himself as viewing a spectacle from afar (ch. 18). A doubling is formed of the same metaphor, between the moral decay which ensues from unreality, that is, Rome’s predilection for the theatrical, and Nigrinus as viewing this as though high up in a theatre, ‘this’ expanded (ch. 20) as the stage (σκηνῇ) on which is played a drama of many masks (or 58 Especially Whitmarsh 2001: 265–79, but see too Bompaire 1958: 502–11, Jones 1986: 78–89 and Swain 1996: 315–21. 59 Whitmarsh 2001: 266 n. 84 for an account of attempts at identification. 60 καθίσας ἐµαυτὸν ὥσπερ ἐν θεάτρῳ µυριάνδρῳ σφόδρα που µετέωρος ἐπισκοπῶ τὰ γιγνόµενα, τοῦτο µὲν πολλὴν ψυχαγωγίαν καὶ γέλωτα παρεχεν δυνάµενα. 61 I paraphrase ch. 18. 62 See the discussion of Whitmarsh 2001: 269–72, and 272 for a list of theatrical vocabulary.

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roles, πολυπροσώπῳ δράµατι), which causes the enlightened to admire philosophy all the more when they see such folly (ἄνοια). Nigrinus’ viewing from afar, and the entertainment which results, is a paradigm for what one can gain by reading Lucian. The account of Nigrinus’ views is narrated by one of the interlocutors at the beginning of the work (chs 1–12, interlocution itself prefaced by a letter from Lucian to Nigrinus in praise of the latter’s discourse). As Camerotto demonstrates,63 the interlocutor who visited Rome to have his poor eyesight improved, in meeting Nigrinus has his perception of the world entirely transformed, just as at Icaromenippus 4 Menippus in a state of aporia seeks enlightenment. Eventually Menippus too views the world as something akin to a stage (ch. 17), as if someone were to put on stage lots of singers, or choruses, and then were to instruct each of the singers to abandon harmony and each sing their own tune.64 Menippus’ interlocutor (ch. 17) exclaims that everything is παγγέλοιος (‘entirely laughable’). Just so in meeting Nigrinus is an example set for relying on the appropriate paideia to view the world from afar. Laughter and entertainment are gained through true insight into the world’s affairs, and this can only happen when one has a right understanding of philosophy. Nigrinus is thus an ideal reader of Lucian, or on another level, a projection of Lucian himself as an exponent of the merits of paideia.65 Like Nigrinus, a reader can attain such a position with the accompaniment of Lucian’s educated insights into the present, by means of the past. The pseudo-pepaideumenoi of Rome put on a multitude of spectacles, but the true pepaideumenoi, especially those of Athens, can view this very activity, holistically, at one remove, as entirely a theatrical Schauspiel which provides a type of entertainment which only the initiated, those with the correct paideia, can enjoy.66 This template elevates Lucian’s Nigrinus both to the level of Lucian’s readers, that they will appreciate his work if, like him, they have sufficient paideia, and to the level of the world of such readers, which can be viewed as Nigrinus, and thence Lucian, view theirs. This is precisely what will bring laughter: paideia as a reception of the past, a harnessing of, according to Lucian, a superior world to understand the present (in the case of Nigrinus, Roman) one. Pace Whitmarsh,67 it is clear that 63 Camerotto 2014: 36–9, and esp. 38. 64 With Icar. 17, cf. Icar. 16, where Menippus sums up the whole as a spectacle: ὅλως γὰρ ποικίλη καὶ παντοδάπη τις ἦν ἡ θέα. 65 Cf. Whitmarsh 2001: 271 on Nigrinus’ theatrical view of ch. 18: ‘This condense[s] neatly the serio-comic combination of humour and philosophical purpose that is definitive of Lucianism.’ 66 This is the discovery of Menippus too, after his descent into Hades (Menippus 16): the world is like a tragedy played on the Attic stage. 67 Whitmarsh 2001: 279.

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readers are automatically trapped in an inevitably secondary, imitative and theatrical world, as symbolised by Rome, but the Nigrinus shows that this position need not be ultimately Romanised in its theatricality, but a superior position of viewing is available, one that is by rights Athenian, Greek and past. Paideia is the entry fee to gain a box seat at the theatre of the world’s affairs. The theatricality Lucian offers serves a twofold function: if one has a level of paideia to match at least that of Lucian himself, then the intricate complexities of his work will open up for appreciation; these same complexities offer insights into the workings of each reader’s contemporary world, insights which are essentially atemporal, benefiting the modern reader as well as the ancient when the keys to the present, the archaic and classical past, are appropriated. We do not laugh at, but with, Lucian, at the world en masse, a continual staging of theatricality, a parody of pseudo-paideia; but this laughter is not restricted to what we see, but includes what we read, a literary world, where Lucian re-presents too, satirically, the misguided historiographical methods and misplaced philosophical theories of the past. In Lucian, laughter is provoked by parody of contemporary philosophical and contemporary trends, a world often voiced by famous mythological or literary figures of the past. Lucian appropriates the Greek past and challenges the learning of his ideal readership to appreciate his satirical re-castings of the philosophical absurdities of his age: we will laugh if we, with our own paideia, can unravel Lucian’s intricate and sophisticated literary games.

5 ‘TANTALUS EVER IN TEARS’: THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY AS A SOURCE OF EMOTIONS IN LATE ANTIQUITY Judith Herrin In this chapter I should like to introduce and exploit the riches of the Greek Anthology for evidence of Greek laughter and tears in the sixth century, when Paul the silentiarios wrote the epigram that contains the line: ‘Tantalus ever in tears’. These poems, collected in the Anthology, often known as Palatina from its survival in the palatine library of Heidelberg, make a fascinating source for late antique attitudes to laughter and tears.1 Like other intellectuals of the Constantinopolitan elite Paul combined many literary skills, including his poetic descriptions of extreme distress and pain that contrast with unbounded joy, nearly all provoked by love. This court official, whose duty it was to impose silence whenever the emperor appeared, also composed a wonderfully detailed description of the restored dome of Hagia Sophia at the rededication of the Great Church in 562.2 Many of his epigrams were included in the Garland put together by Agathias, a lawyer and historian, who also composed verses in this genre. As Claudia Rapp has shown, the epigram was one of the most popular forms of literature in the mid-sixth century, possibly because these verses often contained amusing episodes drawn from daily life.3 They range from one or two lines to seventy-six; several by Agathias run to twenty to twenty-four lines. Many were written to adorn and explain statues and monuments, images of women, sculptures of chariot racers and mythological as well as contemporary individuals. The genre was ancient and had already clearly established rules for composition that were followed by all educated writers. Although  1 The Greek Anthology (Paton 1916–18). Among the many studies of the anthology, see esp. Cameron 1993; Lauxtermann 2003. All references will be to the Anthologia Palatina (Anth. Pal.) books 1–15 and the additional book 16 compiled by Maximos Planoudes in the early fourteenth century (Anth. Plan.).   2 On Paul the silentiary, see Viansino 1963; Macrides and Magdalino 1989; Bell 2009.   3 Rapp 2005: 376–97. Cf. Cameron 1993; Lauxtermann 2003: esp. chs 1 and 3; and the critical comments by Baldwin 1996: 92–104.

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there is a sharp drop in the composition of epigrams after the creative outburst of George of Pisidia in the early seventh century, the genre reasserted itself in the ninth century and the famous manuscript that preserves most of the Garlands, or Cycles, was put together in the 890s.4 Thereafter the form continued to be exercised by many writers. Since the Anthology is divided into separate Garlands and they in turn are divided into different books, each collection has a particular character. Those of book 1, devoted to Christian epigrams, were copied from churches and dedication panels that praise the worthy motive of the patron. After short books that bring together the introductions to earlier collections, book 5 contains the amatory epigrams, where love predominates among some overtly sexual descriptions. And since love is frequently unreciprocated, sadness and longing predominate, provoking many tears. Later books collect the epigrams from tombs; those written by St Gregory the Theologian; declamatory, admonitory and convivial/satirical poems, and miscellaneous groups including arithmetical problems, riddles and oracles. In the fourteenth century another anthology put together by Maximos Planoudes forms the sixteenth book in the collection. Those of the sixth century and earlier constantly play on the shift from laughter to tears, emphasising the closeness of such emotions, confirming what Stephen Halliwell calls ‘the thin easily crossed dividing line between pessimism and absurdity’.5 If I have concentrated here on the different forms of laughterprovoking epigrams, verses that celebrate laughing, it is because the tears are all too predictable. Epigrams lend themselves to the proverbial bon mot, as for example the short two lines of Glykon’s observation: ‘All is laughter, all is dust, all is nothing, for all that is cometh from unreason’ (Anth. Pal. X, 124).6 Or the anonymous: ‘A friend is a very difficult thing to find, and many or nearly all are friends only in name.’7 In the ninth century Kassia the nun brought this brief form to new heights. But even longer ones can incorporate sage advice and point out comic situations – and the sixth-century authors tended to write much longer epigrams, though always in imitation of the best ancient models. While Palladas seems to have been an inspiration for Agathias and his friends, they adapted his model, neglected since the  4 Cameron 1993; Lauxtermann 2003: 83–9; on the later development of the genre, see Kazhdan, Sherry and Angelidi 1999: 404–5. Dumbarton Oaks Papers 48 (1994) includes a report on the epigram in Byzantium.   5 Halliwell 2008: 357.   6 Halliwell 2008: 364–5.  7 Anth. Pal. X. 125.

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fourth century, and added a great variety of contemporary topics and original characteristics.8 First let us look at Paul’s composition. It is hardly surprising that Tantalus was forever weeping. He had been allowed to feast on the nectar of the gods and then revealed their secrets to men, so was subjected to the terrible torture of having food and drink just out of reach for ever: immersed in water, he was unable to eat the grapes above his head or to drink the water below. In some accounts a heavy rock was also suspended over him, and these features became a perpetual reminder of his wicked revelations. In Anth. Pal. V. 236, Paul addresses a lover who spurns him: Paul considers his pain even more extreme than that of Tantalus: Never did he (Tantalus) see thy beauty and never was denied the touch of thy lips more tender than an opening rose – Tantalus ever in tears (akritodakrys). He dreads the rock over his head but he cannot die a second time. But I, not yet dead, am wasted away by passion, and am enfeebled even unto death. The same comparison is made when Paul complains of Sappho’s soft kisses, the soft clasp of her snowy limbs – all soft, apart from her heart of unyielding adamant. ‘Her love reaches but to her lips, the rest is forbidden fruit. Who can support this? Perhaps, perhaps he who has borne it will find it easy to support the thirst of Tantalus’ (Anth. Pal. V. 246) Tantalus is also the subject of other epigrams, for example by Gallus, on Tantalus carved on a cup (probably on the handle): He often filled his belly with nectar, now lusts for a mortal liquor but the envious brew is ever lower than his lips. ‘Drink’ says the carving ‘and learn the secret of silence: thus are we punished who are loose of tongue.’ (Anth. Plan. XVI. 89) Tantalus is evoked in epigrams on Niobe, his daughter who boasted of her fourteen children to Leto (who had only two). As a result all Niobe’s offspring were killed by Leto’s twins, Artemis and Apollo, and Niobe became the famous weeping stone (or a fountain that flowed over the stone). Here is one by Antipater (of Thessaloniki?) commenting on a picture of Niobe: ‘Tantalus thy tongue was fatal to thee and to thy daughter – she became a rock and over thee hangs a stone to terrify thee’ (Anth. Plan. XVI. 131). Or ‘Weep at Niobe   8 Cameron 1970: 18, 20, 28–9.

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daughter of Tantalus who held not her tongue under lock and key’ (Anth. Plan. XVI. 132 by Theodoridas). So Tantalus is quite a significant figure for the poets of the Greek Anthology. Yet Paul is just as likely to write about less mythological and perhaps contemporary issues, so now I turn to some that mention laughter. Paul wrote about one about Doris who pulled one single hair from her head and bound my hands with it – at first I laughed thinking it was easy to shake off charming Doris’ fetters, but finding I had not strength to break them I presently began to moan and now most ill-fated of men I am hung on a hair and must ever follow where my mistress chooses to drag me. (Anth. Pal. V. 230) This might be an example of misguided laughter. And Anth. Pal. V. 234: on Pallas who denied the powers of love as a youth and who must now bend the neck to the Paphian queen; she (Kypris) now laughs at her conquest of wise Pallas even more than when she contended for the apple of the Hesperides: an instance of mocking laughter. Paul’s immediate association of love as the cause both of laughter and of tears reminds us how very closely intertwined the two states are. This inevitably raises the problem, which was constantly addressed at the A. G. Leventis conference, of what makes people laugh. Many authorities argue that humour is pretty timeless and claim to be able to predict the topics of jokes designed to induce laughter. Obviously there is a predictable set of concerns that recur frequently in jokes ranging from riddles to the punchline of New Yorker cartoons: foreigners and people who can’t understand your language; drunkenness and uncontrolled behaviour; stupidity as defined by the joke maker and so on. The popularity of stand-up comics suggests that people love to laugh – they enjoy a joke at someone else’s expense, even if it is in appalling taste. They laugh at the most unattractive misogyny and shameful racism, but comics have to be clever to find ways to make people roar with laughter – jokes that render you helpless, and close to tears. Is this a matter of taste – and thus difficult to predict? (Many stand-up comics fail.) Were there equivalent comic orators in ancient times, and how did they do it? I would rather try a different approach prompted by modern investigation of the physiological response and the cultural and social context in which laughter is engendered. This stresses that we laugh more readily with friends, in circumstances where we are not afraid of an unintended reaction because we share a similar sense of humour

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and can make fun of each other.9 Perhaps what makes us laugh is not the content of the joke but the context in which it is told and shared. As Guy Halsall puts it in his excellent introduction to Humour, History and Politics in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ‘Whatever the physiological constancy of the response, the stimulus is socially contingent.’10 The reaction of laughing is involuntary; like sneezing, it is hard to control. This seems to me a very helpful way to analyse the hundreds of epigrams collected in the Greek Anthology as a source of references to emotions such as laughter and tears. Let us look at the circle of friends who helped Agathias the scholastikos in his collection (Cycle or Garland), including Paul the silentiary. From one of his own verses, we know that Agathias was born in Myrina in Asia Minor, to a well-established family.11 This may have been in about 532. His father, Memnonios, was a rhetor and his mother, Perikleia, died in Constantinople (Anth. Pal. VII. 551 records her tomb).12 The same epigram mentions his two brothers, Letoïos and Paulos, and another his sister Eugenia (Anth. Pal. VII. 593), who died at the untimely age of seventeen. It is not clear if they may all have been older than he or were perhaps children of a subsequent marriage. At any rate, Agathias describes himself as a toddler aged three, still being breast-fed and therefore missing his mother most particularly (Anth. Pal. VII. 552). The family appears to have moved from Myrina to Constantinople at some stage, and the city in Asia Minor erected statues to Memnonios and his sons, cherished as famous natives (Anth. Plan. XVI. 316 by Michael grammatikos). Memnonios was able to finance his son’s studies in Alexandria, where he experienced the stimulating atmosphere of a great ancient capital, still full of scholars dedicated to the old syllabus of classical studies. If he was sent off when he was about eighteen years old, Agathias arrived in around 550 when John Philoponos was constructing his synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy with a certain Christian theology, and Kosmas Indikopleustes, ‘who sailed to India’, was writing his Christian Topography to prove that the earth is flat.13 Recent archaeological discoveries have drawn attention to the very extensive educational activities of the Pharos, as Alexandria was   9 Durant and Miller 1988: esp. Miller, Introduction, 6–16; Neve 1988: 40–2. 10 Halsall 2002: 9. 11 In what follows I’m deeply indebted to Averil Cameron, who made the most serious study of Agathias, looking primarily at his History, a continuation of the Wars of Prokopios, but not neglecting all his other activities. Cf. the pertinent comments of Rapp 2005: 386–90. 12 Cameron 1970: 1–3; Anth. Pal. VII. 552; Anth. Plan. XVI. 316. 13 Cameron 1970: 113–15; cf. Haas 1997; Watts 2010.

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called.14 Perhaps while he studied law there, Agathias became aware of the immense collection of epigrams by Palladas, who had enlivened the city in the fourth century. Many were included in the Garland that Agathias put together later. Despite the recent argument for dating Palladas to an earlier period and setting him in Constantinople, where several epigrams allude to the foundation of the city, the issue of new coins, the movement of pagan statues and conversion of temples, the author is known as Alexandrian and must have been a famous city son.15 Barry Baldwin points out that if Palladas had made such a Garland of his own verses, it would have been ‘on considerably more egotistical principles than the Cycle of Agathias’.16 Palladas was probably long dead when Agathias studied law in Alexandria, but the city remained an exciting, lively place and some of his friendships date back to this youthful time. In 551 when a great earthquake destroyed Berytos (Beirut), the impact was felt as far away as Alexandria and Agathias was there – he also saw its devastating results on the island of Kos as he sailed past on his way to Constantinople, where he continued his studies and began to gain a reputation as a lawyer. He appears to have travelled in Asia Minor, visiting Tralles, where he met some of the family of Anthemios, the architect of Hagia Sophia, including his brother Alexander, the famous medical writer, and Metrodoros the grammatikos; he spent time in Smyrna as well as returning to his home city of Myrina.17 From his own account it is clear that Agathias took considerable pride in his successful legal career (which is confirmed by others).18 At the same time he was experimenting in literary forms. His first achievement, the Daphniaka, was completed before the death of Justinian I in 565. In the epigram that describes it (Anth. Pal. VI. 80) the nine books of Agathias speak of their dedication to Aphrodite and their stories of the mysteries of many loves. The author begs the goddess to grant him either not to love or to love one who consents soon. Although nothing survives of these books, the title suggests a collection of verses about women such as Daphne, who had been turned off sex by a lead arrow fired by Eros, which induced hatred, while another golden one hit Apollo, who therefore fell incurably in love with her. A Daphniad suggests a set of stories about women who reject love – a situation that heightens the hopeless nature of love – but also possibly implies that 14 Dearda, Markiewicz and Wipszycka 2007. 15 Wilkinson 2010: 1–16. 16 Baldwin 1985: 267. 17 Anth. Pal. IX. 662; Agathias, Historia, ii. 17: Keydell 1967: 62–4; Garland 2011: 156–7, on Agathias’ pride in renovating the public lavatory in Smyrna. 18 Cameron 1970: 3, on John of Epiphaneia’s comment.

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‘tantalus ever in tears’ 81 Agathias was trying to escape from such unnatural examples of the feminine character. It clearly shows a profound commitment to the epigram as a literary ploy and a certain mastery of the genre, which was to be further developed in his Garland. This collection followed the well-established models of earlier Garlands while adding some very personal touches. It was completed under Justin II, probably in 567–8, and dedicated to Theodoros, a decurion, otherwise unknown (sometimes identified as dux augustalis of Egypt a decade later in 577).19 Agathias’ motive appears to have been ‘to gain reward in high places’, following the example of Corippus, who actually asked for financial support in his Laudes Iustini.20 The Preface to the Garland includes a section in praise of the emperor (Anth. Pal. IV. 3. 47–100), and continues with the dedication to Theodoros (101–12). Agathias then explains his method of working: while adhering to the wise model of the ancients (116), whose works are quoted, he then added contemporary topics that illustrate ‘the devious paths of life and the deceitful place of inconstant Fortune’ (124–5), ‘scurrilous rhyme’, ‘sweet love’ and ‘the joys of Bacchus and tipsy dances and wine and cups and rich banquets’ (128–33).21 He also describes the collection as a literary feast with different new flavourings, the kneading of fresh poetical dough by many skilled cooks, in epigrams that combine a strict observance of established genre with a more relaxed and unrestrained expression of personal pleasures. ‘Let us institute a context of poetic skills and start the music of the singer’s dance’ (101–2).22 In such collections of poems, which were read aloud at real banquets, we glimpse a persistent devotion to Aphrodite/Kypris and all the passions (more often tears than laughter) that love brings. This culinary evocation of the different dishes enjoyed by sixthcentury diners is a strong reminder of the context in which Agathias assembled his Garland. He persuaded his friends (many of them lawyers) to offer their own compositions: Makedonios the consul (hypatos) and Julian the former prefect of Egypt, Paul the silentiary, an unidentified notary who was a relative of Paul’s, Damocharis, grammatikos and poet, a student of Agathias, and others who moved in the same elite circles and were united in their taste for literature and scholarship.23 They enjoyed banquets which provided the context 19 Cameron 1970: 7–9; this date of composition was first proposed by Alan and Averil Cameron 1966; see also the ample bibliography in Garland 2011. 20 Cameron 1970: 6, 12 on the close resemblance to Corippus. 21 Anth. Pal. IV. 3. 22 McCail 1964: 162; 1968: 76–8. 23 Cameron 1970: 18, n.4, lists the scholastikoi who participated: Synesios, Eutolmios and Thomas, plus Diogenes, a bishop, and Gabriel, perhaps just a friend.

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for performances of the newly written epigrams. This variety paralleled the culinary delights of the dinner, prepared with many different dishes. The context is evoked in Anth. Pal. V. 267, where Agathias invents a conversation between two men. B sighs because he’s in love with a girl he met at dinner, reclining with the rest; A asks what he’s going to do, and when B replies that he’s planning a secret affair because she is very poorly off, A says then he can’t be in love: how can a heart that reckons correctly be touched with love’s madness? I think that it is the convivial setting that helps to explain the appeal of these sixth-century epigrams. During the last years of Justinian and the reigns of Justin II and Tiberios such literary dinners probably reached a high point, when poets competed to amuse their friends with novel treatments of the age-old problems of Love, and the unpredictable acts of Fortune. Occasionally several wrote on the same theme in ‘a contest of poetic skill’. As they reclined on their couches in the ancient style and savoured the culinary creations of their prized cooks, these lawyers who could turn their hand to any literary form brought the art of the epigram to a sophisticated peak of achievement. Agathias regularly cites the earlier Garlands, writing epigrams on well-worn topics, but even in his imitation he adds an occasionally scurrilous element, for example Anth. Pal. V. 302: by what road does one come to the Land of Love? This was based on one by Poseidippos on Platon, the comic poet: what path of life should one pursue (Anth. Pal. IX. 359 followed by Metrodoros on the same problem, IX. 360)? But here Agathias points out the impossibly difficult routes to Love, citing the disadvantages of sex with a wide range of women (courtesan, virgin, lawful wife), or of unlawful adultery with someone else’s wife, or of sex with boys, or widows, your own servant or another’s, before concluding with Diogenes fleeing from them all, and singing a paean to Hymen, having no need of Lais. McCail understands this recommendation for masturbation as a means of avoiding sexual involvement and cites Anth. Pal. X. 68 as evidence that Agathias was ‘obsessed with the sin or potential sin inherent in sexual relations’.24 Nonetheless Agathias appears to have enjoyed reading his verses at convivial dinners, even if he mocked those who indulged too much in extravagant dishes and then suffered agonising stomach aches. He compares such rich men who feast to excess with the long-suffering labourer who never has any problem in the latrine.25 Such dinners, 24 McCail 1969: 87–96, a response to Alan and Averil Cameron’s article; see above, n.19. 25 Anth. Pal. IX. 642, 643

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‘tantalus ever in tears’ 83 symposia and intellectual circles existed in other cities – Alexandria for sure, for in late antiquity this was a cherished style of elite relaxation, with its evocation of Bacchus – Bacchus who awakens laughter and frees men from care and anxiety, according to Palladas (Anth. Pal. XI. 60). This is the unrestrained laughter expected among banqueting friends. Palladas also urges a more relaxed attitude to everyday problems: ‘If we don’t laugh at Life the runaway and Fortune the strumpet, we cause ourselves constant pain seeing the unworthy luckier than ourselves’ (Anth. Pal. X. 87). Similarly, Agathias thanks Fortune/ Tyche ‘for mocking us all equally, we have that to amuse us’ (Anth. Pal. X. 64). Perhaps this produces more of a shared smile than a belly laugh.26 There are other sources of laughter: Palladas alludes to the joyful laughter of the Victories who bring victories to the city that loves righteousness (Anth. Plan. XVI. 282).27 Another tradition attributes laughter to flowers (lilies, Anth. Pal. V. 147) and to meadows jealous of Zenophilia’s beauty (Anth. Pal. V. 144); and of course to Zenophilia’s baby, Eros with little wings, crying and laughing at the same time, chattering all the time, a little devil, a monster – she decides to sell it to a trader who wants to buy a baby, and changes her mind when it supplicates all in tears (Anth. Pal. V. 178, all by Meleager). Antiphilos comments on the laughter produced when he recalled how he had warned that the infant Tereine ‘would consume us all when she grows up’, and now she does (Anth. Pal. V. 111) – you can hear him saying, ‘I told you so.’ There is also a place for mocking laughter, misplaced laughter, that causes pain; for example, Strato’s epigram on a provocative young boy, the neighbour’s son ‘who is not more than twelve yet he provokes me and laughs knowingly. Now the unripe grapes are unguarded, when he ripens there will be watchmen and stakes’ (Anth. Pal. XII. 205). Or Anth. Pal. XII. 218, on the young Pasiphilos ‘who always laughs no matter what and never speaks whether I entreat or weep – is this a laughing matter? Barbare! (cruel boy!)’ So here is a contrast between inappropriate laughter by the young boy and the sorrow experienced by the older poet – which brings us very close to the similarity of laughter and tears. Generally laughter is not mentioned in the epigrams but is clearly anticipated by the circumstances – for instance, when Agathias 26 As Halliwell 2008: 368 points out. Laughing to avoid the pain of envy and injustice was an old tradition. 27 This is one of the epigrams cited by Kevin Wilkinson to support his suggestion that Palladas was describing events in Constantinople under Constantine I; Wilkinson 2010.

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describes the wicked who get their just deserts. An adulterous couple were killed when the roof of the house fell in and now they are locked in an unceasing embrace (Anth. Pal. VII. 572). There are several instances of this happening. Could such accidents be attributed to earthquakes? Or was some housing just poorly built? Much fun is made of bad singers: Nikarchos, on the night raven’s song that bodes death, ‘but when Demophilos sings the night raven itself dies’ (Anth. Pal. XI. 186); or Leonidas of Alexandria on Simylas the lyre player (and psaltēs) ‘who killed all his neighbours by singing the whole night except Orygenes whom Nature made deaf and therefore gave him longer life’ (Anth. Pal. XI. 187). Several anonymous verses are devoted to people with exceptionally long noses, popular objects of amusement (e.g. Anth. Pal. XI. 203, 267, 268). On occasions the Cappadocians provoke even more condemnation than the Abderites, as when Demodokos writes: ‘an evil viper once bit a Cappadocian but it died after having tasted the venomous blood’ (Anth. Pal. XI. 237). And any unusual appearances frequently provoke comment. Here is Palladas on the appearance of chastity, which he claims has no manifest signs: ‘a frowning woman who never laughs and avoids showing herself to men . . . women, even the most grave, may be whores in secret and the merry one be virtuous, if any woman is entirely virtuous’ (Anth. Pal. X. 556). This is much less misogynistic than many; compare his condemnation of all women in Anth. Pal. IX. 166: Homer shows that every woman is wicked and treacherous – witness Helen and Penelope, who provoked the Iliad and the Odyssey; or Anth. Pal. IX. 167: fire can be put out, ‘but woman is an unquenchable fire, ever alight’; or Anth. Pal. IX. 168 on his wife, ‘pernicious wrath’! Now we can return to Paul the silentiary, who recorded his sense of fun in many delightful ways, for instance when Hermonassa tipped a jug of water over him as I was hanging a wreath on her outer door (after the carousing, μετὰ κώμους). It flattened my hair which I had taken such pains to curl that it would have lasted three days. But the water set me all the more aglow, for the hidden fire of her sweet lips was in the jug. (Anth. Pal. V. 281) Perhaps we laugh more at the idea of sixth-century men curling their hair and hoping the effect would last for three days than at women throwing water out of the window to shoo them away. The notion that a soaking in cold water might transfer the hidden fire of Hermonassa’s lips is not the primary element of amusement.

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Paul’s frequent references to carousing and courting lovers with wreaths raise the question of whether he and Agathias and their friends might have been old-fashioned pagans, even in mid-sixth-century Constantinople when outward observation of Christianity was almost obligatory.28 Several epigrams included in the collection are patently anti-Christian, for example Palladas on solitaries: ‘Why so many? And if so many how solitary? O crowd of solitaries who give the lie to solitude’ (Anth. Pal. XI. 384). Making fun of desert monks and the new god of the Christians gives Palladas several opportunities for sarcasm; see his verse on the House of Marina where statues of the Olympians are now safe, having become Christian, and will not be melted down for coinage (Anth. Pal. IX. 528).29 In a longer poem on the deceits of women, Palladas mentions the twelve newer gods, which Wilkinson relates to the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.30 For the tenth-century editors of the epigrams, Alan Cameron has shown how they attempted to curb this tendency, and copyist J gave precedence to the ‘pious and godly Christian epigrams’ in book I, ‘even if the pagans are displeased’. This copyist also filled the margins of his copy with anti-pagan invectives, as self–protection.31 Perhaps Agathias’ Christian verses served a similar purpose: to demonstrate how the ancient form of the epigram could be put to new uses.32 Yet his preface to the Garland, with its declaration that in ‘competing with men of old time’ he selected ‘all that the parents of the new song wrote as an offering to the old gods’, suggests a stronger commitment to the ancient world.33 The evident familiarity with the pagan gods and myths, plus mastery of an ancient verse form, has led many commentators to assume that the sixth-century practitioners were possibly diehard, old-style polytheists, or at best lukewarm Christians, those who saw how the wind was blowing but resisted its gale.34 So were Paul the silentiary and Agathias confirmed Christians or reluctant ones more attached to the old cults? While Kaldellis has stressed the underlying pre-Christian culture that engendered great 28 Cameron 1993: 156–8. 29 Wilkinson 2010 has argued for a date around 330 in Constantinople, when the bronze follis was produced from ancient statuary, as above; see also Wilkinson 2009. 30 Wilkinson 2010: 189–91. 31 Cameron 1993: 157. Corrections are clear on the facsimile of the Palatine ms in Heidelberg, e.g. folio 365. http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpgrae​c​23/​0377/​ scroll?sid=efa086376b37ad5f719493a0f57157af downloaded 28 April 2015. 32 Cameron 1970: 105–7. 33 Cameron 1970: 106, with a refinement in the translation: ‘poems as it were dedicated to the old gods’. 34 Cameron 1993: 156–8. For an even more forthright statement see Kaldellis 2003: 295–300.

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devotion in many late antique intellectuals, Averil Cameron has always been more inclined to identify their Christian persuasion.35 Yet she admits that Agathias displays nothing appropriate to a Christian moralist in his epigram on the routes to love.36 He regularly cites ancient Greek myths, occasionally to make a joke of contemporary events, such as the death of Leutharis (noted in the History).37 During King Leutharis’ invasion of Italy, Agathias records that his troops were decimated by plague and the king was forced to eat his own body, prompting a reference to the story of Erisychthon, who ate himself to death (autophagy). Alexakis has added another dimension to this obscure joke by demonstrating Agathias’ knowledge of Ovid and his  direct translation of many elements of the story of Erisychthon.38 This suggests that Agathias knew at least book 8 of the Metamorphoses, possibly more, but not that he thought Leutharis had actually died from eating his own flesh. Regardless of their personal attitudes to religions, the bonds between these poets were very strong and admitted a wide range of emotions. The most celebrated record of the friendship between Agathias and Paul occurs in Anth. Pal. V. 292, where Agathias writes of his regret at not being in Constantinople with Paul, because he has to remain on the other side of the Bosphoros to study law. He misses his friend’s voice, one he would rather hear than the sound of Apollo’s harp; he also misses his sweet heifer, γλυκερὴν δάμαλιν. Paul replies that he can’t be very serious about these two loves because to get back he doesn’t even have to swim like Leander, but can easily take the ferry. He has given up Kypris (love) for Pallas Athene to whom law belongs, and ‘what man can serve both at once?’ The two authors not only share a mastery of the epigram as a literary genre, but can express both personal and dispassionate opinions in this format. Agathias’ collection allows us to eavesdrop on some of the inventions and stories that they enjoyed with much wine. It is the context in which their verses were declaimed that provides the clue to their freedom of emotional language. And we can imagine that their dinners encourage an element of rivalry and competition to induce novel expressions of Greek laughter and tears.

35 Cameron 1970: 89–94, esp. 90: ‘the paganism of the epigrams is formal only’. 36 Cameron 1970: 106 n.8. 37 Cameron 1970: 54, 94. Cf. Keydell 1967: II, 3. 7; Frendo 1975: 35. 38 Alexakis 2008: 615, showing that the joke involved the audience’s knowledge of Latin as well as Erisychthon, as recorded in Anth. Pal. XI. 379.

6 ‘DO YOU THINK YOU’RE CLEVER? SOLVE THIS RIDDLE, THEN!’ THE COMIC SIDE OF BYZANTINE ENIGMATIC POETRY Simone Beta ‘Comic’ is an adjective one would not normally use in connection with Byzantine riddles. The insistent presence of dull wordplay, the excessive exploitation of isopsephy, and the overall repetitive structure make them the very opposite of comicality. But ancient Greek riddles cannot be defined as ‘comic’ either: the oldest examples of ainigmata we are acquainted with were very serious, both in their textual shape and in the deadly consequences they provoked, as the story that lies behind Oedipus’ riddle shows. Greek riddles started to show their comic side in the fifth century bce, when they became one of the typical sympotic pastimes and received the alternative name of griphoi, as we learn from a passage in Aristophanes’ Wasps.1 After having then turned into the harmless version of the deadly riddle (the proper meaning of griphos is ‘net’), the word ainigma became, according to the definition given by the Peripatetic philosopher Clearchus of Soli, a πρόβλημα παιστικόν, ‘a problem put in jest’, a definition that contains a clear reference to the verb παίζειν (‘play’).2 A certain level of playfulness can be seen in ancient riddles as well, though. One example is the unexpected solution of the ainigma that caused Homer’s death: the answer to the famous riddle asked by some fishermen (or, according to other versions, by some young kids) was the louse, the disgusting insect hinted at through the enigmatic formulation ‘What we caught, we left; what we did not catch, we bring with  1 Aristophanes, Wasps 20ff. MacDowell 1971, ad loc., writes that ‘this is the earliest instance of the word, and the earliest mention of the custom of posing riddles at drinking-parties’.   2 Clearchus, fr. 86 Wehrli, quoted by Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, 10.448 C. The adjective παιστικόν is a significant word, because it indicates witty and serious at the same time; see Beta 2009; Luz 2010: 139–46.

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us’, and at the same time the brilliant solution the wise poet was not able to find.3 But the comicality we see in most of the griphoi Athenaeus took from Athenian Middle Comedy is much more evident (and much less dangerous) – and everybody agrees that such drollery is totally absent from Byzantine ainigmata.4 Let us take, for instance, the first item of the short collection of riddles composed by Michael Psellos for the emperor Constantine Doukas:5 Ἔστι τι ζῷον λογικόν, δέσποτα στεφηφόρε, ὁρῶν, οὐκ ἔχον ὀφθαλμούς, ἐκτὸς ποδῶν βαδίζον, ἐστερημένον κεφαλῆς, ἀκέραιον τὰς φρένας, πνεύμονος ἄτερ καὶ λοβῶν, καρδίας καὶ κοιλίας, ἐστερημένον τοῦ παντός, τίνος οὐ λελειμμένον. Τί τοῦτο; φράσον, ἔξειπε, λέξον, δήλωσον, γράψον, ὡς συνετός, ὡς νουνεχής, ὡς ὑπερφέρων πάντων.6 There is nothing funny either in the text of this riddle or in its solution (‘angel’ according to one family of manuscripts, ‘angel or mind’ according to another one);7 the same can be said of the couple of other more or less philosophical riddles written by Psellos for the entertainment of his royal pupil, whose solutions are respectively ‘moon’ and ‘time’.8 Gravity and stiffness are also the main features of the eleven riddles composed by Eustathios Makrembolites. One example (the second poem of his collection) will suffice:9   3 The riddle is quoted in most of the Homeric lives and alluded to in a fragment by Heraclitus (56 D.-K. = 21 Marcovich). The text of the riddle (Ὅσσ᾽ ἕλομεν λιπόμεσθ᾽, ὅσσ᾽ οὐχ ἕλομεν φερόμεσθα) was translated into Latin by Symphosius (30: Est nova nostrarum cunctis captura ferarum: / ut si quid capias, hoc tu tibi ferre recuses, / et quod non capias, tecum tamen ipse reportes); see Bergamin 2005; Leary 2014.   4 On the riddles quoted by Athenaeus in a fairly long section of the tenth book of the Deipnosophists (collected by Cougny 1890) see below, pp. 95–7, 100, 103.  5 Psellos’ riddles have been edited by Boissonade 1831: 429–36; Milovanović 1986; Westerink 1992: 298–302. The title of the collection is Τοῦ σοφωτάτου καὶ ὑπερτίμου Ψελλοῦ πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα Μιχαὴλ τὸν Δούκαν αἰνίγματα (‘The riddles of the most learned and exceedingly honorable Psellos to the emperor Michael Doukas’), but Westerink 1992: 298–9 has correctly identified its real addressee as Michael’s brother, Constantine.   6 Michael Psellos 1 Boissonade = 5 Milovanović = 35 Westerink: ‘It is a rational animal, my crowned master: / it sees but does not have eyes, it walks but does not have feet, / it is headless and innocent, / it is without lungs and liver, without heart and stomach, / lacking of everything, not devoid of anything. / What is this? Tell me, speak, say, show, write, / if it is true that you are intelligent, smart and better than anybody else.’   7 On the two families of Psellos’ collection, see Westerink 1992: xxvi.   8 Michael Psellos 2 and 3 Boissonade = 35 and 10 Milovanović = 36 and 37 Westerink.   9 The text of the riddle comes from the excellent edition made by Treu 1893.

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‘do you think you’re clever? 89 Ἐκ γῆς ἐγὼ θρέπτειραν ἔσχον τὴν φύσιν, τριγράμματον φέρω δὲ δισυλλαβίαν. Ἀρχὴν τεμών μου καὶ μεγαλύνας μέσην, στολῆς λάβῃς μόριον ἱερωμένης. Τέλος δέ μου πρώτιστόν ἐστι γραμμάτων.10 There is nothing comic in these lines. And the poetic solution written one century later by Manuel Holobolos, where the words that answer Eustathios’ riddle are inserted in the text (πόα ‘grass’, ᾤα ‘fringe’ and α ‘alpha’), is even less comic: Ἡ γῆ σε πάντως, ὦ καλὴ πόα, τρέφει· κλῆσιν δὲ τριγράμματον ἀληθῶς φέρεις. Ἀρχὴν δὲ τέμνων καὶ μέσην σου μηκύνων, ’΄ αν νοῶ σε καὶ τιμῶ σε προφρόνως ω καθὰ στολῆς μόριον ἡγιασμένης. Τέλος δὲ σὸν γνώριμον, α’΄ λφα γὰρ πέλει. Ὄντως νοητὴν ἐκπνέεις εὐωδίαν, χρυσῆ πόα μοι, τὸν δὲ σὸν φυτηκόμον ὡς ἀγχίνουν τέθηπα καὶ σοφὸν λίαν.11 The only comic thing one might see (quite unintentional, certainly) is the fact that Holobolos’ explanation is much longer than the riddle itself, because he wrote nine lines instead of the five written by Eustathios. Most Byzantine riddles follow a similar pattern: the progressive elimination of a letter (usually the first one). One of the commonest examples (and also one of the longest ones) is the item we find both in Psellos’ collection and, albeit in a different shape, in the collection of riddles some manuscripts attribute to the mysterious Basil Megalomytes:12 10 Eustathios Macrembolites 1.2 Treu = 137 Milovanović: ‘From the earth I found a nurse for my growth, / I have two syllables and three letters. / Trim off my beginning and lengthen my waist, / and you get the part of a holy robe. / My final part is the very first letter of the alphabet.’ 11 ‘The earth nourishes you, to be sure, lovely grass: / you do indeed have a name of three letters. / By trimming your beginning and lengthening your waist, / I recognise that you are a fringe and I honour you gladly, / as you are a part of a hallowed robe. / Your end is familiar, for it is alpha. / Truly you exhale a perceptible fragrance, / o golden grass, and he who tends you / astounds me, as one shrewd and very wise.’ On Holobolos’ identity, see Treu 1896. 12 Basil Megalomytes’ riddles have been edited by Boissonade 1831: 437–52, and Milovanović 1986. The forty-two riddles printed by Boissonade (Αἰνίγματα συντεθέντα παρὰ Βασιλείου τοῦ Μεγαλομίτου) come from Par. gr. 968 (fifteenth century, fols. 207–10: thirty-three riddles, namely 1–2, 5–6, 8–16, 18, 20–1, 23–7, 29–32, 35–6, 38–43) and Par. gr. 1630 (fourteenth century, fols. 137–9: thirty-seven riddles, namely 1–31, 33–8). On the main features of these Byzantine ‘collections’, see Beta 2014.

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Πτηνόν με γεννᾷ, καὶ βροτὸν μαῖαν φέρω, οὗ πρέσβις οὐράνιος ἄπτιλος πέλω. Ἄν δ᾽ ἀποτάμῃς τὴν κατ᾽ ἀρχάς μου κάραν, δάκρυα κινῶ καὶ μόνης ἐκ τῆς θέας· εἰ δ᾽ ἀφέλῃς μου καὶ κάραν τὴν δευτέραν, ποθητόν εἰμι ναυτίλοις ἐν ταῖς ζάλαις· εἰ δ᾽ αὖ κεφαλὴν ἀφέλῃς μου καὶ τρίτην, ἔαρ τὸ τερψίθυμον εἰς μέσον φέρω· εἰ δ᾽ ἀποκόψεις καὶ τετάρτην μου κάραν, ὕπαρξιν ἐκ ῥήματος καὶ μόνην ἔχω· εἰ δ᾽ αὖ σὺν αὐταῖς καὶ πέμπτην διατέμῃς, γραμμαὶ συνιστῶσί με τρεῖς. Σοφέ, νόει.13

The multiple solutions of the riddle are the following: the first word is  the honeycomb (κηρίον, kērion); the second is the tomb (ἠρίον, ērion); the third the promontory (ῥίον, rion); the fourth the violet (ἴον,  ion);  the fifth the neuter present participle of the verb ‘to be’ (ὄν, on); and the last (an addition we find only in this version) a hint at the capital letter N. The sequence of the solutions proves the cleverness of the author, but its repetitive structure (with the tiresome iteration of the clause ‘if you cut’) lowers the stylistic qualities of the riddle. But the Byzantine riddles that do not follow this particular pattern can be amusing as well. Sometimes the anonymous authors who took pleasure in composing these little conundrums were even able to jest with Holy Scripture, as is shown by the following example, which again can be found in the collection attributed to Basil Megalomytes: Ἰχθῦς ἡ χύτρα· τὸ δʼ ἑψόμενον ἔνδον ἔμπνουν, λογικόν, αἰσθητικόν τε κρέας. Ὃ δῆτʼ ἐξελθὸν θρηνεῖ περὶ λαχάνων.14 The comparison of the prophet Jonah, secreted in the dark belly of the whale, to a breathing, thinking and feeling piece of meat inside a 13 I print the longer version of Basil Megalomytes 6 Boissonade: ‘I have been begotten by a bird, but my midwife is human; / I am her featherless heavenly ambassadress. / If you cut my first head, / I make people cry when I show myself; / if you cut also my second head, / I am beloved by the sailors during the storms; / if you cut also my third head, / I bring inside me the spring that gives joy to the soul; / If you cut also my fourth head, / I owe my life to a verb; / if you cut also a fifth letter together with the other four, / I am made by three strokes. Do you think you’re clever? Solve this riddle, then!’ For Psellos’ shorter version, see 13 Boissonade = 128 Milovanović = 47 Westerink. 14 Basil Megalomytes 24 Boissonade = 53 Milovanović: ‘The pot is a fish. But the meat that is being cooked inside, / breathes, and thinks, and feels. / And, after it has come out, it cries over the vegetables.’

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boiling pot is quite amusing, as is any dramatic picture when seen in a comic way. The third line is even funnier, since the disappointment the biblical Jonah felt when he saw the sudden death of the plant that had prevented him from being burned by the strong sun becomes a ‘cry over the vegetables’ – that is an amusing misinterpretation of the bitter words uttered by God, who had blamed Jonah for having felt sorry for a simple plant, and not for the severe punishment with which God had threatened the inhabitants of Niniveh.15 Jonah’s weird adventure held a great fascination for other Byzantine authors as well, namely the mostly anonymous writers who composed the erōtapokrisesis, the ‘question-and-answer’ collections that played an important role in the cultural and religious formation of the young Byzantine students. The prophet swallowed by the whale is the correct answer to two such questions. In the first one, the question Τίς τρεῖς (sic) ἀπέθανεν; (‘Who died three times?’) is answered by Ὁ Ἰωννᾶς· οὗτος γὰρ ἦν τῆς χήρας ὁ υἱὸς ὁ ἀναστήσας Ἠλίας τὴς Ἀρέθας τῆς Ἰουδαίας, δεύτερον δὲ ὃς ἐν τῷ κήτει καὶ τρίτον τὸ τελευταῖον αὐτοῦ (‘Jonah: he was the widow’s son resurrected by Elijah at Zarephath in Judaea; his second death was when he was in the whale; and the third and final was his own’).16 In the first Book of Kings we learn in fact that the son of a widow from the town of Zarephath (identified with Jonah by the Rabbinic tradition) was resurrected by Elijah; Jonah’s second death is the one we know (the whale); and Jonah’s third death was the final one.17 The second ‘question and answer’ is more similar to our riddle: here Ὁ Ἰωννᾶς ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ τοῦ κήτους (‘Jonah in the belly of the whale’) is the answer to the question Ποῖος προφήτης ἀπέθανεν καὶ τὸ μνῆμα αὐτοῦ περιεπάτει καὶ ὁ νεκρὸς ἔψαλλεν; (‘Which prophet died and his tomb walked around and his corpse played the lyre?’). The question is composed of three clues (a dead prophet, a walking tomb, and a corpse who plays the lyre).18 But the exploitation of the ‘comic side’ of the Bible is not the only 15 Jonah 4: 9–11. The mysterious ‘vegetables’ (λάχανα) are the personal (and obviously enigmatic) interpretation the author of the riddle gave to κολοκύνθη, the word he read in the Septuaginta, translated as hedera (‘ivy’) by Jerome, as ‘gourd’ by the King James Bible, and as ‘vine’ by other translators. 16 The text is corrupt (Heinrici 1911: 56 n.9), but the sense is clear. On the erōtapokrisesis see Volgers and Zamagni 2004. 17 1 Kings 17–21. The same question can be found in a shaky poetic version first edited by Kyriakides 1921: 122 n.5. Because of its similarity to a riddle proper, Milovanović 1986 decided to insert it in her collection of Byzantine riddles (54: Τίς τρεῖς φορὲς ἀπέθανε καὶ μίαν ἐγεννήθη, / τὴν τρίτην δὲ ἐφάπαξ πλέον οὐκ ἀναστήθη;). See also Nikodemos 1925: 132 and 140 nn.7 and 40. 18 Heinrici 1911: 57 n.14. See also p. 58 n.25 (Τίς ἦτον ὁ νεανίσκος ὃν ἀνέστησεν ὁ Ἐλισσαῖος; ὁ Ἰωννᾶς ὁ υἱὸς τῆς Ὁμανίτιδος).

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way to write an amusing riddle. Other poems linger on topics more suitable for Greek comedy, both Old and New. In one of the manuscripts bequeathed by Cardinal Bessarion to the Biblioteca Marciana of Venice (Marcianus Gr. 512), there is a small collection of twentytwo riddles. The fifteenth is the following: Ἐμοὶ πόδες κίνησις αὐδὴ καὶ τρίχες, γράμματα τρία, συλλαβὴ δέ μοι μία. Ἂν μου τὸ πρῶτον ἐξέλῃς τῶν γραμμάτων, ἀφεῖλες αὐδὴν, τὴν τρίχα καὶ τοὺς πόδας, εἴασας δὲ κίνησιν τὴν μόγις μόνην.19 Thanks to the copyist, who inserted the solution of the riddle in the right-hand margin of the page, we learn that the answer is θώψ (thōps, ‘flatterer’). In fact, a flatterer can move himself (since he has feet), he is able to speak (actually, speaking is the action that mostly marks his behaviour) and, provided that he is not bald, his head is covered with hair. If we take away the first letter, the word becomes ὤψ (ōps, ‘eye’) – that is, a dumb and glabrous part of the body that can move itself even though it has no feet. The same solutions apply to the ninth riddle of the same collection: Λεπτὸν νόησον καὶ διαυγῆ τὴν φύσιν, μόνα δύο γράμματα προσκεκτημένον. Εἰ προστεθῇ δὲ καὶ τρίτον τούτοις τότε, τρόμῳ σε τάχει φεῦγε μὴ καταλάβω.20 The answers are the same, but they are set in a different order: first we have ὤψ, the eye, whose nature (φύσις) might be defined as λεπτή (in the trivial sense of ‘small’) and διαυγής (in the sense of ‘shining’ and ‘bright’); second, we have θώψ, the flatterer, that is, a man one should try to shun as much as possible. This second clue fits very well in the typical portrait of a flatterer, one of the stock characters of Middle and New Comedy.21 But there is a riddle where we might find echoes of Old Comedy as well. 19 The riddle is edited by Beta 2014: 228: ‘I have feet, I move, I have a voice, I have hair. / I have three letters and one syllable. / If you remove my first letter, / you take away my voice, my hair and my feet, / leaving me movement alone, just barely.’ 20 Beta 2014: 223–4: ‘Be aware that my body is thin and translucent, / and that my name is made by two letters only. / But if you add a third letter to these three, / run away quickly unless you want to be caught by me.’ 21 According to Schultz 1909–12, 1: 40–1, the comic fragment 711 Kassel-Austin (γαστὴρ ὅλον τὸ σῶμα, πανταχῆ βλέπων / ὀφθαλμός, ἕρπον τοῖς ὀδοῦσι θηρίον: ‘His body is all belly; eyes that look all ways; / a beast that travels in its teeth’) was a

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While he was working on the compilation of the precious catalogue of the manuscripts on Mount Athos, Spyridon Lambros found a manuscript that contained a lot of riddles. The book (Athous Dionysiou 347), written in the sixteenth century, is a real goldmine of riddles, because it also contains Psellos’ and Basil’s collections, together with many other enigmatic poems. Lambros published the first part of the riddles in 1885, but death prevented him from publishing the second part, which appeared only in 1923.22 Among the second group of riddles we find two very interesting sections, both attributed to John Eugenikos.23 The ninth poem of the first section, introduced by the words Τοῦ σοφωτάτου καὶ λογιωτάτου νομοφύλακος Ἰωάννου διακόνου τοῦ Εὐγενικοῦ αἰνίγματα διὰ στίχων πολιτικῶν (‘Riddles in political verse composed by the most learned and eloquent nomophylax, the diakonos John Eugenikos’), is the following: Ἔμβρυόν ἐστιν ἀκαλλές, ἐν μέσοις τοῖς ἐγκάτοις, ὃ τοῖς ἐν γάμῳ φύεται, καὶ τοῖς ἐν παρθενίᾳ, σπέρματι συνιστάμενον, δίχα γονῆς ἁπάσης, γινόμενον σὺν ἡδονῇ γενόμενον ἀπόνως. Πλειστάκις οὐ μαιεύεται, ἀλλ’ ἔστιν οὗ καὶ τοῦτο, ἄφθογγον δὲ καὶ λαλιᾶς ἀμύητον τὸ βρέφος, ἄνευ ποδῶν τε καὶ χειρῶν καὶ ὀφθαλμῶν καὶ ὤτων. Φάσκε παντοίων λόγων ἰχνευτά, τί τοῦτο φάσκε.24

riddle with the solution ‘flatterer’; according to Plutarch, who quotes the fragment (How to tell a flatterer from a friend 54b), it is the description of a parasite, a comic figure who shares most of the peculiar features of the flatterers. Ohlert 1912: 168–9 thinks that the solution of this popular riddle is a crab, instead. 22 Lambros 1885; 1923. 23 Brother of the more famous Mark Eugenikos, John was a very prolific writer active in the second half of the sixteenth century. Most of his works remain unpublished, though: the only comprehensive study of his production is Pétridès 1910 (the riddles are briefly mentioned at p. 113); for a short biography, see Talbot 1991; the most recent essay on one of his most famous poems (the Logos eucharisterios) is Pizzone 2013b. 24 John Eugenikos 195 Milovanović: ‘Something swells within the inmost parts, unlovely, / growing in married couples, and in virgins, / that acquires substance from a seed, but apart from all insemination, / born with pleasure, born without pain. / In most cases there is no delivery, but there is a place from which this is born, / this infant lacking a voice, uninitiated into the mysteries of speech, / without feet or hands or eyes or ears. / Tell me, you detective of all sorts of words, tell me what this is.’ The same riddle can be found at the beginning of Par. Suppl. Gr. 1188, a manuscript written in the fifteenth century, in a section bearing the title Ἰω. διακόνου τοῦ εὐγενικοῦ. The text of the riddle is written in the left part of fol. 4v, a page marked by the ink portrait of the emperor John VIII Palaeologus (see Astruc and Concasty 1960: 358).

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The riddle is purposefully ambiguous: it seems to point towards a possible, likely solution (the act of childbearing), but, at the same time, it explicitly denies it. How could a child be born from a virgin? A Christian solution (the birth of Christ from the Virgin Mary) is soon wiped out by the specification that ‘the thing’ grows in normal married couples (ἐν γάμῳ) as well. How could a child be born without being delivered? A medical solution (a caesarean section) is again wiped out by the specification that ‘the thing’ is born with pleasure (σὺν ἡδονῇ). The solution is simpler – and much more prosaic. In order to find it, it is better to overlook the more indefinite (or less definite) terms and to consider the words that have one, and only one, meaning. If we look at one of the truly definite words of the riddle, it is not too difficult to detect the correct solution. Such a definite word is not σπέρμα (‘seed’), as it might seem, because there are different kinds of seeds; the really definite word is ἔγκατα (‘entrails’, ‘intestines’), because it cannot have any meaning other than the proper one. So, the unpleasant (ἀκαλλές) thing that is born from some particular seeds (beans, for instance), that grows in the intestines (ἔγκατα), that is delivered ‘with pleasure’ in a very peculiar kind of delivery, that is ‘uninitiated to the mysteries of speech’ (although it gives out a quite identifiable sound), and that does not even have a body (because it is lacking in feet, and in hands, and in eyes, and in ears), is nothing but the fart. A quick look at some loci similes will easily prove that this is not a far-fetched guess, because such a typical Aristophanic solution is not out of place here.25 Among the bawdy epigrams of Nicarchus, a contemporary of Martial, there is in fact a poem that has attracted, although for different reasons, the attention of eminent scholars of the past and of the present: Πορδὴ ἀποκτέννει πολλοὺς ἀδιέξοδος οὖσα· πορδὴ καὶ σώζει τραυλὸν ἱεῖσα μέλος. Οὐκοῦν εἰ σώζει, καὶ ἀποκτέννει πάλι πορδή, τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν ἵσην πορδὴ ἔχει δύναμιν.26 In his excellent book on the Greek Anthology, Alan Cameron has said that this ‘mildly amusing quatrain on the contradictory qualities of 25 On the significance of jokes on the fart in Aristophanes see the famous passages of Clouds 156–68 and 386–94. For a more detailed discussion, see Henderson 1991: 195–9. 26 Nicarchus, Greek Anthology 11.395: ‘A fart which cannot find an outlet kills many people; / a fart saves as well, sending forth its lisping music. / Therefore if a fart saves, and on the other hand kills, / a fart has the same power kings have.’

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the fart’, ‘not a poem so grossly obscene that any pure-minded person might have felt in duty bound to save posterity the embarrassment of reading it’, was copied by Maximos Planudes in the Marcianus Gr. 481, the manuscript that contains his famous epigrammatic anthology, in a section with a lemma εἰς πορδήν all to itself.27 But, at a later stage, Planudes himself regretted his earlier broadmindedness and decided to erase it completely, pudoris causa, when making his final revisions.28 If John Eugenikos was acquainted with the content of the anthology compiled by Constantine Cephalas (where the epigram is included) or with the content of the many copies of the Planudean anthology (where the same epigram is always included, despite its bawdiness), he knew that the topic was acceptable, at least to a certain extent. But John might have been inspired by another poem as well – not an epigram this time, but a riddle proper. In the aforementioned enigmatic section of Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists, there are three riddles taken from the Sphingocarion, a comedy by Eubulus whose title is a comic compound where the typical name of a slave (Carion) is preceded by that of the Sphinx. The first riddle is the following dialogue: (Α.) ἔστι λαλῶν ἄγλωσσος, ὁμώνυμος ἄρρενι θῆλυς, οἰκείων ἀνέμων ταμίας, δασύς, ἄλλοτε λεῖος, ἀξύνετα ξυνετοῖσι λέγων, νόμον ἐκ νόμου ἕλκων· ἓν δ’ ἐστὶν καὶ πολλὰ καὶ ἂν τρώσῃ τις ἄτρωτος. τί ἔστι τοῦτο; τί ἀπορεῖς; (B.) Καλλίστρατος. (A.) πρωκτὸς μὲν οὖν οὗτός σὺ δὲ ληρεῖς ἔχων. οὗτος γὰρ αὑτός ἐστιν ἄγλωττος λάλος, ἓν ὄνομα πολλοῖς, τρωτὸς ἄτρωτος, δασὺς λεῖος. τί βούλει; πνευμάτων πολλῶν φύλαξ . . . 29 The question asked by A, the first character (‘It has no tongue, yet it talks; its name is the same for male or female; / it is guardian of his own winds, hairy, but sometimes hairless; / it says things unintelligible to those who understand, / drawing out one melody after another; / it is both one and many, and if one wounds it, it is unwounded’), is answered by B, the second character, with the name of the politician Callistratus. But the answer is wrong. As the first character later 27 Cameron 1993: 353, 355. 28 Cameron 1993: 353 opportunely reminds us that Douglas Young gave the Byzantine scholar the fitting nickname ‘Dr Bowdler of Byzantium’. 29 Eubulus, fr. 106.1–9 Kassel-Austin, quoted by Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, 10.449 E–F.

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expounds, the correct answer is the rump (πρωκτός), because it is one and the same, it speaks although it is has no tongue, it has one single name although it belongs to many, it is wounded although it stay unwounded, it is hairy although it is hairless, and it is the guardian of many winds. Even though the solution of this riddle is different from John Eugenikos’, the context is clearly the same – and, in fact, the first ­definition of Eubulus’ riddle (‘it has no tongue, yet it talks’) is echoed by one of the clues given by John (‘this infant lacks a voice, being uninitiated into the mysteries of speech’). This is not the only example of a connection between comic riddles and Byzantine authors. In the same section of the Deipnosophists, we read an interesting quotation from Antiphanes’ Sappho: (Sappho) Ἔστι φύσις θήλεια βρέφη σῴζουσ᾽ ὑπὸ κόλποις αὑτῆς, ὄντα δ᾽ ἄφωνα βοὴν ἵστησι γεγωνὸν καὶ διὰ πόντιον οἶδμα καὶ ἠπείρου διὰ πάσης οἷς ἐθέλει θνητῶν, τοῖς δ᾽ οὐδὲ παροῦσιν ἀκούειν ἔξεστιν· κωφὴν δ᾽ ἀκοῆς αἴσθησιν ἔχουσιν. (B.) Ἡ μὲν φύσις γὰρ ἣν λέγεις ἐστὶν πόλις, βρέφη δ’ ἐν αὑτῇ διατρέφει τοὺς ῥήτορας. Οὗτοι κεκραγότες δὲ τὰ διαπόντια τἀκ τῆς Ἀσίας καὶ τἀπὸ Θρᾴκης λήμματα ἕλκουσι δεῦρο, νεμομένων δὲ πλησίον αὐτῶν κάθηται λοιδορουμένων τ’ ἀεὶ ὁ δῆμος οὐδὲν οὔτ’ ἀκούων οὔθ’ ὁρῶν. (Sappho) . . . Πῶς γὰρ γένοιτ’ ἂν, ὦ πάτερ, ῥήτωρ ἄφωνος (. . .) Θήλεια μέν νυν ἐστὶ φύσις ἐπιστολή, βρέφη δ’ ἐν αὑτῇ περιφέφει τὰ γράμματα· ἄφωνα δ’ ὄντα τοῖς πόρρω λαλεῖ οἷς βούλεθ’· ἕτερος δ’ ἂν τύχῃ τις πλησίον ἐστὼς ἀναγιγνώσκοντος οὐκ ἀκούσεται.30 The riddle is constructed in the same way: first we have a question asked by Sappho (‘There is a feminine being which keeps its babes / beneath its bosom; they, though voiceless, / raise a cry sonorous over the waves of the sea / and across all the dry land, reaching what mortals they wish, / and they may hear even when they are not there; / but their sense of hearing is dull’), then a tentative answer given by 30 Antiphanes, fr. 194 Kassel-Austin, quoted by Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, 10.450 E–451 B.

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‘do you think you’re clever? 97 an old character (‘The being of which you speak is a city; / the babes she nourishes within her are the politicians. / These, by their bawling, draw hither receipts / across the sea from Asia and from Thrace. / The people, meanwhile, sit near them / while they feed and brawl continually, neither hearing nor seeing anything’), and, after Sappho’s rebuke (‘How could, father, a politician / be voiceless?’), we finally get the correct answer (‘The feminine being is a letter: / the babes within her are the letters it carries round; / they, though voiceless, talk to whom they desire / when far away; yet if someone else happens to be standing near / when it is read, he will not hear them’). A very similar version of this riddle is present in the aforementioned Byzantine collection of Basil Megalomytes as well. The only slight differences lie in the solution and in the metre: in the margin of Basil’s manuscripts we read the solution βίβλος (‘book’); the iambic trimeters have been changed into political verses (the same metre as John’s riddle): Ἔστι τις φύσις θήλεια, φωνήεσσα και λάλος, καὶ βρέφη περικόλπια σώζει καὶ περικρύπτει. Ἄγλωσσα δὲ καὶ λαλιᾶς ἀδίδακτα τὰ βρέφη· ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως ἔντρανον αὐτοῖς καὶ γεγωνὸν τὸ φθέγμα· κἀν τοῖς ποντίοις ὕδασιν οἷς θέλουσι λαλοῦσι, καὶ τοὺς ἐν νήσοις φθάνουσι καὶ τοὺς ἐν ταῖς ἠπείροις. Πολλοῖς δὲ οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτῶν ἀκούειν καὶ παροῦσι· τῆς δ᾽ ἀκοῆς τὴν αἴσθησιν κωφὴν ἔχει τὰ βρέφη.31 But let us go back to John’s Byzantine riddle on the fart. The poet’s skill is worthy of praise, because every enigmatic definition is very well wrought. The emphatic position of the word ἔμβρυον placed at the very beginning of the riddle induces the reader to think of a real foetus; however, since the verb βρύειν also means ‘to burst forth’, the sense of the compound might as well be ‘the thing that breaks out from the inside’. The adjective ἀκαλλής (akallēs) is usually employed for indicating physical ugliness; some Christian authors, however, used it for indicating shameful behaviour as well.32 I have mentioned above the clever use of the word σπέρμα (sperma) and the bawdiness of the expression 31 Basil Megalomytes, 39 Boissonade = 26 Milovanović: ‘There is a feminine being, speaking and talkative, / which keeps and hides its babes beneath its bosom. / The babes are tongueless, / since nobody has taught them to speak; / but their voice is high and sonorous; / they speak to the mortals they desire / over the waves of the sea, / and over the islands, and over the lands. / Even when they are present, it is not possible to hear them; / but the sense of hearing of the babes is dull.’ 32 See, for instance, Cyril of Alexandria, Ps. 9.15.

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σὺν ἡδονῇ (‘with pleasure’) related to this peculiar delivery that needs no midwife; I might also mention here that the whole line ἄφθογγον δὲ καὶ λαλιᾶς ἀμύητον τὸ βρέφος (‘this infant lacking a voice, uninitiated into the mysteries of speech’) plays on the precise meaning of φθόγγος (‘clear and distinct sound’, a speech that is made of words).33 Finally, the last line of the riddle (ἄνευ ποδῶν τε καὶ χειρῶν καὶ ὀφθαλμῶν καὶ ὤτων, ‘without feet or hands or eyes or ears’) seems to be inspired by the clues given by Psellos in his riddle on the angel (οὐκ ἔχον ὀφθαλμοὺς, ἐκτὸς ποδῶν βαδίζον, / ἐστερημένον κεφαλῆς, ἀκέραιον τὰς φρένας, / πνεύμονος ἄτερ καὶ λοβῶν, καρδίας καὶ κοιλίας, ‘With no eyes, walking without feet, without head, pure in mind, without lungs or lobes, heart or belly’), a poem most Byzantine writers probably knew very well. A similar scatological context is not a rarity, because it also appears in a poem present in the most famous Greek collection of riddles, that is, the fourteenth book of the Greek Anthology, a weird poetic Sammlung where riddles proper are accompanied by oracles and mathematical problems: Μούνῳ μοι θέμις ἐστὶ γυναικῶν ἐν φιλότητι μίσγεσθαι φανερῶς λισσομένων ποσίων· μοῦνος δ’ ᾐθέοισι καὶ ἀνδράσιν ἠδὲ γέρουσιν παρθενικαῖς τ’ ἐπέβην ἀχνυμένων τοκέων. Μαχλοσύνην ἤχθηρα· φιλεῖ δέ με παιονίη χεὶρ Ἀμφιτρυωνιάδην ἐκτελέοντα πόνον. Ἀμφὶ δ’ ὀπυιομένοισι καὶ ἂν Πλουτῇ μαχοίμην αἰὲν ὑπὲρ ψυχῆς τῶν ὁπόσοις ἐμίγην. Εὔρινον δέ με παῖδα καὶ ἀργιόδοντα τίθησιν ἰδρείῃ μερόπων αἰγὶ μιγεὶς ἐλέφας.34 What is the solution of this witty riddle? It is the medical instrument made of ivory (the elephant) and leather (the goat) that ancient doctors used to perform an enema, a task that was not too different from the labour Heracles had to perform when he cleaned Augeas’ stables. The mention of these ‘virgins’ (who undergo the same, unpleasant 33 This line is also clearly connected with l. 3 of the aforementioned Basilian riddle on the book (ἄγλωσσα δὲ καὶ λαλιᾶς ἀδίδακτα τὰ βρέφη). 34 Ant. Pal. 14.55: ‘Only to me it is allowed to have open intercourse / with women at the request of their husbands; / I alone mount young men, and grown men, and old men, / and virgins, while their parents grieve. / I hate lasciviousness, but the healing hand / loves me when I perform the labour of Heracles. / I would fight even with Pluto / for the lives of those whom I lie with. / But the union, by the science of men, of an elephant and a goat produced me, / a child both made of good leather and white tusk.’ Ant. Pal. 14.29 (just two lines) is a shorter version of the same riddle.

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‘do you think you’re clever? 99 medical treatment even married women have to accept if they want to be healed) at l. 4 reminds us of the same ‘virgins’ who deliver ‘with pleasure’ the ugly baby hinted at by John Eugenikos – and, in fact, the body part to which both poets allude is exactly the same.35 The other riddles attributed to John Eugenikos are not so comic, unfortunately. The first poem of the first series is a bit similar to Jonah’s riddle: Εἶδον μαγείρους πρόβατα κατὰ πυρὸς ῥιπτοῦντας, καὶ σῶα μὲν τὰ πρόβατα, τοὺς δὲ πυρποληθέντας.36 A tentative answer (the manuscripts bear no solution) might be Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the three Jews Nebucadnezzar ordered to be thrown into the fire, according to an episode we read at the beginning of the book of Daniel: (The emperor) commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and to cast them into the midst of the burning fiery furnace . . . But the flame of the fire slew those men that had taken up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego . . . Then Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came forth of the midst of the fire. And the princes, governors and captains, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power.37 The same biblical story is hinted at in an anonymous riddle, that, although it is not particularly funny in itself, was composed by a poet who was not lacking in a sense of humour. The poem was published by another famous Greek scholar, Nikos Veis, who had found it in a fairly recent manuscript belonging to the Greek National Library: Ἐκ γῆς τὴν πλάσιν ὥσπερ ὁ Ἀδὰμ ἔσχον, πυρίκαυστος γέγονα ὡς οἱ τρεῖς παῖδες, ̆ ζῶσα μὲν ἐδρόσισα ἀνθρώπους πάντας, θανούσης δʼ οὐδεὶς συνήθροισεν ὀστα μου.38 35 The most unpleasant of Heracles’ labours is the subject of another epigram of the same book (Ant. Pal. 14.4), belonging to the group of mathematical problems. 36 John Eugenikos 72 Milovanović: ‘I have seen cooks throwing sheep into the fire. / But the sheep were saved, while the cooks were burnt.’ 37 Daniel 3: 13ff. 38 The riddle is 28 Milovanović, edited by Veis 1902: 110 n.13, from the ms. 1183, copied in the eighteenth century: ‘Like Adam, I have received my moulding from the earth; / like the three children, I have burnt in fire; / when I was alive, I have besprinkled every man, / but nobody has collected my bones after my death.’

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Since there was no solution written in the manuscript, Veis published just the text of the riddle, without bothering to look for one; the answer was then published by the editor of another version of the same riddle, helped by the diligent copyist who had written it in the manuscript. The solution is λάγηνος, that is, any earthenware vessel made of clay and used for water (‘flask’, ‘pitcher’, ‘pot’ and the like); the wittiness of the riddle lies in the comparison between our oldest forefather and a clay water-jug.39 John Eugenikos seems to have been familiar with the oldest ­enigmatic tradition as well. If we look at the third riddle of the second series, we find a very short version of the ainigma of the Sphinx: Ὁ τετράπους δίπους τε καὶ πάλιν τρίπους.40 It is not easy to tell where John took this riddle from. One thing we know for sure is that it was not only quoted once in the enigmatic section of Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists, but its renown was so widespread that many comic poets played on it, as it is attested by some other quotations present in Athenaeus’ work.41 Epicharmus wrote the following dialogue: (A.) τί δὲ τόδ’ ἐστί; (B.) δηλαδὴ τρίπους. (A.) τί μὰν ἔχει πόδας τέτορας; οὐκ ἔστιν τρίπους, ἀλλ’ οἶμαι τετράπους. 39 What is not altogether witty is the nasty dispute about the solution of the riddle before the publication of the second version (Nikodemos 1925: 131 and 135 nn.4 and 16). A Greek scholar, Spyridakis 1904, gave his own answer to the question asked by this riddle (and by other Byzantine riddles that did not happen to have one); he guessed that the answer was πλάτανος (‘plane’), the tree that, when it is alive, refreshes people with its ample shade but, after its death, it is cut into pieces and burnt (ἥτις ζῶσα μὲν ἐδρόσισε πάντας ἀνθρώπους, ἀποθανούσης δὲ (κατακοπείσης καὶ πυρὶ κατακαείσης) οὐδεὶς συνήθροισεν ὀστᾶ). But this answer is not satisfactory, because the right solution of a riddle must be the only possible solution (and, even if the plane is quite famous for its shade, it is not the only tree whose foliage refreshes people during the summer). Therefore another Greek scholar, Stamatoulis 1906, criticised Spyridakis’ suggestion and gave his own solution (the correct one: λάγηνος). Spyridakis got angry and wrote a nasty article in order to demonstrate the soundness of his own solution (Spyridakis 1910), but Stamatoulis found a strong and qualified supporter in another famous Greek scholar, Nikolaos Georgios Politis, who praised Stamatoulis’ article and at the same time blamed Spyridakis’ presumptouousness (Politis 1910). 40 John Eugenikos 77 Milovanović: ‘The quadruped is a biped and then a tripod.’ Relying on the careless edition of the ms. presented in the posthumous Lambros 1923, Milovanović attributed the riddle to Isaac Argyros; a look at the manuscript, however, shows that the dodecasyllable belongs to a section whose author is John Eugenikos. 41 Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, 10.456 B. The riddle belongs to the enigmatic collection of the Palatine Anthology as well (Ant. Pal. 14.64).

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‘do you think you’re clever? 101 (B.) ἔστι δ’ ὄνυμ’ αὐτῷ τρίπους, τέτοράς γα μὰν ἔχει πόδας. (A.) εἰ δίπους τοίνυν ποκ’ ἦς, αἰνίγματ’ Οἰ νοεῖς.42 Straight after having quoted Epicharmus’ fragment, Athenaeus adds the following dialogic passage from a lost comedy of Aristophanes: (A.) τράπεζαν ἡμῖν φερε τρεῖς πόδας ἔχουσαν, τέτταρας δὲ μὴ ’χέτω. (B.) καὶ πόθεν ἐγὼ τρίπουν τράπεζαν λήψομαι;43 Again, as Epicharmus did, the comic poet plays on the famous riddle. But there existed sexual versions of the riddles as well – and so we come back to the starting point of this digression. One is a fragment from Anaxilas’ Νεοττίς (‘The chick’), quoted by Athenaeus: Σφίγγα Θηβαίαν δὲ πάσας ἔστι τὰς πόρνας καλεῖν, αἳ λαλοῦσ’ ἁπλῶς μὲν οὐδέν, ἀλλ’ ἐν αἰνιγμοῖς τισιν, ὡς ἐρῶσι καὶ φιλοῦσι καὶ σύνεισιν ἡδέως. Εἶτα “τετράπους μοι γένοιτο”, φησί, “†τήντρος ἢ θρόνος”, εἶτα δὴ “τρίπους τις”, εἶτα, φησί, “παιδίσκη δίπους”. Εἶθ’ ὁ μὲν γνοὺς ταῦτ’ ἀπῆλθεν εὐθὺς ὥσπερ , οὐδ’ ἰδεῖν δόξας ἐκείνην, σῴζεται δ’ ἄκων μόνος.44 We cannot tell if these references to the number of feet also hint at some peculiar sexual positions the customers asked of the girls who worked in a brothel, but it is sure that the poet is playing on Oedipus’ riddle. 42 Epicharmus, fr. 147 Kassel-Austin: A: ‘What is this?’ B: ‘A tripod, of course.’ A: ‘Why, then, does it have / four legs? It isn’t a tripos, but rather, I think, a tetrapos.’ / B: ‘Well, its name is tripos, even though it has four legs.’ / A: ‘Then it must have been an Oedipos once – it’s his own riddle you’re thinking of.’ Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, 2.49 C, quotes the dialogue without giving the name of the play, but since we know Epicharmus wrote a Sphinx it is not difficult to guess its likely provenance. 43 Aristophanes, fr. 545 Kassel-Austin: ‘A: “Bring us a table / with three legs, let it not have four.” / B: “Of course: where should I get a three-legged table with four legs?”’ 44 Anaxilas, fr. 22.22–8 Kassel-Austin (quoted by Athenaeus,  The  Deipnosophists, 13.558 DE): You can call every harlot a Theban Sphinx; / they do not babble in simple language, but in riddles, / of how they like to love and kiss and have sex. / And one says ‘Let me have a four-footed bed or chair’; / Another ‘Make it a tripod’; still another ‘A two-footed girlie.’ / Now the man who understands these riddles, like Oedipus, quickly goes away, / pretending not to have seen the woman, and saves himself, though ­reluctantly – the only one who does.

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But the best allusion to the ainigma of the Sphinx is the following one, saved in a fragmentary papyrus: τὴν] ἀρχὴν τί δίπουν τετράπουν τε τρ[ί]πουν τ’ ἐπὶ γαίῃ οὐ]θεὶς εἶχε λέγειν. ἔστι δ’ ἀ[νὴρ] παθικός. οὗ]τος ἕως ἕστηκε, δίπους· ἀπερεισ[ά]μενος δὲ ἐς] χέρας ἀμφοτέρους κύβδα χαμαὶ τετ[ρ]άπους. τῷ φαλλῳ δαυτωιδε τρίπους το.εφικιοναυτ.. ὃν τ]ρόπον ἐν Θήβαις πλησίον ἐστὶ λέπας. οὐ]κ ἄν τις διέλοιτο σοφώτερον· εἰ τόθ’ ὑπῆρχον, ἄν]δρες, ἐγώ, Θήβας ἔσχον ἂν ἑπταπύλου[ς].45 Here the solution is not simply ‘man’, but a particular kind of man: it is the παθικός (pathicus), the adult man who submits himself to sexual penetration by other men. And who was the author of this poem? Someone we have met already: a second-century poet, Nicarchus, the bard of the fart. But we have wandered enough from our main subject and it is now time to draw some conclusions on the (supposed) laughter provoked by Byzantine riddles. On the whole, there is not too much humour in these compositions, since the understandable eagerness for showing off their cleverness and, at the same time, for baffling the readers often led their authors to compose texts devoid of poetic inspiration and lacking in charm.46 It is true that, at least in some cases, the less credible stories of  the  Holy  Scripture have been able to inspire a few amusing riddles for  a didactic goal, such as the vicissitudes summarised in the  three  lines of Jonah’s riddle, or the miracle caused by the wooden  stick  Moses  used to open the waves of the Red Sea when he was  pursued by the Egyptians, a two-line poem present in almost all  the  collections attributed to Michael Psellos and Basil 45 P.Oxy. LXI, 4502, lines 30–7: At the beginning nobody was able to say which was the mysterious creature / that walks the earth on two legs, and four, and three. But it is the poof: / when he stands, he is a biped; but when he bends forward, / leaning on both hands and knees, he is a quadruped; / if you count that dick of his, the boybuggering beast is three-legged . . . / No one could decipher it more smartly than me. If I had been around back then, / my friends, I’d have taken possession of Thebes, the town of the seven gates. 46 This of course does not apply to all Greek (and Byzantine) riddles, because some of them are very clever (such as the louse riddle quoted at pp. 87–8, whose structure is a well-balanced double antithesis). On the main features of Greek riddles in general see Schultz 1909–12; Ohlert 1912; more recently, see Zanandrea 1987–9; Beta 2002; Luz 2013.

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Megalomytes.47 But more often these didactic purposes gave birth to fairly tedious poems such as the riddle of the angel composed by Psellos. One thing seems certain, though: at a certain point, around the end of the eleventh century, some fine writers such as John Geometres, Christopher of Mytilene and John Mauropous started to compose riddles, a genre that was destined to become more and more popular in the following centuries.48 My personal guess is that this fact is connected with the after-effects of the compilation of the anthology of epigrams made by Constantine Cephalas, whose major outcome was the draft of the Palatine manuscript. The probable circulation of other manuscripts with different collections of epigrams (I mean collections that might have included riddles different from those inserted by Cephalas in his anthology, such as the riddles we read in the tenth chapter of Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists, that are partially present also in manuscripts that have preserved a portion of Cephalas’ anthology)49 might have induced some authors not only to draw inspiration from these poems, whose metrical structure (iambic trimeter) was not very different from the one they used for their own poetic compositions (mostly dodecasyllables, seldom political verse), but also to write riddles that witnessed to both the insight (such as Basil Megalomytes’ riddle on the epistle, wholly modelled on Antiphanes’) and the naughtiness (such as John Eugenikos’ riddle on the fart, partially modelled on Eubulus’) of some classical authors. Though small, the collection of Athenaeus holds in fact other saucy riddles, such as the obscene answer to the apparently innocent question ‘What is the strongest thing in the world?’ given in a fragment of Diphilus’ Theseus.50 If John Eugenikos wanted to make the symposia he attended as a guest spicier (even if we do not know precisely how they went, Byzantine symposia were a likely venue for similar pastimes), the production of comic poets, but also that of epigrammatic and satirical poets such as Nicarchus, was the right place to find the spices he needed. 47 Michael Psellos 8 Boissonade = 79 Milovanović = 42 Westerink (Ξύλου μὲν ἡ κλείς, ἡ δὲ κιγκλὶς ὑδάτων. / Διέδρα λαγώς, καὶ κύων συνεσχέθη); Basil Megalomytes 21 Boissonade (Ξύλον τὸ κλειδίν, ὕδωρ τὸ κατηνάριν· / ὁ μὲν λαγὼς ἐκλύτωσεν, ὁ κυνηγὸς δ’ ἐσχέθη). Like Jonah’s, this riddle was the subject of a ‘question and answer’ (157 Milovanović: Ψυλὸν ἦτον τὸ κλυδήν [sic]· εὑρὼν τὸ κατὰ τὴν ἀρὴν λαγὼς ἐδιάβην καὶ ὁ κυνηγὸς ἐπιάσθην; Ψυλὸν ἦτον τὸ κλυδὴν εὑρὼν τὸ κατὰ τὴν ἀρὴν ἦτον ἡ ἐρυθρὰ θάλασσα καὶ λαγὼς ἦσαν οἱ Ἰσραηλῖται καὶ κυνηγὸς ἦτον ὁ Φαραώ); cf. Heinrici 1911: 61–2 n.57. 48 See Beta 2014: 235–9. 49 See Cameron 1993: 202–16, on Laurentianus Gr. 32.16. 50 Diphilus, fr. 49 Kassel-Austin (quoted by Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, 10.451 bc). On the origin of Athenaeus’ collection, see Kwapisz 2013.

7 PHILOGELOS: AN ANTI-INTELLECTUAL JOKE-BOOK Stephanie West

Omni de re facetius puto ab homine non inurbano quam de ipsis facetiis disputari. A man endowed with even the smallest grain of humour can discuss anything more wittily than actual witticisms. (Cicero, De oratore 2.217) Ever since, a quarter of a century ago, intrigued by the note in Kiessling–Heinze’s commentary on Horace, Epistles 1.2.42,1 I first looked at the collection of jokes entitled Philogelos, ‘LaughterLover’,2 I have thought it deserved to be better known and have done my best to give it some publicity.3 The publication of a new edition in 2000, Roger Dawe’s Teubner text, might have been expected to bring it to the notice of a wider readership,4 but something less austere was evidently needed. Luckily the Philogelos, having attracted wide

I offer sincere thanks to Meg Alexiou and Douglas Cairns for the invitation to participate in a most rewarding conference, made particularly enjoyable by the Classics Department’s warm hospitality. Reflection on the generosity of the Leventis Foundation can be guaranteed to raise the spirits. I must also thank Mrs Danuta Łowicka for permission to reproduce two of Tomasz Łowicki’s illustrations to Jerzy Łanowski’s translation, Philogelos albo Śmieszek (1986).  1 Rusticus exspectat dum defluat amnis (‘a peasant [accustomed to modest streams which may temporarily swell after violent rain] waits for the river to flow away’): ‘vielleicht aus irgendeinem griechischen Schwank vom Schlage der Schnurren des Philogelos’ (Heinze). Though the countryman bewildered by the wider world might be thought a very attractive target for the type of wit displayed in the Philogelos, he does not figure here.   2 It may be helpful for those new to the work to be warned that its identity is slightly disguised in LSJ, where it appears as ‘Hierocles, Facetiae’.  3 See Fowler and West 1989; West 1990; 1992; 2000. These brief notes brought much amusing correspondence, substantially enriching my collection of comparative material, and in due course this chapter.  4 Valuable reviews by Victoria Jennings (Jennings 2005) and Stephan Schröder (Schröder 2006).

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spread attention in Mary Beard’s blog, is the subject of a chapter of her Sather Lectures.5 But really more than a text is wanted. Barry Baldwin’s helpful annotated translation is not widely available, nor is the fine bilingual edition of Andreas Thierfelder.6 I cherish the hope that I might inspire (or provoke) some younger scholar to take on the challenge of making this source of innocent merriment more accessible to anglophone readers. For the moment, it is more realistic to suggest that a judicious selection of its jokes might brighten elementary language teaching. But I face a familiar problem, well formulated by Cicero in the sentence which provides an epigraph for my chapter.7 The topic of humour is particularly liable to generate dreary and boring lectures. Moreover, a series of jokes rapidly loses the force which they would have individually. We notice this particularly when pulling Christmas crackers. The first two jokes read out seem irresistibly funny, but as the younger members of the party take their turns, we may manage to react appropriately, but our hearts are no longer in it. Systematic discussion does not favour comparative assessment of humour. For those who are already familiar with the Philogelos, my next paragraph will offer nothing that they do not know already; but new readers need some orientation. The collection is attributed to two unknowns, Hierokles and Philagrios ὁ γραμματικός, the grammarian.8 Literary collaboration is rare in antiquity. Usually a later writer tacitly absorbs and supplements or explicitly corrects a predecessor’s material, and it is not clear what we should make of this partnership, though the most obvious interpretation is that two collections have been amalgamated. To complicate the picture further, the Suda (φ364 Φιλιστίων) ascribes a work with this title to the early imperial mimewriter Philistion, adding a phrase which might be taken to mean that it was dedicated to a man named Koureus or that it was attributed to a barber or was the sort of book you would take to the barber’s (οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ γράψας τὸν Φιλογέλων, ἤγουν τὸ βιβλίον τὸ φερόμενον εἰς τὸν Κουρέα/κουρέα); none of these attempts at explanation is a­ ttractive, and the phrase has very likely been garbled in transmission. We  5 Beard 2014: 185–209. The Philogelos benefits from being thus set in a wider context, offsetting any confusion potentially induced by its inclusion in a work entitled Laughter in Ancient Rome.   6 Thierfelder 1968; Baldwin 1983. The excellent monograph by Mario Andreassi (2004) is likely to have won new friends for the Philogelos; other works to which this chapter is pervasively indebted are van der Horst 1978; Bremmer 1997; Marzolph 2002; Schulten 2002.   7 The mss. are divided between facetius and facilius.   8 On the implications of the term and the importance of the grammarian’s school see Kaster 1988 (pp. 333–4 on Philagrios).

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cannot rule out the possibility that the Suda refers to another work of the same name; if so, perhaps it began with a joke about a barber (cf. jokes 56, 148, 167, 198, 199), and the puzzling phrase is a corrupt incipit.9 The barber’s shop is familiar as a social centre, the milieu where news and gossip are picked up.10 Yet a further complication arises from a reference by the twelfth-century scholar John Tzetzes to a (rather feeble) joke (about a sick man’s attempt to get rid of an unwelcome visitor) which he ascribes to Philogelos (mentioned as an author11 rather than a book title); it is not in any of our manuscripts. The most likely explanation is carelessness on Tzetzes’ part; he relied on his memory to a degree incompatible with exact scholarship.12 It is surprising that the collection was not simply transmitted anonymously. There is nothing like an introduction or narrative frame. The one securely datable element comes in 62, with a reference to the celebration of the games marking Rome’s millennium in April 248: a passer-by tries to console a defeated athlete with confident prediction of a win at the festival celebrating the next millennium, τὴν γὰρ ἄλλην χιλιετηρίδα σὺ νικήσεις. This anniversary was not a matter of purely local significance, and the reference does not provide any indication of the Philogelos’ geographical origins. Louis Robert set the basis of the collection in the third century;13 a slightly later date is generally preferred. but certainly there are indications that the collection was largely assembled before the Christianisation of the empire. Thus we find oaths ‘by the gods’ (5 (a), 18, 121), a reference to the Sarapeion (76),14 to animal sacrifice (180), cremation (123), mummification (171), gladiators (87), and the production of classical comedy (226) and tragedy (239). But a joke about the prayer of a voraciously hungry man, ‘wasted with hunger’ (LSJ s.v. λιμόξηρος), a type peculiar to the Philogelos,15 who sees a loaf lying just too high for him to reach (223) appears to presuppose that the Magnificat was generally familiar: Θεέ, ἢ ἐμὲ ὔψωσον ἢ ἐκεῖνον ταπείνωσον (‘O God, either raise me up or bring it low’): cf. Luke   9 I owe this suggestion to Martin West. 10 See LSJ s.v. κουρεῖον; Lewis 1986: 15–17. 11 Presumably Tzetzes thought of it as a nickname. 12 See further Baldwin 1986; on Tzetzes see Wilson 1996: 190–6. 13 So Robert 1968: 284 n.2. 14 There were other temples of Sarapis besides that at Alexandria, burned down in 391, so this does not help with dating. The joke itself is puzzling, and the text undoubtedly corrupt. 15 The subject of jokes 219–26, 261. His extraordinary hunger is presented as a longstanding condition, not the result of poverty or hardship; he may himself be a physician (221) or a comic actor (226); when his daughter marries another limoxēros, he can afford to give her a house (with a good view of the bakery) (219). This suggests some kind of metabolic disorder.

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1:52–3. This predominance of references suggesting that compilation should be set in the pagan world, with occasional later additions, is hardly surprising. St Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians (Ephesians 5:4), banning foolish talking and jesting (μωρολογία ἢ εὐτραπελία), did not encourage wit; and the lack of any reference to Jesus laughing or even smiling was noted. This was not an entirely new development; serious pagan moralists held that the wise man would not often give way to laughter, though the need for relaxation was recognised (cf. Cicero, De officiis 1.103–4). Frivolity was to be curbed in the interests of serious philosophy and theology.16 The milieu implied is urban, politically Roman but culturally Hellenised. That culture was shared by very many whose mother tongue was not Greek; it is not surprising either that close parallels for many of the Philogelos’ jokes have been recorded from other cultures.17 Groups of jokes about men from Abdera (110–27), Sidon (128–39) and Cumae (154–82) do not appear to yield any clues as to the collection’s geographical origins. Even less can be made of isolated references to the Rhine (83) and Sicily (192). Nor do linguistic features, most strikingly the relatively large number of Latinisms,18 provide much help in dating the formation of the collection. Fidelity to the transmitted text was not a high priority for those who copied out the extremely various compositions which may, like this, be classified as ‘sub-literary’, and such works were always susceptible to ‘improvement’ – mainly by addition – before the age of printing. The oldest Philogelos manuscript, G, until the Napoleonic Wars in the Greek monastery of Grottaferrata near Rome and now in the Pierpont Morgan library, is dated to the late tenth or early eleventh century;19 four of the manuscripts on which Dawe bases his text are dated to the fifteenth. So the collection continued to remain popular over a very long period. There are quite substantial variations between the manuscripts, not only in wording but also in the order of various items. Most of the manuscripts also contain Aesopic fables or scenes from the Life of Aesop, material 16 The topic is discussed more fully by Stenger in this volume; see further van der Horst 1978; Halliwell 2008: 471–519; Dunsch 2012. 17 For a concise and subtle survey of the linguistic situation see Dickey 2012: 4–6. 18 E.g. σταῦλον (10), cf. stabulum; μαρούλια (n. plur.) (16), cf. Late Latin amarulus, ‘lettuce’; ὀψικεύω ‘escort’, from obsequium; κεφαλικὴ δίκη (54), calque of causa capitalis; φιβλατώριον (106), a cloak fastened with a fibula. Currency is more often reckoned in denarii (86, 124, 198, 213, 224, 225) than in drachmai (36, 139). Reckoning in myriads (80, 97) points to a date not before the fourth century. See further Kaster 1988: 333–4; Andreassi 2004: 33–4. 19 On G see further Wilson 1996: 211–12.

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with widespread appeal; this serio-comic wisdom literature was not elite reading matter. One reason for the Philogelos’ neglect in modern scholarship is that it is hard to do much with it. Uncertainty about the date and e­ nvironment in which the basic collection was compiled makes it difficult to use its evidence, tempting as it is to see in these anecdotes vignettes of everyday urban life and values, reflecting the priorities and concerns of the society in which the collection was assembled and transmitted. This is the only ancient joke collection to survive, but they existed much earlier. According to Athenaeus (614de), Philip of Macedon offered a talent for a copy of a collection made by an Athenian group of wits who used to meet in the temple of Heracles. The written record of what depended on quick-witted improvisation and a retentive memory is in keeping with the development of the systematic collection of material for comparative study; in itself such a compilation might be seen as an elaborate parody of Aristotelian scholarship.20 This textualisation of trivia, the success of which was closely linked to social setting, is an interesting example of the interaction of orality and literacy. As the use of script became increasingly commonplace21 it was natural to recognise that funny stories which when first heard seem unforgettable seldom retain a long-lasting hold on the memory, and thus to see the advantages of noting down some of the best.22 In Plautus, parasites, hangers-on who depend on their wits for their dinners, refer to their joke-books. Thus the significantly named Gelasimus in the Stichus, being warned of competition from the arrival of further hangers-on, goes indoors to consult his books and thus ward off the threat to his livelihood (400–1): ‘ibo intro ad libros et discam de dictis melioribus; / nam ni illos homines expello, ego occidi planissume.’ He returns confident that thus prepared he will be 20 Mary Beard (2014: 206–7, 202–4), who argues that joke-books were something characteristically Roman, questions the usual interpretation of this passage, arguing that ‘In classical and Hellenistic Greece . . . jokes do not seem to have been treated as collectible commodities in quite the way they were in Rome or in the Roman world.’ She regards the joke-books of Plautus’ parasites as ‘ultimately a figment of his imagination’. This is a somewhat high-handed approach to two rather different types of testimony (though it allows a more detailed, and very welcome, discussion of the Philogelos than might be expected in a work with the title Laughter in Ancient Rome). 21 We are best informed about this development at Athens; it is likely to have been slower in many other parts of the Greek world. See further Thomas 1989; 1992; and for instructive comparison with medieval England, Clanchy 1993. 22 An indication of a type of humour of which practically nothing was judged worth preserving in writing comes with Demosthenes’ remark (23.206) that many defendants have been acquitted on serious charges after uttering one or two witticisms (ἂν ἓν ἢ δύ᾽ ἀστεῖ᾽ εἴπωσιν). As Luck (1994: 761) points out, hardly any jokes survived in the published versions of Attic forensic speeches.

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able to win his patron’s favour (454–5): ‘libros inspexi; tam confido quam potis / me meum optenturum regem ridiculis logis.’ Another Plautine parasite, Satyrio, offers joke-books as his daughter’s dowry. Descended from a long line of men who have thus made their living (53–61), he has a huge stock (Persa 390–6): Pol deum uirtute dicam et maiorum meum, ne te indotatam dicas quoi dos sit domi: librorum eccillum habeo plenum soracum. Si hoc adcurassis lepide, quoi rei operam damus, dabuntur dotis tibi inde sescenti logei atque Attici omnes; nullum Siculum acceperis: cum hac dote poteris uel mendico nubere. Thanks to the gods and my ancestors I’ll tell you, so that you won’t call yourself without a dowry when you have one at home: look, I have a hamper full of books. If you nicely sort out the business we’re giving our attention to, you’ll get six hundred23 witty words from there, and all of them Attic ones, you needn’t take a single Sicilian word. With this dowry you’ll be able to marry even a beggar.24 A Greek audience, familiar with the tradition that Homer had given the Cypria, the Cyclic epic which served as a prequel to the Iliad, to his future son-in-law Stasinus as dowry for his daughter,25 would have seen more to this expedient than is likely to have been apparent to the audience for whom Plautus wrote. For over a hundred years papyri of texts classifiable as New Comedy have demonstrated the dangers of claiming too much for Plautine invention, and although he may exaggerate the currency of such aids to conviviality as collections of jokes among the drones who sustained a lifestyle above their means by their usefulness to wealthier men, it is rash to treat these references as simply the product of Plautus’ creative imagination. What is here presented is essentially Athenian social life as depicted in New Comedy,26 and it provides an apt transition from Greek to Roman culture. 23 Sescenti conventionally indicates an indefinitely large number (OLD2). 24 W. De Melo’s translation (2011). 25 According to Aelian (VH 9.15), citing Pindar (F 265 S–M). 26 A. S. F. Gow was inclined to see Machon’s Chreiai as such a joke-book: A modern reader of the longer fragments . . . is reminded of those books of jokes from which a public speaker or a raconteur with a reputation to sustain can refresh his memory or replenish his repertory. If ancient jesters enjoyed similar advantages they would have found Machon’s book, to judge from what we possess of it, a valuable vade-mecum. (Gow 1965: 23–4)

Rather surprisingly, Gow seems unaware of Plautus’ references to joke-books.

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Quintilian (6.3.5) reports that Tiro published three volumes of Cicero’s jokes (bona dicta); he judges that selection should have been more rigorous. Under Augustus, Maecenas’ freedman, the grammarian Melissus, is said to have put together 150 little books of such witticisms, frivolous sayings, silly stories (Suetonius, Gramm. 21). Admirers of the Flavian detective fiction of Lindsay Davis may recall her Last Act in Palmyra (1994), which features a joke-book judged worth killing for. But papyrological discovery has not contributed anything really comparable; P.Heidelberg 190 (third century bc) preserves part of a kind of catalogue of abusive comparisons, a scoptic thesaurus, but you would have to be fairly drunk to find such material even remotely funny.27 Most of the Philogelos’ jests centre on something said; attached to famous names, they would be classified as apophthegmata. It is a relatively kind-hearted collection: there is little bawdiness, and only a few of its jests are unsuitable for family consumption.28 There are jokes about misogynists (246–9), but no misogynist jokes or jokes about mothers-in-law. There are jokes about the stupidity of men from Cumae (in Asia Minor, not the famous Cumae in Italy) (28), Abdera (17) and Sidon (11), but no racist jokes.29 Here is a Cumaean specimen (170): ‘Someone asked a Cumaean where the rhētōr Drakontides was staying. He said “I’m on my own. But if you’ll mind my workshop, I’ll come out and show you.”’ (Κυμαίου τις ἐπύθετο ποῦ μένει Δρακοντίδης ὀ ῥήτωρ. ὁ δέ, Μόνος εἰμί, εἶπεν· Εἰ δὲ θέλεις, τήρει τὸ ἐργαστήριον, κἀγὼ ἀπελθὼν δείξω σοι.) This item offers something rather rare in the collection, a personal name.30 Drakontides is well attested at Athens bc (Aristophanes refers in the Wasps (157, 438) to one who is evidently a bad hat), but though he cannot be identified with certainty, nothing suggests an association with Cumae. Strabo (13.3.6 (622)) offers an explanation for the Cumaean reputation for stupidity: three centuries elapsed after the city’s foundation before its citizens noticed that they could profit from charging for the use of its harbour. The Abderites 27 See further Kassel 1956. 28 An obvious exception is a small group of jokes about men suffering from scrotal elephantiasis or scrotal lymphoedema (113, 117, 118, 119, 262). The translation in LSJ of the term for the swelling concerned, κήλη, as ‘tumour, esp. rupture, hernia’ is misleading: see Jouanna’s (1996) note on Hippocrates, Aer. 7.7. The commonest cause of such conditions, now rare in Western Europe, is infection by parasitic nematodes, which are transmitted by mosquitoes. 29 Joke 151 concerns a black prostitute, but is not derogatory or malicious. 30 Others are Demeas (102), Lollianos (162) and Scribonia (73) (probably to be understood as Augustus’ first wife). The name Dromeus perhaps lurks in 121: ᾽Αβδηρίτης ἰδὼν δρόμεα ἐσταυρωμένον εἶπε· Μὰ τοὺς θεοὺς οὗτος οὐκέτι τρέχει, ἀλλὰ πέτεται. This is unusually feeble; it would have some point if the victim was actually called Dromeus.

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may have suffered from Democritus’ habit of mocking human folly, in the first place as exemplified by his fellow citizens. In the case of the Sidonians (128–39) this imputation is altogether mysterious, but, curiously, the occupation of the Sidonian concerned is regularly given (rhetor, sophist, cook, fisherman, physician, centurion etc.), whether or not it is relevant to the joke. Among jokes featuring professionals, physicians appear most often (3, 6, 7, 27, 107, 139, 142, 143, 151 bis, 174–7, 183–6, 189, 221, 222, 235, 253). In the first, the physician is the target (3, cf. 175 bis): his patient complains that for the first half hour after rising he feels dizzy, and the doctor advises him to get up half an hour later. But quite often it is the patient who is mocked. Thus (6, cf. 253) a man who sees his doctor approaching dodges to avoid being recognised. When his companion asks him what he is up to, he explains that it is a long time since he has been ill and he is embarrassed (as if the doctor might suppose that he had transferred his custom elsewhere). Another falls ill (27) and agrees to pay the doctor a fee if he is cured; when his wife scolds him for drinking wine when he has a fever he asks whether she wants him to get well and be forced to pay the fee. Astrologers, like others who claimed paranormal insight or skill in prediction (variously designated ἀστρολόγος, μάντις, μαθηματικός), are an obvious target, particular emphasis being laid on their agility in extricating themselves from embarrassment (187, 201–5). Thus (187) an astrologer giving the horoscope of a sickly child predicted a long life, and then asked for his fee. When the mother said ‘I will pay you tomorrow’, he said ‘But what if he dies in the night? Am I to lose my fee?’ Another is consulted by a man who has been away for some time; he is told that his family are all well, including his father. ‘But my father has been dead for nearly ten years.’ ‘You don’t know your real father’ (201). With even greater potential for undermining domestic harmony is the response of an astrologer who tells his client that he is not destined to have children (204). ‘But I have seven.’ ‘Then pay attention to them’ (Οὐκοῦν πρόσεχε αὐτοῖς). There is a nice ambiguity here. Does the astrologer mean ‘Take care of them’? Or does he imply that careful observation would give his client reason to believe that he is not truly the father of the children with whom his wife has presented him? Medicine and astrology both, if taken seriously, called for prolonged study, and their practitioners, despite their best efforts, could not guarantee a successful outcome for their efforts. The Roman world lacked explicitly professional qualifications or institutional structures validating claims to expertise, and conscientious practitioners were liable to suffer from the disrepute richly deserved by charlatans. While astrologers were a post-classical development, if unsuccessful they

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were liable to inherit the opprobrium generated by oracle-mongers. But the wealth of horoscopes recovered from Roman Egypt demonstrates their importance in middle-class life.31 The distinctive feature of the collection is the preponderance of jokes featuring the scholastikos, characterised by a tendency to overlook some factor obvious to common sense; very often false analogy is in play. Study has weakened his grip on reality. He appears at the outset (1): a scholastikos ordered a lamp from a silversmith, and when the latter asked about size, said ‘Big enough for eight people.’ (Σχολαστικὸς ἀργυροκόπωι ἐπέταξε λύχνον ποιῆσαι. τοῦ δὲ ἐξετάσαντος πηλίκον ποιήσει, ἀπεκρίνατο· Ὡς πρὸς ὀκτὼ ἀνθρώπους.) In 91 we see him in a situation where such a response would be more appropriate. The guests at his dinner party were very enthusiastic about the pig’s head which he served, and said they wanted to eat with him again the next day. So he went to the butcher and said ‘Give me another head from the same pig; it was very good yesterday’ (Σχολαστικὸς συμφοιτητὰς ἐπἱ δεῖπνον καλἐσας ἐπαινεσάντων αὐτῶν ὑὸς κεφαλὴν καὶ ἀξιωσάντων καὶ τῆι ὑστεραίαι παρ᾽αὐτῶι ἑστιαθῆναι. ἀπελθὼν πρὸς τὸν μάγειρον Δός μοι, ἔφη, ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτοῦ χοίρου κεφαλὴν ἑτέραν· ἡ γὰρ χθὲς ἡμῖν πάνυ ἤρεσεν). Less happily, we see him short of a pillow (21) when he wants to sleep; so he tells his slave to put a pot under his head; when the latter points out that it is rather hard, he tells him to fill it with feathers (Σχολαστικὸς καθευδῆσαι βουλόμενος, μὴ ἔχων προσκεφάλαιον, ἐκέλευσε τῶι δούλωι κεράμιον ὑποθεῖναι. τοῦ δὲ εἰπόντος ὅτι σκληρόν ἐστι, πτερῶν αὐτὸ γεμισθῆναι ἐκέλευσεν). The illustration to this tale reproduced as Fig. 7.1 was drawn by Tomasz Łowicki for Jerzy Łanowski’s Polish translation. Eustathius (on Od. 10.552), in connection with Odysseus’ description of Elpenor and the larger theme of those notorious for stupidity (διαβόητοι ἐπὶ μωρίαι), refers to a similar story. One joke, which appears twice, first features a scholastikos (41), second a man from Cumae (156): wanting to sell his house, he carried round a stone from it to show people (Σχολαστικὸς/ Κυμαῖος οἰκίαν πωλῶν λίθον ἀπ᾽ αὐτῆς εἰς δεῖγμα περιέφερεν, Fig. 7.2).This attracted the attention of Dr Johnson, who in his preface to Shakespeare’s plays writes ‘he that tries to recommend him (W. S.) by select quotations will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his house for sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen’.32 The scholastikos 31 Nicely sketched in Parsons 2007: 185–8. 32 Similarly Charles Kingsley, ‘On English literature’ (in Kingsley 1890: 257) (on encouraging interest in literature in the young): ‘“Extracts” and “Select Beauties” are about as practical as the worthy in the old story, who, wishing to sell his house, brought one of the bricks to market as a specimen.’ But λίθος is a stone, not a brick.

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Figure 7.1   Drawing by Tomasz Łowicki from Łanowski 1986: 25, illustrating joke 21.

Figure 7.2   Drawing by Tomasz Łowicki from Łanowski 1986: 97, illustrating joke 41 = 156.

appears as a proud house-owner in 14: leaning out of the window he would ask the passers-by if it suited him (Σχολαστικὸς οἰκίαν πριάμενος εἶτα διὰ τῆς θυρίδος παρακύψας ἠρώτα τοὺς παρερχομένους εἰ πρέπει αὐτῶι).33 As often with the scholastikos, false analogy, in this case with what is appropriate in trying on new clothes, lies behind his odd behaviour. But there is a further nuance: in the innocent pride of ownership he acts in a manner rather characteristic of prostitutes and 33 παρακύπτειν is the standard verb for erotic peeping.

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others with a hospitable approach to sexual partners.34 Similarly with the scholastikos who tries to collect sparrows as if they were ripe fruit (19), shaking a tree on which they were perched and spreading out his garment underneath to catch them. To the modern reader this seems simply silly, but we need to bear in mind that sparrows were regularly sold cheaply in the market for food (‘Are not sparrows two a penny?’; Matthew 10:29); their vigorous copulation in the mating season encouraged the idea that their consumption had an aphrodisiac effect (cf. Athenaeus 391ef).35 Scholastikoi and Abderites figure in a type of joke which turns on obtuseness in dealing with the relationship between numbers and reality. A scholastikos wishing his property were nearer to town resorts to knocking down seven milestones (60, 131). Another wonders whether a ladder has as many rungs going up as down (93). A scholastikos setting off on a journey agrees to a friend’s request to purchase two fifteen-year-old slave boys (sexual purposes can hardly be ruled out), adding, ‘If I don’t find them, I’ll buy you one of thirty’ (12). Compare 127: an Abderite, due to hand over a little donkey (ὀνάριον), offered two mules (ἡμιόνους, literally ‘half-donkeys’), instead.36 This joke would not survive translation.37 A surprisingly large number of scholastikos jokes turn on death.38 Thus 22: a scholastikos met a friend, and said ‘I heard you’d died.’ ‘But as you see. I’m alive.’ ‘But the man who told me is much more reliable than you.’ (Σχολαστικὸς ἀπαντήσας τινὶ φίλωι αὐτοῦ εἶπεν· Ἤκουσα ὅτι ἀπέθανες. ὁ δὲ ἀπεκρίνατο·᾽Αλλ᾽ ὁρᾶις με ζῶντα. καὶ ὁ σχολαστικός· Καὶ μὴν ὁ εἰπών μοι πολὺ σοῦ ἀξιοπιστότερος ἦν.) Or 26: a scholastikos seeking a suitable place for his tomb rejects the site recommended by some friends as being unhealthy. Dr Johnson, as we saw, translated scholastikos as ‘pedant’, but this is not entirely satisfactory. The behaviour described in the pas34 Cf. Praxilla F8 (PMG 754) ὦ διὰ τῶν θυρίδων καλὸν ἐμβλέποισα, / παρθένε τὰν κεφαλάν, τὰ δ᾽ἔνερθε νύμφα (‘O Miss, from out your window blowing kisses – a Miss by your face, but lower down a Mrs’ (trans. M. L. West)). See further Graham 1998. 35 See further Arnott 2007: 226–7. 36 Since mules and donkeys are no longer ubiquitous, it may be worth pointing out that mules are superior to donkeys in strength and stamina, but quite tricky to breed and thus much more valuable. A similar story illustrating the relation between Enver Hoxha (donkey-owner) and Albania (donkey) was told to Robert Carver in the mid-1990s (Carver 1998: 57). 37 A modern variation on this theme: assistant in a (British) dress-shop: ‘I’m afraid we don’t stock that model in a size 20; but we have two in a size 10.’ (Comparable US sizing would be 16/8 or 12/6.) 38 The surprising prominence of the theme of death in Lucian is very relevant; see further Halliwell 2008: 429–70.

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sages just quoted is hardly a manifestation of pedantry. Is ‘student’ any better? That would suit 55: a witty scholastikos who was short of money began to sell his books and wrote home: ‘Rejoice with me, father; for already my books feed me’. (Σχολαστικὸς εὐτράπελος ἀπορῶν δαπανημάτων τὰ βιβλία αὐτοῦ ἐπίπρασκε, καὶ γράφων πρὸς τὸν πατέρα ἔλεγε· Σύγχαιρε ἡμῖν, πάτερ· ἤδη γὰρ ἡμᾶς τὰ βιβλία τρέφει.) ‘Habet haec res panem’, as one of Trimalchio’s guests says (Petronius, Sat. 46.7).39 Another, whose formal education is evidently just concluded, writes to his father from Athens (54), ‘I pray to find you prosecuted on a capital charge, so that I may demonstrate my competence as an advocate’ (Σχολαστικὸς γράφων πρὸς τὸν πατέρα ἀπὸ τῶν ᾽Αθηνῶν καὶ ἐναβρυνόμενος ὅτι πεπαίδευται, προσέθηκεν· Εὔχομαι δέ σε εὑρεῖν κεφαλικὴν ἔχοντα δίκην, ἵνα σοι δείξω τὸν ῥήτορα). In a few cases the scholastikos is even younger, but these schoolboy jokes are just not very funny, and it looks as if scholastikos has been substituted for μωρός or ἀφυής. In the majority of instances he is clearly an adult, with a house, slaves and perhaps children of his own. He is not, however, necessarily occupied in scholarly pursuits or intellectual interests, and is not an early version of the unworldly, absent-minded scholar, represented some centuries earlier in the story of Thales falling down a well because he was absorbed in contemplation of the heavens (Plato, Theaetetus 174a),40 or, more recently, by the anecdote of the philosopher so preoccupied by the problem of induction that he needs to check every morning that the sun has actually risen. I may, however, highlight one of the scholastikos jokes which, over the centuries, has proved very durable in an academic setting (29). One of a pair of twins died. When a scholastikos met the survivor he asked, ‘Was it you who died or your brother?’ (Διδύμων ἀδελφῶν ὁ ἕτερος ἐτελεύτησεν. Σχολαστικὸς οὖν τῶι ζῶντι συναντήσας ἠρώτα· Σὺ ἀπέθανες ἢ ὁ ἀδελφός σου;) Such a tale is told of Dr Spooner, eponym of the spoonerism, as warden of New College. Meeting an Old Member of the college revisiting his own haunts not long after World War I, Spooner asked ‘Was it you who was killed in the war or your brother?’ A similar tale, again set in Oxford, appeared in The Times for 1 April 1989, featuring the (unnamed) Vinerian Professor of Law and setting the encounter in the Turl; such specific detail always enhances credibility. A variant, with a headmaster as the questioner, appears in a collection produced by Oxfam, entitled Pass the Port: The Best After-Dinner Stories of the Famous, published in 1976 (117): appropriately this contribution comes from a headmaster. But we are 39 See further Starr 1990; Łukaszewicz 1994. 40 This anecdote is given a more serious point by Burkert 2013.

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brought down from the ivory towers of higher education when we find just such a story in the Middle Eastern collection of The Laughable Stories of Bar Hebraeus41 (533), where the questioner is simply ‘a silly fellow’. I have also heard something very similar told as an example of Irish inconsequentiality. I do not want to suggest the direct influence of the Philogelos in any of these instances, but they show how easily such anecdotes pass from one language and culture to another and discourage attempts to trace transmission. We must, too, allow for the possibility of independent development. The popularity of this anecdote surely reflects awareness that, faced with a former student last seen twenty years before, many of us have (almost) fallen into a similar trap; feeling that we have done well to remember that we once taught not only this unrecognisable middle-aged man but also his brother, we cast around rather desperately for some specific detail. This is one among several scholastikos items where the speaker has not paid sufficient attention to what he is saying. Compare 72: as he leaves a wedding reception a scholastikos expresses good wishes for the recurrence of similar happy occasions, εὔχομαι, εἶπεν, εὐτυχῶς καὶ ἀεὶ ταῦτα ὑμᾶς ποιεῖν.42 Or 98: a friend congratulates a scholastikos on the birth of a child: and he responds in terms more appropriate to other kinds of success, ‘It’s all due to you people, my friends’ (Ταῦτα ὑμεῖς οἱ φίλοι ποιεῖτε). In both instances the wording is unspecific; it provides a fitting formula for many occasions, but is decidedly unfortunate in the particular circumstances. The scholastikos is a new type, linked with the spread of literate education and a focus on rhetoric, a caricature of the sage.43 Undeniably, the word’s range of meanings makes it hard to translate. Baldwin favours ‘egghead’, as does Mary Beard (with some hesitation), but the register is unsuitable; scholastikos is not slangy. In his German translation Thierfelder revived the obsolete ‘Kalmäuser’, meaning a pedantic schoolmaster, a pettifogging pen-pusher. In English, ‘intellectual’ as a noun often takes on an appropriately derogatory tone: thus ‘The English have a great respect for brute facts; and the intellectual in politics often looks to them like a man busily engaged in brushing unpleasant facts under the carpet’ (Times Literary Supplement, 12 August 1960: OED s.v. B4); ‘The mad confusion over who sat where naturally lent weight to the popular theory that a group of French ­intellectuals 41 Translated from the Syriac by Wallis Budge 1897. 42 Well discussed by Kanavou 2010. 43 The OLD definition of scholasticus well brings out its associations with training in rhetoric: ‘a person who attends a school of rhetoric (as student or teacher)’, but this does not help with translation.

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could not be relied upon to come up with beer in a brewery’ (The Times, 6 July 1989). Scholastikos jokes appear to have been well established. Thus Plutarch (Cicero 5.2) relates that Cicero when he was first in Rome kept a low profile, being subject to the abuse common among the ignorant as Graeculus and scholastikos (τόν γε πρῶτον ἐν ῾Ρώμηι χρόνον εὐλαβῶς διῆγε καὶ ταῖς ἀρχαῖς ὀκνηρῶς προσήει καὶ παρημελεῖτο, ταῦτα δὴ τὰ ῾Ρωμαιών τοῖς βαναυσοτάτοις πρόχειρα καὶ συνήθη ῥἠματα Γραικὸς καὶ σχολαστικὸς ἀκούων). Epictetus, according to Arrian (Epictet. 1.11.39), refers to the scholastikos as ‘this creature whom all mock’. Many of the scholastikos jokes recorded in the Philogelos would work perfectly well attached to peasants or workmen – as with the story of the scholastikos who tried to train his donkey to live without eating (9), and just when he thought he had achieved this, the animal died. Folktale collectors have assembled examples of this story in Estonian, Livonian, Lithuanian, Swedish, English, Spanish (including Latin American), Catalan, Walloon, German, Italian, Slovene, Serbo-Croat, Russian, Turkish and Greek.44 It is among the innumerable tales associated with the thirteenth-century Turkish sage Hodja Nasreddin, like Bar Hebraeus originally a real, historical figure. The novelist Malcolm Bradbury appropriately presents it as part of the cultural heritage of his impoverished imaginary East European country Slaka,45 where it is told to while away a delay in serving a meal, and introduces a toast ‘to all here, who have not learned how to live without eating’. Aptness in the deployment of silly stories to deflect threatening ill-feeling or embarrassment is an ­undervalued social skill (picked up with creditable speed by Aristophanes’ Philokleon, Wasps 1427–31). The prominence of the scholastikos in the unflattering role here assigned to him calls for explanation. I would like to suggest a connection with the spread of the rhetorical form of higher education; in the Philogelos we have the pepaideumenos presented in an unfavourable light. Just as St Paul’s talk of the resurrection of the dead and his own conversion raised the suspicion that too much reading had unhinged him (Acts 26:24, τὰ πολλά σε γράμματα εἰς μανίαν περιτρέπει), so the scholastikos’ exposure to a long process of study according to a curriculum once restricted to the elite46 has seriously undermined his common sense, and certainly not improved his chances of success in 44 See further Hansen 2002: 187–8, 287. 45 Bradbury 1983: ch. 3. 46 ‘A system culminating in dazzling displays of extempore rhetoric on anything and everything demanded a great deal of systematic and perhaps over-mechanised preliminary training’ (Anderson 1993: 47). See further Swain 1996; Morgan 1998; Cribbiore 2001.

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life. Many young men, after spending much time in the composition of ingenious declamations, were likely to find little scope for the talents they had cultivated at some trouble and expense, once they sought to make a living. The point is well made by Louis MacNeice in his autobiography, recalling his time in Birmingham in the early 1930s: I remembered how under the Roman Empire intellectuals spent their time practising rhetoric although they would never use it for any practical purpose; they swam gracefully around in rhetoric like fish in an aquarium tank. And our intellectuals also seemed to be living in tanks.47 Debunking of high culture from below is an important theme in the Life of Aesop,48 most memorably when Aesop wins the approval of his master’s circle of scholastikoi by displaying his wisdom at the symposium (Vita Aesopi 47–8).49 But the idea of collecting and recording scholastikos jokes might well have occurred to someone who had himself been through the system and come (perhaps only temporarily) to doubt its value. Jokes flourish and evolve in conversation; textualisation takes half the life out of them. Many of the Philogelos specimens achieve their full effect only when attached to a historical person (as with the story about Dr Spooner). I cannot pass over an anecdote (148) which the Philogelos associates with a witty man, εὐτράπελος, who figures in several jokes (140 = 53, 155, 239, 262–4): when a talkative barber asked how he would like his hair cut, he said ‘In silence’ (Εὐτράπελος φλυάρου κουρέως ἐρωτήσαντος Πῶς σε κείρω; Σιωπῶν, ἔφη). Plutarch (Mor. 177a2; 509a) attributes this witticism to King Archelaοs of Macedon; The Times (2 December 2006) credits it to Enoch Powell (who was surely aware of that precedent, though perhaps not of the Philogelos).50 Some other Philogelos anecdotes are elsewhere attached to wellknown figures. Thus 193, related of a bad-tempered man (δύσκολος), has a precedent in a story told about Ennius by Cicero (De oratore 2.275–6), where the role of the grouch is filled by an unidentifiable Nasica: Ex quo genere est etiam non videri intellegere quod intellegas . . . ut illud Nasicae, qui cum ad poetam Ennium venisset eique ab 47 MacNeice 2007: 145. 48 See further Kurke 2011. 49 Some similarly interpret as mockery of intellectual pretensions the depiction of the Seven Sages in the decoration of a tavern latrine at Ostia (probably c. 100–20); see further Clarke 2007: 125–32; Kurke 2011: 229–36. 50 A similar story is told of Lord Hailsham according to The Times, 25 January 1985, though his requirements are not so concisely expressed.

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ostio quaerenti Ennium ancilla dixisset domi non esse, Nasica sensit illam domini iussu dixisse et illum intus esse. paucis post diebus cum ad Nasicam venisset Ennius et eum ad ianuam quaereret, exclamat Nasica domi non esse, tum Ennius ‘quid? ego non cognosco vocem’ inquit ‘tuam?’ Hic Nasica, ‘homo es impudens: ego cum te quaererem ancillae tuae credidi te domi non esse, tu mihi non credis ipsi?’ Another joke of this type is to seem not to understand when really you do . . . as in the case of Nasica. He had called upon the poet Ennius, and when he asked for him at the front door and the maid said he was not at home, Nasica realised that she spoke on her master’s orders and that he was in fact there. A few days later, when Ennius called on Nasica and asked for him at the entrance, Nasica called out that he was not at home. ‘What?’ said Ennius, ‘Don’t I know your voice?’ ‘You’re quite shameless’, replied Nasica. ‘When I asked for you, I believed your maid when she said you were not at home: and do you not believe me when I tell you the same thing in person?’ The Philogelos version is much more concise: someone was seeking a bad-tempered man. He answered ‘I’m not here.’ When the other laughed and said ‘You’re lying; for I hear your voice’, he said ‘You wretch, if my slave had spoken, you would have believed him, and don’t I appear to you to be more trustworthy than him?’ (Δύσκολόν τις ἐζήτει. ὁ δὲ ἀπεκρίνατο Οὐκ εἰμὶ ὦδε. τοῦ δὲ γελάσαντος καὶ εἰπόντος Ψεύδηι· τῆς γὰρ φωνῆς σου ἀκούω, εἶπεν· ῏Ω κάθαρμα, εἰ μὲν ὁ δοῦλός μου εἶπεν, εἶχες ἂν αὐτῶι πιστεῦσαι· ἐγὼ δέ σοι οὐ φαίνομαι ἀξιοπιστότερος ἐκείνου εἶναι;) Presented as a factual narrative about a historical person it is infinitely more effective and easily allows elaboration.51 The antecedents of 78, where the philistine protagonist is a ­scholastikos, may similarly be traced back to republican Rome: a ­scholastikos who had got some old paintings from Corinth and put them on board ships said to the captains ‘If you lose these, I shall want them replaced with new ones.’ (Σχολαστικὸς εἰκόνας ἀρχαῖα ζωγραφήματα ἐχούσας ἀπὸ Κορίνθου λαβὼν καὶ εἰς ναῦς ἐμβαλὼν τοῖς ναυκλήροις εἶπεν·᾽Εὰν ταύτας ἀπολέσητε, καίνας ὑμᾶς ἀπαιτήσω.)52 The 51 See further West 1992. Dr Jennifer Hall drew my attention (per litteras) to a somewhat similar interchange in A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh (1926: ch. 2), featuring Pooh’s failure to appreciate the conventional sense of ‘not at home’. This seems to me more likely to be based on a child’s perplexity about the use of the phrase than on a reminiscence from Milne’s own classical education at Westminster. 52 A modern variation features an inexperienced assistant in an art gallery.

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reference to Corinth is crucial: it is more tellingly, indeed shockingly, associated by Velleius Paterculus (1.13.4) with Mummius’ sack of the city in 146. In 264 a courtroom vignette is offered: a witty man was on trial before the provincial governor; when the latter was nodding off, he shouted out ‘I appeal.’ ‘To whom?’ said the other. ‘To you when you are awake.’ (Εὐτράπελος ἐπὶ ἡγεμόνος ἐδικάζετο. τοῦ δὲ νυστάζοντος ἐβόησεν· ᾽Εκκαλοῦμαι, ὁ δὲ ἔφη· ᾽Επὶ τίνα; κἀκεῖνος· ᾽Επὶ σὲ γρηγοροῦντα.) Plutarch tells a fuller version of this story in connection with Philip II (Mor. 178f–179a). These examples raise the question of whether during its formative period the collection was seen as to some extent something like a motifindex, providing raw materials for improvisation (αὐτοσχεδιάζειν) to be fleshed out according to circumstances, due regard being paid to the audience’s tastes and the jester’s abilities. This suggestion might gain some support from the recently published fragment of a knockabout farce from Oxyrhynchus (P.Oxy. 5189),53 representing the coarsest type of mime, and dated on the basis of the script (described by the editor as ‘well-starched’) to the sixth century. It appears to narrate the stage action, with occasional quotation of the words to be uttered; apparently it was designed as a basis for improvisation, to be elaborated in performance. It may seem surprising that it was thought worth making a written record of this piece; certainly, if we take Plutarch’s classification of the types of mime, it must count among the παίγνια πολλῆς γέμοντα βωμολοχίας καὶ σπερμολογίας (trifling amusements full of ribaldry and idle babbling). ‘”Old as the days of Hierokles!’ is the exclamation of the “classical” reader on hearing a well-worn jest’, wrote A. Clouston in introducing his Book of Noodles.54 The work must have been better known among Victorian classicists than it is now. The humour of the Philogelos is not as timeless as might be suggested by the affinities between the anecdotes of King Archelaos and Enoch Powell at the barber’s. The donkeys and slaves that figure in many of its jokes cannot simply be  replaced by cars and labour-saving domestic appliances, and we have to allow that our ignorance of details of social life and values may prevent our finding any humour in material which once seemed irresistibly hilarious. If, conversely, we find it rather gratifying that such a high proportion of this material still seems at least mildly amusing, we should bear in mind that what may once have seemed hilariously funny by reason of its topicality would be particularly 53 Henry and Parsons 2014: 13–14, 26–41. 54 Clouston 1888: 1.

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liable to be winnowed out as time went by. Here too the principle of survival of the fittest can be expected to operate. The Philogelos will never figure in anyone’s list of the 100 Greatest Books. It is unashamedly middle-brow and middle-class; its values and concerns are those of the moderately prosperous bourgeoisie. But its sheer durability gives it a claim on our attention. Though its substance appears to have been assembled before the Christianisation of the empire, it survives in manuscripts dating from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. Over more than a millennium, people thought it worth  the expense of writing materials and the labour of copying (whether they did it themselves or paid others). This is the more remarkable in view of the doubts entertained by serious thinkers about the propriety of laughter and jokes, as incompatible with that decorum at which the wise should aim (cf. Cicero, De officiis 1.103–4), a consideration which might be reinforced by vanity, since a display of decaying and missing teeth is unattractive. The collection’s longlasting popularity seems to me to be explained, at least partly, by its relatively kind-hearted approach. Its anecdotes do not, on the whole, stimulate the kind of laughter that reinforces elite values by mocking those of inferior status, nor do they tend to subvert order and legitimate authority. Folly and pretentiousness, not women and ethnic minorities, are most prominent among its targets. Its contents are, for the most part, well suited to the family bookshelf, but what was the purpose envisaged by those responsible for its compilation and transmission must remain uncertain.

8 ‘MESSAGES OF THE SOUL’: TEARS, SMILES, LAUGHTER AND EMOTIONS EXPRESSED BY THEM IN BYZANTINE LITERATURE Martin Hinterberger In his encomium of Ioannes Kroustoulas, a monk living in Constantinople and obviously a celebrity in his time, Michael Psellos praises the man for his extraordinary skill in reading the New Testament aloud, which deeply moved his substantial audience in the Kyrou church. Some of the listeners were moved to tears and mourning, others to laughter and joy, because John’s words touched their souls.1 τοὺς μὲν γὰρ ἐπὶ τούτοις ἐποίει θρηνεῖν καὶ δεινὰ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν καταρρέειν τὰ δάκρυα, ἃ ψυχῆς μηνύματα λέγουσι καὶ λίαν εἰκότως ἅπαντες, τοὺς δὲ γελᾶν καὶ ἐκκεχύσθαι ταῖς ἡδοναῖς, τοὺς δὲ παντάπασιν ἐδίδου κλαυθμῷ. εἷς δέ τις τούτων, ἁψαμένων αὐτοῦ τῆς ψυχῆς τῶν ῥημάτων, τὸν χιτῶνα ἀποδυσάμενος τῷ πένητι δέδωκεν (οὐδὲ τούτων γὰρ ὁ νεὼς ἠμοίρει) καὶ γυμνητεύειν προείλετο διὰ Χριστόν . . . Some of them he made mourn about these words and shed tears heavily from their eyes, which everyone calls ‘messages of the soul’, and this with full reason. Others he made laugh and overflow with joy, and others again he gave over to crying. One of them, because Kroustoulas’ words were touching his soul, took off his garment and gave it to a poor person (for there were also such persons in the church) and chose to be naked for Christ’s sake . . .

I am grateful to my colleague Michalis Olympios for his critical remarks on an earlier version of this chapter. I am also indebted to Floris Bernard for sending me the article that appeared as Bernard 2015.   1 Mich. Psel., Or. min. 37.274–9 (ed. Littlewood 1985); see also for this text Moore 2005: 357–8 (no. 931).

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In this passage, tears, and tacitly also laughter, are presented as ‘messages of the soul’, accompanying and expressing sorrow and joy.2 I presume that Psellos in his encomium meant to say not only that this gifted orator was capable of arousing two powerful and different ­emotions, but that Kroustoulas’ sublime art of reading is highlighted by the fact that these are opposite emotions and that his audience experienced the whole range of emotions in between these two opposite poles, that is, joy and sorrow. In this chapter I shall discuss whether and how tears, laughter and smiles are linked to emotions in Byzantine texts. I am especially interested in the communicational aspect of these bodily expressions, namely precisely what emotions they express – if they are indeed ‘messages of the soul’ – and what emotions they possibly provoke. Particular attention will be paid to the ambiguity of tears, laughter and smiles in this respect, and how this ambiguity is exploited as a motif in literary texts (whether this ambiguity is voiced by the texts themselves or raised by the modern reader as a problem of the interpretation of the text). Moreover, the interrelationship between these bodily manifestations of emotion will be discussed. Thus, my chapter will exploit the history of emotions for a better understanding of the texts and their function as products of art.3 Tears and laughter express and represent sorrow and joy, two fundamental human experiences. This is the way they are understood nowadays, and to a considerable extent this is also true for Byzantium. Yet we must not presuppose any kind of transhistorical consistency concerning the emotions expressed by tears, laughter and smiles. Therefore, as always, certain qualifications/differentiations are needed to grasp their meaning in Byzantine texts fully. The Byzantine vocabulary concerning tears, laughter and smiles is more or less identical with the ancient one: basic terms are δάκρυ, κλαίω, κλαυθμός, γέλως, γελάω, μειδίαμα, μειδιάω. The fact that the last of these had to be explained in various lexica, however, indicates that the word may no longer have been fully intelligible to Greeks of the Byzantine period, beyond a highly intellectual elite.4 Yet it is   2 Niketas Choniates, too, regards tears as an indisputable sign of pressing emotions; Nicet. Chon., Hist. 295.55–6 (ed. van Dieten 1975): Ὢ δάκρυον . . . ὢ λύπης σφοδροτέρας σύμβολον καὶ τῶν ἔνδον πιεζόντων τεκμήριον ἀναμφήριστον.   3 The examples given from Byzantine texts in order to illustrate tears, laughter and smiles are indeed meant as examples and do not constitute a full documentation of the phenomena discussed. For the collection of data, the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (= TLG, http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu) was once more of invaluable help. If not otherwise noted, translations of Byzantine texts are my own.   4 E.g. in the tenth-century Suda μειδίαμα is explained as simple γέλως; Suda μ 831 (ed. Adler 1928–38).

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only in the thirteenth century that the verb χαμογελάω ‘smile’ appears in vernacular texts.5 Thus, concerning laughter and smiling, Greek developed from a language which possessed separate word groups, from different roots, for laughter and smiling into one which uses closely related word groups, and it may have passed through a stage where no clear lexical distinction between laughter and smiling was made at all.6 It is also pertinent to explain briefly the general character of Byzantine emotions.7 As in ancient Greek, the Byzantine term that is the closest equivalent of emotion is pathos. This word essentially means ‘that which happens to someone’ or ‘that which befalls someone’. In Byzantine texts ‘what befalls a human being’ is usually a negative event, a misadventure, an accident, an illness. In a narrow sense, pathos is ‘that which befalls the soul’, a ‘passion’ of the soul. The word predominantly indicates a suffering or illness of the soul. Unlike the modern term ‘emotion’, Byzantine passions additionally comprised human impulses that are nowadays defined as driving forces, such as the desire for food or the sex drive, as well as forms of behaviour such as gluttony (gastrimargia), loquaciousness (polulogia) and rudeness (loidoria). The bodily signs of emotions were not strictly distinguished from the emotions themselves. Therefore, in certain texts not only tears but also laughter are characterised as pathē.8 Passions are seen as typically human characteristics, since God is apathēs, ‘passionless’. Angels, on the other hand, were, in principle, believed capable of experiencing passions, since pride and envy were considered the causes for the fall of Lucifer and the angels under his command. Christ also took on passions with his Incarnation, but only the natural and ‘innocent’ passions that were ‘not to be blamed’ (φυσικὰ καὶ ἀδιάβλητα πάθη), which is why he felt the fear of death and why he wept, but he did not laugh.9 According to Nikephoros  5 See TLG s.v. Obviously, the derivative noun χαμόγελο(ν) ‘smile’, common in Modern Greek, developed in post-Byzantine times. The old verb μειδιάω and its derivatives seem to have become unintelligible (in its full sense) even to a fairly well-educated Byzantine by the fourteenth century, since the Metaphrasis of Niketas Choniates’ History usually renders μειδιάω as (ἐπι/ὑπο)γελάω and μειδίαμα as γέλως; cf. Davis and Hinterberger (forthcoming). I am indebted to Elisabeth Schiffer and Erich Trapp for a discussion of the development of both terms. In an anonymous fourteenth-century poem the lovely word ὑπογελασματίτζιν, meaning ‘smile’, is attested; Reinsch 1993: 172.   6 Cf. also Halliwell 2008: 520.   7 See for more details Hinterberger 2010: 126–9; 2013: 101–7.   8 See texts quoted in the following. For klausigelōs qualified as a pathos see below, nn. 70 and 72.   9 See John of Damascus, below n. 15. Cf. also Mich. Glyc., Quaest. in sacram scripturam 79 (ed. Eustratiadis 1906–12: esp. 279.12–26).

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Basilakes (twelfth century), because of those human tears, Death failed to recognise Christ’s divine nature and invincibility.10 While some authors recognised both a positive and a negative potential in emotions, most of them, when speaking of pathē, implied negative pathē. Since God is passionless and since humans are created according to his image, passions could not have been a component of the original human nature. In this negative sense, passions represented sins and obstacles on the way to God, while apatheia, ‘passionlessness’ or ‘impassibility’, was the necessary precondition for seeing God. Consequently, pathē were conceptually linked to virtues, and much more to vices, as were tears, laughter and smiles. TEARS Byzantine authors write about non-emotional tears,11 such as are caused by smoke.12 Byzantines also knew what in English are called ‘crocodile’ tears, that is, tears produced in order to feign certain emotions.13 But generally speaking, tears were regarded as connected to emotions – ‘sorrow-less weeping’ (κλαυθμὸς ἄλυπος) would have been an exception – and they were supposed to be ‘true’.14 As we have already noted, tears belonged to the ‘innocent’ passions. John of Damascus in chapter 64 of his Expositio fidei writes:15 10 Niceph. Basilaca, Progym. 39.59–62 (ed. Pignani 1983): ἀλλ’ ὢ τῆς ἀθρόας ἐπιβουλῆς! ὢ τῆς ἐξαίφνης ἐπιθέσεως! ἧκεν, ἐδάκρυσε, καὶ δάκρυον ἰδὼν τὸ πάθος ᾤμην ἀνθρώπινον καὶ τὸ μηδέν τι παθεῖν ὁ δείλαιος ἐντεῦθεν ἐθάρρησα. 11 On tears in Byzantine literature see Patlagean 1988; Hinterberger 2006; Grünbart 2008; Giannouli 2009; Odorico 2011. Among the abundant literature on tears in general, I find Neu 2000 an especially stimulating read. 12 Georg. Acropol., Hist. 59 (122.18–22, ed. Heisenberg and Wirth 1978): ἔκλαιον δὲ μικροῦ δεῖν κλαυθμὸν ἄπαυστον, εἰ καὶ ἄλυπον· ὁ γὰρ ἐκ τῶν πυρκαϊῶν καπνὸς ὑπὸ τῆς τῶν δένδρων πυκνότητος συνεχόμενος καὶ διέξοδον εἰς ἐλεύθερον ἀέρα μὴ εὑρίσκειν δυνάμενος, κάτω ὑπενόστει καὶ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς εἰς ἄκρον ἔδακνε καὶ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν ἐκπιέζειν κατηνάγκαζε δάκρυον. Tears provoked by smoke are compared to tears of contrition in Apophthegmata patrum III 34 (ed. Guy 1993–2005). Sometimes such tears caused by smoke are contrasted with tears of sorrow and mourning, the latter presented as incomparably more bitter; e.g. in Michael Choniates’ Lament on his brother Niketas’ death (ed. Lambros [1879–80] 1968: I 358.19–359.6). 13 In Vita Martiniani 6 (ed. Latyšev, B. [1913] 2001: 39) a woman tries to cheat the saint into sin shedding tears which the devil had provided. According to Niketas Choniates (particularly Hist. 227.93; 243.43; 286.90, ed van Dieten 1975), Andronicus Komnenos was famous for his ‘false’ tears; see especially the scene at emperor Manuel’s tomb (256.45–257.71) where Andronicus is shedding false tears, which, however, are interpreted by the bystanders as a sign of his great affection for the deceased (possibly in allusion to Christ’s tears for Lazarus, mentioned below, p. 129). 14 For κλαυθμὸς ἄλυπος see Georg. Acropol., Hist. 59 (above, n. 12). 15 Io. Damasc., Expositio fidei 64, 1–10 (ed. Kotter 1973).

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Περὶ τῶν φυσικῶν καὶ ἀδιαβλήτων παθῶν Ὁμολογοῦμεν δέ, ὅτι [ὁ Χριστὸς] πάντα τὰ φυσικὰ καὶ ἀδιάβλητα πάθη τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἀνέλαβεν· ὅλον γὰρ τὸν ἄνθρωπον καὶ πάντα τὰ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἀνέλαβε πλὴν τῆς ἁμαρτίας . . . φυσικὰ δὲ καὶ ἀδιάβλητα πάθη εἰσὶ τὰ οὐκ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν, ὅσα ἐκ τῆς ἐπὶ τῇ παραβάσει κατακρίσεως εἰς τὸν ἀνθρώπινον εἰσῆλθε βίον· οἷον πεῖνα, δίψα, κόπος, πόνος, τὸ δάκρυον . . . On passions which are natural and not to be blamed (= ‘innocent’) We confess that Christ took on all the natural and ‘innocent’ passions of man, since he took on the entire man and everything that belongs to him, except sin . . . natural and innocent passions are those which are not within our power and which came into human life because of the condemnation following the transgression, such as hunger, thirst, exhaustion, toil, tears, . . . While Byzantine theologians arbitrarily claimed that Christ had wept often, in the Gospels his tears are attested only twice. The more famous passage which was frequently quoted or alluded to, in Byzantine texts, is John 11:32–6, in the context of Lazarus’ resurrection. ἡ οὖν Μαρία ὡς ἦλθεν ὅπου ἦν ὁ Ἰησοῦς, ἰδοῦσα αὐτὸν ἔπεσε αὐτοῦ εἰς τοὺς πόδας λέγουσα αὐτῷ· κύριε, εἰ ἦς ὧδε, οὐκ ἂν ἀπέθανέ μου ὁ ἀδελφός. Ἰησοῦς οὖν ὡς εἶδεν αὐτὴν κλαίουσαν καὶ τοὺς συνελθόντας αὐτῇ Ἰουδαίους κλαίοντας, ἐνεβριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι καὶ ἐτάραξεν ἑαυτόν, καὶ εἶπε· ποῦ τεθείκατε αὐτόν; λέγουσιν αὐτῷ· κύριε, ἔρχου καὶ ἴδε. ἐδάκρυσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς. ἔλεγον οὖν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι· ἴδε, πῶς ἐφίλει αὐτόν· Therefore when Mary came to where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, ‘Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.’ When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They told him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept. The Jews therefore said, ‘See how much affection he had for him!’16 In this passage, the way that tears work as a means of communication becomes particularly clear. The perception of tears (Jesus saw Mary weeping) triggers an emotional reaction on Jesus’ part (he groaned 16 I follow the standard World Bible translation.

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in the spirit). Thereafter another emotion arises and is expressed with  tears, which in the text are explicitly interpreted as a sign of love/affection. However, later references to this passage sometimes preferred a slightly different interpretation. In one version of the Life of Kosmas the Melode and John of Damascus, probably dating to the ninth century and attributed to Michael Synkellos, the emotion attested by Jesus’ tears is eusplanchnia, ‘mercy’ or ‘compassion’.17 In the passage where Lazarus’ resurrection is referred to, Kosmas himself brings a dead boy back to life, weeping for him out of ‘compassion’ (sumpatheia). And it is the power of saintly compassion which works miracles in the same text in a later passage, again clearly alluding to the text of the Gospel.18 Moved by compassion (sumpatheia and eusplanchnia), Kosmas delivers two iconoclasts from their suffering, which had been inflicted on them by God because of their godless actions. At the end of this episode, as in the Gospel text, the saint’s tears are interpreted as sign of an emotion. The onlookers’ reasoning, described in the Gospel of John (Jesus wept, therefore he loved Lazarus, they say), is transferred into a counterfactual statement. The emotion ascribed to the weeping person, Kosmas, is compassion, not affection: ‘Indeed, if he had not felt compassion, tears would not have been dropping from his eyes.’ In this example we observe how the meaning and interpretation of tears can change in the course of time or depending on the occasion. Normally, we have only limited access to the emotions experienced by another person, unless that person provides evidence by commenting on it verbally or manifesting clear bodily signs. When the 17 Mich. Syncellus (?), Vita Cosmae Melodi et Joannis Damascenii 18 (288.14– 30, ed. Papadopoulos-Kerameus [1894] 1963): Ταῦτα καὶ ἕτερά τινα οἰκτρῶς ἀπολοφυρομένη πρὸς συμπάθειαν ἐκίνησε τὴν συμπαθῆ ψυχὴν τοῦ ὁσίου, καὶ ὡς ἐθεάσατο τὸ τῆς ὀδύνης πάθος ἀφόρητον, στὰς εἰς εὐχὴν εἶπε, πάντων ἀκουόντων· ‘Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, υἱὲ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ὁ δι’ εὐσπλαγχνίαν πολλὴν τὴν ἡμῶν φορέσας σάρκα καὶ εἰδὼς πάντα τὰ τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος, ὁ ἐπὶ Λαζάρῳ τῷ σῷ φίλῳ δακρύσας καὶ τετραήμερον ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστήσας, ἐπικάμφθητι τῇ δεήσει τοῦ δούλου σου καὶ σπλαγχνίσθητι ἐπὶ τῇ ἀπροστατεύτῳ καὶ πενιχρᾷ γραΐδι χήρᾳ . . .’· ταῦτα εἰπὼν προσέταξε τοῖς τὴν κλίνην βαστάζουσιν ἐν τῇ γῇ στῆσαι ταύτην, τῶν δὲ τοῦτο ποιησάντων ὁ ὅσιος στενάξας ἐδάκρυσεν· εἶτα κρατήσας τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ τεθνηκότος ἔφη· ‘Ὁ κύριός μου Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, ὁ νεκρῶν καὶ ζώντων ἐξουσιάζων, ἀναστήσειέ σε·’ καὶ σὺν τῷ λόγῳ εὐθὺς ἀνέστη ὁ τεθνηκώς. 18 Mich. Syncellus (?), Vita Cosmae Melodi et Joannis Damascenii 23–4 (294.28– 295.29, ed. Papadopoulos-Kerameus [1894] 1963): καὶ εὑρέθησαν ἐν μέσῳ τῆς αὐλῆς τοῦ μοναστηρίου οἱ δείλαιοι ἐν σκότει καὶ πυρὶ καιόμενοι . . .· ὁ δὲ συμπαθέστατος Κοσμᾶς ὑπὸ συμπαθείας κινηθεὶς ἐδάκρυσεν· . . . κατιδόντες οὖν τὸν ὅσιον ὅ τε βασιλεὺς καὶ οἱ ἐν τέλει καὶ ὁ λοιπὸς ὄχλος, ὁ παραγεγονὼς πρὸς τὴν τοιαύτην θέαν, πρὸς δάκρυα κατενηνεγμένον, καὶ γνόντες τὴν τοῦ δικαίου συμπάθειαν, εἶπον ἐν ἑαυτοῖς· ‘Ὄντως, εἰ μὴ ἐσπλαγχνίσθη, οὐκ ἂν ἐκ τῶν τιμίων ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτοῦ κατέσταζε δάκρυα.’

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‘messages of the soul’ 131 Byzantines ascribed emotions to somebody, they usually inferred the experience of a certain emotion from a specific behavioural pattern. Therefore, frequently it is the behaviour or action itself that is classified as pathos/emotion. Bodily responses, which are generally regarded as corresponding to certain emotions, are therefore particularly valuable indications. Tears indicate that the person weeping (really) experiences an emotion (hence they are used as proof thereof),19 as is the case with laughter, but also with blushing. The connection is so strong that these bodily symptoms are used metonymically to stand for the emotions they are usually related to: tears for sorrow, laughter for joy, blushing for shame. But the relationship between sign and emotion is unreliable and ambiguous, and not as consistent as the metonymical usage might suggest. Even in the same or similar circumstances tears (like laughter or blushing) may have a different meaning and may be misinterpreted. In only very few texts is the emotional ambiguity of tears treated as a subject or problem. Under the title ‘There are many ways of shedding tears’ (meaning ‘There are many reasons why tears are shed’, because the underlying emotional motivation is discussed), a tetrastichon (consisting of two elegiac disticha) contained in the Paradeisos, a collection of moralising poems attributed to John Geometres (died c. 1000), identifies at least seven different kinds of tears, six of them connected to emotions.20 Ὅτι πολύτροπος ἡ τῶν δακρύων βλύσις Δάκρυα λύπης οἶδα καὶ εὐφροσύνης καὶ ἔρωτος ἑλπομένου τε δέους, ἑλπομένου τε κλέους καὶ φύσεως καὶ θεῖα καὶ ὀλλυμένων ἀρετάων· ταῦτα δ’ ἐπιγνοίης ἡδυμίῃ καὶ ἄχει. I know of tears of sorrow as well as tears of joy and of love/ desire, tears because of an expected fear, tears because of expected fame, and natural tears and divine ones and tears shed over lost virtues. Those you should recognise with joy and with sorrow. 19 Tears testified to the sincere repentance of law-breakers before a legal court, and could thus reduce penalties considerably; see Hinterberger 2006: 42–3, with n. 56. 20 Paradisus 60 (ed. Migne 1857–66: 106, col. 881A). The majority of the text consists of verses rephrasing the Apophthegmata patrum. Yet for this specific quatrain no model has been found. On the Paradeisos and its anonymous author see now Lauxtermann (forthcoming: ch. 19).

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The poem mentions sorrow, joy and love/desire (whether spiritual or not is not clear) in the first verse, fear and hope in the second and katanuxis, ‘contrition’, in the third (‘the divine tears’ over mankind’s lost innocence), which will be explained later. The ‘natural tears’ of line 3 apparently have to be identified with those mentioned above by John of Damascus as ‘natural and innocent’ tears.21 A passage from the Instructions on Spiritual Government, written by emperor Leo the Wise (died 912), is very similar. Here tears are connected to approximately the same emotions: joy, divine and passionate love, fear, cowardice in battle, hopelessness, sorrow and despair (over the frustration of expectations).22 The strongest link exists between tears and sorrow (lupē), especially sorrow about someone’s death, mourning or grief (penthos). Therefore tears are an indispensable element of the ritual lament and funeral literature.23 In this sense Byzantine tears are fully compatible with modern tears. But this is not always the case. In Byzantine texts, most conspicuous are those tears which are connected to a certain form of penthos, namely katanuxis (‘contrition’, ‘compunction’). Because of their religious significance, compunction and the so-called ‘gift of tears’ are a rather well-researched subject which, nevertheless, remains fascinating. A brief explanation must suffice.24 Based on the statement from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount ‘Blessed are those who mourn’ (Matthew 5:4), a special mourning cult developed in early Byzantine monasticism. In this cult of penthos, the faithful and above all the monks shed tears over their sins and those of mankind. It was said that those tears cleansed the soul, just as baptism washed away the dirt of sin, and thus prepared for the kingdom of heaven. Because it cleansed and led to God, this form of penthos was also called charmolupē, a ‘joyful sorrow’, a powerful concept based on the oxymoron of the simultaneous experience of joy and sorrow. 21 In Hinterberger 2006: 48–9, I opted for a different interpretation based on the poem’s antithetical structure, according to which ‘natural tears’ would comprise all forms of tears except the divine ones. In the light of the passage of the Expositio fidei, I have changed my mind. 22 Leo Sap., Oiakistike diatyposis III 13 (ed. Papadopoulos-Kerameus [1909] 1975): Πολύτροπος τῶν δακρύων ἡ βλύσις· εὐφρόσυνος, ἔρωτος θείου, φόβου γεέννης, ἔρωτος ἐμπαθοῦς, δειλίας ἀγῶνος, ἀνελπιστίας, οἰκονομίας, λύπης, ἐλπιζομένου βραδυτῆτος. See also Ps.-Athanas., Quaest. et respons. 80 (ed. Migne 1857–66: 28, col. 648bc): Πλὴν πολλή τις ἐν τοῖς δακρύοις διαφορὰ καθέστηκε. τινὲς γὰρ πολλάκις καὶ ἀπὸ μέθης οἴνου δακρύουσι· τινὲς δὲ καὶ δόξαν ἀνθρώπων θηρώμενοι. 23 On the ritual lament see Alexiou [1974] 2002b and Susan Harvey in this volume. Characteristically, Nikephoros Basilakes’ funeral speech on his brother commences as follows (ed. Pignani 1983: 235): προτρέχει μοι τοῦ λόγου τὸ δάκρυον (‘Before my words tears are running’). 24 See generally Hunt 2004. Hausherr 1944 still remains an insightful study.

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This high esteem for joyful tears generated the need for methods that could evoke tears. In particular, thoughts of the divine judgement or mankind’s expulsion from paradise (these are the ‘lost virtues’ in Ps.-Geometres’ poem) and the resulting ‘state of exile’ or ‘alienation’ (xeniteia) of man in the world were considered suitable themes to arouse contrition (katanuxis) and to bring about tears.25 Such tears were understood as an ‘offering’ to God.26 Katanyctical texts were composed, among them hymns that inspired the faithful to cry over human sinfulness.27 Nikolaos Kataskepenos, writing in the twelfth century, reported how a monk literally wept himself to death through excessive mourning, supported by a collection of stimulating texts.28 Since tears of contrition could be shed only by the grace of God (and were, therefore, ‘divine tears’), tears were considered the visible sign that God accepted the repentance and contrition of a human being.29 It is in the context of katanyctical tears that questions about the nature of tears are asked, and we should perhaps imagine a similar context for the poem cited above. Byzantine monks who struggled to obtain the ‘gift of tears’ were anxious to know if their tears were the right ones. For this reason, in the Life of Cyrill Phileotis, the author and disciple of the saint, Nikolaos Kataskepenos, asks Cyrill about tears and how to recognise the divine ones. In an entire chapter, stretching over more than eleven pages, Cyrill explains three major kinds of tears, distinguishing those out of divine love from those provoked by fear or by demons.30 When katanyctical tears are shed outside an explicitly religious context, they are not always readily understood. It is not immediately clear for what reason, according to Niketas Choniates (died 1217), all those present at emperor Manuel’s death-bed were weeping when they caught sight of Manuel’s naked leg (the reason being that the monastic 25 See e.g. Neophyt. Encleist., Pentekontakephalon 19 (ed. Sotiroudis 1996); here, tears not only are the result of katanuxis, but enhance this emotion. On the meaning of xeniteia cf. Hunt 2004: 264. 26 E.g. Ps.-Io. Chrys., De lacrimis (ed. Fernandez 2011): Καλὸν φάρμακον ψυχῆς τὸ δάκρυον, τῆς μὲν ὑγιαινούσης προφυλακτήριον, τῆς δὲ νοσούσης θεραπευτικόν, ἀγαθὸς καρπὸς ἀγαθῆς ψυχῆς, καλὸν θυμίαμα, καλὴ θυσία, καλὸν δῶρον ψυχῆς. 27 See generally Giannouli 2009. 28 Nicol. Catascep., Vita Cyril. Phil. 42.9–11 (ed. Sargologos 1964). On this text in general see Mullett 2004. 29 Such tears were also shed in non-ascetical contexts, and could be used for political aims; see Hinterberger 2006: 35–8; Grünbart 2008. As a ritual of cleansing, contrition and mourning could also be used effectively by the emperor as an influential sign in battle; see below, p. 134, and Hinterberger 2006: 38–40. 30 Nicol. Catascep., Vita Cyril. Phil. 42.2 (ed. Sargologos 1964: 196): ἄλλα εἰσὶ τὰ δουλικὰ ἢ καὶ ἀγνωμονικὰ δάκρυα, τὰ ἐκ φόβου τῶν πληγῶν τικτόμενα, καὶ ἄλλα τὰ ἐξ ἀγάπης, καὶ ἄλλα τὰ ἐξ ἐπηρείας δαιμωνιώδους.

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cloak he had put on shortly before his death was too short).31 Were these tears of grief or compassion? I believe they were neither. What the bystanders saw – the erstwhile almighty emperor and splendid warrior reduced to his emaciated and frail body, dressed in too short a monastic habit – induced thoughts about the instability of life and the corruptibility of the human body, and consequently of death and the afterlife.32 Divine tears also functioned as a weapon in spiritual and other battles.33 In the Vita Auxentii (BHG 199, probably tenth century),34 such tears drive away demons – they act as arrows.35 According to George of Pisidia (first half of the seventh century), the commander of Constantinople, the patrician Bonus, repelled the Avars’ assault on the city with the help of his tears.36 The patrician Theophanes is described in Theophanes Continuatus (mid-tenth century) as preparing himself for battle by fasting and (shedding) tears.37 Each passage, taken by itself and interpreted without knowledge of the significance that tears of contrition had in the Byzantine mindset, might elicit ironical comments – as indeed they did in the past.38 Tears connected to katanuxis in one way or another are by far the most frequent kind. As we have already noticed in the texts on ‘the manifold ways of tears’, Byzantines were aware of the fact that 31 Nicet. Chon., Hist. 222.60–64 (ed. van Dieten 1975): τὸ δὲ ῥάκος μὴ ποδῆρες ὂν μήτε μὴν δι’ ὅλου τοῦ ἡρωϊκοῦ ἐκείνου κατα­βαῖνον σώματος εἴα τὰς κνήμας ἀκαλυφεῖς, ὡς μηδένα τῶν ὁρώντων εἶναι ἀδάκρυτον, ἐν νῷ βαλλόμενον τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην ἀσθένειαν καὶ τὴν ἐν τῷ τελευτᾶν τὸν βίον τοῦ σώματος ἀχρειότητα, ὅπερ ἡμῖν ὡς ὄστρεον περιπλάττεται καὶ συμφύεται τῇ ψυχῇ. 32 A similar case of ‘hidden’ tears of contrition in Psellos’ Chronography is discussed in Hinterberger 2006: 49–50 33 Cf. Hinterberger 2006: 38–40. 34 Byzantine hagiographical texts are classified according to Halkin 1957 (= BHG). 35 Vita Auxentii 21 (ed. Migne 1857–66: 114, col. 1394D): μεθ’ ἡμέρας δὲ ὀλίγας γυνή τις . . . ἔχουσα δαίμονα δρακοντόμορφον ἦλθε πρὸς αὐτὸν . . . ἣν ἰδὼν ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ θεράπων ἔκλαυσεν πικρῶς λέγων· Πῶς ἐδουλώθη τὸ γένος τῶν ἀνθρώπων τῷ ἀλλοτρίῳ; . . . προσευχομένου δὲ αὐτοῦ ἤρξατο ὁ δράκων λαλεῖν· ὢ ἀπὸ τῆς μήτρας τῆς γεννησάσης σε κατ’ ἐμοῦ, Αὐξέντιε, πῶς οὐ κατέπαυσας τὴν τεκοῦσαν, ἀλλ’ εἰς ἐμὴν ἐξώλειαν ἐγεννήθης; οἱ γὰρ ὀχετοὶ τῶν δακρύων σου κατακαίουσίν με καὶ ἡ προσ­ευχή σου ὡς τόξον βολίδι ἐσπάραξε τὰ ἔγκατά μου. 36 Georg. Pisid., Bellum Avaricum 141–4 and 154–7 (ed. Pertusi 1959): Χαῖρε στρατηγὲ τῶν ἐνόπλων δακρύων / τῶν πυρπολοῦντων τὸ θράσος τὸ βάρβαρον·/ ὅσον γὰρ ἁπλοῖς τὰς ῥοὰς τῶν ὀμμάτων,/ τοσοῦτον εἴργεις τὰς ῥοὰς τῶν αἱμάτων.  . . . / ᾔδεις γάρ, ᾔδεις, ὡς γεωργῶν τὰς φρένας, / ὡς οὐκ ἔνεστιν εὐφορῆσαι καρδίαν, / εἰ μὴ καθαρθῇ πρῶτον ἀμπέλου δίκην / ἔπειτα πυκνὸν ἐκχέοι τὸ δάκρυον / οὕτω τε λοιπὸν ἐκκαλοῖ τοὺς ὄμφακας . . . 37 Theophan. cont. VI 39 (423.19–20, ed. Bekker 1838): καὶ τὸν δὲ στόλον προευτρεπίσας τε καὶ ἑτοιμασάμενος καὶ νηστείᾳ καὶ δάκρυσιν αὑτὸν κατοχυρώσας ὡς μάλιστα τοὺς Ῥὼς προσδέχεται κατα­ναυμαχῆσαι μέλλων αὐτούς. 38 See e.g. Runciman [1929] 1988: 111 (referring to the passage in Theoph. Cont. quoted above): ‘armed with fasts and lamentations and (perhaps still more useful) Greek fire’.

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‘messages of the soul’ 135 at times tears could also express the exact opposite emotion from sorrow, namely joy.39 But this is a marginal phenomenon, which only rarely has been exploited in literature, e.g. by Theodore Prodromos (twelfth century) in an epigram commenting on an Old Testament scene (couched in a dialogue between Jacob and his wife, after they learnt that their son Joseph was still alive).40 – Ἐδάκρυες χθές, Ἰακώβ, τὸν υἱέα δοκῶν θανεῖν· ἔνδικον ἦν τὸ δακρύειν· νῦν ζῇ· τί λοιπὸν δακρύεις γελᾶν δέον; – Τὸ τῆς χαρᾶς δάκρυον ἄρτι δακρύω. Yesterday, Jacob, you were weeping over your son because you thought that he had died. Then your weeping was justified. But now he lives! Why are you weeping then, while you should be laughing? (Jacob answers:) It is tears of joy I am shedding now.

Apart from ‘tears of joy’ or ‘tears of love’, the other kinds of tears mentioned in the passage of Paradisus above are barely attested.41 Tears are not only the expression of certain emotions; they elicit emotions in their own right (and quite often tears), such as εὐσπλαγχνία, συμπάθεια, οἶκτος, ἔλεος (related emotions, close to ‘compassion’, ‘mercy’, ‘pity’).42 This function of tears is explicitly referred to by Niketas Choniates ‘as a gift to mankind in order to elicit mutual compassion’ when presenting himself as imploring the Latin crusaders to release a young girl captured during the conquest of Constantinople in 1204.43 39 See e.g. Const. Manas., Arist. et Call. 168.1–3 (ed. Mazal 1967): Γίνεται γάρ τοι καὶ χαρά ποτε δακρυομήτωρ, ἀνιεμένων ὑπ’ αὐτῆς τῶν τῆς καρδίας πόρων καὶ προχεόντων εἰς αὐτὰ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν τὰ κύκλα. Nicet. Chon., Hist. 295.14–16: Ὢ δάκρυον . . . λύπης σφοδροτέρας σύμβολον καὶ τῶν ἔνδον πιεζόντων τεκμήριον ἀναμφήριστον, ἐνίοτε δὲ καὶ ὑπὸ χαρᾶς συλλειβόμενον καὶ ἀποσταζόμενον. 40 Theod. Prodr., Epigram. in Test. Vet. 36a (ed. Papagiannis 1997). 41 On tears of love see Agapitos in this volume; Hinterberger 2006: 45–6. 42 See e.g. Vita Auxentii 19–20 (ed. Migne 1857–66: 114, col. 1394A–C): ἀναστᾶσα δὲ ἐδέετο τοῦ ὁσίου μετὰ καὶ τῆς ἄλλης γυναικός, κλαίουσαι σφοδρῶς καὶ γονυπετοῦσαι αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὸ δυσωπῆσαι τὸν θεὸν τοῦ ἰᾶσθαι αὐτάς. . . . καὶ σπλαγχνισθεὶς ἐπ’ αὐταῖς καὶ προσευξάμενος ἐκτενῶς τῷ θεῷ μετὰ δακρύων ἐθεράπευσεν αὐτάς . . . οἱ οὖν γονεῖς αὐτοῦ ἔπεσον ἐπὶ πρόσωπον δυσωποῦντες τὸν μακάριον μετὰ μεγάλου κλαυθμοῦ, ὥστε κατελεῆσαι αὐτοὺς καὶ ἰάσασθαι αὐτόν. On Byzantine pity see Frank (forthcoming). 43 Nicet. Chon., Hist. 590, 24–7 (ed. van Dieten 1975): τοῖς αὐτῶν οὖν ὑμῶν νόμοις καὶ τοῖς ἐν χερσὶν ἡμῖν ἐπαμύνατε, μαλαχθέντες τούτοις τοῖς δάκρυσιν, ἃ καὶ θεὸς προσίεται καὶ ἡμῖν ἡ φύσις ἐς τὸν πρὸς ἀλλήλους οἶκτον βοήθημα μέγιστον τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἐπωχέτευσεν.

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In comparison with tears, Byzantine laughter is much less conspicuous in texts, and, consequently, barely researched.44 The prominence of tears and the corresponding relative absence of laughter seem to support the widespread, and of course distorting, image of Byzantine culture as a joyless one, especially in contrast to the ancient Greek civilisation.45 Whereas in the case of tears modern scholars have at their disposal theoretical Byzantine discussions in form of treatises on the subject, such as the one already mentioned by Nikolaos Kataskepenos or the one by Neophytos Enkleistos, no such comprehensive treatment is available for laughter.46 The Church Fathers declared their opinion on laughter here and there, but these are just scattered statements on the subject. There exists, however, one textual category which allows a certain succinct insight into the concept of laughter, since in quite a few florilegia there is a separate chapter on laughter.47 Byzantine florilegia are collections of excerpts from older texts (religious or profane, or both).48 The excerpts are grouped together under a certain heading or key word and organised in alphabetical order. Such headings related to emotions are e.g. anger, greed, fear, mourning and dejection, gluttony, envy and resentment.49 The general picture of laughter as conveyed by florilegia is utterly negative. This becomes clear from the beginning: in the Sacra parallela laughter is treated under the heading On sycophants, para44 Whereas laughter in the ancient world has repeatedly attracted scholarly interest (see in particular Halliwell 2008), Byzantine laughter remains a largely unresearched field (see e.g. Adkin 1985 and the few data collected by Kazhdan 1991b; important observations on laughter and smile as constituent features of Byzantine asteiotēs, ‘urbanity’ are to be found in Bernard 2013; 2015). Studies on ancient or Byzantine laughter often identify laughter with a sense of humour and joking (e.g. Haldon 2002; Beard 2014). As far as I know there are not many jokes available for the Byzantine period, a fact which explains to some extent the lack of interest in the topic on the side of modern scholars; see, however, Haldon 2002, who collected stories supposed to have been meant as jokes or intended to provoke laughter, and Bernard 2015 on jokes in Byzantine letters. The sense of (scholarly) humour inherent in Byzantine schedē, especially of the twelfth century, deserves more interest (see below, n. 60, for the fun Theodore Prodromos and Stephanos Skylitzes had when composing schedē together); see for schedē and laughter related to them Agapitos 2015d. 45 Kazhdan 1991a goes so far as to suggest that ancient Greek laughter ‘was replaced by tears of contrition, compunction, and a quiet smile, frequently described as a quality of a saint’. 46 See above, p. 133 and n. 25. 47 Io. Damas., Sacra parallela κ4 (ed. Migne 1857–66: 96, col. 76A–80A). Ps. Maximus, Flor. 57 (ed. Ihm 2001: 888–94). Flor. Patmense 27 (ed. Sargologos 1990: 590–7). 48 On florilegia in general see the introduction in Ihm 2001. 49 Cf. Hinterberger 2010: 125; 2013: 89–94.

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sites and jesters, and that one should avoid them. In the florilegium ascribed to Maximos the Confessor, the chapter on laughter starts characteristically with a quotation from the Gospel of Luke (6:25): ‘Woe to you who laugh now! For you will mourn and weep.’50 In the florilegia, laughter is presented as the opposite of grief and sorrow (katēpheia), and on the other hand it is regarded as connected to ‘gaiety’ (hilarotēs) and even more to condemnable behaviour such as obscenity, obscene speech, intemperance, facetious mirth, foolish talk, sexual impropriety and luxury (aischrotēs, aischrologia, akrasia, eutrapelia, mōrologia, porneia and thrupsis). Characteristically, many of these condemned forms of conduct are disapproved forms of verbal behaviour, traditionally associated with laughter, for instance in the New Testament.51 Like laughter itself, these various kinds of misconduct are regarded as passions. The florilegia clearly dissuade their readers from laughing and from the company of people who laugh. All entries under the heading ‘laughter’ point in this direction. Persons who laugh are characterised as fools, mentally handicapped  or morally corrupted. Laughter is obscene, foul and shameful. Though not in a separate chapter, laughter is also treated in the Apophthegmata patrum. Characteristically, it is the object of a couple of sententiae recorded at the end of chapter 3 ‘On contrition’, where  laughter is presented as a serious threat to the fear of God and  sincere contrition; it appears, one might say, as the opposite of katanuxis. Moreover, laughter destroys the monk and leads to ‘obscene passions’ (aischra pathē).52 Ἀρχὴ καταστροφῆς μοναχοῦ ὑπάρχει γέλως καὶ παρρησία. ὅταν ἐν τούτοις ἴδῃς ἑαυτόν, μοναχέ, γίνωσκε σαυτὸν εἰς βάθη κακῶν καταστήσαντα . . . ὁ γέλως καὶ ἡ παρρησία εἰς πάθη αἰσχρὰ παραπέμπει τὸν μοναχόν, οὐ μόνον νεωτέρους, ἀλλὰ καὶ γέροντας. ὁ γέλως καὶ ἡ παρρησία κάτω φέρει τὸν μοναχόν. Laughter and ‘familiarity’ are the beginning of the monk’s destruction. When you see yourself being in these states, monk, 50 Io. Damas., Sacra parallela κ4 (ed. Migne 1857–66: 96, col. 76A). Ps. Maximus, Flor. 57.1 (ed. Ihm 2001: 888). See, on Luke 6: 25 and its interpretaion by early Christians, Halliwell 2008: 475–6. 51 Cf. Halliwell 2008: 476–8. 52 Apophthegmata patrum III 56 (ed. Guy 1993–2005); see also III 55: Περὶ δὲ τοῦ γέλωτος νῦν ἄκουε· ὁ γέλως τὸν μακαρισμὸν τοῦ πένθους ἔξω βάλλει· ὁ γέλως οὐκ οἰκοδομεῖ, οὐ φυλάσσει, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀπόλλει καὶ τὰ οἰκοδομηθέντα καταλύει· ὁ γέλως τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον λυπεῖ, ψυχὴν οὐκ ὠφελεῖ, σῶμα δὲ διαφθείρει· ὁ γέλως τὰς ἀρετὰς ἐκδιώκει, οὐκ ἔχει μνήμην θανάτου οὐδὲ μελέτην τῶν κολάσεων.

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you should know that you have fallen into the depths of evil . . . Laughter and ‘familiarity’ lead the monk into obscene passions, not only the young ones, but also old monks. Laughter and familiarity bring the monk down. A short story incorporated into chapter XX ‘On virtuous conduct’ of the Apophthegmata patrum illustrates to which kind of ‘obscene passions’ exactly laughter in conjunction with ‘familiarity’ (parrhēsia) may lead. Along with parrhēsia and touching, laughter here constitutes one step further towards moral corruption and finally illicit sexual intercourse.53 ὡς δὲ λοιπὸν συνήθεια ἐγένετο καὶ παρρησία περισσοτέρα τέλος καὶ ἀφὴ χειρῶν καὶ γέλως καὶ συναλιμός, καὶ λοιπὸν ὠδινήσαντες ἐτέκαμεν τὴν ἀνομίαν. When thus sociability and greater ‘familiarity’ developed, and when at the end we touched each other’s hands and we laughed and made friendly company, we ‘gave birth to the transgression’ [cf. Psalms 7:15]. In hagiography, laughter again appears as the opposite of katanuxis and therefore endangers the salvation of the soul.54 But does this general picture propagated by florilegia or the Apophthegmata patrum also correspond to the appearance of laughter in non-monastic texts?55 Laughter often has an immoral touch here too, although differentiations are made by some authors. Only boisterous (ataktos) laughter, too much, too loud or excessive laughter, or sometimes laughter alone 53 Apophthegmata patrum XX 15.49–52 (ed. Guy 1993–2005). Cf. also similar circumstances and a similar sequence of events (company, conversation, ­ laughter  and, this time, smiling, bodily contact) in Historia monachorum ­ in  Aegypto I 33–4 (lines 208–14, ed. Festugière 1971): ἠρέμα δέ πως αὐτὸν εἰς ἔρωτα  προσεκαλεῖτο καὶ λόγοι πλείους λοιπὸν πρὸς ἀλλήλους αὐτοῖς γίνονται καὶ  γέλως καὶ μειδίαμα. ἀπεπλάνησεν δὲ αὐτὸν πολλῇ ὁμιλίᾳ καὶ τὸ ἐντεῦθεν λοιπὸν  ἀφῇ χειρὸς  καὶ γενείου καὶ  αὐχένος καὶ αἰχμαλώτισεν τέλος τὸν ἀσκητήν. (In the sequel, the demons laugh  at the monk they had tricked into such sinful behaviour.) 54 E.g. Leontios of Neapolis, Vita Symeonis Sali 77.26 (ed. Festugière and Rydén 1974): βλέπε, ἀδελφέ, μήπως τὴν κατάνυξίν σου ἀπολέσῃς διὰ τοῦ γέλωτος. 55 One must not imagine Byzantine culture divided into strictly separated secular and monastic spheres, but of course life ‘in the world’ was different from life in a monastery or the desert. Nevertheless, monastic guidelines for correct and pious behaviour were also valid outside monasteries, and permeated the whole of Byzantine society, although to various degrees. The vast majority of non-monastic texts display monastic values. On e.g. ‘imperial’ katanuxis see Hinterberger 2006: 36–8.

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marks a negative or suspicious character. In this sense laughter is connected to debaucheries.56 Yet the total absence of laughter is a negative trait too. According to Michael Psellos, Romanos III’s behaviour changed radically when he fell ill. Whereas he had been approachable before, he had now become grumpy ‘and laughter left him together with his soul’s charm and his sweet manner’.57 In this sense a laughing person is the opposite of a grumpy one.58 Laughter is a necessary prerequisite for kindness. Empress Theodora was not as beautiful as her sister Zoe, but nevertheless she was a charming and ‘laughing’ person, says Psellos.59 Thus, a well-balanced amount of laughter seems to be the ideal, at least for a worldly person.60 This is the way in which laughter serves the presentation of character in narrative texts. But what emotions does it express? Laughter is ambiguous, too, because it may express joy, and by extension a friendly disposition, but also contempt, which is an utterly hostile attitude, if directed against another human being. Usually, the context makes clear what is meant, yet not always: when laughter is explicitly mentioned together with contempt (kataphronēsis) or as accompanied by insult (oneidizō) etc. it is laughter of contempt or condemnation.61 Contempt itself, expressed through laughter, though in principle bad, may prove to be a virtuous attitude when directed at the right object (e.g. laughter itself or Satan and his demons).62 These two sides 56 E.g. Mich. Psel., Chronographia VI 49.3 (ed. Reinsch 2014): ἀνεῖσθαι εἰς τρυφὰς καὶ γέλωτας; cf. Mich. Psel., Or. min. 17.9 (τὸ τοῦ γέλωτος πρόχειρον) and 74–5 (ed. Littlewood 1985). 57 Mich. Psel., Chronographia III 24.7–11 (ed. Reinsch 2014). 58 Generally ‘laughing’ is the opposite of σκυθρωπάζω, ‘to be grumpy’, ‘to be not cheerful’; cf. e.g. Mich. Psel., Or. hagiographica 4.265–8 (ed. Fisher 1994): ἀλλοίωσις ἐντεῦθεν τῶν παθημάτων, καὶ οἱ μὲν γελῶντες εὐθὺς ἐσκυθρώπασαν, ὁ δὲ σκυθρωπὸς ἄνετος εὐθὺς καὶ ἐλεύθερος καὶ πλήρης εὐθυμίας καὶ ἡδονῆς; Mich. Psel., Or. min. 17.74–6 (ed. Littlewood 1985). 59 Mich. Psel., Chronographia VI 6.16 (ed. Reinsch 2014). 60 This is especially true in the context of eleventh-century Byzantine asteiotēs, ‘urbanity’, where a measured amount of laughter among friends was a significant element; see Bernard 2015. The only text I am aware of in which laughter is not only presented as an unrestrictedly positive character trait but even made into a virtue is Theodoros Prodromos’ Lament on his friend Stephanos Skylitzes, esp. lines 124–46 (ed. Petit 1903); cf. also Agapitos 2015d: 12–14. Laughter and fun are typical elements of Prodromos’ literary production. Some of his works explicitly aim at provoking laughter; cf. e.g. Ptochoprodromos IV 438–9 (ed. Eideneier 2012): ἵνα μάθῃς καὶ νὰ γελάσῃς. On Prodromos’ jokes and satires see also Haldon 2002: 48–9, 67, 69–70. 61 On laughter connected to derision see Haldon 2002; Magdalino 2007. 62 See e.g. Greg. Naz., Carm. mor. I 2, 33.77–80 (ed. Migne 1857–66: 37, col. 933.15–934.2) = Ps.-Max. Conf., Flor. 57.7 (ed. Ihm 2001) = Flor. Patmense

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to contemptuous laughter are the subject of a chapter in Constantine Manasses’ so-called Carmen morale where contempt of human fate and contempt of fellow human beings are contrasted.63 ‘Laugh at the wheel of fortune with contempt and make fun of it’, the poet says, and ‘it is better to laugh at oneself than at a fellow human being’. Although the (turning) wheel is an old symbol of the mutability and alternation of human life,64 I believe that in Manasses’ verses ‘laughter at the wheel of fortune’ specifically refers to the edifying story of the so-called soldanos, preserved in some historiographical and chronographical works, e.g. in Michael Glykas’ Biblos chronike.65 In this story a certain soldanos (= sultan), an Arab emir who lived in a western country as a prisoner of war, becomes famous for not having laughed even once in a period of two years – laughter here is meant as a symbol of joy. One day, the soldanos finally laughs, when observing a wheel turning around. This laughter, however, has nothing to do with joy, but expresses the emir’s contempt for the ups and downs of human life. TEARS AND LAUGHTER The ambiguity of laughter, whether it is a sign of joy or contempt or whether it expresses good or bad contempt, is seldom an explicit issue in Byzantine texts. What proves a far more fruitful subject is the antithesis and the oxymoronic mixture of laughter and tears, already

(footnote 62 continued) 27.13 (ed. Sargologos 1990): Γέλως γέλωτος εὖ φρονοῦσιν ἄξιος, / μάλιστα μὲν πᾶς, τὸ πλέον δ’ ὁ πορνικός. / γέλως ἄτακτος συλλέγει καὶ δάκρυον / κρεῖσσον κατηφὲς ἦθος  ἢ  τεθρυμμένον. (‘For those with sound judgement, laughter is worthy of laughter, any kind of laughter, particularly the lascivious kind. Boisterous laughter brings forth also tears. It is better to have a sorrowful character than a luxurious one.’) 63 Const. Manas., Carmen morale 838–44 (ed. Miller 1875): Περὶ γέλωτος: Γέλα τῆς τύχης τὸν τροχὸν περιφρονῶν καὶ παῖζε / καὶ τὴν ἀστάθμητον φορὰν τῶν κοσμικῶν πραγμάτων, / πτῶμα τοῦ πέλας δ’, ἄνθρωπε, βλέπε μὴ καταπαίξης· / οὔτε γὰρ φύσις δέδωκεν, οὔτε πραγμάτων τέχνη· / κρεῖσσον γελᾶν γὰρ ἑαυτὸν ἢ παίζειν τὸν πλησίον. / Μὴ κρίνειν οὖν ἀλλότριον οἰκέτην ἔδειξέ σοι / Παύλου φωνή, καὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ λόγοι σαφῶς οἱ θεῖοι. 64 On the wheel of fortune in Byzantine literature see Cupane 1993. 65 Mich. Glyc., Hist. 548.12–549.4 (ed. Bekker 1836): Ὁ εἰς ἀδοξίαν ἀπὸ δόξης πεσὼν παραμυθίας ἀπολαυέτω, τὴν ἄνω καὶ κάτω φορὰν τῶν τῆς ἁμάξης τροχῶν συστρέφων καθ’ ἑαυτόν· τῆς γὰρ ἀστάτου τῶν ἀνθρώπων εὐδαιμονίας εἰκὼν αὕτη ἐστὶ προφανής. ὁποῖον δὴ πάλαι πεποίηκε καὶ ὁ σουλδάνος ἐκεῖνος ὁ βάρβαρος. οὗτος γὰρ ὑπὸ τοῦ τῆς Φραγγίας ἄρχοντος κατασχεθεὶς καὶ διετίαν ἐν τῇ φρουρᾷ ποιήσας οὐκ ὤφθη γελάσας ποτέ. μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα γελάσαι τοῦτον ὁ Φράγγος μεμαθηκὼς ἐρωτᾷ τὴν αἰτίαν. καὶ ὃς ἔλεγε τροχὸν ἰδεῖν ἁμάξης ποτὲ ἄνω ποτὲ δὲ κάτω φερόμενον, καὶ τούτῳ τὰ κατ’ αὐτὸν παρεικάσας τὸ τοῦ βίου γελάσαι ἀνώμαλον. τῷ Φράγγῳ λοιπὸν ᾠκείωτο ἔκτοτε, καὶ σύμβουλος ἦν ἐκείνῳ διὰ τὴν αὐτοῦ σύνεσιν. On this story in Byzantine literature see Lampakis 1994–5.

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mentioned above. Tears and laughter, though essentially opposites, are linked through joy, which can be expressed by both, as we have already seen in Theodore Prodromos’ tetrastrichon on Jacob’s tears (see, above, p. 135). According to Constantine Manasses, a beautiful person becomes even more beautiful when crying and consequently his or her tears express something pleasant and joyful: ‘they laugh’ (τὰ δάκρυα γελᾷ).66 Tears and laughter were regarded as two extreme ends of an emotional spectrum stretching from joy to sorrow, and consequently they were supposed to be contrasting opposites. Nevertheless they could mix. This oxymoronic mixture could be expressed by the words klausigelōs (literally ‘weep-laughter’), of ancient origin, and charmolupē (literally ‘joy-sorrow’), a Byzantine neologism. Although John Klimakos had coined charmolupē as a term expressing the joyful state inherent to sorrowful katanuxis (see above), Byzantine authors of later centuries normally used the word in the non-technical sense of a simultaneous experience of joy and sorrow.67 The ancient term klausigelōs, on the other side, seems to have been revived in the late Komnenian period by such authors as Michael and Niketas Choniates and Eustathios of Thessalonica.68 The frequent use of a rare ancient word and its reinterpretation, quite independently of the ancient usage, are a characteristic of the Byzantine literati’s creative and original treatment of their ancient heritage.69 Accordingly, the word is exclusively used by authors with a classical education. What kind of mixture was klausigelōs supposed to be? Like charmolupē, klausigelōs can mean the simultaneous experience of joy and sorrow, a perfect mixture.70 At other times (even in the same author) it may refer to a situation which has a sad beginning, but ends joyfully (like a theatrical piece).71 Sometimes it seems to mean crying because of 66 Const. Manas., Arist. et Call. 101 (ed. Mazal 1967): ἂν μὲν οὖν εἴη τὴν μορφὴν ἀχρεῖος ὁ δακρύων / ἐπαύξονται τὰ δάκρυα τὴν τούτου δυσμορφίαν . . . / εἰ δὲ καλὸς, ἂν δὲ τερπνὸς, ἂν τῶν χαριτομόρφων . . . / τότε τὰ δάκρυα γελᾷ καὶ διαχεῖται μᾶλλον / ἐν μέσοις ἐνειλούμενα τοῖς τῶν βλεφάρων κύκλοις. 67 Io. Climax, Scala paradisi 7 (ed. Migne 1857–66: 88, col. 804C). For further usage see TLG s.v. 68 See TLG s.v. κλαυσίγελως and κλαυσόγελως, a Byzantine variant. 69 See Hinterberger 2014 on the similar case of telchin. 70 Ε.g. Nicet. Chon., Ep. 39.5 (ed. Kolovou 2001): διπλῷ γὰρ πάθει μερίζομαι, λύπῃ λέγω, καὶ ἡδονῇ, καὶ τὸν λεγόμενον ἀτεχνῶς πάσχω κλαυσίγελων. 71 Ε.g. Nicet. Chon., Hist. 524.22–4 (ed. van Dieten 1975): καὶ τὸ μὲν οὕτως ἀναιμωτὶ παρελήλυθεν, ἐξ αἰτίου τραγικοῦ τε καὶ σκυθρωποῦ ἐς κωμικὸν κατέληξεν ἀκοὰς διαχέον ἄθυρμα καὶ σχηματίζον τὸν κλαυσιγέλωτα. Mich. Chon., Or. 14.55 (ed. Lambros [1879–80] 1968: I 239.25–240.1): ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν περὶ ἐκεῖνον δρᾶμα ὧδέ πῃ καὶ τετελεύτηκεν, ἐκ τραγῳδικῶν παθημάτων εἰς κωμικὸν παυσάμενον γέλωτα, εἶτ’οὖν εἰς σατυρικὸν διασκευασθὲν κλαυσιγέλωτα.

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intensive laughter.72 It may also mean the mixture of joy and sorrow in one and the same situation, but not experienced by the same person, with one being joyful, the other sad.73 Literally, both words (albeit metonymically, in the case of klausigelōs) express the same mixture of opposite emotions, and as we have seen, they are indeed used in this sense, but normally in different contexts and on different stylistic levels.74 Theodore Laskaris (died 1258) seems to be the only author who not only used charmolupē in non-spiritual contexts, but also made use of both terms side by side as synonyms.75 Conscious of the existence of these two theoretically synonymous terms, Byzantine authors occasionally contrast klausigelōs and charmolupē, apparently for purely rhetorical reasons, the former being rejected as ‘frivolous’ (saturikos), the latter closely connected to katanuxis.76 SMILING In the florilegia, though treated under the heading ‘laughter’, smiling is clearly differentiated from it.77 Generally, when they appear together, smiling is contrasted with laughter, sometimes in clear 72 Ε.g. Io. Rhetor, Comm. in Hermogenis librum περὶ ἰδεῶν 389.12 (ed. Walz 1834):  κλαυσίγελως, πάθος σύμμικτον, ἐκ τοῦ διαχεῖσθαι τοὺς γελῶντες καὶ ὑποδακρύειν. 73 Ε.g. Eust. Thess., Comm. ad Homeri Iliadem IV 547.5 (ed. van der Valk 1971–87): μυθικὸς ἐνταῦθα κλαυσίγελως πλάττεται, ἐν οἷς Ἥρα μὲν μειδιᾷ τύψασα . . . τὴν Ἄρτεμιν, ἣ δὲ δακρυρόεσσά τε . . . φεύγει . . . 74 Eustathios of Thessalonica probably uses klausigelōs in a spiritual sense when speaking about the emotional upheaval of repenting sinners who laughed at the lies which had led them astray and at the same time bemoaned their former life; Eusth. Thes., Or. 7 in patr. Mich. 123.37–51 (ed. Wirth 2000): εἶδον ἐγὼ τηνικαῦτα πράγμασιν αὐτοῖς τὴν ἀληθῶς καὶ ὑμνουμένην κατάνυξιν· ἑώρων . . . ῥεύματα ταῦτα δακρύων καρδίας ἐκπηδῶντα σκληρᾶς . . . τεθαύμακα καὶ ὅπως οἱ τέως σκυθρωποὶ . . . πῇ μὲν ἱλαρὸν ἐμειδίων, πῇ δὲ καὶ εἰς κλαυσιγέλωτος χάριν συνεκράννυντο, οἷς τοῦ ψεύδους μὲν κατεγέλων ὑφ’ οὗ παρήγοντο φτάσαντες, τοῦ δὲ προτέρου βίου κατέκλαιον. 75 Theo. Lasc., Satyra in paedagogum 555–7 (ed. Tartaglia 2000); Theo. Lasc., Ep. 5.8 (ed. Festa 1898) and 80.30 (both terms). 76 Nicet. Chon., Or. 15 = Or. fun. in Io. Belissariota (ed. van Dieten 1972: 161. 23–5): τὴν εὐάρεστον θεῷ χαρμολύπην αἱρετέαν κατὰ σφᾶς (τοὺς μοναστὰς) κρίνοντες καὶ πολλῷ βελτίω τοῦ παρ’ ἐνίοις προσδοκίμου σατυρικοῦ κλαυσιγέλωτος. Mich. Chon., Schedos (ed. Lambros [1879–80] 1968: II 360.12–17, esp. lines 14–16): οὐ κατὰ τὸν σατυρικὸν κλαυσιγέλωτα . . ., ἀλλ’ ἢ χαρμολύπην κέκληκέ τις ἀσκητικὸς πατὴρ . . . 77 Basil. Caes., Regulae fusius tractatae 17.1 (ed. Migne 1857–66: 31, col. 961) = Ps.Max. Conf., Flor. 57.6 (ed. Ihm 2001) = Flor. Patmense 27.8 (ed. Sargologos 1900): Ἄχρι μὲν γὰρ μειδιάματος φαιδροῦ τὴν διάχυσιν τῆς ψυχῆς ὑποφαίνειν οὐκ ἀπρεπές . . .· ἐκκαγχάζειν δὲ τῇ φωνῇ καὶ ἀναβράσσεσθαι τὸ σῶμα οὐ τοῦ κατεσταλμένου τὴν ψυχὴν οὐδὲ τοῦ περικρατῶς ἔχοντος ἑαυτοῦ.

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opposition. We could call smiling the virtuous relative of the morally questionable laughter.78 Smiling and laughing are clearly regarded as similar reactions, having something in common. It is not clear, however, what this common element is. Sometimes, smiling is the initial stage of laughter and therefore still harmless; occasionally it can also be mixed with laughter.79 At other times, one has the impression that smiling is regarded as a moderate form of laughter, laughter being excessive and transgressing moral guidelines. The position of the  lips seems to constitute the dividing line between them. Constantine  Manasses, in his monody on Theodora Kontostephanaina, extols the deceased  woman’s ‘moderate’ smile which ‘only so much as rushed over her lips’, whereas, the author says, Theodora ‘hated women of unrestrained character whose lips are parted by lascivious laughter’.80 More often than not, smiling has positive connotations.81 Frequently a smile is characterised as serious/noble, sweet, joyful, calm (σεμνόν, γλυκύ, ἱλαρόν, ἥσυχον). Often it expresses joy, but exceptionally also contempt.82 While laughter in hagiographical texts is usually linked to villainous characters and particularly to the opponents of the saint (only Fools in Christ are laughing), smiling is almost exclusively associated with the saint. His or her smile expresses a constant calm attitude, a tranquillity of mind which cannot be perturbed by the vicissitudes of life, particularly not by the attacks of the devil or his ministers, the demons (who laugh at the saint). Sometimes this firm saintly attitude is presented as a permanent state of calm joy. Therefore smiling is related not so much to emotions as to their absence. It is indicative of 78 In modern studies regarding both the past and the present, smiling is usually treated together with laughter (e.g. Halliwell 2008). Jones 2014 is a study exclusively dedicated to the smile. 79 See above, n. 77. Athanasios Athonites (died c. 1000) is praised for his flawless  monastic conduct, which included not only not laughing at a fellow monk, but  even not smiling at him; Vita A Athanasii Athonitae 84.18–20 (ed. Noret 1982): μὴ προσλαλεῖν τῷ πλησίον ἀκαίρως ἢ καὶ εὐκαίρως, μὴ προσγελᾶν ἄχρι καὶ μειδιάματος. Mich. Psel., Epitaph. in patr. Io. Xiphil. 12.33–4 (ed. Polemis 2013 = ed. Sathas 1872–94: IV 436, 5–6) mentions a suppressed half-laughter that appeared as a smile: Ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν ἀκούσας, οὐ πάνυ τι γελασείων, βραχύ τι παρεμειδίασα . . . 80 Constantine Manasses, Or. fun. in Theodoram 145–7 (ed. Kurtz 1900): ὦ ἦθος σωφρονικόν, μειδίαμα σύμμετρον καὶ οἷον μόνοις ἐπιτρέχει τοῖς χείλεσιν . . . ἐμίσει τὰς ἀκρατεῖς, ὅσαις ὁ γέλως πορνεύων τὰ χείλη διίστησι  . . .. On Theodora and Manasses’ text see Sideras 1994: 193–5. In modern times, even in the case of smiling, lips may part and teeth be shown; cf. Jones 2014. 81 In the late Byzantine love romances especially, the heroes smile a lot; see TLG s.v. χαμογελῶ. 82 The compound verb καταμειδιάω usually means a contemptuous form of smiling; see TLG s.v.

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the state of perfection expressed by the saintly smile that several saints are described as dying with a smile on their lips.83 The fictitious Life of Andrew the Fool (tenth century) is a text where the hero-saint is frequently depicted as smiling. One of these passages, where smiling and tears are juxtaposed, clearly demonstrates how the connotations linked to these two bodily symptoms are exploited by the author for his story.84 Πρωΐας δὲ γενομένης πάλιν καθεσθέντες ὡμίλουν τὰ τοῦ πνεύματος. Καὶ δὴ βίβλου ἐκεῖσε κειμένης τοῦ μεγάλου Βασιλείου προετρέψατο ὁ ὅσιος τῷ Ἐπιφανίῳ τοῦ λαβεῖν καὶ ἀναγινώσκειν· ἦν δὲ ὁ λόγος προτρεπτικὸς εἰς τὸ βάπτισμα, οὗ ἡ ἀρχή· “Ὁ μὲν σοφὸς Σολομών.” Τούτου δὲ ἀναγινωσκομένου ἡδέως ἠκροᾶτο ὁ μακάριος, μειδιῶν τῷ προσώπῳ καὶ εὐφραινόμενος, ὁ δὲ Ἐπιφάνιος ἔχεε δάκρυα ἐν τῇ βίβλῳ καὶ στεναγμοὺς ἐκ βαθέων ἀνέπεμπεν. When it had become morning they sat down again and talked about spiritual things. A book of Basil the Great lay on the table. The holy man urged Epiphanios to take it and read it to him. It was the protreptic oration ‘On Baptism’, which begins, ‘The wise Salomon’. The blessed man listened to the reading with pleasure, smiling and rejoicing, while Epiphanios shed tears, wetting the book, and sighed deeply.85 After reading aloud (a passage of) Basil the Great’s Homily on Baptism to Andrew,86 Epiphanios, the saint’s pupil, is moved to tears, whereas the saint joyfully smiles. Why are tears and smiling contrasted here and what is this contrast supposed to tell the reader/listener about the two protagonists? In the homily that the vita refers to, Basil presents all the frightful consequences of dying in a state of sin. Epiphanios is still a novice on the way to God and therefore he experiences katanuxis over his sinful life when reading Basil’s admonitions. Andrew, by contrast, has reached a state of perfection; he is not frightened of 83 Vita brev. Theodori Syceotae I 168, 5–8 (ed. Festugière 1970): Τελουμένης δὲ τῆς παννυχίδος τῆς κατὰ τὸ ἔθος κατὰ σάββατον γιγνομένης, περὶ ὥραν δεκάτην τῆς νυκτὸς ἰδὼν τοὺς ἐπ’ αὐτὸν ἐλθόντας ἁγίους ἀγγέλους καὶ σεμνὸν προσμειδιάσας αὐτοῖς ἐκοιμήθη ἐν εἰρήνῃ. Vita Andreae Sali 4368–72 (ed. Rydén 1995): Κατέλαβε δὲ ἐν τοῖς περιπάτοις τόποις . . . καὶ διὰ πάσης νυκτὸς προσευξάμενος ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐν κινδύνοις καὶ θλίψεσι καὶ ἀνάγκαις καὶ αἰχμαλωσίαις καὶ ὑπὲρ παντὸς τοῦ κόσμου, οὕτως ἐπὶ γῆς ἀνακλιθεὶς καὶ ὁρῶν ἅπαντας τοὺς  ἁγίους ὥσπερ φίλους πρὸς αὐτὸν παραγενομένους μειδιῶν τῷ προσώπῳ ἀφῆκε τὸ πνεῦμα. 84 Vita Andreae Sali 4131–8 (ed. Rydén 1995). 85 English translation by Rydén 1995: II 285. 86 Basil. Caes., Hom. 13 in baptisma (Migne 1857–66: 31, col. 424–44).

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‘messages of the soul’ 145 anything, but faces life and what comes thereafter with tranquil and serene joy. The emotional response (to Basil’s text by both Epiphanios and Andrew) is striking and reminds us of the strength katanyctical texts could develop, and of the deep impression John Kroustoulas’ reading from the Gospel made on his audience at the beginning of this chapter. If we compare the relationship between laughter, tears and smiles and the emotions in Byzantium to common conceptions in the contemporary west, we observe that Byzantine, morally ambivalent, laughter is more related to contempt than to joy; that Byzantine tears are especially strongly connected to contrition, a kind of sorrow barely known nowadays; and finally, that smiling in Byzantium is a sign more of the absence of emotion than of its presence – at least this is the general picture conveyed by texts. The present investigation into tears, laughter and smiles is far from exhaustive. Studies dedicated to specific authors/works are still needed in order to unearth further details and refine the very general lines of interpretation sketched here. The major aim of this chapter is to present certain aspects of the history of emotions in Byzantium and to demonstrate that, for the sake of a better understanding of the texts, it is worth asking why somebody is described as shedding tears, laughing or smiling.

9 TOWARDS A BYZANTINE THEORY OF THE COMIC? Aglae Pizzone

In the last decades scholars have gone some way towards dismantling the prejudice that there was no room for laughter in Byzantine society. In so doing, they have combed the sources looking for tangible evidence of humour or jokes, either verbal or practical. In other cases, the focus has been on the scant traces pointing to the survival of well-defined genres such as mime and satire. Less reflection has been devoted to tracing a ‘Byzantine theory of the comic’, looking at rhetorical or philosophical works. Admittedly such a task is made difficult by the absence of explicit, comprehensive theorisations. As pointed out by Stephen Halliwell,1 no ancient thinker ever aspired to create a universalising theory of laughter. The same surely applies also to Byzantine texts. Statements about laughter and humour are multi-faceted and often change according to the social or historical background and relevant genres.2 There are some constants, however. Even if we cannot grasp a unifying theory of humour we can nevertheless isolate and identify overarching concerns or piece together fragments of theory. Even though these partial statements are often to be found in texts that do not deal primarily with humour, it is nevertheless possible to single out developments characterising the Byzantine approach to comic discursive features. In my chapter I will focus on such ‘fragments’ of theory. In so doing I will first examine what rhetorical handbooks say about comic discourse. In this first part I will highlight the logic-­discursive features of the comic as perceived in rhetorical contexts. Second, I will examine the much-discussed case of tenth-century scholar Arethas of Caesarea.3   1 Halliwell 2008: 11.   2 See Haldon 2002 for humour as a subversive force in Byzantium; Maltese 2005 for a more general survey. I regret that Floris Bernard’s enlightening article on humour in Byzantine letters from the tenth to the twelfth centuries (Bernard 2015) came out too late for me to take proper account of it. Bernard acknowledges that understanding humour and laughter in Byzantine sources poses a substantial challenge for the modern reader.   3 See Marciniak 2011: 144–6

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towards a byzantine theory of the comic? 147 Arethas’ work has been regarded for a long time as a turning point in Byzantine attitudes towards laughter. My analysis will lead to a more nuanced evaluation of his views on laughter and humour and will also introduce the idea of an ‘integrated theory’ of the comic. Finally I will focus on the twelfth century in order to show how the terms previously used in anti-gelastic contexts are capsized in their meaning, thus leading to a new appreciation of laughter.4 PS. HERMOGENES’ ΠΕΡΙ ΚΩΜΙΚΩΣ ΛΈΓΕΙΝ AND ITS BYZANTINE RECEPTION

The inquiry about a rhetorical theory of laughter has a natural starting point in the Hermogenian corpus.5 In the pseudo-Hermogenian Περὶ δεινότητος there is a section Περὶ κωμικῶς λέγειν, describing the features of comic style.6 According to Hermogenes, ‘comic discourse’ proceeds from three features: from parody; from deceived expectations; and from comparisons incompatible with the subject matter. Parody means here wordplays consisting in signifiers that are close in sound but not in meaning. Deceived expectations are based on inconsequential statements. ‘Odd’ comparisons, finally, are obtained by associating ‘low’ and ‘high’ terms, as happens, for instance, in mock heroic texts. It should be noted here that all of the examples listed in the pseudoHermogenian treatise aim not to arouse laughter as a primary goal, but rather to adapt comic strategies, drawn more or less directly from drama, to the persuasive techniques of ‘modern’ declamation.7 In so doing, Hermogenes expands on Rhetoric 3.11 (1412a26–1412b34), where Aristotle explores the amusement caused by unexpected metaphors and punchlines.8 In fact, the typology of jokes emerging from this discursive strategy seems to fit well with the incongruity theory as classically summarised by Morreall:9 In turning now to our second theory of laughter, the incongruity theory, we shift our focus from the emotional or feeling side of laughter to the cognitive or thinking side . . . The basic idea behind the incongruity theory is very general and quite simple. We live in an orderly world, where we have come to expect certain patterns   4 On irony and humour in the twelfth century see also Kolovou 2006.   5 The importance of the corpus in Byzantine learning practice need not be stressed here. See Monfasani 1983; Papaioannou 2013: 61–3.  6 Περὶ μεθόδου δεινότητος 34 (Patillon 2014: 86–7).   7 Patillon 2014: 37–8.   8 See Janko 1984: 71–3; Halliwell 2008: 328.   9 Morreall 1983: 15.

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among things, their properties, events, etc. we laugh when we experience something that doesn’t fit into these patterns. As Pascal put it, ‘Nothing produces laughter more than a surprising disproportion between that which one expects and that which one sees.’ Stephen Halliwell has stressed how ‘classical’ theories of humour – superiority, incongruity and release – fail to capture the complexity of the psychological, social and cultural variables eliciting laughter.10 This is undeniable. And yet Byzantine texts provide us with t­ heoretical statements that often remind us of the principles underlying the classical triad. Beyond doubt, Byzantine rhetorical theory11 fully embraces a cognitive approach to laughter and to the comic. In the twelfth century, Gregory of Corinth (Pardos) provides a comment on Hermogenes’ Περὶ δεινότητος. When he comes to illustrate the ­ paragraph Περὶ κωμικῶς λέγειν he particularly insists on the listeners’ horizons of expectations and on the gelastic power of their disruption:12 Τρεῖς καὶ τούτου μεθόδους ἡμῖν παραδίδωσι, καὶ πρώτην τὸ κατὰ παρῳδίαν· ἔστι δὲ ἡ τοιαύτη παρῳδία, οὐχ ἣν ἤδη φθάσας παρέδωκεν, ἀλλ’ ἑτέρα τις· οἷον παραλλαγή τις οὖσα φωνῆς· δευτέραν τὸ παρὰ προσδοκίαν· ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο, ὅταν παρὰ τὴν δόξαν καὶ τὴν ὑπόληψιν τῶν ἀκροατῶν ἔχῃ τι ὁ λόγος τοῖς προειρημένοις ἐπαγόμενον, ὥστε κινῆσαι πρὸς γέλωτα. Also for that [sc. comic discourse] three techniques are taught to us, and the first one entails parody. And the parody mentioned here is not the one he had already introduced before but another one: this one being a sort of twist of the sound. The second technique consists in going against the expectations: this happens when the discourse features something that, while being introduced by what has been previously said, goes against the opinions and the assumptions of the hearers, so that it induces laughter. By comparison with the commented source, Gregory is much more explicit in stressing the importance of the audience’s beliefs and prospects.13 Moreover, in the Hermogenian original the emphasis was 10 For the social complexity of laughter see Haldon 2002: 48. For a m ­ ethodological distinction between laughter and humour, see Marciniak 2011: 142. 11 And similarly ancient rhetorical theory: see Cicero, De oratore 2.240; Janko 1984: 73. 12 Commentary on Hermogenes’ Περἱ δεινοτήτος 24 (Walz 1834, 7.2: 1332.5–10). 13 This mechanism sustains the comic effect of genres such as mock epic: Bakhtin 1992: 20 ff; Patillon 2014: 38.

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towards a byzantine theory of the comic? 149 rather on the scoptic aspects of comic style – in tune with the persuasive aim of rhetoric – while Gregory seems to shift the focus more explicitly to laughter as well as to the mechanisms that cause it. A further confirmation that the Byzantine viewed the incongruous as a primary source of comic effects comes from the twelfth-century intellectual John Tzetzes, whose verses on poetic genres describe comic style as follows:14 τὸ τοῦ σκοποῦ δὲ πλάσμα καὶ λέξις ἅμα παρεισφοροῦσιν ἡδονὴν κωμῳδίαις καὶ τὸν γέλωτα τοῖς ὁμωνύμοις πλέον ἐσχηματισμένον τε καὶ παρῳδίαις· καὶ κλήσεων πλάσεις δὲ καὶ μεταπλάσεις, σὺν οἷς κορισμοὶ καὶ καταχρήσεις ἅμα. The fictional aim together with the diction are cause of pleasure in comedies and of a great deal of laughter expressed through equivocal words and parodies: both verbal inventions and transformations with which you’ll find hypocorisms and analogic applications of  words.15

Significantly, Tzetzes associates the pleasure arising from fictional content with the laughter deriving from wordplay, thus accounting for the presence of comic modulations in contemporary fictional works.16 As to the mechanisms underlying laughter, Tzetzes elaborates on the devices listed by one of the introductory texts preceding Aristophanes’ comedies in Byzantine manuscripts.17 Once again such devices are ἐκ τῆς λέξεως, that is to say, discursive. The texts that we have seen so far seem to support Kazhdan’s definition of comic discourse in Byzantium, which again has much to do with the notions of congruous/incongruous:18 Here we shall understand the ‘comic’ as an impropriety of situation and wording . . . The improper or comic element can form 14 Verses on comedy 76–81 (Koster 1975: 97–8). On this text see Roilos 2005: ch. 4. 15 Pace Janko (1984: 72), who looks at the text as a ‘Tzetzean farrago of misrememberings’, Tzetzes’ definition is also shaped by Hermogenes’ classification of comic devices (cf. Koster 1975: 98). 16 Roilos 2005: ch. 4. 17 Koster 1975: 13–15. 18 Kazhdan, Sherry and Angelidi 1999: 296.

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the core of a discourse, or be a peripheral issue, or emerge in multiple instances. The mechanism of the comic is here a break in logic, setting up the unreasonable and outlandish as a reality side by side with the ‘facts’ accepted by a normal reader as real, an interweaving of fiction into a fabric or reality. If Kazhdan is right, then humour had a primarily logical-discursive dimension in Byzantium. As Hermogenes’ and Gregory’s texts show, this dimension is steeped in rhetorical thinking. However, as we shall see, this aspect is not, by any means, exclusive. Rhetorical handbooks serve their own purpose and of course the discursive-cognitive aspect predominates. Other texts, with other agendas, tackle the issue from a different perspective. Humour can also be explored from a quintessentially physiological and psychological point of view. Before addressing this aspect, however, one further point about ‘rhetorical-cognitive’ humour needs to be made. Aristotle had already given evidence of ethical and aesthetic concerns about comic effects arising from incongruous metaphors and wordplays. There is a subtle line dividing inappropriate metaphors, which are unintentionally ridiculous as well as ψυχρά (frigid),19 and incongruous metaphors, intentionally funny. Needless to say, similar concerns find fertile ground in Christian authors. The fourteenth-century rhetorical handbook composed by the monk Joseph Rakendytes allows us to appreciate an example of excessively ‘comic’ – qua ­inappropriate – language. In reviewing different sorts of ψυχρολογία (‘vain talking’), Rakendytes also lists comic discourse, providing evidence of an incongruous usage of metaphors, mixing low and high notions:20 γίνεται ψυχρολογία πολλάκις καὶ ὅτε εἰς κωμικήν τινα γελοιότητα καταφέρῃ τις τοὺς λόγους, ὡς ἐκεῖνο· μέλλων γάρ τις εἰπεῖν περὶ ὀπωρῶν, ὅτι οὐκ αὐθιγενεῖς καὶ ἐγχώριοι, ἀλλ’ ἐξ ἀλλοδαπῶν κομίζονται πόῤῥωθεν, εἶπεν ὡς αἰχμάλωτοι ἄγονται· καὶ τὰ μὲν σύκα πρὸς τὸ πολὺ τῆς ὁδοιπορίας ἰλιγγιάσαντα ἐμεμήκασι τὸ μέλι· οἱ δὲ συκιοὶ ἐγγηράσαντες τοῖς φορμοῖς ὡς εἱρκταῖς ἐρυτιδώθησαν· καὶ οἱ ἄπεις παγκρατιασταὶ ἀλλήλους τραυματίσαντες ἐκ τοῦ συστενοῦσθαι ἐν τοῖς φορμοῖς· ταῦτα καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα κωμικώτερα καὶ φευκτέα τοῖς λογογράφοις. We often also have vain talking when the discourse is led towards some sort of comic funniness, as for example: one who wanted to 19 Rhetoric 3.3 (1406b5–7). 20 Joseph Rakendytes, Synopsis de arte rhetorica 8 (Walz 1843: iii.542).

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towards a byzantine theory of the comic? 151 speak about fruits, which were not locally grown but came from distant foreign lands, said that they were dragged like prisoners; and the figs, fainting because of the long travels, vomit honey; and the dates21 growing old in the basket were wrinkled as if they had spent time in prison; and the pears22 (were like) fighters beating each other from being confined together in the baskets. These and similar rather comic things are to be avoided by writers.

This passage shows what kind of infelicitous jokes an extreme version of the Hermogenian theory could produce. An ascetic and a passionate scholar of ancient philosophy, Joseph Rakendytes was in correspondence with the best minds of his time. The rhetorical handbook from which our passage is taken was part of his Synopsis, a comprehensive, ‘encyclopaedic’ survey of all possible knowledge.23 The aim of the Synopsis was therefore highly prescriptive and the work was designed to be a testament to its author and his worldview. It therefore comes as no surprise that Rakendytes’ attitude towards comic discourse somewhat fits the anti-gelastic approach of the earlier Fathers. However, as anticipated, more nuanced and more complex theorisations about humour and the comic do exist. In order to trace them, one needs to go beyond rhetorical handbooks and concentrate on works dealing with psychology and anthropology. ARETHAS AND THE NON-NECESSITY OF LAUGHTER Arethas has always been a central author in any discussion of laughter in Byzantium. His statement that ‘laughter is as natural as neighing is for a horse’ was taken by Kazhdan as a sign of change in the way tenth-century authors evaluated laughter.24 Marciniak has recently cast some doubt on the positive character of Arethas’ statement, noting that Clement of Alexandria also resorted to the horse example, but made it clear that this does not at all mean that horses neigh all the time, just as men do not laugh all the time.25 Truth, perhaps, lies somewhere in the middle. In order to clarify this point, we need to take 21 συκιοί is not attested elsewhere, at least to my knowledge. Given the description, their provenance from the Near East and the fact that dates could also have different names besides the plainer τοῦ φοίνικος ὁ καρπός, the proposed translation seemed the most reasonable one. On dates in the diet of the Byzantine, see Harvey 1989: 173; Talbot 2002: 52; Dalby 2010. 22 ἄπεις is again problematic. The regular form for ‘pears’ should be ἄπια or ἀπίδες, but the form ἄπεις is also attested elsewhere (see Trapp et al. 1994–, s.v. ἄπις). 23 Toth 2007: 434–5; Gielen 2013. 24 Kazhdan and Angelidi 2006: 82–3. 25 Marciniak 2011: 144–5.

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the context of Arethas’ statement about laughing and neighing more closely into account. Furthermore, it is necessary to look at Arethas’ work more broadly, in order to understand how he dealt with humour in his writings in practical terms. To this end I will first focus on a text that plays a central and programmatic role in Arethas’ rhetorical production. I refer to the short piece through which he replies to a friend of his who had criticised the obscurity of his style. In the piece’s central passage, Arethas goes to some lengths to enumerate and illustrate the characteristic features of his logos. In so doing, he consciously concocts a sort of patchwork of Aristotelian and Hermogenian precepts. The result is a consistent rhetorical theory, in which humour and comic discourse also play a role:26 πᾶν γὰρ ὃ λόγων οἶδεν ἀφροδίτην ἐπάγεσθαι, τοῦτο σαφῶς ἐπισύρεται· λέξιν ἀμφιλαφῆ τε καὶ ἀνθηρὰν καὶ ᾗπερ ἥ τε σκηνὴ ἐνηβρύνατο καὶ πᾶς ᾧ μέλον τοῦ διεσμιλευμένου ἐνηγλαΐσατο· παροιμίαις καὶ ἀπομνημονεύμασι, προσέτι καὶ παρῳδίαις τε καὶ κολλήσεσιν ὥς τισι ψήφοις πολυτελέσι κατέστικται· Γοργιείων σκιρτημάτων οὐκ ἐπιλέλησται· σκώμμασι καὶ διασυρμοῖς παιδευτικῶς ἄγαν προσκέχρηται, τὰ μὲν δοκοῦντα σπουδαῖα παίζειν κατεπειγόμενος, τὰ δὲ γελοῖα τοῖς ἀσυνέτοις σπουδαῖα δεικνύναι φιλοτιμούμενος, ὡς μᾶλλον μὲν τοῦ σπουδαίου τὸ γελοῖον φιλεῖν, μᾶλλον δὲ τὸ περὶ τὸ γελοῖον σπουδαῖον θαυμάζοντας ἀποδέχεσθαι· ἀστειολογίαις δὲ κατὰ τὸ εὐτράπελον, οὐδ’ ὅλως ἀγριότητος αὐτῷ παρεμφαινομένης, μάλα σεμνῶς ἀγαλλόμενος. For he clearly makes the most of all the discursive features providing pleasure: a copious and flowery style, a style on which the stage prides itself and with which any man caring for refinement adorns himself; it is punctuated with proverbs and memorable sayings, and also insertions of verse and combinations of verse and prose,27 as if they were precious tesserae; it does not forget Gorgian leaps either; it also resorts to jests and ridicule, so as to teach, pressing what seems serious, but aiming at showing risible matters as serious to the ones unable to understand, so that they come to like the ridicule better than the serious, but they are more ready to receive the serious surrounding the ridicule, while admiring it; and it exults in witticisms with adroitness, with decorum and without showing any rudeness. 26 Op. 17 (Westerink 1968: 188.22–189.4). 27 Cf. Περὶ μεθόδου δεινότητος 30 (Patillon 2014: 81–2).

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Significantly, the passage comes after a mention of Aristophanes’ Peace and focuses on how suitably humour may fit in the style of a Christian rhetor. Arethas is very cautious, and stresses many times that the use of jests and jokes should never transgress the boundaries of good taste. Moreover, comic overtones have a very precise purpose. In his critical apparatus, Westerink28 suggests that the way in which Arethas conceptualises his own version of spoudaiogeloion draws on Aristotle’s Rhetoric 3.18 (1419b3–7). In the relevant passage Aristotle endorses Gorgias’ opinion that the spoudaion has to be overcome by the geloion and vice versa. The context is, however, very different. In Aristotle and his model, deliberative or even judiciary rhetoric is at centre stage. Arethas takes a somewhat different stance. The key is the adverb παιδευτικῶς: Arethas’ concerns, at least on paper, are mainly educative. Indeed, Arethas puts forward what I would refer to as an ‘integrated’ theory of the comic (and of laughter). In this definition, ‘integrated’ has a double meaning. Comic discourse is integrated into the rhetorical texture of Arethas’ style. Moreover it serves more general (didactic) purposes. It does not exist per se, as a self-sufficient discursive feature. On the other hand, such an ‘ancillary’ character of humour perfectly matches the psychological and ontological status of laughter, as outlined by Arethas in his philosophical work. Didacticism always plays a primary role in the processes of acceptance of the comic in Byzantine culture. Arethas seems to hint here at the notion of a double audience:29 far from being obscure, his style can also appeal to less refined audiences, enticed by the lightness and wit of the text. We are worlds away from the gratuitous wit and the humble subject matter of the text criticised by Rakendytes. Didacticism helps also later authors justify the presence of humorous overtones in the writings of the much-revered Fathers, as is shown by the following passage drawn from John Siceliotes’ commentary on Hermogenes’ Περὶ ἰδεῶν:30 εἰρωνεῖαι δὲ ὡς αὕτη ἔστω· ὑψηλὸς σὺ καὶ ὑπὲρ τὰς νεφέλας, εἰ βούλει, ὁ τῶν ἀθεάτων θεατὴς, ὁ τῶν ἀῤῥήτων ἀκροατὴς, ὁ μετὰ Ἠλίαν μετάρσιος, καὶ μετὰ Μωσέα θεοφανείας ἠξιωμένος· εἰρωνεῖαι μὲν οὖν αἱ τοιαῦται, ἀλλὰ κατὰ βαρύτητα μᾶλλον ἢ χλεύην· χλεύη μὲν γάρ ἐστιν εἰρωνεία μετὰ μειδιάματος καὶ σκώμματος λεληθότως· 28 Op. 17 (Westerink 1968: 188.22–189.4. 29 Such notions surface time and again, especially in eleventh-century literature. See Høgel 2002: 24, 145–6; Cavallo 2012. Bernard 2015 highlights the importance of witticisms and urbanity in the social discourse of the Constantinopolitan elite. 30 Commentary on Hermogenes’ περὶ ἰδεῶν 48 (Walz 1834: 441.5–18).

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ἡ δὲ μὴ ἔχουσά τι τοιοῦτον εἰρωνεία λέγεται μετὰ βαρύτητος ὡς αὕτη· οὐ γὰρ παίζει ὁ ἅγιος, ἀλλ’ ἐλεῶν τοὺς ἄφρονας ταῦτα λέγει· Παῦλος δὲ καὶ τοῦτο ἐτόλμησεν, οὗ σὺ διδάσκαλος δηλαδή· καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς· εἰσὶ δὲ καὶ οἱ διασυρμοὶ μετὰ βαρύτητος· ἀνάγονται δὲ καὶ οὗτοι εἰς τὰς εἰρωνείας, ὡς τὰ τοιαῦτα· τὸ δὲ τῆς τραπέζης φιλότιμον, τὸ δὲ τῆς ἐσθῆτος αἰδέσιμον, αἱ δὲ πρόοδοι καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς, εἴτε ὑπὸ τῶν ἐγκαλούντων φαίη τις εἰρῆσθαι, εἴτε ὑπὸ τοῦ μεγάλου βαρύτητός εἰσι διὰ τῶν ἐναντίων τὰ ἐναντία δηλούσης. Let an example of irony be the following: ‘You are lofty, even loftier than the clouds – if you wish, a spectator of things invisible, a hearer of things unspeakable, ascending after Elias, you have been deemed worthy of the vision of God after Moses’ (Gr. Naz., Or. 27, 9.3). We have here forms of irony, but of the kind that is accompanied by indignation rather than by jest. As a matter of fact, jest is a sort of irony secretly accompanied by a smile and by a joke. Indeed, the holy man is not joking, but is pitying the senseless, when he says: ‘Paul, whom you clearly taught, also dared to do so, etc.’ (Gr. Naz. Or. 36, PG 36.357). Disparagement can also go together with indignation. It can also amount to irony, as in the following sentence: a lavish table, dress that elicits respect, and parading in public, etc.: either one could say that these words are spoken by opponents or they are pronounced with the greatest of indignation, which says opposite things by means of opposite things. Relying on a series of polemic passages found in Gregory of Nazianzus, John Siceliotes points out that the Fathers exclusively resorted to the ‘serious’ sort of irony,31 avoiding jokes and smiles. Irony, moreover, was used with the serious aim of refuting heretics and instructing in the truth. I would now like to go back to Arethas’ statement about laughter in humans and animals. The sentence mentioned by Kazhdan may refer to two passages by Arethas: a work addressed to the emperor Leo, where it is said that horses do not laugh, just as men do not neigh;32 or a lengthy passage from Arethas’ commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge. In fact, as Marciniak emphasises, Arethas did not work out the comparison between horses and men by himself. Rather than from Clement of Alexandria, however, it is more likely that the whole 31 On irony in Byzantium see Neville 2012: 32 n.18 with previous literature and the more recent Braounou 2014; 2016. 32 Op. 69 (Westerink 1972: 86.19–20).

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towards a byzantine theory of the comic? 155 notion is taken from chapter 4 of Porphyry’s Isagoge, dedicated to the exegesis of the category of ἴδιον:33 τέταρτον δέ, ἐφ’ οὗ συνδεδράμηκεν τὸ μόνῳ καὶ παντὶ καὶ ἀεί, ὡς τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ τὸ γελαστικόν· κἂν γὰρ μὴ γελᾷ ἀεί, ἀλλὰ γελαστικὸν λέγεται οὐ τῷ ἀεὶ γελᾶν ἀλλὰ τῷ πεφυκέναι· τοῦτο δὲ ἀεὶ αὐτῷ σύμφυτον ὑπάρχει, ὡς καὶ τῷ ἵππῳ τὸ χρεμετιστικόν. ταῦτα δὲ καὶ κυρίως ἴδιά φασιν, ὅτι καὶ ἀντιστρέφει· εἰ γὰρ ἵππος, χρεμετιστικόν, καὶ εἰ χρεμετιστικόν, ἵππος. In the fourth place, it is that in which it concurs (to happen) to one species alone, and to every (individual of it), and always, as the ability to laugh to man; for though he does not always laugh, yet he is said to be able to laugh, not from his always laughing, but from being naturally adapted to laugh, and this is always inherent in him, in the same way as neighing in a horse. They say also that these are validly properties, because they reciprocate, since if any thing be a horse it is capable of neighing, and if any thing be capable of neighing it is a horse.

The ability to laugh (τὸ γελαστικόν) is taken by Porphyry just as an example to illustrate what is idion (proper, particular) to a given subject. Laughter is not, by any means, Porphyry’s central concern. On the contrary, when Arethas comes to explain our passage, his attention is almost exclusively focused on the ontological definition of laughter, rather than on the notion of idion itself. He resorts to his predecessors, Ammonios and Alexander of Aphrodisias,34 who also commented on the Isagoge, in order to scrutinise Porphyry’s stance. And here comes the surprise: Arethas does not agree at all with Porphyry; he thinks that laughter is neither idion (‘proper’) nor ousiōdes (‘essential’) to human beings. Quite the contrary: he agrees with those who think that laughter is also common to other animals, though, admittedly, not to all of them. I think that it is worthwhile to follow his arguments, given that the topic of laughter as a quintessentially human feature is so important to medieval culture. Arethas starts by questioning the very basic assumptions put forward by Porphyry:35 Ζητεῖται δὲ περὶ τοῦ γελαστικοῦ ταῦτα· πρῶτον εἰ ἴδιον, ὡς Πορφυρίῳ δοκεῖ, ἔπειτα εἰ οὐσιῶδες, καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο ὑπὸ ποίας δυνάμεως 33 Porphyry, Isagoge (Busse 1887]: iv.12.17–22); cf. also Arethas, Op. 69 (Westerink 1972: 86.19–20). 34 See apparatus in Share 1994: 110. 35 Scholion 165.79–82 (Westerink 1972: 110.26–9).

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προβάλλεται τοῦτο τῶν ἐν ἡμῖν, ἀλόγου ἢ λογικῆς ἢ φυτικῆς, ὡσαύτως καὶ ποίας τούτων ἐνεργείας. As for the ability to laugh, the following questions are raised: first, if, as Porphyrius thinks, it is proper, second if it is essential, and, after that, through which power, among those belonging to us, such an ability is put forward: whether through the irrational power, or the rational one, or else the vegetative one, and similarly through which function of these. As a second step, Arethas brings in the authority of Ammonios, who opposed the idea that (1) laughter is only human, and (2) laughter is always inherent to men and their ability to express their emotions:36 Ἀμμώνιος μὲν οὖν ὁ μέγας οὐ μόνου ἀνθρώπου φησὶ τὸ γελαστικόν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐρῳδιοῦ, καὶ ὅτι οὐκ ἀεὶ αὐτῷ ὑπάρχει, ἀλλὰ καί ποτε χωρίζεται αὐτοῦ, ὡς ἀπὸ τῶν ἐν Τροφωνίου γενομένων ἔστι μαθεῖν· οὗτοι γὰρ τῷ φόβῳ τῶν ἐκεῖ κολαστηρίων καὶ φόνων ἀγέλαστοι τὸν ἔπειτα διεγίνοντο χρόνον. εἰ δὲ χωρίζεται, ὡς ἐκ τῆς ἐπαγωγῆς ἐδείχθη, πάντως οὐκ ἴδιον· τὸ γὰρ προσδιορισμῷ χρώμενον τῷ ποτὲ οὐκ ἴδιον. Ἐκ τούτου καὶ ὅτι οὐδὲ οὐσιωδῶς ἡμῖν ὑπάρχει κατασκευάσαι τις ἄν· τὸ γὰρ οὐσιῶδες οὐδ’ ἐπινοίᾳ χωρίζεται τοῦ ὑποκειμένου. The great Ammonios says that the ability to laugh does not belong to man alone, but also to the heron, and that man does not possess it constantly, but at times it is separated from him, as indicated by those who had been in the cave of Trophonios:37 those people, out of fear of the punishments and killings they saw there, were unable to laugh for the rest of their life. Therefore, if it is separated, it is not, in any way, proper, as shown through induction: what needs further temporal definition is not proper. On this basis, one could argue that it is not essential to us: what is essential is never conceptually separable from the subject. 36 Scholion 165.83–9 (Share 1994: 110.31–111.2). 37 The cave of Trophonius was a seat of incubation rituals at Levadia and possibly provided the ‘blueprint’ for Plato’s cave: see Bonnechère 2003; Meier 2009: 77–106; Kindt 2010; 2012: 40–1 with previous bibliography. Arethas is alluding here to the legend of Parmeniscus, narrated by Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 14.2. The direct source mentioned by Arethas, namely Ammonios, cannot be traced. Share points to David, a sixth-century philosopher, and his Commentary on the Isagoge (Busse 1904: 204.14–16).

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As a third step, Arethas mentions Alexander of Aphrodisias’ work,38 arguing that to idion is always connected to perfective activities. However, were laughter idion to men, this would mean granting it a very high axiological position, which is logically unacceptable:39 Ἀλέξανδρος μέντοι ὁ Ἀφροδισιεὺς ἔν τισι μονοβίβλοις καὶ δι’ ἑτέρων περὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐπιχειρεῖ· φησὶ γὰρ ὅτι αἱ οὐσιώδεις ἐνέργειαι τελειωτικαὶ τῶν ὑποκειμένων, ὡς τὸ νοῦ καὶ ἐπιστήμης δεκτικόν, εἰ δὲ καὶ τὸ γελᾶν ἐνέργεια οὐσιώδης, πάντως καὶ τελειωτική. ἀλλὰ μὴν τὸ γελᾶν οὐ τελειοῖ· οὐδὲ γὰρ ὁ μᾶλλον γελῶν μᾶλλον τέλειος· οὐκ ἄρα τὸ γελᾶν συμπληρωτικὸν τῆς οὐσίας ἡμῶν. To be sure, Alexander of Aphrodisias in some of his monographs treats the issue using other arguments too: he says that essential functions are perfective οf the relevant subjects, as in the case of what is capable of intelligence and knowledge, therefore, if laughing is also an essential function, it will necessarily be perfective. However, laughing does not make one perfect; nor are people who laugh more more perfect: therefore laughing does not fulfil our essence. Fourth, laughter is devoid of any self-regulating capability and therefore must be regulated by the rational principle. This means that it falls outside the domain of rationality, which is quintessentially human:40 ἀλλ’ ἴσως ἐρεῖ τις ὡς συμπληρωτικὸν τοῦτο ὅταν, ἐφ’ οἷς δέον καὶ ἡνίκα καὶ ὅσον γίνηται. ἀλλὰ τοῦτο ὁ ἐπιστατῶν ποιεῖ νοῦς, ὥσπερ καὶ τὸν θυμὸν ῥυθμίζει, οὐ μέντοι καὶ ἡ γελαστικὴ δύναμις. ἀλλὰ πάλιν ἀπόρῳ ἐνεχόμεθα, τὸ ἐκ τοῦ ὑποδείγματος τοῦ θυμοῦ οὐσιώδη ἀναγκασθῆναι ὡς τὸν θυμὸν εἰπεῖν καὶ τὸν γέλωτα. ἀλλὰ πάλιν φαμὲν ὅτι τοῦτο ἀληθές, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἁπλῶς ζῴῳ, οὐ μέντοι καὶ ὡς ἀνθρώπῳ· μᾶλλον δὲ οὐδὲ ὡς ζῴῳ, ἐπεὶ πάντα ἂν ἐγέλα ζῷα, ὥσπερ καὶ θυμοῦται. But perhaps someone could say that laughing does fulfil our essence, when it happens for the appropriate reasons, in the 38 In fact Alexander of Aphrodisias uses ‘Everything capable of laughter is a human being, nothing capable of laughter is a horse’ as a stock syllogism in his Commentary on Aristotle’s Topica I 1.1 (for translations and notes see Van Ophuijsen 2014: 3–4). As for the specific books mentioned by Arethas, they are again not to be traced (see David, Commentary on the Isagoge; Busse 1904: 203.11–7). 39 Scholion 165.90–7 (Share 1994: 111.3–8). 40 Scholion 165.97–104 (Share 1994: 111.8–15).

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appropriate circumstances and in the appropriate quantity: and yet it is the mind that manages it, being in charge, just as it harmoniously orders the spirited part; this is not, certainly, the task of the laughing power. But again, we are threatened by the logical difficulty, so that we are forced to say, according to the example of the appetitive part, that the ability to laugh is essential, just like the appetitive part. And yet, again, we admit that this is true, but for man qua an animal, and not for man qua a human being. And not even for man qua an animal, because in this case any animal would be able to laugh, just as any animal gets angry. Finally, Arethas tackles the problem from a physiological and cultural perspective, showing that any excess of laughter is harmful:41 ἔστι καὶ ἄλλως ἐπιχειρῆσαι· εἰ γὰρ τὸ γελᾶν οὐσιῶδες, πάντως καὶ τὸ κλαίειν, καὶ οὕτως εὑρεθήσεται τὰ ἐναντία συνυπάρχοντα καὶ συμπληροῦντα τὸ αὐτό, ὅπερ ὁ φυσικὸς οὐκ ἐπιτρέπει λόγος. ἀλλ’ ἀσθενὲς τοῦτο· οὐ γὰρ περὶ τῆς ἐνεργείας, ἀλλὰ περὶ τῆς δυνάμεως ὁ λόγος, ᾗ οὐδὲν ἀντικεῖται, ὡς ἡ ὄψις μαρτυρεῖ τὰ ἐναντία δυνάμει. ἔτι οὐδὲν οὐσιῶδες αὐξόμενον φθείρει τὸ ὑποκείμενον, τὸ δὲ γελαστικὸν Πέρσαι φθαρτικὸν καὶ πρὸς κόλασιν ἐπενόησαν· τῇ γὰρ ὑπερβολῇ χύσις κατὰ παντὸς τοῦ σώματος τοῦ αἵματος παρακολουθεῖ, ἥτις πνιγμὸν ἀποτελεῖ. Γίνεται δὲ διὰ νεύρων καὶ μυῶν. ταῦτα δὲ οὐ τῆς φυτικῆς, οὐ τῆς λογικῆς ψυχῆς· οὐ γὰρ διὰ σώματος ἐνεργεῖ αὕτη, οὔτε δοξάζουσα, οὐ διανοουμένη, οὐ λογιζομένη. λείπεται ἄρα διὰ μόνης τῆς ἀλόγου γίνεσθαι ψυχῆς. But it is also possible to tackle the issue in another way: if laughing were essential, then necessarily crying would also be essential, and so we would have two opposites co-existing and fulfilling the same task, a conclusion that natural science does not concede. But this is feeble. We are not talking about actuality, but about potentiality, which does not have any opposite, as testified by sight when it comes to potentially opposite things. Furthermore, nothing essential destroys the subject as it grows, whereas the Persians thought that the ability to laugh is destructive and needs to be curbed: when it is excessive, it brings about a dispersion of blood in the whole body, which produces suffocation. And it goes through the nerves and the muscles. These things are proper neither to the vegetative soul nor to the rational soul: it does not  operate through the body, nor does it have opinions, 41 Scholion 165.104–17 (Share 1994: 111.15–28).

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towards a byzantine theory of the comic? 159 reasoning or intelligence. What is left is that it happens through the irrational soul. Unfortunately we cannot ascertain the degree of originality of Arethas’ commentary. Besides the explicit mention of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Ammonios, the substantial overlap with David’s commentary highlighted by Share42 seems to suggest that both were relying on the same source(s). Obviously enough, Arethas’ refutation does not confine itself to countering Porphyry, a pagan philosophical source; more strikingly, it also runs counter to the very influential treatise On the nature of man, often ascribed to Gregory of Nyssa, but actually penned by Nemesius of Emesa, possibly in the fourth century. In fact, Nemesius too embraces the idea that laughter is proper to man and man alone:43 καὶ ὥσπερ ἴδιόν ἐστι τῆς οὐσίας αὐτοῦ τὸ γελαστικόν, ἐπειδὴ καὶ μόνῳ τούτῳ πρόσεστι καὶ παντὶ καὶ ἀεί, οὕτως ἐν τοῖς κατὰ χάριν ἴδιον ἀνθρώπου παρὰ πᾶσαν τὴν λογικὴν κτίσιν τὸ διὰ τῆς μετανοίας ἀποδύεσθαι τῶν προημαρτημένων τὰς αἰτίας. As the power of laughter is a special property of his being, since it is present in him alone, in all and always, so in the matters of grace it is special to man among the whole rational creation to throw off through repentance the blame for sins committed. (trans. Sharples and van der Eijk 2008: 45) Nemesius significantly couples laughter and the ability to repent, thus casting a not entirely negative light on the human ability to laugh. Such a stance is fully in tune with Nemesius’ general tendency to redeem human senses and passions and justify them within the divine cosmic design.44 In this respect, Arethas’ attitude is much more on the anti-gelastic side. Nonetheless, the views he expresses in his rhetorical work are perfectly consistent with the philosophical treatment of laughter in the Isagoge commentary. In both cases, laughter and comic discourse, however natural and accepted, are not essential. They do not stand by themselves, but rather obey a superior principle. Moreover, both laughter and comic features must not be excessive, lest they bring about damage, either stylistic or physiological. 42 Share 1994: 110–11. 43 On the nature of man 1.10 (on the treatise and its background see Sharples and van der Eijk 2008: 1–7, and 45 for our passage). 44 See Pizzone 2012: 65 and n.

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Thanks to this approach, Arethas manages to redeem notions such as asteiologia and eutrapelia that were deemed highly problematic by Christians. Some decades before Arethas, Photios, writing to his godson Boris-Michael of Bulgaria, clearly advises him against the social dangers of being eutrapelos:45 Πολλοὺς ἔβλαψεν εὐτραπελία· ἀπὸ γὰρ γνώμης διεκπεσοῦσα παιζούσης καιρία πληγὴ γέγονεν τοῖς διαπαιχθεῖσιν, καὶ βραχείᾳ τέρψει τῶν ἐπιτυχόντων μεγάλας ἔτεκεν ἔχθρας τῶν σπουδαίων. ἣν παντὶ μὲν ἔμφρονι παραφυλακτέον, ἄρχοντι δὲ μάλιστα τῶν ἄλλων, ὅτι καὶ χυδαῖον καὶ καταφρονεῖσθαι μᾶλλον ἢ χαριεντίζεσθαι παρασκευάζει. Wittiness has destroyed many people: escaping from a joking mind it turns into a fatal blow to those who are laughed at, and a short-lived delight for the bystanders produces much hatred in those who are morally good. It must be avoided by anyone in their right mind, and especially by those who are in charge, because it is coarse and leads to contempt rather than to merriment. After all, contemporary lexica glosses on eutrapelia use only derogatory terms: mōrologia, kouphotēs, apaideusia.46 Such a disparaging attitude is also alive and well in the eleventh century. The only neutral statements regarding eutrapelia are in fact based on quotations or paraphrases of Aristotle’s Nicomachaean Ethics.47 Even Psellos, in singing the praises of the late Michael Keroularios, cannot but stress the absence of eutrapelia in the patriarch’s speech:48 τὸ γὰρ ἀγοραῖον καὶ βωμολόχον καὶ τῆς γνώμης πόρρω ποιησάμενος καὶ τῆς γλώττης, ἀντὶ τῆς εὐτραπελείας καὶ τῆς ἐντεῦθεν ἡδύτητος, τὴν ἔννομον καὶ ἀκριβῆ τῶν τε λόγων καὶ τῶν ἠθῶν χάριν ἐτήρησε. While removing from his language and his thought any vulgarity and coarseness, he did not embrace wittiness and therefore sweetness, but he preserved the lawful and strict grace of words and manners. 45 Ep. 1 (Laourdas and Westerink 1983: 35.1086–90). On the letter see Stratoudaki White and Berrigan 1982. 46 Cf. Suda, Ε 3771 (Adler 1931: ii.475.13). 47 Nicomachean Ethics 1108a23–6. See e.g. Psellus, De omnifaria doctrina 80.8–12 (Westerink 1948: 49); John Italus, Quaestiones Quodlibetales 63.32 (Joannou 1956: 94–95). 48 Eulogy for Michael Keroularios 29–32 (Sathas 1874: 306.29–32).

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In this passage Psellos hints at and implicitly counters Aristotle on  εὐτραπελία, looking at sweetness as a mere superfluity.49 Against this background Arethas’ letter emerges even more starkly. He is clearly responding to a series of stock accusations, turning the tables on his detractors. To this end, he appropriates the allegation of being eutrapelos, paradoxically coupling this ‘flaw’ with semnotēs. Aristotle’s Nicomachaean Ethics is possibly again hinted at in the mention of agriotēs. Indeed, according to Aristotle a complete lack of eutrapelia would lead to agroikia (boorishness). On the contrary, Arethas states that his diction achieves the goal of being dignified without losing all its graces. Such a mixture, moreover, has a commendable aim, as it intends to reach the broadest possible audience. To sum up, in Arethas we find a more nuanced conception of humour and laughter, even though not one of unconditional approval. He creates an integrated theory of the comic, coupling psychology and rhetoric. He moreover finds a teleological justification for eutrapelia in the didactic purpose of his writing. As we shall see, such a nexus of psychology and rhetoric will surface again. Didacticism, on the contrary, will give way to sheer entertainment. LAUGHTER AS DIACHUSIS In his homilies on the Pauline Epistle to the Hebrews the proverbially anti-gelastic John Chrysostom has an exceptional moment of tolerance. Amidst a fierce polemic he acknowledges the possibility of a socially acceptable form of laughter, one that does not yield to complete debauchery:50 Οὐ κακὸν ὁ γέλως, ἀλλὰ κακὸν τὸ παρὰ μέτρον, τὸ ἄκαιρον. Ὁ γέλως ἔγκειται ἐν ἡμῖν, ἵν’, ὅταν φίλους ἴδωμεν διὰ μακροῦ χρόνου, τοῦτο ποιῶμεν, ὅταν τινὰς καταπεπληγμένους καὶ δεδοικότας, ἀνῶμεν αὐτοὺς τῷ μειδιάματι, οὐχ ἵνα ἀνακαγχάζωμεν, καὶ ἀεὶ γελῶμεν· ὁ γέλως ἔγκειται τῇ ψυχῇ τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ, ἵνα ἀνῆταί ποτε ἡ ψυχὴ, οὐχ ἵνα διαχέηται

49 According to Aristotle, eutrapelia is the golden mean between coarseness and rusticity and produces sweetness. Michael, on the contrary, is able to remove coarseness without indulging in wittiness. Cf. also Psellos, Or. 4.521 (Dennis 1994: 77), where Aristotle is explicitly mentioned. Psellos here praises the sweetness of the king’s style, without, however, mentioning εὐτραπελία. 50 In ep. Hebr. 15.4 (PG 63.122). On this passage see Halliwell 2008: 509–10, who notes John’s ‘very rare gesture of compromise’.

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There is nothing wrong with laughter as such; what is wrong is to practise it excessively and at the wrong time. Laughter has been planted in our nature, so that when we see friends after a long interval we may behave this way, or when we see people distraught and afraid, we may soothe them with a smile – but not so that we should guffaw and always be laughing! Laughter has been planted in our soul so that our soul may sometimes be relaxed, but not dissipated. (trans. Halliwell 2008: 509) The key term here is διαχέηται. In Stoic philosophy diachusis was famously linked to passions and to the involuntary movements of the soul that the mind could not control, according to Posidonius.51 Yet diachusis, qua internal relaxation, is also closely connected to the physiology of laughter, as emerges from a text by Pseudo-Alexander of Aphrodisias,52 later excerpted by Psellos:53 Τὸν σπλῆνά τινές φασιν αἴτιον τοῦ γέλωτος καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἐπὶ τῶν σκιρρουμένων σπληνῶν τοὺς πάσχοντας μὴ γελᾶν, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον κατηφεῖς εἶναι. κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς ὁ σπλὴν αἴτιον τοῦ γέλωτος· ἀπὸ γὰρ τοῦ ἥπατος τὸν τρυγώδη καὶ μελαγχολικὸν χυμὸν ἐρρωμένως ἔχων καθαίρει καὶ διάχυσις ἐντεῦθεν γέλωτος γίνεται. Some say that the spleen causes laughter and because of that those who suffer from chronic affections of the spleen do not laugh, but are rather sombre. The spleen causes laughter contingently: when the spleen is in good health, it cleans the thick and wistful humour in the liver and from there arises the relaxation of laughter. Inner relaxation is often indicated by John Chrysostom as an evil hallmark of laughter.54 Such an internal state also corresponds to a distinctive external appearance, to socially inacceptable facial expressions, associated with undignified bursts of laughter.55 Criticisms of unbecoming ‘facial relaxation’ surface time and again, especially in hagiographic texts.56 However, while relaxation and relief linked to 51 On diachusis and Stoicism see Sedley 1993: 329–30; Sorabji 2000: 30, 40; Sharples 2010: 148. 52 Problemata I 136. 53 Collection of diverse and necessary things (Opusculum 55.734–9, Duffy 1992: 262). 54 De Virginitate 73.27 (Musurillo and Grillet 1966: 355); Against those who live with virgins 3.10 (Dumortier 1955: 52). 55 In ep. Hebr. 15.4 (PG 63.122); Cf. De Virginitate 63.40–5 (Grillet and Musurillo 1966: 329). 56 Cf. Olympiodorus, Commentary on Ecclesiastes (PG 93.561); John of Damascus, Praise of John Chrysostomus 13.5–6 (Kotter 1988: 366). Internal relaxation is also

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laughter are mainly cast in a negative light in most early and middle Byzantine texts, a shift is clearly to be noticed at the end of the twelfth century. As has been stressed by other contributors, during the twelfth century there is a revival of the satirical genre. Authors show a distinctive new interest in comic discourse. Such a new interest can be traced also in Eustathios of Thessaloniki, whose frequent ironic overtones have been widely studied.57 Eustathios’ commentaries on Homer, moreover, offer an interesting example of how diachusis associated with laughter comes to have a distinctively positive meaning. In tune with his general approach to the Homeric text, Eustathios tackles the comic from a quintessentially narrative perspective. Throughout the commentaries, it is shown how Homer both meets and shapes the readers’ reactions and expectations: he creates suspense, leading the readers/listeners through the ups and downs of the plot, and he nourishes his audience’s desires.58 Then, when the tension reaches boiling point, he provides the reader with relief, by introducing pleasurable narrative features. The whole process is very often described in physiological terms, and the physical aspects of the discourse, such as sounds, also play a part in producing contraction (fear or pain) or dilatation (elation) in the soul of the reader. Interestingly enough, one of the terms with which Eustathios describes the reader’s pleasure is διαχέομαι (to experience diachusis).59 But διαχέομαι is, as we have seen, also the verb that described the physiological mechanism underlying laughter. It therefore comes as no surprise that Eustathios explains the metaphorical expression ‘and the earth laughed’ as follows:60 Τὸ δὲ ‘γέλασε χθών’ (Iliad 19.362), περὶ οὗ καὶ αὐτοῦ προείρηται, ἀντὶ τοῦ λαμπρὸν περιήστραψε καὶ ἱλαρόν, ὥστε τῇ διαστίλψει διάχυσιν ἀέρος γενέσθαι, ὃ καὶ ὁ γέλως περὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον ποιεῖ διαχέων αὐτόν . . . ἐδηλώθη δέ που καὶ ὅτι ὃ περὶ τὸν θεατὴν ἄνθρωπον ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις γίνεται, τῇ γῇ Ὅμηρος ἐπωνόμασε, καὶ ἐπὶ τῷ πράγματι τῷ διαχέοντι τὸν βλέποντα τῇ στιλβηδόνι, ὑφ’ ἧς καὶ ἡ γῆ λάμπεται, γελᾶν λέγει τὴν γῆν. The phrase ‘and the earth laughed’, which we have already mentioned here, is used instead of ‘it shone, brilliant and serene’, the considered as a cause of laughter in the passage by Arethas discussed above: the ‘Persians’ offer a hydraulic model of laughter, which in this case arises from a sort of relief. 57 See above, n. 4. 58 See Pizzone 2016. 59 Commentary on the Odyssey (Stallbaum 1825: ii.238.26–9). 60 Commentary on the Iliad 19.362 (Van der Valk 1971–87: iv.343.14–20).

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softness of the air being accompanied by brilliance. The same applies to men when laughter softens them. It has also been shown that Homer ascribes to the earth what happens here to the spectators, and since the spectator is relaxed by the very same brilliance shining upon the earth, he says that the earth laughs. Thus laughter, since it has a psychological relaxing power, is one of the principal means used by Homer to resolve narrative tension, as Eustathios explains in the following passage:61 Ὅτι ὁπηνίκα τὰς τῶν πραγμάτων περιπετείας αὐξήσει πλασματικῶς ὁ ποιητὴς καὶ ἀλύτως ἔχειν ποιήσει αὐτὰς ἢ πάνυ δυσλύτως, ὥστε τὸν ἀκροατὴν ἐπαπορεῖν καὶ λέγειν, ὡς οὐκέτι λυθήσεται ἡ τοῦ πράγματος δυσχέρεια, τότε δὴ μηχανᾶται λύσεις καὶ ἄλλας μέν, μάλιστα δὲ ταύτας ὡς ἐπὶ πολὺ τὰς πέντε ἢ πάσας ὁμοῦ ἤ τινας· παρουσίαν θεοῦ, ξυναλλαγὴν γερόντων ἀνδρῶν, ἀπειλήν, πληγὴν καὶ γέλωτα . . . ἐπὶ δὲ πᾶσιν ὁ διὰ τὸν Θερσίτην γέλως ἀπάγει τῆς σκυθρωπότητος τοὺς Ἀχαιοὺς καὶ ἱλαρύνων ποιεῖ γλυκύτερον ἡγεῖσθαι τοῦ νόστου τὸν πόλεμον. Note that, whenever the poet dramatically increases the reversals of situations and makes the solution of the plot impossible or very difficult, so that the listener finds himself in difficulty and says that the intricacy of the story will not be solved, then, right at that moment, he devises a solution, using in particular these five typologies of solution, either together or singularly: the divine presence, reconciling words of elderly men, threat, blow and laughter . . . And above all, the laughter caused by Thersites dissolves the sadness of the Achaeans and, by cheering them up, makes them think that the war is sweeter than a return home. Therefore, according to Eustathios the relieving qualities of laughter affect both the characters in the plot and the readers. Such a relieving quality, furthermore, is to be noticed both at a physical level (laughter as internal relief) and at a textual level (the pleasurable diachusis brought about by the relaxation of narrative tension): discursive features shape the physiological reactions of the reader. Again, we have here an integrated theory of laughter wherein psychological-anthropological elements and narrative-rhetorical features blend together. Moreover, laughter is a means rather than an end in itself. However, unlike in Arethas and earlier authors, comic traits 61 Commentary on the Iliad 1.247ff (Van der Valk 1971–87: i.149.9–19).

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towards a byzantine theory of the comic? 165 do not serve an educational purpose. Narrative concerns take centre stage here. Sheer entertainment is the main goal.62 Without doubt, the  fact that Eustathios in his exegetical work deals with pagan literature explains in part such a new attitude towards laughter. Rather than prescribing discursive strategies, he merely describes Homer’s technique – at least in theory. In practice, Eustathios was well aware of the taste and expectations of contemporary audiences, which are reflected in the agenda that underlies his commentaries. The emphasis on the relieving and relaxing qualities of laughter reflects distinctive traits of twelfth-century cultural economy. In the performative dimension of the theatra comic elements could certainly be appreciated just for their entertaining quality. To sum up, even though Byzantine literature does not provide us with an explicit theory of the comic, we can trace some constants that persist over time. First, there is a tendency to create an integrated model in which discursive and psychological aspects are consistently developed side by side. Such a model, moreover, turns out to be flexible and adaptable to different contexts and different axiological paradigms, ranging from more or less moralising didacticism to narrative entertainment.

62 See Pizzone 2016.

10 STAGING LAUGHTER AND TEARS: LIBANIUS, CHRYSOSTOM AND THE RIOT OF THE STATUES Jan R. Stenger PASSIONS MANIFEST When in 387 ce the city of Antioch-on-Orontes faced the imminent threat of being razed to the ground by the infuriated emperor Theodosius I, dramatic scenes of despair in public could have been observed: inhabitants were fleeing helter-skelter from the city to the surrounding mountains, leaving their relatives and belongings behind; others were arrested and tried, some executed; whoever stayed in the city feared for their and their family’s lives. One eloquent eyewitness, the prolific sophist Libanius, inscribed such shocking events in the collective memory of his home town. With an eye for passion and vividness, he related disquieting scenes in his speeches, most poignantly the following:1 μήτηρ γὰρ δὴ τῶν ἐν τοῖς κρινομένοις ἑνὸς νέου τε καὶ καλοῦ καὶ πολλαῖς μὲν πρεσβείαις, ἁπάσαις δὲ λαμπρυνομένου λειτουργίαις, τοῖς πράγμασι δὲ ἀντὶ τοῦ πατρὸς ἀρκέσαντος γυμνώσασα μὲν τὴν κεφαλήν, λύσασα δὲ τὴν γεγηρακυῖαν τρίχα, προσδραμοῦσα τῷ στήθει καὶ περιθεῖσα τούτῳ μετὰ τῶν χειρῶν τοὺς τοιούτους πλοκάμους ᾔτει μὲν τὸν υἱὸν ἐλεεινὸν βοῶσα, δάκρυα δὲ τὰ μὲν ἐκείνης ἔρρει κατὰ τῶν ποδῶν τοῦ στρατηγοῦ, τὰ δὲ ἐκείνου κατὰ τῆς ἐκείνης κεφαλῆς. ἀφείλκυσε δὲ αὐτὴν οὐδείς, ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ αὐτὸς ἀπεώσατο, ἀλλ’ οὕτως ἔδωκεν αὑτὸν τῷ μήκει τῆς ἱκετείας, ὥστ’ ἐδόκει κρείττων εἶναι φύσεως ἀνθρωπείας . . . Among those to be examined was a fine young man who had won renown in many embassies and all forms of public service, and had  1 Lib. Or. 22.22. This speech is addressed to the magister militum Ellebichus, who conducted the investigation into the riots, and praises him for his handling of the affair. The translations of Libanius’ speech are taken from Norman 1977.

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staging laughter and tears 167 taken his father’s place in fulfilling civic duties. His mother, then, bared her head and loosed her aged hair, ran to his [Ellebichus’] bosom, took her hair in her hands and clasped it about him, pleading for her son with pitiful cries. Her tears flowed over the general’s feet, his over her head. No one dragged her away, nor yet did he himself repulse her. He so devoted himself to her longdrawn prayers that he seemed to be superhuman . . . In no less powerful and impassioned language, Libanius’ fellow citizen, and perhaps former student, John Chrysostom gave accounts of mothers pouring out tears and bewailing their sons in public. He, too, directed his congregation’s attention to the deep mark that the looming disaster had left on the souls of the Antiochenes.2 Scholars have long noticed that the two accounts of the uproar in 387 differ greatly in their perspective and purposes,3 and yet both authors are in agreement in this striking detail: they share the attention to public weeping and its impact on others during the crisis. What had happened that caused so much turmoil and extraordinary passion? In February 387 the emperor had imposed a heavy tax which provoked howls of outrage among the citizens.4 First they resorted to modest supplication, but suddenly the crowd was instigated to open revolt. Amid soaring violence, the imperial statues erected in Antioch were overturned. Once the urban elite realised the full import of this act of lese-majesty, they took flight, while arrests and an investigation were being carried out by imperial officials. A number of rioters were put to death, but negotiations between officials, leading citizens and the Christian bishop succeeded in appeasing the enraged emperor. The punitive measures taken by Theodosius turned out relatively mildly: Antioch was deprived of its metropolitan rank, and theatres and baths stayed closed to restrain the insubordinate population. Once more, the notorious intemperance and rashness of the Antiochenes had caused serious trouble with the imperial authorities.5 The so-called riot of the statues did not fail to make a strong impression on contemporary observers. No sooner had the unrest set in than the preacher Chrysostom chose to turn his homiletic series during Lent into a veritable running commentary on the events and the behaviour  2 Chrys. Stat. 13.1 (PG 49.137); 17.2 (PG 49.173). See also Lib. Or. 23.9.   3 For a comparison see Quiroga Puertas 2007.   4 The ancient sources on the riots, apart from Libanius and Chrysostom, are Soz. HE 7.23, Thdt. HE 5.19–20, Zos. 4.41. See Hunter 1989: 121–2, French 1998 and Leppin 1999 on the historical events.   5 Other instances in the fourth century are conflicts between the city of Antioch and the Caesar Gallus and emperor Julian respectively. For an account of Antioch’s history in the fourth century see Downey 1961.

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of the citizens.6 In twenty-two sermons he censured the Antiochenes for various vices, most notably oath-swearing,7 that, so he thought, had thrown the city into disaster, and he sought to eradicate these fatal habits. Some time afterwards, Libanius set out to disseminate his own version of the uproar and the solution of the crisis in a couple of speeches.8 Interestingly, his account gives an impression notably different from Chrysostom’s. In his carefully crafted addresses Libanius pretends to have acted as an ambassador on behalf of Antioch to the imperial court and moved Theodosius to lenient treatment. In actual fact he did not leave the city at all during this period.9 His main purpose in publishing these speeches after the events was to maintain that the traditional social and political hierarchy, with himself at the centre, still operated to the benefit of Antioch.10 Chrysostom at the same time pursued a widely different and future-oriented goal: he seized the opportunity of the uproar to promote his vision of a Christian city, under the control of the bishop and the clergy, and living up to the ideal of Christian virtue.11 Despite their contrasting interests, both authors were captivated by the emotional outbursts which manifested themselves in the urban sphere. Their orations and homilies abound with references to laughter as well as tears; they draw striking and moving images of passion and make fervent pleas. Most importantly, both the Christian preacher and the pagan sophist establish a close link between laughter and tears on the one hand and the apex or turning point of the crisis on the other hand; that connection fits well into the picture that there is nearly always something dramatic, extreme and even theatrical about laughing and crying. In the Libanius passage quoted above, the mother gives a public display of her despair and stages a supplication before the civic audience. Chrysostom even applies the terms  6 Chrys. Stat. 1–21 (PG 49.15–222) delivered between 21 February and 25 April 387. The first homily was actually preached before the upheaval. On the chronology of the homilies see Van de Paverd 1991, who shows that the homily Nuper dictorum (PG 49.231–40) also belongs to the series.   7 Van de Paverd 1991: 249–50; Leppin 1999: 107–8.  8 Lib. Or. 19–23. All these orations except Or. 23 were composed after the whole affair was over.   9 The historian Zosimus was misled by Libanius’ self-representation and took it for a historical fact that the sophist travelled to the imperial court. Zos. 4.41.2. 10 His reference to these speeches in his autobiography (Or. 1.252–3) testifies that they must have been published in one way or another. The circulation and audiences of Libanius’ speeches are hard to determine with precision. See Cribiore 2013: 79–89. 11 See Brown 1988: 312–13 for general comments and, with particular reference to the Homilies on the Statues, Leppin 1999 and now Shepardson 2014: 147–62. Hunter 1989 argues, unconvincingly, that the homilies are primarily concerned with apologetics against Hellenic culture and should be seen as religious propaganda.

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‘spectacle’ and ‘tragedy’ to a similar scene of wailing mothers begging for mercy outside the court.12 Given the theatrical aspects of the emotional expressions, this chapter addresses the question of how and for what purposes both authors, one pagan, the other Christian, exploit the themes of public laughing and wailing in their speeches. It will be argued that the motif of tears reveals two fundamentally different approaches to urban society as well as to oratory. WAILING FOR THE SAKE OF THE ESTABLISHED ORDER First we shall examine how Libanius deals with the laughter and tears of his fellow citizens.13 Unsurprisingly, laughter belongs to a different stage in the events from weeping. In Libanius’ account it is closely associated with the outbreak of violence after the announcement of new taxes. In the same way as he later describes people shedding tears he first creates a vivid image of the outrageous behaviour of the masses. The sophist relates how the rioters hurl insults and stones at the painted images of the imperial family; next they move on to assaults on the bronze statues of Theodosius and his relatives. All these blasphemous activities are accompanied and incited by the collective laughter of the crowd.14 What the rhetorical account suggests is that the shared guffaw of the people during the uprising is anything but an index of harmless fun; on the contrary, it evidences madness, disarray and excess. It is the emotional expression typical of drunkenness and lunacy, or to put it differently, hubris.15 The demeanour of the mob 12 Chrys. Stat. 13.1–2 (PG 49.137–8). 13 Cribiore 2013: 89–95 rightly points out that Libanius’ rhetorical use of emotions deserves more scholarly attention. 14 Lib. Or. 22.7–8: βλέψαντες δὲ εἰς τὰς πολλὰς τὰς ἐν ταῖς σανίσιν εἰκόνας βλασφημίας πρὸ λίθων ἐπ’ αὐτὰς ἀφέντες ἐπὶ μὲν ταῖς ῥηγνυμέναις ἐγέλων, πρὸς δὲ τὰς ἀντεχούσας ἠγανάκτουν. ἔπειθ’ ἡγούμενοι τὰς ἐν τῷ χαλκῷ τιμιωτέρας καὶ τὴν εἰς ἐκείνας παροινίαν ἀφορητοτέραν δραμόντες ἐπ’ αὐτὰς ἅμα σχοινίοις περιθέντες τοῖς αὐχέσι καταβαλόντες εἷλκον . . . they cast their eyes on the many portraits on the panels, and hurled at them first insults and then stones. They roared with laughter at those they shattered and lost their temper with those that stood up to this. Then they took it into their heads that bronze statues were of more account, and that misconduct towards them was more intolerable, and so they rushed upon them. They slung ropes around their necks, hauled them down and began to drag them along . . . 15 On the role of madness in the riots see also Lib. Or. 19.8. The association of laughter and madness had a long tradition in Greek thinking, e.g. Homer, Odyssey 20.345–9. On the distinction between playful laughter and insult see Plato, Laws 11.934e–36a. See Bremmer 1997: 19–20; Halliwell 2008: 17–18, 24–5.

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lays the aggressive and subversive side of triumphant mockery bare. In the orator’s view, the lack of self-restraint coming to the fore in uproarious laughter is the driving force behind the eruption of public anger that threatens the political order. Libanius’ depiction suggests that unrestrained laughing should be considered a symptom of the dysfunctional state of morals and society. The sophist must have felt justified in his judgement of excessive laughter as he was throughout suspicious about the vulgar dissoluteness displayed by the crowd at theatre shows and spectacles.16 However, Libanius’ interest is predominantly in weeping, as the remarks on mourning and lamentation outnumber those on eruptive laughter by far. This focus becomes apparent when the situation is all at once reversed.17 After coming to their senses, the lunatics change their minds fundamentally and are filled with guilt and fear as they realise where their insanity has driven them. From then on, acute anxiety, mourning and tears dominate the scene, though there is brief relief when the official Ellebichus is put in charge of the investigation and people hope for a moderate handling of the affair;18 only then do the Antiochenes regain hope and dare to raise smiles in a lighter mood.19 Apart from that cautious smile, so different from the hostile laughter, they continue to be possessed with fear and sadness. It is evident that their tears after the dramatic peripeteia look both backwards and forwards: they are shed simultaneously over the sudden loss of peace and joy and because of the prospect of severe retaliation by the authorities. Wailing here is an emotional response to a situation which reflects the limbo of those who are faced with imminent exter16 E.g. Lib. Or. 1.5; 3.12; 35.13. 17 Lib. Or. 22.10. 18 Ellebichus served as magister militum per Orientem in Antioch from 383 to 388. See PLRE I, 277–8, s.v. Ellebichus. 19 Lib. Or. 22.12: καὶ τοῦτ’ εὐθὺς τὴν τῶν χαλεπῶν ἐλπίδα τῇ παρεχούσῃ τι βέλτιον εἰς ἔλαττόν τε ἦγε καὶ τἀν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ἐποίει κουφότερα καί τις ἐσθίων τε ἐμειδίασε καὶ μετέλαβεν ὕπνου καθαρεύοντος πηδημάτων, καὶ περὶ ἀγρῶν τις ἤρετο τῶν ἑαυτοῦ τολμήσας εἰπεῖν ἑαυτοῦ πρότερον τῷ φόβῳ τοῦτο κεκωλυμένος, καὶ ὁ μὲν οἷς ἤκουσε πιστεύων μεθ’ ἡδονῆς ἕτερον ἐδίδασκεν, ὁ δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ μεγέθους τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἀπιστῶν παρὰ τοὺς εἰδέναι τι δοκοῦντας ἤρχετο. This [the rumour of Ellebichus’ arrival as judge] immediately, by the hope of some alleviation, caused our expectation of trouble to diminish and lightened our spirits. Men raised a smile at their meals and enjoyed a sleep free from nightmares; they began to inquire about their estates, even daring to speak of them as their own, though fear had prevented them doing so before. One, confident in what he had heard, gladly began to inform another, while yet another, incredulous because of the magnitude of the good news, would make his way to those he thought did not know something.

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mination because of their own wrongdoing. Contrary to the overboldness displayed by aggressive laughter, tears indicate fears and insecurities. It is interesting to note that both expressions are taken by Libanius as markers of mental states, communicating the people’s attitudes and moods to any observer. Still more importantly, they reveal, whether voluntarily or not, how individuals and groups define their position towards others, epitomising the extremes of immoderate dominance and helpless dependency. Similarly to the above passage, the lines describing the aftermath of the riot aim at a graphic description, to increase the pathos of the scene and make emotions almost palpable. Also, the public dimension of feelings comes to the fore; Libanius focuses on collective expressions of emotions rather than the individual’s frame of mind. This focus seems to be indicative of his purposes: what attracts Libanius’ attention most is the social interaction between citizens and officers. A case in point is a passage in the speech that purported to be a plea presented to Theodosius in Constantinople. The ambassadorpretender Libanius narrates the encounter between the governor and the inhabitants in the courtroom after the imperial decree demanding gold from the city had arrived.20 The people gathered in the courtroom, he says, made tearful supplication, others wept without speaking, while the official, probably the consularis, looked at them.21 Similar observations could be made when the Antiochenes had turned to violence and awaited their ordeal at the hands of the emperor: again, they sought refuge in tears and lament to placate the commanders.22 Bewailing and tears have a role to play in the ritualised supplication and the traditional lament through which the people seek to obtain the mercy of the imperial magistrates.23 Negotiations between the civic body and the  powers that be are carried out not exclusively through the exchange of arguments; the appropriate display of emotions functions as an established code that facilitates the interaction. It is characteristic of these encounters that they are a kind of social drama which features clearly defined roles and careful choreography of actions and movements; in these dramas, the actors on the urban stage perform not only social roles but also emotions such as sadness 20 Lib. Or. 19, To the Emperor Theodosius about the Riots. In fact, the speech was composed after the events and never delivered at court, as Libanius did not leave Antioch during his last years at all. See Norman 1977: 240. 21 Lib. Or. 19.26. 22 Lib. Or. 20.4; 22.20–2. 23 Ritual supplication and its use in ancient literature have been studied by Gödde 2000 and Naiden 2006.

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and despair.24 Tellingly, Libanius comments that the tears shed by the frightened citizens count as acceptable behaviour and are in consonance with general expectations; they are established as a component of ritualised interactions.25 Therefore, tears are recognised as legitimate channels of communication by the authorities, creating a bond between the ones who depend on the goodwill of superiors and those who exert power and control.26 Strikingly, despite their force and impact, tears and lamentation represent the complete opposite of laughter in this respect: while excesses of laughter subvert order and generate deep divisions, wailing has the power to heal the wounds and rebuild the cement that holds the imperial society together. As does every successful drama, the Antiochene tragedy has a leading character. In Libanius’ view that is the magister militum per Orientem, Ellebichus. He is in the limelight, unrivalled by any other character. (For obvious reasons, the Antiochene people in Libanius’ speech remain anonymous.) As he enters the stage, the people of Antioch immediately feel relief. And later on, when he conducts the investigation, we almost watch how he engages with the citizens, both verbally and non-verbally. Libanius vividly relates how Ellebichus not only gives licence to their weeping but even sheds tears himself. That is the first step towards the reconciliation between the official and the disgraced urban population (Or. 22.20–1). κελεύοντος δὲ ἕκαστον αὑτὸν ἀποφαίνειν δίκαιον ἦν μέν τις ἑκάστῳ καὶ λόγος, τὸ πλέον δὲ τῆς σωτηρίας ἐν δάκρυσι τῶν μὲν ὀδυρομένων νεότητα καὶ τὸ μήπω πατέρας γεγενῆσθαι, τῶν δὲ τὸ πατέρας τε εἶναι καὶ παῖδας γενναίους τρέφειν, τῶν δὲ γῆρας γονέων, τῶν δὲ λειτουργίας ἀρχὴν μὲν δεξαμένας, ποθούσας δὲ τελευτήν, ἑτέρου γυναικὸς χηρείαν καὶ τὴν ἐσομένην περὶ τὸ μνῆμα διατριβήν. ὁ δὲ γενναῖος οὑτοσὶ τοῖς τε ἐκείνων ἐξουσίαν ἐδεδώκει δάκρυσι καὶ τοῖς ἑκάστου τῶν παρ’ ἑαυτοῦ προσέθηκεν οὐκ ἀγνοῶν, ὅσοις δὴ δικασταῖς ἢ πληγαῖς ἢ πληγῶν ἀπειλαῖς τὸ τοιοῦτον εἴργεται τὰ παρόντα ὑβρίζεσθαι διὰ τῶν ὀδυρμῶν ἡγουμένοις. καὶ ἡ μὲν κρηπὶς οὕτω καλὴ καὶ φιλάνθρωπος . . . 24 The concept of social drama, introduced into anthropology and social studies by Victor Turner, seems to me suitable for an analysis of Libanius’ and Chrysostom’s oratory, as they both highlight the public nature of social and emotional performances during a crisis. See Turner 1982. Chrysostom is himself familiar with the idea of life as a stage, e.g. in Chrys. Laz. 6.5 (PG 48.1035). See Leyerle 2001: 52–5; Bergjan 2005. 25 Lib. Or. 20.20 and 22. See also 19.26. 26 In his extensive account of the incidents in Or. 19.25–37, Libanius lays the blame for the uprising mainly on Christians and the theatre claque, whose riotous behaviour stands out against the legitimate supplication of respectable citizens.

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staging laughter and tears 173 He bade each man prove his innocence, and though each had some argument to adduce, salvation generally lay in their tears, as some bewailed their youth, and the fact that they had no children to their name, and some lamented that they were parents and were bringing up noble sons, others bewailed their aged parents, or the civic duties now begun and needing completion, yet another his wife’s widowhood and her future sojourn at his tomb. This noble man gave full licence to their tears and shed tears of his own at those of every one, for he knew full well how many judges prevent such things either by blows or by threats of blows, since they feel that the case is jeopardised by reason of these laments. Such was the first step, so fine and humane . . .

A couple of lines further on, Libanius intensifies the moving story when he describes how Ellebichus, virtually having a bath in the tears of the mother, is united with her in shared weeping (22). Tears here act as a common bond of sympathy and compassion across the social hierarchy; this motif encapsulates the humane treatment that the official is willing to grant the Antiochenes. His humanity, Libanius makes clear, even elevates Ellebichus above mankind, and it is manifest in the magistrate’s tears for others as they mark him as unique among military commanders.27 The speech employs the theme of weeping as a rhetorical device: it is an instrument of auxēsis that is intended to highlight the essential virtue of an official.28 This is not surprising, as the whole oration is designed as a panegyric on Ellebichus, whom Libanius considered instrumental in easing the tensions between the emperor and Antioch.29 Within the framework of epideictic oratory, the officer’s tears of compassion are a natural choice for singling out the object of praise. The sophist seems to be primarily interested in what tears tell about character and social relationships in a critical moment. As an element of body language, they are meaningful signs that allow inferences about the ethical qualities of individuals and groups. The outstanding quality of Ellebichus’ morals is further enhanced after the crisis has been defused by an imperial letter of pardon. Once 27 Lib. Or. 22.28, again highlighting the strong sympathy between Ellebichus and the people. 28 While this use of tears and lamentation in a speech is primarily descriptive, other orations by Libanius seek to arouse lament and pity in the audience, in particular his monodies on the temple of Apollo in Daphne and on Nicomedia (Or. 60 and 61). Menander Rhetor identified the expression of pity as the main purpose of the rhetorical monody (16.434–7). 29 Libanius is fairly explicit about his aims in the proem to this speech (Lib. Or. 22.1–2).

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again, tears play a vital role in Libanius’ depiction of the affair.30 According to his panegyrical programme, the orator spotlights the behaviour and reactions of his addressee, in particular his interaction with the inhabitants. Libanius stresses that Ellebichus now shares in the collective joy of relief that pervades the entire city. The officer rejoices at the preservation of Antioch and joins the citizens for their feast, making jokes on his tour through the city and raising laughter. Now that the Antiochenes have been relieved from disaster, the commander, who has put his weight behind their matter, is united with them in joy, in the same way as he has been in sadness before. The correspondence between these two stages is clearly marked by Libanius’ comments on tears of joy. ‘Here again tears flowed,’ he adds, ‘not tears of lamentation, but of joy; the ending of troubles can cause a man to weep, and that happened on this occasion.’31 With a remarkably full narrative of the cheerful festivity uniting Ellebichus and the people, Libanius highlights the essential quality of the officer: affability and sympathy for the subjects, embodied by shared feelings. The focus on the symbolic meaning of expressions is clearly brought out by the way the story is unfolding before our eyes. The unrestrained laughter is followed by complete disaster for the city, which results in a liminal period: after the attack on the statues, Antioch is stuck in limbo. Amid ruin and the depths of despair, the turning point is brought about when the people display appropriate contrition and Ellebichus intervenes in the crisis. Finally comes the restitution of the established order. Through the depiction of this social drama Libanius illustrates the operation of tears and bewailing in the context of traditional supplication. The sequence of laughter and tears marks, as it were, acts in a tragedy of mass hubris. While eruptive laughter figures as the expression of immoderation, causing the ruin of the entire community, tears re-establish the social and political hierarchy. With the moving encounter between the mother and the magistrate, uniting them in weeping, the drama reaches its emotional climax, and a happy ending ensues. It is safe to say that Libanius employs tears first and foremost as a literary device which captures brilliantly the crucial mechanisms surfacing during the uproar. Placed in the context of a traditional ritual, they throw the character of the actors into high relief, above all that of the protagonist Ellebichus. Since Libanius’ main purpose was to extol the virtues of his hero, the tears shed in the wake of the riots 30 Lib. Or. 22.36–9. 31 Lib. Or. 22.37: δάκρυα δὲ κἀνταῦθα οὐκέτι θρηνούντων, ἀλλ’ ἡδομένων. οἶδε γὰρ καὶ ἀπαλλαγὴ κακῶν ἄγειν εἰς ὀδυρμὸν ἄνθρωπον, ὥσπερ αὖ καὶ τότε.

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provided a unique opportunity for a panegyric on Ellebichus’ humanity. Further, the sophist exploited laughter and tears to convey pathos and underline the dramatic nature of the events. That also contributed to singling out Ellebichus as a paragon of the virtue that was at the heart of Libanius’ vision of the imperial society.32 At the same time, the interactions that were reflected in shared weeping epitomised effectively the state of society and politics that Libanius sought to uphold against serious challenges. LAUGHTER AND TEARS IN THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE To a certain extent, the Church Father John Chrysostom would have subscribed to the views which the sophist Libanius put forward. As to the insidious energies of laughter, his concerns do not greatly differ from what is found in the rhetorician’s account of the incidents.33 Equally, he makes scathing comments about the rude laughter that could be heard while the crowd was leaping into violence. Several times in his homiletic series Chrysostom lambasts the people’s proneness to immoderation and madness, which was strikingly reflected by the unrestrained laughter of the rioters.34 The similarity between the two perspectives notwithstanding, there is one telling peculiarity of Chrysostom’s descriptions of loud guffaws in public: more than once, he intimates a close relationship between laughter and the immoral habits which had built Antioch’s reputation for frivolity. A striking example is the following passage from one of the Homilies on the Statues:35 Τὸ γελᾷν καὶ ἀστεῖα λέγειν οὐ δοκεῖ μὲν ὡμολογημένον ἁμάρτημα εἶναι, ἄγει δὲ εἰς ὡμολογημένον ἁμάρτημα· πολλάκις γοῦν ἀπὸ γέλωτος αἰσχρὰ ῥήματα τίκτεται, ἀπὸ ῥημάτων αἰσχρῶν πράξεις αἰσχρότεραι· πολλάκις ἀπὸ ῥημάτων καὶ γέλωτος λοιδορία καὶ ὕβρις, ἀπὸ λοιδορίας καὶ ὕβρεως πληγαὶ καὶ τραύματα, ἀπὸ τραυμάτων 32 This is also the key theme in Libanius’ addresses to Theodosius (Or. 19.16–17, 20, 22; 20.16, 26, 38, 50). For humanity or philanthropy as the core virtue in Libanius’ ethics see Lib. Or. 5.33; 15.22, 25–9; Ep. 75. Stenger 2014a: 272, 276–7. Interestingly, Chrysostom too emphasises philanthropy in his Homilies on the Statues. See Hunter 1989: 124–6. 33 For Chrysostom’s view of laughter see Halliwell 2008: 495–512. The discussion in Gilhus 1997: 62–3 is rather inadequate. For Christian suspicions about laughter in general, see Baconsky 1996. 34 For laughter as a sign of lack of self-control see also Chrys. Hom. 12 in Col. 4:12 (PG 62.307). 35 Chrys. Stat. 15.11 (PG 49.158–9). The translations of the Chrysostom passages are adapted from Schaff 1886.

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καὶ πληγῶν σφαγαὶ καὶ φόνοι. Ἂν τοίνυν μέλλῃς περὶ σεαυτοῦ καλῶς βουλεύεσθαι, οὐχὶ τὰ αἰσχρὰ ῥήματα μόνον, οὐδὲ τὰ αἰσχρὰ πράγματα, οὐδὲ τὰς πληγὰς καὶ τὰ τραύματα καὶ τοὺς φόνους, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὸν τὸν ἄκαιρον γέλωτα καὶ αὐτὰ τὰ ἀστεῖα ἀποφεύξῃ ῥήματα, ἐπειδὴ τῶν μετὰ ταῦτα κακῶν ῥίζα ταῦτα ἐγένετο. To laugh and to speak wittily does not seem an acknowledged sin, but it leads to acknowledged sin. Thus laughter often gives birth to foul discourse, and foul discourse to actions still more foul. Often from words and laughter proceed abuse and insult; and from abuse and insult, blows and wounds; and from blows and wounds, slaughter and murder. If then you would take good counsel for yourself, avoid not merely foul words and foul deeds, or blows and wounds and murders, but unseasonable laughter itself, and the very witticisms, since these things have proved the root of subsequent evils. The laughter of joy and humour appears to mark a first step towards the slip into evil, inevitably setting in motion a climactic series of evil deeds. Interestingly, in this series of causative factors underpinned by the rhetorical device of anadiplosis, Chrysostom seems to draw on a motif that had a place in classical poetry and oratory.36 In the context of preaching, however, it is employed to drive home the point that Christians ought to shun insensible laughter by all means, in order not to squander their chances of salvation. Earlier in the same homily and following Solomon, Chrysostom had already linked unseasonable laughter to dance, luxury, overeating and drinking.37 This point is made more fully elsewhere in an exegetic homily on Ephesians, when Chrysostom associates jokes, jesting and laughter with mime, a cultural practice that he unceasingly condemned as the epitome of vice.38 And in another sermon delivered during the crisis 36 Cf. Dem. Or. 54.19; further Epicharm. fr. 146 PCG. A similar pattern appears in Apophthegmata Patrum 437. Perhaps this motif goes back to a moral genealogy that seems to have been popular in Greek wisdom poetry. Cf. Solon 6.3–4 W, Theognis 153–4, Aristotle, Protrepticus fr. 4.2. 37 Chrys. Stat. 15.2 (PG 49.155), referring to Ecclesiastes 7:2 LXX. Significantly, Chrysostom changes the quotation from ‘house of joy’ to ‘house of laughter’. The  notion of untimely laughter is of particular importance. See also Hom. in Hebr. 15.4 (PG 63.122): Οὐ κακὸν ὁ γέλως, ἀλλὰ κακὸν τὸ παρὰ μέτρον, τὸ ἄκαιρον; further Hom. in Eph. 17.2 (PG 62.119). In numerous passages in his homilies Chrysostom stresses the need to pay heed to the time and place appropriate for a certain action or behaviour. Cf. Halliwell 2008: 489 on this idea in Clement of Alexandria. 38 Chrys. Hom. in Eph. 17.2–3 (PG 62.119–20). See Leyerle 2001: 66; Halliwell 2008: 496–501.

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we encounter a similar clustering of ideas.39 What the grouping of terms in these instances signals is that roaring laughter plays an integral part in an ensemble of shameful and offensive behaviour; hence it would be completely mistaken to view it as an involuntary, let alone innocent, response to a funny stimulus. More than that, playful laughter, though harmless in itself, is regarded as ultimately leading to sin; it is even the root cause of sin.40 Chrysostom’s robust stance on roaring laughter at first might come as a gross exaggeration. He can call Scripture as his witness, though. For in respect of the evaluation of the facial expression, Chrysostom follows in the footsteps of St Paul, who had taken great pains to ban foul laughter as unsuitable for a Christian.41 Not only had the apostle rejected unseemly laughter, but also Matthew stated that one day, at the Judgement, laughter would be followed by wailing and gnashing.42 In general, the New Testament associated laughter with disapproved forms of behaviour, such as abusiveness and foul speech.43 What the preacher suggests by allusions to and quotations from biblical sayings is that laughter contains a deeper and hidden meaning of which his congregation is not sufficiently aware. Whatever one might raise in defence of jokes and amusement, insane laughter, Chrysostom insists, takes people on the road to perdition. The Church Father’s juxtaposition of foul laughter and scriptural references to laughing in the aftermath of  the riots in Antioch intimates the broad scope of his exploration of extreme emotions: his aim is to put laughter and tears into context, that is, a theological context. This becomes even more evident when we look at his way of dealing with crying and laments. There Chrysostom’s stance on tears emerges as fundamentally ambiguous. Once the city of Antioch was entrapped in desperate chaos and disaster, he joined his parishioners in their sadness and gave vent to his despondency. He even exhorted his flock to a ritual lament.44 ‘The present season is one for tears, and not for words; for lamentation, not for discourse; for prayer, not for 39 Chrys. Stat. 6.3 (PG 49.82). The Apophthegmata Patrum show similar clusters of  laughter and unacceptable habits, e.g. Nos. 118, 427, 744. See Müller 2000: 126–9. 40 See also Stat. 14.4 (PG 49.158). The same point is made in Chrys. Hom. in Eph. 17.1 (PG 62.118); similarly in Hom. in Mt. 86.3 (PG 58.767). The causal chain of laughter and sin is also highlighted in Apophthegmata Patrum 437. 41 Ephesians 4:29, 5:4; further, 1 Timothy 5:6, also quoted in Stat. 15.11. 42 Chrys. Stat. 20.24 (PG 49.210–11) with Matthew 13:42 and 50 (ἐκεῖ ἔσται ὁ κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὁ βρυγμὸς τῶν ὀδόντων). For the phrase see also Luke 13:28. 43 See Halliwell 2008: 476. 44 Chrys. Stat. 2.2, following Jeremiah 9:17. The exhortation to ritualistic lament is reinforced in 2.7. See also Harvey in this volume on the centrality of ritual in early Byzantine texts.

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­ reaching’, he tells them, and goes on to liken their situation to the p despair felt by Job when he had lost his family, his health and all his belongings.45 In the same way as Job and his friends were united in lamentation over loss, Chrysostom and the Antiochenes are bound together by tears and bewailing amid the turmoil. This bond, together with the biblical parallel, provides the preacher with an excellent springboard for his argument, for he does not stop with lamentation, despite having openly dismissed discourse as inappropriate for the situation. Instead he seeks to turn tears into something productive and draw a lesson from sadness. Job’s fall and suffering can offer a template to the congregation because in his case disaster struck according to God’s will. Likewise, the Lord now has allowed the Antiochenes to be thrown into catastrophe and pain. The reason for this is that, while bewailing the loss of earthly goods is not profitable in itself,46 there is after all a pedagogical effect of grief: it affords humans a unique opportunity for taking on sobriety, earnestness and virtue. In a congenial image, Chrysostom claims that the church-turned-city of Antioch resembles a chaste woman, as unseasonable laughter and dissoluteness have given way to tears and anxiety.47 Transferred to the literal level, that means that blocking misguided hilarity amounts to taking on a new identity, transforming oneself into a virtuous person. To make his point, Chrysostom asks his audience to listen to Solomon:48 Τί οὖν ἐκεῖνός φησιν; Ἀγαθὸν πορευθῆναι εἰς οἶκον πένθους, ἢ πορευθῆναι εἰς οἶκον γέλωτος. Τί λέγεις, εἰπέ μοι; Ὅπου θρῆνος καὶ δάκρυα καὶ οἰμωγαὶ καὶ ὀδύνη καὶ ἀθυμία τοσαύτη, βέλτιον ἀπελθεῖν μᾶλλον ἢ ὅπου χορεῖαι καὶ κύμβαλα καὶ γέλως καὶ τρυφὴ καὶ ἀδηφαγία καὶ μέθη; Ναὶ, φησί. Τίνος ἕνεκεν, εἰπέ μοι, καὶ διὰ τί; Ὅτι ἐκεῖθεν μὲν παροινία, ἐντεῦθεν δὲ σωφροσύνη τίκτεται . . . Ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν πενθούντων οὐδὲν τοιοῦτον ἔστιν εἰπεῖν, ἀλλὰ πολλὴ μὲν ἡ φιλοσοφία, πολλὴ δὲ ἡ σωφροσύνη. What then does he say? ‘It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of laughter.’ Tell me, what do you say? 45 Chrys. Stat. 2.1 (PG 49.33): Τί εἴπω καὶ τί λαλήσω; δακρύων ὁ παρὼν καιρὸς, οὐχὶ ῥημάτων· θρήνων, οὐχὶ λόγων· εὐχῆς, οὐ δημηγορίας· τοιοῦτον τῶν τετολμημένων τὸ μέγεθος, οὕτως ἀνίατον τὸ ἕλκος, οὕτω μέγα τὸ τραῦμα, καὶ πάσης ἰατρείας μεῖζον, καὶ τῆς ἄνωθεν δεόμενον βοηθείας. Cf. Job 2:8 and 12–13. 46 See Chrys. Stat. 18.2 (PG 49.183), elaborating on 2 Corinthians 7:10. Further Hom. in Hebr. 20.5 (PG 63.145). 47 Antioch as a modest woman in Stat. 6.3, as a church in 15.3. 48 Chrys. Stat. 15.4 (PG 49.155), following Ecclesisates 7:2–4 LXX. Müller 2000: 83–131 discusses grief and weeping in the Septuagint and the New Testament.

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staging laughter and tears 179 Is it better to go where there is lamentation, weeping, wailing, anguish and so much sadness, than where there is dance, cymbals, laughter, luxury and full eating and drinking? Yes, verily, he replies. Why is that so, tell me, and for what reason? Because at the latter place drunkenness is bred, at the former, sobriety . . . With regard to those mourning, nothing of this sort can be said. On the contrary, much spiritual wisdom is to be gained there, as well as sobriety.

The entire passage drives home the point that it is a good thing that in the aftermath of the riots lascivious laughter has been replaced by tears and wailing. The tears to be seen in the city speak of a new earnestness and spring forth from a sobering fear that is beneficial: the fear of God. In order to hammer the message home, Chrysostom stresses the seeming paradox which he puts forward by inserting questions and even engaging in a fictitious dialogue with the Old Testament king. Also, it is striking that Chrysostom uses a good number of analogies, comparisons and metaphors to explain his conception of sorrow; for example, mothers mourning their children’s death and trees producing sweet fruit despite their bitter roots.49 He is anxious to make his counterintuitive stance on tears agreeable to his congregation through analogies drawn from daily experience. When comparing their own situation with biblical narratives and everyday ­ observations, the citizens of Antioch ought to assimilate the insight that their grief and sadness can be transformed into an advantageous experience. Even though laughter as well as tears are triggered by pleasant and unpleasant occurrences and hence associated with the human body, emotional responses can be turned into a benefit, provided that one becomes aware of their moral implications. Sorrow, understood as an educational instrument furnished by God, thus exerts a profound and positive influence on human morals.50 And yet there is more to tears than ethical education. This is indicated by the astonishing paradox that Chrysostom, after the abatement of the crisis, still demands tears from his congregation. Although with the intervention of monks in the affairs a turning point had been achieved,51 the preacher did not let his audience relish their joy and relief; quite the reverse, he ordered them to keep weeping and bewailing, maintaining ‘that it is now especially, and more than before, a time for prayer; that 49 Chrys. Stat. 18.2 (PG 49.184) and 3 (PG 49.185), building on the metaphorical meaning of ‘root’ and ‘fruit’. 50 For the positive value and usefulness of suffering in Chrysostom’s theology see the fundamental treatment by Nowak 1972: 139–220. 51 This is the topic of Chrys. Stat. 17.

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now is the season especially for tears and compunction, for an anxious soul, for much diligence, and for much caution’ (Stat. 17.2). For all its puzzling aspect, the aims of Chrysostom’s instruction are crystal clear: he wants to sustain the lessons of grief, so the faithful Antiochenes may reap the rewards of their tears. The benefits that Chrysostom envisages lie way beyond the earthly existence. According to the prophets, whoever sows tears will harvest gladness, that is, purity of his soul.52 Sadness even figures as an elementary power, cleaning the soul like rain making the seed spring up and flourish. What is more, the religiosity that is bred by tears and repentance will pay in heaven. The crucial interconnectedness between sadness on earth and rewards in the hereafter is thrown into sharp relief by a paradoxical identity of grief and joy, which is the kernel of Chrysostom’s argument:53 Καὶ τὸ παράδοξον τοῦτό ἐστιν, ὅτι τοῦ κόσμου μὲν οὐχ ἡ ἀθυμία μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡ χαρὰ ζημίαν ἔχει τὴν ἐσχάτην· ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν πνευματικῶν τοὐναντίον ἅπαν, οὐχ ἡ χαρὰ μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡ ἀθυμία πολὺν ἔχει τῶν ἀγαθῶν τὸν θησαυρόν· καὶ πῶς, ἐγὼ λέγω. Χαίρει τις ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ πολλάκις ἐχθρὸν δυσημεροῦντα ἰδὼν, καὶ διὰ τῆς χαρᾶς ταύτης πολλὴν ἐπισπᾶται ἑαυτῷ τὴν κόλασιν· ἀλγεῖ τις πάλιν ἕτερος τὸν ἀδελφὸν πεσόντα ἰδὼν, καὶ διὰ τῆς ἀθυμίας ταύτης πολλὴν ἑαυτῷ παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ προξενεῖ τὴν εὔνοιαν. Ὁρᾷς πῶς ἡ κατὰ Θεὸν λύπη τῆς τοῦ κόσμου χαρᾶς βελτίων καὶ χρησιμωτέρα; Οὕτω καὶ Παῦλος ἐλυπεῖτο διὰ τοὺς ἁμαρτάνοντας, διὰ τοὺς ἀπιστοῦντας τῷ Θεῷ, καὶ τῆς λύπης ταύτης πολὺν εἶχεν ἀποκείμενον αὐτῷ τὸν μισθόν. Ἵνα δὲ σαφέστερον ὃ λέγω ποιήσω, καὶ μάθητε, ὡς, εἰ καὶ παράδοξον τὸ εἰρημένον, ἀλλ’ ὅμως ἐστὶν ἀληθὲς, καὶ οἶδεν ὁ θρῆνος πολλάκις ἀνακτᾶσθαι τὰς ὀδυνωμένας ψυχὰς καὶ κουφίζειν συνειδὸς βεβαρημένον, πολλαὶ πολλάκις γυναῖκες ἀποβαλοῦσαι παῖδας ποθεινοτάτους, ἂν μὲν κωλυθῶσι δακρῦσαι καὶ θρηνῆσαι καὶ ὀλοφύρασθαι, διαῤῥήγνυνται καὶ ἀπόλλυνται· ἂν δὲ τὰ τῶν ἀθυμούντων ποιήσωσιν ἅπαντα, κουφίζονται καὶ παραμυθίαν λαμβάνουσι. Καὶ τί θαυμαστὸν, εἰ ἐπὶ γυναικῶν τοῦτο συμβαίνει, ὅπου γε καὶ αὐτὸν τὸν προφήτην ἴδοι τις ἂν τοῦτο πάσχοντα; Διὰ τοῦτο συνεχῶς ἔλεγεν· Ἄφετέ με, πικρῶς κλαύσομαι· μὴ κατισχύσητε παρακαλοῦντες ἐπὶ τὸ σύντριμμα τῆς θυγατρὸς τοῦ γένους μου. Ὥστε ἐστὶ πολλάκις λύπη παραμυθίαν φέρουσα· εἰ δὲ ἐπὶ τοῦ κόσμου τοῦτο, πολλῷ μᾶλλον ἐπὶ τῶν πνευματικῶν πραγμάτων. Διὰ τοῦτό φησιν· Ἡ δὲ κατὰ Θεὸν λύπη μετάνοιαν εἰς σωτηρίαν ἀμετάβλητον κατεργάζεται. 52 Chrys. Stat. 4.2. The quotation is actually from Psalms 125:5 LXX. 53 Chrys. Stat. 18.2 (PG 49.184) with Isaiah 22:4 and 2 Corinthians 7:10. This paradox is also highlighted in Virg. 64, underpinned by a quotation from Luke.

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staging laughter and tears 181 And this is the paradox that not only the sadness of the world, but also its joy, contains extreme loss; but in the case of spiritual things, it is exactly the reverse; and not the joy only, but the sadness too contains a rich treasure of good things! But how, I proceed to explain. In the world, a person often rejoices on beholding an  enemy in trouble; and by this joy he draws on himself a great punishment. Again, another person mourns on seeing a brother fall; and because of this sadness he will procure for himself much favour with God. Do you see how godly sorrow is better and more profitable than the joy of the world? Thus also Paul sorrowed for sinners and for those who disbelieved in God; and this sorrow was the means of laying up a great reward for him. But that I may make what I say more clear, and that you may know that although what I assert is very strange, it is nevertheless true, namely that grief is often capable of refreshing distressed souls and of rendering a burdened conscience light: consider how often many women, when they have lost their most beloved children, break their hearts and perish, if they are forbidden to shed tears, to mourn and to wail. But if they do all which those who are sad are wont to do, they are relieved and receive consolation. And what wonder that this should be the case with women, when you may even see a prophet affected in a similar manner? Therefore he was continually saying, ‘Suffer me – I will weep bitterly – labour not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people.’ So that, oftentimes, sadness is the bearer of consolation; and if it is so with regard to this world, much more with regard to spiritual things. Therefore he says, ‘Godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, not to be repented of.’

Sorrow and joy in heaven are the reverse of their counterparts on earth; in a sense, they are the genuine feelings, while human emotions on earth emerge as misguided. And essentially, grief appears as a prerequisite for comfort and joy because it paves the way for salvation, for the genuine joy in the hereafter.54 Throughout this homily, Chrysostom fashions himself as an ethical teacher in quest of true happiness.55 He steers his audience’s evaluation of emotions, with the 54 With his conception of sorrow and joy as two sides of a coin, Chrysostom, like other Church Fathers such as Basil, stands in the tradition of the Beatitudes’ ‘happy are you who now weep, since you shall laugh’ (Matthew 5:4; Luke 6:21 and 25). See Halliwell 2008: 515–17 on Basil’s idea of spiritual joy. 55 The nature of this entire homily is that of a diatribe on happiness; the preacher here is drawing heavily on Stoic philosophy. Cf. Nardi 1996 and Laird 2012: 91–4 for Chrysostom’s indebtedness to Stoic ideas.

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aim of giving joy and sadness a different orientation. Unsurprisingly, his rhetoric does not allow for shades: he seems only to know extreme types of feelings, either deeply felt sorrow or pure joy. The stark dichotomy that he creates through his powerful language forces the congregation to make a clear decision. By analogy with parents and following the example of Noah, who felt misery for those who had laughed at him,56 the believers ought to sorrow and feel sadness for sinners. Only this kind of altruistic and disinterested sadness will lead to relief and consolation; in the end, Chrysostom claims, it is a vehicle for salvation.57 The preacher, taking the social dimension of laughter and tears as a point of departure, re-evaluates joy and grief in the light of Christian anthropology, to the extent that the psychic state translates into charitable work. Yet to sweeten the pill Chrysostom stresses that sympathetic grief will ultimately pay dividends to those weeping. It is essential to the preacher’s argument that feelings such as happiness and grief are not automatic responses to an external stimulus, but rather dependent on the individual’s disposition and choice.58 Consequently, humans are capable of influencing and cultivating them. If one has grasped the significance of laughing and weeping one can develop the appropriate attitude to the emotions underlying these bodily responses, and accordingly adopt an approach to them that will prove profitable for oneself and others.59 That is the ultimate goal of Chrysostom’s pedagogical programme during the course of the crisis. He bases his teaching on the feelings which manifested themselves in the streets of Antioch in 387, but he in fact aims at a fundamental reevaluation of feelings and a wholesale re-education of emotion management.60 This ties in with the observation that the homiletic series as a whole displays great homogeneity in content and argument; the riot of the statues merely provides a peg to hang Chrysostom’s idea of Christian morality on. Within that programme, sadness is privileged over joy, in a move that follows in the footsteps of the Beatitudes:61 Ὅταν οὖν . . . εἰσὶ μακαριώτεροι . . . καὶ οἱ ἀθυμοῦντες τῶν ἡδομένων, τίς ἔσται λοιπὸν θλίψεως ἡμῖν ἀφορμή; Διὰ τοῦτο οὐδένα 56 Chrys. Stat. 20.23 (PG 49.210); 21.6 (PG 49.213), drawing a parallel between the Christian emperor pouring tears in compassion and a grieving father. 57 In Gregory of Nyssa, tears are also an instrument of salvation. See Ramelli 2009: 390–2. 58 Nowak 1972: 64. For a nuanced discussion of Chrysostom’s view on moral choice (proairesis) see now Laird 2012: 103–11. 59 Interestingly, lamentation and sadness also carry the risk of excess and, therefore, need to be checked by self-restraint. See Chrys. Laz. 5.2 (PG 48.1019). 60 This is particularly clear in Stat. 18.12. 61 Chrys. Stat. 18.10 (PG 49.185) with Matthew 5:3–10. Cf. also Luke 6:21 and 25.

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staging laughter and tears 183 χρὴ μακαρίζειν ἀλλ’ ἢ τὸν κατὰ Θεὸν ζῶντα μόνον. Τούτους καὶ ἡ Γραφὴ μακαρίζει μόνους . . . Μακάριοι οἱ πενθοῦντες, μακάριοι οἱ ταπεινοὶ, μακάριοι οἱ πραεῖς, μακάριοι οἱ εἰρηνοποιοὶ, μακάριοι οἱ δεδιωγμένοι ἕνεκεν δικαιοσύνης. If those who are sad are more blessed than those in pleasure, what further source of affliction shall we have? On this account we should call no man happy, save him only who lives according to God. These only the Scripture terms blessed. . . . ‘Blessed are they that mourn; blessed are the humble; blessed are the meek; blessed are the peacemakers; blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.’

In accordance with his admired paragon, St Paul, Chrysostom pictures Christians as grieving but always rejoicing.62 By feeling sympathy and compassion the Christian frees himself from any earthly concerns and finally attains a state of tranquillity and apathy (Stat. 18.12).63 Paradoxically, this state of mind finds expression in laughter at all things that on earth count as the greatest evils, even at death. However, laughter of that kind testifies to the superiority of Christian faith over any worldly concern.64 This shows once again that laughing is not a bad thing per se, but a response subject to human choice, which can reflect either a misdirected or a sound mind. Strikingly, as with the laughter of madness to be watched during the uproar, Chrysostom highlights what laughter tells about one’s position in relation to people and objects; while tears tie a bond of compassion among humans, laughter signals contempt and sneering. That is why both expressions play a central part in his anthropology: they are indicators of attachment to or detachment from the world and men.65 They reflect the appraisal of a situation and, hence, reveal the individual’s attitudes and values. As laughter and tears have objects, they show the stance that the individual takes on these objects. On this basis, people can be praised and blamed for their semiotics of the 62 Chrys. Stat. 18.10 (PG 49.186) with Philemon 4:4. See also Hom. in Mt. 6.6–8 (PG 57.69–72). Consequently, Chrysostom claims that Christ wept, but never laughed nor even smiled. This idea had a classical precedent, as Pythagoreans said that their master never laughed. See Bremmer 1997: 21; Halliwell 2008: 272. 63 Chrysostom’s stance on tears displays considerable similarity to Gregory of Nyssa’s view. See Ramelli 2009. 64 The idea that the sage’s state of tranquillity and cheerfulness can be accompanied by laughter at the external circumstances of human life is already present in Stoicism. See Halliwell 2008: 303–4. 65 For outward deportment, including laughter, as an index of character see Chrys. Hom. in Mt. 1.5 (PG 57.19). Cf. Leyerle 2001: 74.

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body. It is, therefore, imperative to regulate expressions such as laughter and tears so that they agree with how one stands on the matters of the world. The idea that laughter as a response associated with the body has to be controlled, as the whole body needs to be, Chrysostom inherited from earlier Church Fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, who were deeply suspicious about people’s use of their own bodies.66 Similarly, Stoic philosophy had paved the way for a rigid control of reason over emotions, which included a sensible containment of laughter and a cultivation of appropriate sadness.67 As an ethical teacher building on these foundations, Chrysostom is fully aware of the effectiveness of living role models.68 No surprise, then, that he realised the didactic potential as monks were descending from the monasteries in the surrounding hills to Antioch to help the ailing inhabitants amidst the disaster.69 The godly men from the countryside provided an excellent foil to the selfish elite who had fled from the city, and served as prime exemplars of the love for one’s neighbours. As well as figuring as saviours of the city, the monks are held up by Chrysostom as models with regard to their management of joy and sadness.70 In the same way as the Stoic sage, the saintly men enjoy unassailable tranquillity, which is why they are able to retain their sanguine mood even in the eye of the storm. While most people are tremendously affected by the adverse circumstances, the monks do not change at all because they have discerned the true nature of all things. Consequently, their peaceful state of mind enables them to experience the purest form of pleasure. Though they are detached from worldly adversities that depress and even panic people into losing their heads, the monks do not feel indifference or contempt for their brothers. Far from that, the monks not only accept unpleasant things as welcome but also grieve for others who are afflicted by disaster. Once having himself joined the monks in their seclusion outside the city, Chrysostom exhorts his urban congregation to emulate them with regard to their emotion management.71 If the Christian inhabitants of Antioch adopt the monks’ attitude towards worldly affairs they will at once be able to bear all adverse incidents with equanimity 66 See Cl. Al. Paid. 2.46. Cf. Bremmer 1997: 22 Gilhus 1997: 61–2. For the idea of control over the body in Chrysostom’s preaching see Brown 1988: 308–9. 67 Brennan 2003: 269–74; Graver 2007: 210–11. 68 See Rylaarsdam 2014: 268–9 on Chrysostom’s use of exemplars in ethical instruction. 69 Chrys. Stat. 18.12 (PG 49.186–7). 70 Stenger 2014b discusses the depiction of rustic monks as role models in Chrysostom’s homilies. 71 For Chrysostom’s stay with the monks from 375 to 378 see Liebeschuetz 2011: 126–32.

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and help those who are in need. Care for one’s soul is a far cry from the selfish behaviour of the upper class, for it is essentially linked to care for others. The preacher’s line of argument shows once more that human expressions are to him not concerns per se, but only insofar as they embody the individual’s moral progress, or lack of it. Chrysostom’s preaching during the Lent of 387 reveals a thoughtprovoking view on laughter and tears. He capitalises upon the revolt in order to lay bare the theological significance of these bodily responses. This is made clear not least by the sustained engagement with the biblical hypotext that runs as a thread through his discourse on laughing and bewailing. The echoes and quotations from the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Job and the Beatitudes all work together to cast fresh light on laughter and tears. What the intertextual references jointly suggest is that the topic goes far beyond the present occasion of the riots and the world here. Instead they make plain that it has to be seen in the context of Christian identity and salvation.72 Weeping over others, so the preacher says, even means imitating Christ.73 All of which points to Chrysostom’s core purpose; that is, to implement domination of the self and weeping as preparation for the life to come. In essence, he charges human expressions with an eschatological dimension. TEARS SECULAR AND ESCHATOLOGICAL At first glance there seems to be a close resemblance between Libanius’ and Chrysostom’s rhetorical portrayals of laughter and tears during the riot of the statues in Antioch. Both authors depict the dramatic reversal of feelings and emotional cues in the course of the uprising, and they share a sense of theatricality. Adopting a moral stance on the issue, the sophist and the Church Father agree in their strong aversion to the guffaw as an index of excess and corrupted morals. Tears and mourning, by contrast, are highly valued as they reflect contrition and compassion. On closer inspection, a fundamental difference emerges from the two accounts. Libanius makes use of laughter and tears primarily as literary themes, to spotlight virtue in a panegyrical mode. In doing so, his focus is evidently on the public and social dimension, according to the classical framework on which his vision of the city rests. In Libanius’ view, tears in combination with ritualistic supplication have an important role to play in the reinforcement of the traditional order. 72 See also Chrys. Hom. in Hebr. 15.4 (PG 63.123–4). 73 Chrys. Hom. in Mt. 6.6 (PG 57.69). Halliwell 2008: 503.

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Chrysostom, although viewing tears as a cure for the impending doom too, attributes to laughter and crying theological significance. He does so with the aim of educating his parishioners, in order to implement a Christian self-surveillance. More importantly, this strategy ties in with a wider agenda: Chrysostom conceives of laughter and tears as a conduit between human life on earth and the sphere of God. Feelings, both positive and negative, ought to be assessed and adapted always in that light, according to the fundamental principle of fear of God. Or, as Chrysostom elsewhere endorses Paul’s teaching, ‘whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all for the glory of God’.74 Shedding appropriate tears means acting out your Christian faith and identity on the public stage, in social interactions with your brothers. Ultimately, this will open the path to salvation. Chrysostom’s attention is directed towards the future, when there will be no sadness for the faithful.

74 Chrys. Catech. 3/5.8–13, repeatedly quoting 1 Corinthians 10:31. For the idea that it is even possible to display Christian identity through body movements see Chrys. Pan. mart. 2 (PG 50.665–6).

11 LAMENTING FOR THE FALL OF JERUSALEM IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY CE Ioannis Papadogiannakis The capture and sack of Jerusalem by the Persians in 614 ce was a momentous event in the eyes of the local Christian communities. The most extensive account of this event comes from Strategius’ (also spelled ‘Strategos’ elsewhere1 or referred to as ‘Antiochus Monachus’2) Capture of Jerusalem (hereafter CJ).3 The text was originally written in Greek and has been preserved in Georgian4 and Arabic.5 It is known mostly to historians as a purported eyewitness account, the historical credibility of which has been variously assessed.6 Often read almost exclusively for the historical information that it is thought to provide,7 this work is an avowed, sustained, poignant lament for the fall of the city and the fate of its Christian community: I do not write to you of gladness and joy, I do not call you to rejoice, but I call you to mourn. Grieve oh brothers, grieve because my spirit is heavy from great weeping . . . I do not call [my treatise] a codex, but I call it sadness; I do not call it a book, The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the European Research Council, which funded the research for this contribution with a Starting Grant for the project ‘Defining Belief and Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Role of Interreligious Debate and Disputation’.   1 Wilken 1992: 216–26.   2 Olster 1994: 79–84.   3 For a discussion of some of the textual complexities in the transmission of the work see Flusin 1992: 131–40.  4 Garitte 1960.  5 Garitte 1974.   6 Schick 1995; Booth 2014: 94–95.  7 Wilken 1992: 226–32; Olster 1994: 79–84; Schick 1995: 33–42; Cameron 2002: 57–78; Howard-Johnston 2010: 163–7; Bowersock 2012; Booth 2014: 241–50. This attitude is illustrated by Conybeare 1910: 502, who prepared the only existing English translation of excerpts of the Capture of Jerusalem. In the very brief introduction to his translation he states that ‘I have much reduced its bulk by omitting pious ejaculations and other passages devoid of historical interest.’

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but I call it captivity. I do not call it an epistle, but I call it lamentation. . .. I do not call it joy but I call it weeping.8 The impact of the fall of Jerusalem possessed a resonance like no other. Extensive imperial building programmes starting with Constantine, pilgrimage and thriving monastic communities that had produced a literature of profound spirituality had made Jerusalem loom large in the seventh-century Christian imaginaire.9 Thus, ‘That “holy Jerusalem” would be “laid waste” was beyond belief, and feelings that few Christians fully understood came rushing to the surface for the first time.’10 Comparing the impact of the fall of Rome to that of Jerusalem, Wilken writes: The fall of Jerusalem was an event of another magnitude. For the Jerusalem that was captured by the Persians was the city that Christians read about in the Scriptures and whose many biblical names – Zion, city of David, Salem – were familiar from prayers and hymns, particularly the Psalms. Rome had no such place in the Christian imagination or for that matter in Christian hope. Christians did not speak of a ‘heavenly Rome’ when they dreamed of the kingdom of God.11 The significance of Jerusalem for Christians notwithstanding, in the ancient world, the capture and sack of the city must have seemed the ultimate disaster. In one cataclysmic moment an individual could lose his house and property, his family, his homeland, and his freedom. And he could be condemned to live on, to borrow a phrase from Tacitus, to survive himself (Agr. 3.2). Or in the words of a survivor of the sack of Jerusalem, ‘he has cast me into a place of darkness, like those long dead’ (Lam. 3:5–6).12 It was not only the grim reality that resonated but also the psychological impact that had earned the theme of the capture of a city a fixed place in elegy, tragedy, historiography and liturgical poetry.13  8 CJ 1.1–5 (translated in Wilken 1992: 220).   9 Hunt 1984; Maraval 1985; Wilken 1992; Perrone 2006: 141–73; Déroche 2012: 55–75. 10 Wilken 1992: 231. 11 Wilken 1992: 226. 12 Keitel 2010: 337; cf. Toner 2013. 13 See Demoen 2001: 103–25; Alexiou [1974] 2002b: 83–101; Karla 2007: 141–56; Suter 2008a; Bacharova, Dutsch and Suter 2016.

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Ancient rhetorical manuals included and systematised recommendations about how best to arouse the emotions of an audience when describing the fall of a city. Despite its importance as a text CJ has attracted piecemeal attention. Only some aspects of its literary and theological character have been analysed, as part of a broader overview of the history of Jerusalem and the Holy Land.14 More can be done, however, to highlight the depth of the literary and theological character of Strategius’ portrayal of the fall of Jerusalem by showing how, through an array of emotive techniques, he invites the reader to join an emotional community of mourners and to feel empathy for the loss and affliction that befell his community in Jerusalem.15 CJ exhibits a wide range of appropriate features and cross-cultural similarities with traditions – in part as mediated by the biblical accounts – that go back to ancient Near Eastern city laments. The divine protectors withdraw, the city is captured, its shrines destroyed. Then the survivors, or others at a temporal or geographic remove, engage in song to mourn the dead, propitiate the gods, and make sense of events to the living.16 In setting the tone early on, Strategius uses the motif of the ‘empty land’ to highlight the devastation brought about by the invaders: ‘Oh my brothers, how was this land of promise made empty? How could destruction have razed the churches of Christ to the ground, and devastation come upon the altars of God?’17 The theme of the withdrawal of God’s protection of the city is told through the story of two monks who relate to the people of Jerusalem that when they were coming to the city they saw an angel standing on the wall of the city with a flaming spear, and at that moment we thought that the city was safe. But then another angel came down and said ‘depart from here, because the Lord has handed over the Holy City into the hands of the enemy’. And the company of angels departed because they were not able to oppose the command of God.18 When the angels departed, ‘We knew then that our sins exceeded God’s mercy.’ Then the monks, as a reflection on why God decided to 14 Wilken 1992: 216–26. 15 On the concept of emotional community see Rosenwein 2002: 821–45, esp. 842; 2006. 16 Ferris 1992; Heim 1999: 129–69; Wischnowsky 2001; Jacobs 2016: 13–35. 17 CJ 1.7. All translations from CJ that follow are from Conybeare 1910: 502–17. On this motif see Edelman 2007: 127–49. 18 CJ 5.26. On the role of angels in accounts of the fall of a city see Karanika 2016: 226–51.

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mete out punishment to his wayward flock for their sinful ways, cited Psalm 93:12: ‘Blessed is the one whom the Lord chastens.’19 Next, CJ brilliantly captures the shocking suddenness and savagery with which the people of Jerusalem were attacked. After the walls of the city were breached: Thereupon the evil foemen entered the city in great fury, like infuriated wild beasts and irritated serpents. The men however who defended the city wall fled, and hid themselves in caverns, fosses and cisterns in order to save themselves; and the people in crowds fled into churches and altars; and there they destroyed them. For the enemy entered in a mighty wrath, gnashing their teeth in violent fury; like evil beasts they roared, bellowed like lions, hissed like ferocious serpents, and slew all whom they found. Like mad dogs they tore with their teeth the flesh of the faithful, and respected none at all, neither male nor female, neither young nor old, neither child nor baby, neither priest nor monk, neither virgin nor widow.20 His concern about the indiscriminate slaughter of inhabitants of all ages, including children, virgins and clergy, is consonant with the urbs capta traditions. Graphic details are meant to draw the readers into experiencing the horror of the city’s inhabitants. Meanwhile the evil Persians, who had no pity in their hearts, raced to every place in the city and with one accord extirpated all the people. Anyone who ran away in terror they caught hold of; and if any cried out from fear, they roared at them with gashing teeth, and by breaking their teeth on the ground forced them to close their mouths.21 In what follows Jerusalem exhibits the classic symptoms of a captured city: cries of lamentation or anguish, scenes of families torn apart and slaughtered. They slaughtered tender infants on the ground, and then with loud yelps called their parents. The parents bewailed the children with vociferations and sobbings, but were promptly ­despatched along 19 CJ 5.32. On the use of this motif in Strategius’ time see Villagomez 1998: 203–18; on its biblical background see Pouchelle 2015. 20 CJ 7.6–8. 21 CJ 7.11–12.

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lamenting for the fall of jerusalem 191 with them. Any that were caught armed were massacred with their own weapons. Those who ran swiftly were pierced with arrows, the unresisting and quiet they slew without mercy. They listened not to the appeals of supplicants, nor pitied youthful beauty nor had compassion on old men’s age, nor blushed before the humility of the clergy. On the contrary they destroyed persons of every age, massacred them like animals, cut them into pieces, mowed sundry of them down like cabbages, so that all alike had severally to drain the cup full of bitterness.22 The listing of ages and social classes – from guards to women and babies – is a trope that city lament uses to register the magnitude of the catastrophe at every level.23 Lamentation and terror might be seen in Jerusalem. Holy churches were burned with fire, other were demolished, majestic altars fell prone, sacred crosses were trampled underfoot, lifegiving icons were spat upon by the unclean. Then their wrath fell upon priests and deacons; they slew them in their churches like dumb animals.24 The adjectives that Strategius uses for the buildings and other objects (holy churches, majestic altars, sacred crosses, life-giving icons) are also meant to intensify the emotions of the readers by drawing an implicit contrast between their former exalted status and their wanton destruction. In a passage with rich with tragic and vivid imagery,  Strategius heightens the pathos further by graphically elaborating on the plight of the Christian population: mothers weeping for their separation from their children, terrified children ‘chirping like little chicks’, rivers of blood flowing through the city, consecrated virgins weeping for their defilement by the enemy, pregnant women weeping for their husbands, husbands weeping for their wives, siblings and friends separated from each other, newly wedded couples separated and one of the spouses killed, monks and virgins massacred.25 As much as Strategius’ work draws on Old Testament historical and theological traditions on the fall of the cities, it also reflects a theological difference. This difference is made explicit and set out clearly at the beginning of CJ. 22 CJ 7.13–16. 23 Barbour 2013: 149. 24 CJ 7.17. 25 CJ 8.19–21.

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I do not cry for the temple of the Jews that the prophet Jeremiah mourned . . . Nor do I cry for the priests who murdered the prophets, and the people who crucified the Lord, the evil congregation who cried, ‘Crucify, crucify Jesus Christ’ . . . neither cry for them nor lament them because they earned that evil that fell upon them through captivity . . . But I cry and mourn for the holy city and the glorious churches, and the sacred altars and the faithful people who were murdered without mercy.26 The hostility against the Jews, which Strategius portrays as collaborators of the Sassanians and active in the persecution and maltreatment of his congregation,27 is followed by an emphasis on Jerusalem as the city of Christ’s passion. While the inspiration comes from Hebrew lamentation literature, Jerusalem and its suffering community are seen through the prism of Christ’s passion, condensed and symbolised in a physical object, the Cross. The culmination of this destruction, therefore, is the removal of the Cross and of the Christian community of Jerusalem to Persia. Clearly, Strategius uses the fall of Jerusalem to rouse in the reader the emotions recommended by the rhetoricians for the urbs capta.28 In doing so, he, like many an ancient writer, ‘could count on his audience’s familiarity with the motif, so that the mention of the capture of a city could be expected to evoke an emotional response’.29 By punctuating his account with much realistic detail he wants to stir in the readers indignation at the cruelty displayed and compassion for the victims.30 This indignation and angry fear emerge elsewhere in contemporary literature too. A case in point is the collection of questions addressed to Anastasios of Sinai, which captures the voices of anonymous Christians grappling with the consequences of the Arab conquest, struggling to make sense of the plight that befell them and their communities.31 ‘Is it true of all the evil things done by the Arabs against the lands and nations of the Christians, that they have done them against us completely at God’s command and with his approval?’32 Anastasios replies by referring to the atrocities that were committed: 26 CJ 1.13–16. 27 Olster 1994: 79–84; Cameron 2002: 57–78. 28 Paul 1982: 144–55. 29 Paul 1982: 151. See also Demoen 2001: 103–125. Cf. Angold in this volume. 30 On these traditions see Chaniotis 2013: 53–84; Mirguet 2014: 838–57. 31 On the emotional impact of the Arab conquest on Christian communities see Papadogiannakis forthcoming. 32 Q. 101 in Munitiz 2011: 230 where all translations come from. For a critical edition cf. Richard and Munitiz 2006.

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lamenting for the fall of jerusalem 193 God forbid that we should say that God urged them to throw down and trample upon his holy body and blood, or on the relics of his holy Apostles and martyrs. There are thousands of other things that they are doing to us which are not pleasing to God: they unjustly maltreat many, they persecute others for their faith, they shed the just and innocent blood of others, they defile God’s altars and venerated places, they force religious women with a long practice of virginity to enter unwillingly into marriage.33 He then seeks to assuage their confusion and anger by invoking Old Testament precedents where God used the Assyrians and the Egyptians as instruments of punishment for the transgressions of the people of Israel, but did not allow His people to perish: It is necessary for us to be aware of these things, so that when you see these lawless men closing the churches, shedding blood, persecuting some people unjustly and mercilessly, and committing other crimes, you will not be angry (ἀγανακτῆτε) with God, but realise clearly that they are acting thus because of their own godlessness, and that they await the worst possible hell.34

As mentioned above, these traditions had worked their way deep into the imagination and memory of ancient audiences as they recalled the most emblematic examples: the sack of Troy as described in the Iliad and, in the biblical context, the sixth-century bce fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. Later rhetoricians further systematised these and codified them into rules. Quintilian prescribes the following rules: This too is how the pathos of a captured city can be enhanced. No doubt, simply to say ‘the city was stormed’ is to embrace everything implicit in such a disaster, but this brief communiqué, as it were, does not touch the emotions. If you expand everything which was implicit in the one word, there will come into view flames racing through houses and temples, the crash of falling roofs, the single sound made up of many cries, the blind flight of some, others clinging to their dear ones in a last embrace, shrieks of children and women, the old men whom an unkind fate has allowed to see this day; then will come the pillage of property secular and sacred, the frenzied activity of plunderers carrying 33 Munitiz 2011: 230. 34 Munitiz 2011: 231.

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off their booty and going back for more, the prisoners driven in chains before their captors, the mother who tries to keep her child with her, and the victors fighting one another wherever the spoils are richer. ‘Sack of a city’ does, as I said, comprise all these things; but to state the whole is less than to state all the parts. We shall succeed in making the facts evident if they are plausible; it will even be legitimate to invent things of the kind that usually occur. (Quint. Inst. 8.3.67–70, tr. D. A. Russell)35 Given the weight of urbs capta traditions, it is almost certain that the  fall of a city may not only have been described but also experienced  in terms of well-known textual representations of previous falls  and of well-established traditions, themes and guidelines, cross-culturally attested. The fact, however, that ancient authors wrote within a genre that had rules and commonplaces does not obviate our  recognising that they were also expressing genuine emotion, and did not necessarily make the emotional experience less authentic.36 Throughout the CJ the Bible provided a dense resource of motifs and texts from Ezekiel, Lamentations, Jeremiah, the New Testament and particularly the Psalms for the pastoral and theological challenges that Strategius faced. As well as acting as emotional templates that helped regulate the emotions of the community, these motifs and texts helped him interpret for his audience his community’s sufferings as punishment by God for their sins and as a supplication to God to end his judgement and bring salvation.37 This went hand in hand with the belief, widespread in seventh-century Byzantium, that the Christian empire was the earthly manifestation and anticipation of the kingdom of Christ, which superseded all other terrestrial realms; in other words it was the messianic kingdom announced by the OT prophets and awaited by the Jews along with the true anointed God.38 As a result of this the Old Testament provided not only substance but also an authentic style of discourse for an embattled theocratic  society.39 Strategius’ predilection for the Psalms can be 35 In Keitel 2010: 337–9. 36 On commonplaces and their emotional impact see Garrison 2001: 243–50. 37 On the use of the Βible in CJ among other contemporaneous texts see Papadogiannakis 2015: 63–72. 38 Magdalino and Nelson 2010a: 28. 39 Magdalino and Nelson 2010a: 21.

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lamenting for the fall of jerusalem 195 explained by the fact that they formed the backbone of prayer40 and the liturgy and thus embodied the sacramental grace and soteriological history at the core of Christianity. They reflected the cry of the individual bereft of all happiness and abandoned by God, and the joining of that individual into the tranquil and safe haven which is Christianity. The Psalms provided a locus in which grief and misery, in particular, could safely be expressed without fear of divine reprisal, because they were the voice with which Christ spoke to God in the New Testament and the voice of King David in the Old.41 Where the effects of Jerusalem’s fall become more poignant in CJ is in the graphic description of the bodies of the victims. The level of detail with which they are described is horrifyingly grisly: For some were lying cloven asunder from head to breast; others lay with fissures from shoulder to belly; some lay transfixed with the sword and cut in bits like grass; some lay cut in twain. Some had their belly cloven asunder with the sword and their entrails gushing out, and others lay cut into pieces, limb by limb, like the carcasses in a butcher’s shop. But above all it was piteous and deplorable to think of, how some wallowed in the streets mixed up with the soil; others with clay and mud, besmirched with impurities; while others wallowed in the churches and houses imbrued in blood. Some had fled into the Holy of Holies, where they lay cut up like grass. And some were found of the slain who had in their hands the glorious and life giving body of Christ, and in the act of receiving it had been butchered like sheep. Others were clasping the horns of the altars; others the holy Cross, and the slain were heaped on them. Others had fled to the Baptistery and lay covered with wounds on the edge of the font. Others were massacred as they hid under the holy table, and were offered victims to Christ.42

Strategius powerfully juxtaposes the scene of the slain Christians who held the sacrificial Host with the slain Christians at the altar who were in turn offered up as sacrifice to God. This description is placed 40 Perrone 2008: 393–417. 41 Toswell 2010: 2; see also Bosworth 2013: 34–46 42 CJ 23.6–9.

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near the end of the work along with a list of names of the places in Jerusalem where corpses were found, perhaps as an intimation that the suffering of the city was mapped out as much on the bodies of the victims as on the topography of the city. THE COMMUNITY IN EXILE In his account Strategius focuses on people dying (often heroically) much as or more than on the grief and despair of the living. In fact, the rest of the account is devoted to the Christian community of Jerusalem in captivity, suggesting that Jerusalem’s plight was ongoing. He goes on to describe the general misery of those who were spared. His account is episodic. He selects examples and scenes from what he purports to have been descriptions by eyewitnesses; the drama of the twin boys who were separated by the Persians,43 a deacon who saw his two daughters cut down by the Persians because they would not worship fire.44 This is not meant to give a heroic patina to their plight but to encourage Christians to hold fast to their faith. Nowhere do the grief and the despair and the hope come together more than in the figure of Zacharias, who is modelled on Christ as the paradigmatic sufferer. Strategius distils the grief and sorrow of the community in the figure of Zacharias, who emerges as the focal point in the exiled community in Persia, an exemplary pastor deeply invested in guiding his flock and in negotiating the numerous challenges that captivity threw at them. His suffering represents their suffering. In this way he is portrayed as one who can feel and understand what his people are going through, and this gives his lament and his admonitions in his frequent addresses additional credibility and weight.45 Half way through the work, the author places a speech by Zacharias which is meant to lift the morale and offer consolation.46 The opening of the address is saturated with the language of the Psalms. Zacharias sings the following Psalms antiphonally with his flock: 119:1: ‘In my distress I cry to the Lord, that He may answer me’; 120: 1: ‘I lift my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come?’; 118:5: ‘O that my ways may be directed to keep your statutes’; 119:5: ‘Woe to me, that my place of sojourn was put at a distance; I encamped among the coverts of Kedar’; 121:2: ‘Our feet stood in your courts, O Jerusalem’; 125:1–2: ‘When 43 CJ 17.1–22. 44 CJ 16.3. 45 On Zacharias’ lament and reactions to fall of Jerusalem in the earlier part of the CJ see Wilken 1992: 221–4 46 CJ 18.19–39.

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the Lord returned the captivity of Sion, we became like people comforted. Then our mouth was filled with joy, and our tongue with rejoicing.’ Standing up in a high place to address the crowd he cites Psalm 136:1: ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, also wept when we remembered Sion’ and 5: ‘If I forget you Jerusalem may my right hand be forgotten!’ Then he gathers all the children and infants around him to petition God. The speech is dense with biblical citations from John 14:18 (‘I will not leave you orphans’) and Matthew 28:20 (see below). Echoing Ezekiel 18:23 and 33:11, where an angry but forbearing God declares that He does not wish sinners to perish but is always willing to admit them back, Zacharias goes on to exhort his congregation to hold fast to their faith and remain steadfast, citing Matthew 10:19, where Christ reassures those who bear witness to their faith that He will intercede on their behalf to his Father, for ultimately it is He who has power over life and death.47 Zacharias reminds his congregation that it was in Persia that God had saved the three young men in the furnace48 and Daniel from the lion’s den,49 and asks his flock to join him in repeating the words of the young men in the furnace: ‘for there is a god whom we serve, able to deliver us from the furnace blazing with fire, and out of your hands, O king, He will rescue us’.50 Zacharias concludes his speech with Christ’s reassuring pledge in Matthew 28:20: ‘I am with you always, to the end of ages.’ Close to the end of the work Strategius includes a letter that Zacharias sent to his Jerusalem congregation from his captivity.51 The letter gives precious insight into the state of the captives and their relationship with the Jerusalem congregation. In his letter Zacharias laments the state of his community in captivity, contrasting their fate with that of his congregation that had returned to Jerusalem, inviting the latter to witness the former’s plight with compassion, castigating them, among other things, for moral laxity, and for having been far from generous to the poor and the destitute. Yet again Strategius seeks to regulate the emotions of his community in the words of Zacharias, who attempts to turn this disaster to a source of ongoing social cohesion and solidarity for his suffering community. For events like this, as Toner emphasises, 47 Citing Deuteronomy 32:39: ‘I will kill and I will make alive.’ 48 Daniel 3, a favourite subject in Christian homilies on bearing up under suffering; see Dulaey 1997: 33–59. 49 Daniel 6. 50 Daniel 3:17. 51 CJ 22.1–33. For a more detailed analysis of this letter, which has been preserved in its original Greek in PG 86, 2: 3227–34, see Papadogiannakis forthcoming.

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generated the material to forge communal memories, in which Christian ideas of charity and salvation coalesced into a practical, concrete reality. It was a way of converting people’s sense of post-disaster disorientation and anxiety into a clearly focused form. By stressing the decadence and immorality of the populace, Christian disaster accounts could hope to promote aggressively a purer world-view, a world where higher standards of public behaviour would be driven forward by the example of moral Christian leadership.52 For Zacharias this was a signal of God’s love of His people to remind them of His power. The plight that befell them served to enhance faith and ideally led to remorse and penance which would restore the Jerusalem community to its former relationship with God, and consequently the re-establishment of its former social integrity. Zacharias went on to remind his flock to take God’s warnings to heart, warning them that if they did not, the wrath of God was certain to strike them and that His forbearance and mercy would turn into severe justice. Lest his readers lapse into despair, however, Strategius, in what is a later addition, ends CJ on a note of hope by describing the return of the Cross in Jerusalem. CONCLUSIONS By now, it has become clear that the significance of the CJ lies not only in its degree of correspondence to historical facts but also in the intensity of mourning that Strategius seeks to induce in his readers. He is not merely reporting facts but shaping a narrative that binds the author and the readers together in a shared emotional and theological reaction to the event, inspired by Hebrew lamentation literature and the classical urbs capta traditions. In blending and adjusting lament motifs and themes from both traditions, he helped shape future traditions of city lamentations in Byzantium. CJ should therefore occupy a special place in the literature of city laments, in that it lies somewhere along the developmental line of traditions which informed nearly all efforts to capture the devastating physical and psychological effects of the fall of a city, a tradition which culminated and can be recognised in the laments for the fall of the New Jerusalem, Constantinople.53

52 Toner 2013: 165. 53 On Constantinople as the New Jerusalem see Olster 1994: 72–98; on the traditions on the fall of Constantinople see Papayianni 2010: 27–44 with bibliography.

12 GUIDING GRIEF: LITURGICAL POETRY AND RITUAL LAMENTATION IN EARLY BYZANTIUM Susan Ashbrook Harvey LOCATING GRIEF IN CHRISTIAN LITURGY Early Byzantine liturgical texts present a confusing array of material on grief and bereavement. On the one hand, homilies abound in which Christians were exhorted to constrain their grief for their departed. In these texts, one hears strong notes from the literary conventions of pre-Christian philosophical consolation, flavoured with the particular tastes of Christian expectation and hope. Homilists such as Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom and others admonished that grief and lamentation were unseemly for the faithful Christian.1 Such preachers disdained the emotive performances of grief that accompanied traditional funeral practices, viewing them as ‘pagan’ and unsuitable for Christians. Instead, Christians should live in hope-filled expectation of the final resurrection. In the late fourth century, for example, John Chrysostom scorned

I owe much to my doctoral seminar, ‘Grief in Late Antiquity’, Brown University, Fall 2013. Reyhan Durmaz, Stephany Hull, Daniel Picus and Daria Resh all contributed substantially to my thinking on these matters; for one important class, Byron MacDougall and Dr Kevin Kalish joined us. I thank them all for rich, incisive and fertile conversation. Thanks are also owed to my colleagues in the Brown University seminar on Culture and Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean, the Providence Patristics Group and the Boston area Patristics Group (Patristica Bostoniensia), all of whom provided important venues for discussing earlier versions of this chapter. Remaining problems, of course, are my own responsibility.   This chapter is dedicated with deep admiration and affection to Professor Margaret Alexiou, who first introduced me to the astonishing beauty of Romanos Melodos many years ago, and in whose honour we gathered for the splendid 8th A. G. Leventis Conference, ‘Greek Laughter and Tears, Antiquity and After’, in Edinburgh, 7–11 November 2013, where the paper on which this chapter is based was originally delivered.   1 The premier study remains Alexiou 2002b. See also Rush 1941; Samellas 2002; and for important comparative material, Patton and Hawley 2005; Suter 2008a; Fögen 2009b.

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traditional mourning, derisively dismissing laments as ‘blasphemies’ and professional mourning as a ‘disease of females’.2 A century later at the eastern edges of the Byzantine realm, Jacob of Sarug complained of women in the cemeteries who mourned their beloved dead with personal, chaotic, even ‘violent’ grief, like ‘mad women’.3 Jacob’s dismay was partly due to his desire to order personal emotion through the normative structures of Christian liturgy. Rather than tearfully haunting the cemeteries, he admonished, one should come to the church for memorial services, with pious, reverent and quiet tears. Jacob also worried that the public display of mourning was a practice of generally negative impact. ‘When [the soul] hears the lamenting voice of wailing women’, he warned, ‘she [the soul] moves in grief and sheds abundant tears for the dead.’4 Such encounters left a person disoriented and distracted, for proximate mourning – ­mourning ­overheard – inevitably opened one’s own wounds of loss. Better, again, to allow the comforts of formal liturgy to present one’s sorrow to God in fitting fashion. Such platitudes encrusted the thin morsels of consolation offered to the bereft amidst the formalities of late antique Christian funeral celebration.5 Yet these same Christian leaders joined a host of hagiographical authors in describing – and even affirming – the lavish displays of mourning that greeted the deaths of beloved church figures, whether bishops or holy men or women. Gregory of Nyssa’s description of the death and funeral of his sister Macrina is a classic text in this regard.6 His portrait is memorable for its wrenching tears and anguished loss  channelled into ritual order through the collective singing of Psalms.7 Hagiographies often conclude with such funeral scenes, embedding the grief of civic and monastic communities within processions adorned with incense, candles and torches, laced with prayers and litanies as well as hymns and Psalms of sorrow and thanksgiving. The contrast between these hagiographical accounts, and the restraints urged by bishops in the case of personal loss, is considerable.8 Where, then, did the individual or the family rightly place the sorrow of their own losses? How should it be expressed or enacted? For the human   2 For example, Alexiou 2002b: 24–35; Samellas 2002: 70–115.   3 Jacob of Sarug, ‘On the memorial of the departed’, trans. Connolly 1910; Holy Transfiguration Monastery 1990.   4 Jacob of Sarug, ‘On the partaking’, trans. Harrak 2009: 22.   5 Consider Jacob of Sarug, Homily 191, on the death of a daughter of the covenant (bart qyama), for which see Kitchen 2007; Syriac edited in Bedjan and Brock 2006, 5: 821–36.   6 Greg. Nys., ‘Life of Macrina’, ed. Maraval 1971; trans. Callahan 1967: 161–97.   7 Greg. Nys., ‘Life of Macrina’, sec. 33. See also Krueger 2000.   8 The contrasts are well captured in De Bruyn 2005; Doerfler 2011.

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guiding grief 201 grief of death, and the emotional habits by which families and communities expressed it, remained socially constant, and thereby socially troublesome, for Christian leaders and their flocks. As if in acknowledgement of this situation, Greek and Syriac liturgical texts from the fourth to the sixth centuries ce seem to offer another perspective on grief, and a different manner of engaging with its very real impact on individuals and communities. Here, in the luminous poetry of late antique and early Byzantine hymns and homilies, we find strikingly emotive portraits of biblical characters confronting anguish and loss. Noteworthy for their literary beauty, such accounts of biblical tragedy were also, apparently, unapologetic as dramas of high emotion and affective quality. My concern here is the ritual use and ritual function of such material. For scholarship has tended to look at ancient Christian responses to death either in terms of burial practices and traditional forms of lamentation or through the literary tropes of philosophical consolation. Less explored have been other media whereby grief and loss were negotiated in the early Byzantine world. Biblical tragedy as an embedded aspect of ancient Christian liturgical life is one important example. Stories such as Cain’s murder of Abel or Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac provided a rich reservoir of typological models for grief and lamentation. Intoned by preachers, sung by chanters and choirs with responses from the congregation, such accounts vividly engaged liturgical participants. It is my contention that biblical tragedies presented in the form of liturgical poetry forged a path for the grieving Christian. Liturgical participation moved the bereaved towards emotional resolution, offering solace through the liturgy’s own narrative arc from supplication to eucharistic fulfilment. Liturgy presented a divine dispensation that promised triumph over death, even in the wake of grievous sorrow. The impetus for such biblical portraits in the context of worship appears to have been part of the change characterising late antique  Christian culture. Increased attention to the Bible – and particularly, to biblical stories – marked the liturgical expansion Christians undertook in the wake of their legalisation early in the fourth century. The timing was no accident: as converts flooded Christian churches across the Roman empire, Christian leaders sought to provide biblical education on a broad scale. Liturgy became the church’s school.9   9 See now Bradshaw and Johnson 2011. For the development of the Syriac liturgy and daily offices in the context of eastern Christianity see e.g. Mateos 1959; 1971; Bradshaw 1982: 72–110; Taft 1986: esp. 225–48. For the ‘biblicisation’ of early Byzantine culture, see Krueger 2005.

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In this context, biblical stories of tragedy became central components of the practice and process of liturgical celebration. As such, they provide intriguing possibilities for understanding early Byzantine responses to death through collective expressions for and negotiations of the shared experience of human grief. What is interesting here is the degree to which these liturgical articulations ostensibly pursue an agenda seemingly opposed to the familiar discourse of philosophical consolation. Through biblical stories, re-told in the media of poetic discourse, located in the collective ritual edifice of public liturgy, we find grief as an emotion explored with penetrating intensity. Liturgy apparently offered an alternative to the binary opposition of philosophical consolation and traditional practices of lamentation. It allowed a social space wherein grief could be confronted with honest affirmation, while yet being relegated to a ‘safe’ distance – the mythic realm of the biblical past. Biblical tragedy was liturgically recounted in Greek and Syriac in two basic forms of poetry: dramatic narratives presented in homilies  of simple verse or metred prose; and the sung poetry ­ of  hymns in various metres, where verses were generally punctuated  by a short refrain the congregation might join. Each broad category – homily or hymn – engaged the ritual process of liturgy in different ways, allowing for diverse liturgical experiences and  ­ expressions. Yet for both, the conscious crafting of poetic form was integral to the story’s recounting. In what follows, I will consider first the poetic narratives of the homilies and then the varieties of hymnography. Finally, I will conclude with some observations on the distinctive qualities of ritual performance that liturgy enabled. POETIC NARRATIVES: THE HOMILIES During the fourth and fifth centuries, a changed form of homiletic narrative emerged in both Syriac and Greek. In Syriac this was the mimra, a homily presented in isosyllabic couplets of simple pattern: couplets of 7 + 7 syllables or 12 + 12, for example, crafted by poets such as Ephrem the Syrian, Jacob of Sarug or Narsai of Nisibis. In Greek, authors such as Basil of Seleucia and Ephrem Graecus developed a homiletic form of Kunstprosa in rhythmic or simply metred form that had similar traits to those of the Syriac mimra. In both languages, these authors utilised poetic craft to re-tell biblical stories with expansive imagination and verve, drawing biblical characters into vibrant life through familiar rhetorical techniques of imagined speech (prosōpopoiia or ēthopoiia), mimetic representation heightened

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guiding grief 203 by vividness (enargeia) and rich description (ekphrasis).10 Often, these were depictions of grief. In Basil of Seleucia’s homily on Lazarus, for example, Jesus’ weeping at the news of his friend defines the difference between divine and human understanding: Jesus wept by the tomb in order to give a limit for grief to lovers of Christ; by weeping, he ordained a law with His tears. He wept, He did not lament, or wail, or moan, or rend His garments, or tear His hair. He defined the bounds of grief only as far as the first tears. For why weepest thou for one who is awaiting the trumpet? Why dost thou lament as a corpse one who is sleeping?11

The poignancy of loss is first marked in this homily by Jesus’ inversion of human lamentation: he weeps but does not lament. The real, human horror of death is marked, instead, by an intensity of sensory rhetoric. The sermon sets this view from the outset: ‘Christ breathed a sweet breath of immortality into the human nature which stank of death.’12 The homilist marks a definitive contrast between the smells of immortal and mortal existence, one sweet, the other foul. When Jesus summons the dead man, the ‘stench of death’ itself is called to bear witness to what is taking place (§8). Lazarus arises, ‘he whose inward parts were ravaged, and who was given up to worms, an object of waste. His eyes were putrid, sinews were torn asunder . . . his nerves and marrows and veins were dissolved into juices.’13 Amidst stench and filth – hallmarks of a mortal condition reeking of Adam’s sin14 – Lazarus is restored, ‘as if in a womb’.15 Sensory rhetoric leaves no question as to the physicality of death’s effect, or of the divine power necessary if death is to be undone. It marks the horror by which the grief of death is begun, and the astonishing miracle of its end. In Jacob of Sarug’s third homily on Cain and Abel,16 a distraught Eve stumbles upon the corpse of Abel while Cain looks on, himself a mass of trembling terror. Eve’s lament for her sons, ‘as a dove moans 10 Webb 1997b points out that, during late antiquity, poetry takes over many of the functions formerly served by prose, including, specifically, the treatment of emotions. 11 Basil of Seleucia, ‘On Lazarus’, sec. 6, Cunningham 1986:180. 12 Basil of Seleucia, ‘On Lazarus’, sec. 3, Cunningham 1986: 178. 13 Basil of Seleucia, ‘On Lazarus’, sec. 9, Cunningham 1986: 182. 14 Harvey 2006: 11–56. 15 Basil of Seleucia, ‘On Lazarus’, sec. 10, Cunningham 1986: 182. 16 Jacob of Sarug, Hom. 149 (Cain and Abel 3), Bedjan and Brock 2006, 5: 32–47. My trans. On the lamentation of Eve, see further below.

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with suffering for her nestlings’,17 is lacerating, brutal in its horror, savage in its double blow: for one son is dead and the other lost. In sorrow, she sings, For whom shall I mourn, for the dead one or the living? For Abel shall I grieve, or for you, Cain, shall I make mourning? There is no consolation for me for the dead man who was killed and thrown away, and there is no comfort [for me] from that one still living who endures terrors. The death of Abel and your terror, Cain, see how they besiege me! By the blood of the dead one and the quaking of the living one, I am shattered.18 Such graphic and grievous laments abound in late antique Greek and Syriac poetic narratives of tragedy, even when not part of ­biblical texts: for example, by Sarah when Abraham betrays her with attempted marriage to the Pharaoh; again by Sarah when she believes that Abraham has slain her only son Isaac for sacrifice; or by Jacob the father and Dinah the sister of Joseph when his brothers kidnap and sell him into slavery, but report that he has died.19 In verse homilies, anguished lament was voiced by Jephthah and his daughter as he prepared to slay her in fulfilment of his vow;20 by the harlot mother who wept before King Solomon lest her baby be cut in two;21 by the mother who wept to the prophet Elisha over the death of her son in famine;22 and by other biblical characters who faced harsh loss. Embedded in liturgy, such homilies offered the congregation controlled representations of grief. In the weekly divine liturgy, hymns and biblical readings preceded the homily, which was then followed by litanies of supplication, prayers for mercy, the triumphant shouting out of the creed and Lord’s prayer, and the culminating solace of the eucharist. In vigil services – also calling for hymns, readings, litanies 17 Jacob of Sarug, Hom. 149, Bedjan and Brock 2006, 5: 43.21. My trans. 18 Jacob of Sarug, Hom. 149, Bedjan and Brock 2006, 5: 45.7–12. My trans. 19 The Syriac versions are powerfully emotive narrative dramas, presented in homiletic verse form. Yet they do not seem to be homilies, per se, as they lack any performative homiletic indicators (address to congregation, prayers, etc.). On the other hand, in many respects they are literarily related to the homilies listed in the following notes, and these were indisputably delivered in liturgical settings. Brock 1986; 2005; Brock and Hopkins 1992. On the problem of genre, Brock 2010a. 20 Jacob of Sarug, ‘On Jephthah’s daughter’, Harvey and Münz-Manor 2010; Alexiou and Dronke 1971. 21 Jacob of Sarug, ‘On the judgment of Solomon’, Kaufman 2008. 22 Jacob of Sarug, ‘On Elisha VI’, Kaufman 2010.

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and homilies – the larger trajectory of daily and weekly services still pointed forward towards a eucharistic telos. Liturgy thus provided a larger narrative in which to frame the homily’s tragedy, and through which to resolve it. Whatever moment of focus a homily or hymn might offer on the ravages of grief, for example, was framed by ­liturgy’s larger salvific narrative. The story did not end at the moment of tragedy; it ended with eucharist, the moment of absolute human– divine relation and resolution. Certain features are shared in these sermons. One is a reliance on imagined speeches. These take the form of extended monologues, both interior and exterior, as well as dialogue to move the story’s narrative forward: dialogue between the homilist and the congregation, or between and among biblical characters. Antiphony was a basic hallmark of formal lament that allowed exchange between mourners and between the living and the dead.23 Homiletic dialogue, I would argue, echoed that exchange and its significance for mediating between life and death. Also shared is the use of sensory rhetoric  and  sensory imagery to enhance the tragic experiences suffered by the character. Evocative descriptions of wounds, illness, stench, putridity and decay emphasise mortality, and are contrasted with the sweet fragrance of divinity, the breath of life, the perfumed scent of Paradise and immortality.24 Again, there is direct stress on the characters’ emotions. The homilies emphasise inner turmoil as emotions surge, and outer anguish expressed in gestures, postures, disarray of hair or clothing. Emotions were conveyed through sensory encounters: the sounds of wailing, groans or weeping; the taste of bitterness; the loss of intimate touch. Such imagery also elicited emotion in the listeners. Whether in Greek or Syriac, these liturgical representations of mourning draw as much from ancient Mediterranean customs as from the rhetorical handbooks of late ancient education. From the progymnasmata and declamation exercises, paradigms were easily available for grief, and especially for the use of women’s voices to articulate extreme pathos.25 Within mythic imagination, whether epic or biblical, women’s grief and women’s tears measured loss. The tears of Niobe for her children or of Andromache for her husband, as imagined in exercises such as those of Libanius,26 were echoed sometimes word for word in the imagined lamentations of biblical women, 23 On antiphony as fundamental to lament, see Alexiou 2002b: 11–14, 131–50, and passim. 24 Harvey 2006: 11–56, 201–21. 25 Webb 2001; Kaster 2001. 26 Gibson 2008: esp. 355–85.

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as, for example, in Ephrem Graecus’ depiction of Eve’s lamentation for Cain and Abel.27 Such representations allowed women’s voices to express the grief of death and thereby to acknowledge its truth as a community’s loss.28 The imagined lamentation of homily or hymn was a shared activity; its location was civic or monastic, its voice collective. It stood for every death, every loss, experienced by any individual. Moreover, and notably, the imagined lament of a biblical character was often presented with an energetic force distinctly lacking when it came to comforting the living faithful for their real and immediate losses. POETRY AND PARTICIPATION As with poetic narrative homilies, hymnography also developed new forms during late antiquity. Between the fourth and sixth centuries, hymnography in various languages shifted form to hymns with strophes of repeated metrical patterns, punctuated by a simple refrain.29 This enabled various kinds of performance. The verses might be sung by a chanter, with a choir leading the congregation in the refrain; or the verses might be sung by a choir or alternately between two choirs, again with congregational response. Such performative diversity encouraged and enabled an active congregational presence, at a time when trained choirs and chanters were replacing some modes of congregational participation.30 Further, such musical and poetic forms were more accessible to lay involvement, inviting the impress of melody and repetition on one’s mind – itself an effective form of religious instruction.31 27 Kalish 2012. I am grateful to Kevin Kalish for use of this paper, and for discussion of the Ephrem Graecus text. Glenthøj 1997: 214–16 compares the various laments of Eve that are found in late antique homilies. 28 Compare Lynch 2005; Erker 2009. 29 The same developments mark Jewish liturgical poetry of the same period, with the emergence of the piyyutim. On the fascinating comparative aspects, see Münz-Manor 2010. Fine overviews of the process may be found in Brock 2010b; McGuckin 2010. For the Syriac, see further Cassingena-Trévedy 2006. The hymns of Ambrose of Milan mark a similar transition in Latin; Roberts 2010. I am concerned here only with sung liturgical poetry. The learned ‘hymns’ of Gregory of Nazianzus or Synesius of Cyrene, for example, are not likely to have been used in liturgical settings. 30 On the development of congregational singing in relation to trained choirs and chanters, see Taft 2006: esp. 29–132; Page 2010: esp. 1–172. On the Syriac women’s choirs, Harvey 2012. 31 Jacob of Sarug, for example, noted the dangers of popular music from the theatre on just this point: people walked around humming and singing the songs of theatre, when (in his view) they should have been singing church hymns instead. Jacob of Sarug, ‘On the theater, hom. 5’, Moss 1935: 105.

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The kontakia of Romanos the Melodist provide an especially powerful example of how grief as a process was guided through the medium of hymns. Romanos crafted his ‘sung sermons’ for night-time vigil services, apart from the grand splendour of Haghia Sophia’s divine liturgy. His poetic form combined a variety of literary perspectives and techniques.32 Each kontakion presented a biblical story, tied to the ecclesiastical calendar, with a narrative that interwove the biblical account with the first-person reflection of the singer/poet. The presence of the singer is important. Romanos does not provide us with his ‘personal’ views, but rather with the voice of the faithful believer as a type: the individual Christian subject who is also the collective church – just as the biblical Psalms, sung in first-person voice, interchange individual believer and Israel as a collective subject.33 In this shared voice, Romanos explores the inner thoughts of the faithful believer and also of the biblical characters whose stories he re-tells.34 His verses interlace perspectives from the liturgical present and the biblical past, imagined in seamless exchanges of monologue and dialogue, in patterned tapestries of prayer, introspective reflection and dramatic sacred narrative. Each verse ends with a simple refrain, voiced from various locations within the kontakion’s story: the singer, the biblical characters, the congregation. Each time, that refrain would be sung by the choir and joined by the congregation, who thus became intimately woven into the kontakion’s process, becoming part of the kontakion’s rhetorical world and part of its performance.35 Sung in the first person by chanter and congregation alike, the kontakion became everyone’s own story. The hymns of Romanos contain vivid and dramatic scenes of mourning. In two kontakia on the raising of Lazarus, the chanter along with the congregation prays that Christ should ‘Take pity on the tears of Mary and Martha’ – the opening prayer in Lazarus I, and the repeated refrain in Lazarus II.36 In these two homilies, biblical ­witnesses, like the congregation in their own lives, weep in abundance. As the congregation repeatedly joined the refrain of Lazarus II, sounding the ‘tears of Mary and Martha’, the hymn itself resonated across imagined and present griefs. In the kontakion on Abraham and Isaac, Abraham laments at length as he walks towards Mount Moriah and his wretched task of 32 Krueger 2004: 159–88, 247–57; 2014: 29–65, 227–33. I follow the edition of Maas and Trypanis 1963. 33 Krueger 2006. 34 Frank 2006. 35 For the important function of the congregational refrain as a ritual element, see Lieber 2010. For the refrain specifically in the kontakia of Romanos, Hunger 1998. 36 Romanos, ‘On the raising of Lazarus I’, ‘On the raising of Lazarus II’, trans. Carpenter 1970, 1: 137–56.

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sacrificing his only child.37 His fears are monstrous. His horror alternates with poignant familial imagery: Who will praise the mockery of my golden years, when he hears how I slew, with my own hands, the boy whose fingers I hoped would close my eyes? I dressed him as an infant. How can I bind him as a victim? I watched him gambol, blessing you for your gift.38 Amidst the strophic rhythms of the hymn, Romanos considers Abraham’s sorrow for the child and his ‘beauty’: for his ‘tongue with its childish lisp’, for his ‘rosy lips’. Interior imagines interior, as Romanos presents Abraham’s expectation of Sarah’s grievous lament: [O Isaac], you are my light, the shimmer of my eyes; You are my star, son. I look at you and glow. You are the perfect fruit of my womb! . . . May you, the first fruit of my bed, weep at my bier. But may I never mourn your death or hear your father called a murderer.39 In Abraham’s imagination, Sarah’s is a lament so bitter that Abraham cannot bring himself to tell her where he has gone or for what purpose. In the story’s conclusion, of course, sorrow and horror turn to rejoicing. Spared their loss, the congregation sings Sarah’s joy in the refrain, ‘[O Lord], you are the giver of blessings, the Saviour of our souls.’40 Her joy – her deliverance from horror – is theirs. So, too, in the first kontakion on Joseph, Jacob weeps again and again for his sons, his heart ‘burn[ing] more fiercely than the heat of a furnace as he mourned’.41 First he loses Joseph, then (by Joseph’s ruse) Simeon and Reuben: ‘Anxiety about my children tortures me like a whip; I mourn both at the birth and death of my sons / Now with grief I descend to Hades . . . Now I despair’.42 When, in the end, all are discovered and reconciled, Jacob leaps and runs ‘like a boy’ amidst his rejoicing sons, while Joseph ‘melts into tears’ at the miracle of reunion.43 37 Romanos, ‘Abraham and Isaac’, trans. Schork 1995: 148–57. 38 Romanos, ‘Abraham and Isaac’, str. 4; Schork 1995: 151. 39 Romanos, ‘Abraham and Isaac’, str. 10–11; Schork 1995: 152–3. 40 Romanos, ‘Abraham and Isaac’, str. 24; Schork 1995: 157. 41 Romanos, ‘On Joseph I’, str. 8; Carpenter 1970, 2: 81–98, at 86. 42 Romanos, ‘On Joseph I’, str. 25; Carpenter 1970, 2: 92–3. 43 Romanos, ‘On Joseph I’, str. 36, str. 39; Carpenter 1970, 2: 95, 98.

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Despite the hyperbole of their content, these kontakia present the grief of death in terms that every listener would know: the tragic loss of spouse or child, of parent or sibling. The words of the biblical figure could well be words sung in one’s own life, apart from the heightened drama of biblical or mythic tragedy. It is as if the grief of one’s individual life was cordoned off, but its force channelled into the cathartic effect of grieving collectively in and through the stories of biblical grief.44 Admonished to contain their own grief in seemly proportions, the congregation is yet invited to enter into the mourning hearts, the lamenting voices, of biblical sorrow without restraint. Notable, then, become the further messages of these hymns. For Abraham’s hand will be stayed by God’s mercy and with Sarah he will rejoice in his son’s life. So, too, is the sorrow of Jacob replaced by the joy of reunion with his sons; just as Mary and Martha will exchange tears of mourning for shouts of joy and wonder. These hymnographic stories offer a vivid evocation of Christ’s own death and Resurrection, a theme to comfort the Christian that such restoration will indeed be their own reward, if they can keep faith. Yet in stories such as the Holy Innocents, or the murder of Abel or the death of Jephthah’s daughter, the congregation would hear affirmed the horror of unmitigated loss. Again, such narratives affirmed the starkness of grief in human life, even while set in liturgical frames that held up, always, the solace of eucharistic resolution, the promise of life to come. In fact, in Romanos’ kontakion on the Holy Innocents, the strophes ring with weeping, wailing, lamentations, songs of distress and bitter tears – sounds known too well, amidst the political turmoil of early Byzantine history. The refrain repeatedly sings out that Herod’s ‘power will soon be destroyed’.45 But in the final strophe, the singer turns biblical narrative not towards historical relevancy, but inward, to the heart’s own fears: . . . let us rise to worship the One who came to save the whole human race, as we cry out from contrite heart to the Master to be delivered from the slayer of men and quickly released from our sins to find the road of virtue. And I am the first to say this 44 Influence from the experience of theatre was everywhere present in these hymns. Basil of Seleucia, ‘On Lazarus’, begins with a direct comparison. For tragedy specifically, see Easterling and Miles 1999; Webb 2008: 24–43. 45 Romanos, ‘On the massacre of the innocents’, refr.; Carpenter 1970, 1: 23–34.

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For I have sinned greatly, both knowingly and in ignorance; And I have angered God by my impure deeds. For this reason, I beg you to rise with me and cry out sincerely, ‘By the intercession of Thy holy mother, O God, And of Thy holy Innocent Babe,    Do not separate me from Thy kingdom, Christ.’46 The turn from tragedy to penitence reminds us that liturgical grief took various forms. More fundamental to the liturgical process than biblical stories were the Psalms themselves. These provided the faithful believer – and the faithful poet – with a variety of rhetorics of mourning: lamentation for the dead, yes, but also mourning for loss, for suffering, for sorrow; petitions and supplications for mercy and compassion; complaints for life’s tragedies unjustly borne.47 Despite the different forms of Psalmic lament, however, it was invariably lamentation for the dead that provided the formal contours for the poetic expression of grief.48 And indeed, the theological logic was unequivocal: had Adam and Eve not disobeyed and sinned, there would be no death for which to mourn. Not surprisingly, then, we find liturgical depictions of penance that  look and sound just as those for death. Consider Romanos’ kontakion on Peter’s denial of Christ. Here is Peter’s recognition of his sin: When Peter heard the bird crow, he immediately let out a howl and wept, ‘Alas, alas! Where can I go, where stay, where show myself? What shall I say, what shall I declare? What shall I leave, what take? What shall I do, what suffer? What undergo? Which of my wounds shall I lament? The first, the second? . . . Peter said this with tears . . . He put his hands over his head, he cried out.49 In Romanos’ hymn, Peter calls in agony to the disciples to join him in tearful supplication to their Lord. At the same time, the strophic 46 Romanos, ‘On the massacre of the innocents’, str. 18; Carpenter 1970, 1: 33–4. 47 E.g. Anderson 1991: esp. 1–100; Olyan 2004: esp. 1–96; Krueger 2014: 1–130. 48 Olyan 2004: 19–27. 49 Romanos, ‘On Peter’s denial’, str. 18–19; trans. Lash 1995: 128–38, at 136–7. 50 Romanos, ‘On Peter’s denial’, str. 17; Lash 1995: 136.

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guiding grief 211 majesty of the poet’s song summons the congregation to consider their own voices: We hymn you, Master, for it is good to chant (Ps. 146 [147]:1). We praise you, Lord, because you endured all. And your Peter, who endured nothing, disowned you.50

As the hymn reaches its culmination, the voices of the congregation become Peter’s plea in the refrain, ‘Hasten, Holy One, save your flock!’ And in mercy and compassion, Christ replies: ‘None is sinless, none ever lasting. Do not be discouraged . . . Do not be afraid . . .cry out [in supplication], “Hasten Holy One, save your flock!”’51 In this kontakion, Peter’s remorse was graphically articulated through the traditional postures and gestures of mourning, adorned with wailing and weeping of anguished lament. Mourning for the death of his soul is no less than mourning for death itself. The congregation’s supplication is their own. POETIC LAMENT As noted, lamentation for sorrows had long been part of the structure of Christian worship through the inherited patterns of psalmody.52 What is new in the liturgical poetry I am highlighting is the focused attention on grief, through the imagined laments of biblical characters. Much later, in the Middle Byzantine era, the powerful genre of the Greek stavrotheotokia will emerge: the lamentations of the Virgin Mary over her dead son. This genre and its evolution have received much scholarly focus in recent years.53 My interest here is what precedes it, namely an early Byzantine valuation of grief, articulated through poetic exploration of biblical characters and enacted within collective sacred ritual. This attention to biblical grief emerged in the fifth century at the same time as hymnography developed and intensified the voice of the penitent believer.54 Such a voice in itself was not new liturgically. Psalm 50 [51], for example, was well ensconced in Christian ritual long before this time. But the fifth century brought the first elaborate 51 Romanos, ‘On Peter’s denial’, str. 21–2; Lash 1995: 137–8. 52 Krueger 2014: 1–28. 53 Alexiou 1975; 2002b: 62–78, 131–50; Ševčenko 2011. 54 For the development of penance as a liturgical theme, see now Krueger 2014; also Stroumsa 1999; Phenix and Horn 2008.

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hymns of penance.55 Possibly the earliest kontakion, the anonymous hymn of Adam’s lament, is an exquisite example.56 The hymn is introduced by the singer as narrator, praying with bodily fervour: ‘I will not hinder my lips from crying aloud to you, O Lord.’ Already Psalmic lament is recalled by the use of the verb krazein. The strophes are brief, in simple metrical pattern, so that the congregation is quickly and repeatedly led to join the penitential cry with which the singer began, ‘O Merciful One, have mercy on the fallen one.’57 At once, the singer sets the scene: Adam sits and weeps, facing the closed gates of Paradise. His lamentation is traditional; he weeps (ἔκλαυσεν), striking and beating (τύπτων) his face with his hands (v. 1). He groans (ἀνεστέναξε) (v. 2). The hymn’s refrain becomes the opening line of his lament: ‘O Merciful One, have mercy on the fallen one.’ As the verses unfold, Adam calls for Paradise itself to join him in suffering grief: its leaves should make sound, as Paradise supplicates; its branches should bend and bow, prostrate with grief (vv. 3–4). With erotic longing, Adam recalls the sensory delights he has now lost: sweet scents of beauty and flowers, of holy waters, of a table laden without toil (vv. 5, 9, 10). Weeping, he mourns for Paradise, ‘O Paradise, all virtuous, all holy, all happy’ (v. 7). The verse is phrased in short, sharp accolades, here like gasps of pain. ‘[O Paradise], because of Adam you were planted, because of Eve you were closed. / How shall I weep for you?’ (v. 7). With repeated verbs of groaning and cries, Adam bewails his condition, ‘I am befouled, I am destroyed, I  am enslaved’ (v. 8). Yet the hymn, like the liturgy itself, moves forward even as the congregation continues its mournful refrain. Adam’s words turn to hope: God will have pity; there will be a new garment of glory (vv. 13–15). In the final strophes, God himself speaks words of comfort to the mourning Adam and, via poetic structure, to the singing congregation. The Merciful One will indeed have mercy (vv. 16–18). In eighteen short verses, each marked by the same, plaintive cry for mercy, the hymn moves from loss to lament to comfort. This is surely the sequence of traditional Mediterranean mourning practices. It is just as surely the sequence of the liturgical process: to start from humanity’s fallen condition, to address its woes and to bring solace with the medicine of life, the eucharist itself. 55 For the parallel case in Jewish liturgy, again with emphasis on the importance of congregational responses, see Lieber 2008. 56 Anon., ‘On Adam’, ed. Trypanis 1951: 6–9; translations here are my own. Also ed. and trans. in Trypanis 1971: 367–71. 57 Proem, refrain.

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The anonymous Greek lament is matched at roughly the same date by a prayer song now attributed to Jacob of Sarug, recently ‘recovered’ by Sebastian Brock;58 and again in the sixth century by an anonymous Syriac hymn voiced as the lament of saint Mary of Qidun, one of the score of penitent harlots who populated early Byzantine hagiography with their sagas.59 Both followed the threefold script of Adam’s Greek lament: first the fall, by deceit and capture, to a state of mournful defilement in the mire of iniquity. Again and again as the verses proceed, the congregation chants the refrains, singing for mercy (in the voice of the soul, or the voice of the saint; or in its own voice). Sure enough – and as surely as the eucharist followed confession and petition – the songs turn to the comfort of God’s compassion. In all three hymns, the verses carry strong resonances of lamentation. Sin is frankly equated with death. But each also sings forth its final verses with images of liturgical procession, of scriptural typologies, of the glorious praise of Psalms and of the sacraments. Here, then, is what we see brought to full flower in the sixth century: in poetic sermons and hymns alike, the scripting of lament is sung repeatedly. These texts abound with bodily gestures and postures of grief and lament. There is wailing, groaning and lamentation. Arms are raised; hands beat faces; bodies are bent, beaten and prostrate. The metrical lines and verses are furthermore laced with sensory rhetoric: with stench and scents, tastes and thirsts, hungers and sweetness, bitterness and sweet fragrance, textures that wound or heal – all intensifying the grievous sorrow of loss, the astounding joy of restoration. And each ends with comfort, with God’s sure presence, with beauty recovered, with mercy and compassion. Sung repeatedly and from different poetic and narrative locations, the refrains for these hymns etched the arc from fall to redemption into the very breath of the congregation’s voice. One might think that these themes – lamentation for the dead, penitential lament, the ritual process of grief and their ritual resolution in the eucharist – could best be seen to reach their culmination in the anticipatory lament that Romanos placed in the voice of the Virgin Mary to her son as they worked their way inexorably up Golgotha.60 But for our purposes here, let us look briefly at the other masterpiece of Romanos the Melodist, his hymn on the Sinful Woman of Luke 7.61 58 Brock 2010c. 59 Anon., ‘Lament of Mary, the niece of Abraham of Qidun’, trans. Brock and Harvey [1987] 1998: 37–9. On the type of the penitent harlot, see Constantinou 2005: 59–89. 60 Romanos, ‘On the lament of the mother of God’, trans. Lash 1995: 141–50. In addition to the studies by Alexiou, noted above, see Dobrov 1994. 61 Romanos, ‘On the harlot’, trans. Lash 1995: 76–84. Scott Johnson has recently suggested, on the basis of Jacob of Sarug’s homily on the Sinful Woman, that

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In this text, images of remorse and penitence are inextricably bound to the physical gestures and postures of lamentation. They characterise the singer, the biblical woman, the congregation, as each from their ritual and imaginative locations mourns and supplicates to be raised from ‘the mire of my deeds’. Tears of sorrow adorn every verse, in penance, in lament. Nowhere is Romanos more sensorily rich, more sensuously erotic, more intensely physical, than in this kontakion, abounding as it does with scents and tastes, stench and mire, mud and filth; spices, cleansing waters and perfumed ointments. With language resonant in all three registers – lament, erotics (the Song of Songs) and sacraments – the Woman sings, with lacerating beauty: I am going to him, because it is for me he has come. I am leaving those who were once mine, because now I long greatly for him. And as he loved me, I anoint him and caress him, I weep and I groan and I urge him fittingly to long for me. I am changed to the longing for the One who is longed for, and, as he wishes to be kissed, so I kiss my lover. I grieve and bow myself down, for this is what he wishes. I keep silent and withdrawn, for in these he delights. I break with past lovers, that I may please my new love. In short, by blowing on it, I renounce, the filth of my deeds.62 With tears, with ointment, with kisses: by these actions the Woman laments and also loves. She grieves and she weds; she is fallen; she is redeemed. As Romanos sings out, the very instruments of her sins (eyes, perfume, kisses) become the instruments of salvation. Her tears of repentance are the baptismal waters; her perfumed ointment the holy myron anointing the baptised; her kisses on the body of her Lord the very kisses of the faithful as they consume the communion bread. Lamentation of death and the grief of penitent sorrow are one and the same actions as she kneels, prostrate before her Lord, as every Christian kneels before the Lord. The voices of singer, harlot and congregation converge. By just such ritual action did early Byzantine liturgy encompass the ritual of lamentation for loss into the normative

(footnote 61 continued) scholars should look here – to the dynamic between Romanos and Jacob of Sarug, rather than the vexed question of Romanos and Ephrem the Syrian – to grasp the creative interchange between Syriac and Greek poets of the early Byzantine era. Johnson 2013: 85–112. 62 Romanos, ‘On the harlot’, str. 5; Lash 1995: 79.

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guiding grief 215 ritual life of the faithful believer, fulfilled each week as liturgy culminated in eucharistic celebration. CONCLUSION: LAMENTATION, PENANCE AND RITUAL PROCESS

There is, of course, a major problem with the paradigm I suggest: the nature of liturgical performance.63 There can be little doubt that these liturgical texts stood in competition with the popular mimes and pantomimes of the civic theatre. While this chapter has focused  on biblical tragedy, comedic lament was also common liturgically, voiced, for example, by Death, Hades or Satan.64 But the catharsis of theatrical performance came much closer to the work of the professional mourners in traditional funeral settings than did liturgical performance. Consider the nature of these hymns and homilies: the gestures, postures, sounds and voices of lamentation were verbally described; they were not physically enacted. Nor was the wrenching lyricism of the characters’ laments performed theatrically. Rather, even the brutal grief of these passages was constrained by the formalities of choral song, congregational response and homiletic delivery (one remembers how often our homilists complain of the sleepy, bored or distracted listener). The words may have resonated with personal human experience. But they were emphatically not personal words; nor presented with tears. Paradoxically, this may be the key to their success. As various scholars have pointed out, formal lament is not a spontaneous outbreak of grief, but carefully controlled at every stage.65 At the same time, the ritually enclosed context of liturgy offered privileged conditions for the expression of affect. Homilies and hymns were performed as heightened speech: intoned, chanted and sung. Incense and holy oil scented the air, lit by candles, lamps and chandeliers; vestments clothed the performers; frescoes, mosaics, tapestries and carvings adorned the spaces. Procession, posture and movement attended each sequenced moment. While these were not performances of the same kind as the theatre offered, they were elaborately worked performances none the less. 63 My treatment of liturgy as ritual is strongly informed by Bell 1992 and McCall 2007. 64 For example, in Romanos, ‘On Lazarus I’ and ‘On Lazarus II’; and his ‘On the victory of the cross’, trans. Lash 1995: 154–63. Ephrem the Syrian wrote comedic disputes between Death and Satan, and a lament of Satan over his loss of the Sinful Woman: Ephrem, Nisibene Hymns 52–4, and 60, respectively; trans. J. T. S. Stopford in Gwynn 1898: 206–8, 212–13. 65 Alexiou 2002b: 3; Lynch 2005; Erker 2009. A now classic study is Ebersole 2000.

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Hence I would argue that the imagined rhetorical laments of early Byzantine homilies and hymns – whether of biblical tragedy or of collective penance – developed in this period as a means of intentional affect. They represent an exercise in grief deliberately engaged through collective ritual process, by identification with biblical tragedies rather than one’s own individual losses. Guided by poetry performed and responses sung, amidst the constancy of liturgy’s movement towards sacramental fulfilment, congregations could find typological articulations of their sorrows, even as they were ritually led from bereavement to consolation. Grief poured forth – both in the poetry of liturgical imagination, and surely also in the hearts of the congregation.

13 MIME AND THE DANGERS OF LAUGHTER IN LATE ANTIQUITY Ruth Webb

INTRODUCTION In the polemics about the theatre and its effects on audiences that survive from late antiquity, the role of laughter was a key issue. Naturally, we hear a great deal more from the anti-theatrical side of the debate since the onus was on those who wanted to boycott or suppress such an important part of life in late antique cities. But, where we do have echoes of the defences of the theatre, laughter is a vital issue. Chorikios of Gaza, in his speech in defence of the mimes1 – who were always associated with laughter, as is suggested by their alternative title of gelōtopoioi or ‘laughter makers’ – claims that the smiles (meidiaō) raised by the mimes can have therapeutic qualities for audiences (113), and even that a gelōtopoios brought into a house can cure the sick more effectively than doctors (102).2 More surprisingly, laughter also features in one of the arguments quoted or imagined by a near contemporary of Chorikios, the Syriac writer Jacob of Sarugh, writing in the later fifth century. The first part of the sermon is missing, and it opens just as Jacob is presenting one of the justifications that might be made for attending the theatre: ‘It is an amusement,’ says the imaginary objector,  1 Chorikios, Or. 32, ‘On behalf of the mimes’, in Foerster and Richtsteig 1929: 344–80.   2 The therapeutic qualities of laughter, and specifically comic entertainment, are mentioned in the Hippocratic Corpus, On Regimen, 4.89 as a cure for people suffering from melancholy dreams: ξυμφέρει δὲ τούτῳ ῥᾳθυμῆσαί τε καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν τραπῆναι πρὸς θεωρίας, μάλιστα μὲν πρὸς τὰς φερούσας γέλωτας, εἰ δὲ μὴ, ὅ τι μάλιστα ἡσθήσεται θεησάμενος (‘It is helpful for him to relax and to turn his mind to spectacles, particularly those that cause laughter, or else to whatever else he will derive pleasure from seeing’). Halliwell 2008: 16 also places these two passages together but translates the θεωρία of the Hippocratic text as ‘contemplation’. I would suggest, however, that  the presence of the verb θεάομαι in the next part of the sentence alongside mentions of laughter and pleasure suggests that actual spectacles are  meant.  I  am grateful to George Kazantidis for discussion of this passage.

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not paganism. Why is it a problem for you if I laugh? And, since I deny the [sc. pagan] gods, I shall not lose through the stories concerning them. The dancing of that place [sc. the theatre] ­ ­gladdens me, and, while I confess God, I also take pleasure in the play . . . I do not go in order to believe, but in order to laugh.3 It is striking that Jacob, through the voice of the objector, should place such an emphasis on laughter, all the more so in the context of a speech that appears to be directly aimed against the pantomime dancers’ staged representations of mythological subjects, the ‘stories of the gods’ that Jacob rails against elsewhere in the speech. Unlike the comic performances of the mimes, the pantomime is not usually associated with laughter, or even humour. This emphasis on laughter suggests that its permissibility was a particular point of contention between preacher and audience, as indeed it was, for reasons that I will explore in this chapter. One would expect a speaker to have a ready reply to an objection that he has chosen to voice, but Jacob’s response is puzzling. Instead of responding to the problem of laughter, he resorts to an appeal to the ideas of mimetic contagion that we find in other anti-theatrical speakers: just as the pantomime dancer is infected with the pagan stories he dances, the audience will become infected in turn. ‘Who can bathe in mud without being soiled?’ he asks, pointing out moreover that Christians are part of the assembly of Christ while the dancer has different allegiances. There are several puzzling aspects to Jacob’s reply – first, he is speaking primarily of the pantomime; which is not normally associated with laughter; second, he does not answer the question or rather he answers with what appears to be a different question entirely, that of allegiance either to the pagan gods or to the Christian God; a question to which we will return later. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM AND THE EUTRAPELIA OF THE NEW TESTAMENT An answer to the question of why laughter both inside and outside the theatres posed such a problem is to be found in the writings of John Chrysostom. An acute social critic, Chrysostom returned again and again both to the dangers of watching theatrical performances and to the incompatibility between laughter and the Christian way of life. Often these discussions occur in separate places within his vast corpus   3 Jacob of Sarugh, Homily 5, ‘On the spectacles of the theatre’, trans. Moss (1935), rev. Taylor in Hall and Wyles 2008: 416–17.

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of sermons, but on occasion the arguments against laughter and wit appear in close connection to the theatre, and these passages are particularly enlightening.4 One term in particular, eutrapelia, recurs in these contexts and is highly significant. On the one hand, it leads us back to the disapproval of wit and laughter voiced by Paul in the New Testament; on the other, its root meaning of ‘versatility’ (from the verb trepein ‘to turn’) is key to the arguments against both humour and laughter. The general prohibition on laughter is based on Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians 5:3–4: 3 πορνεία δὲ καὶ ἀκαθαρσία πᾶσα ἢ πλεονεξία μηδὲ ὀνομαζέσθω ἐν ὑμῖν, καθὼς πρέπει ἁγίοις, 4 καὶ αἰσχρότης καὶ μωρολογία ἢ εὐτραπελία, ἃ οὐκ ἀνῆκεν, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον εὐχαριστία. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. The Greek term eutrapelia, translated as ‘jesting’ in the King James English version quoted above, becomes scurrilitas both in the Latin Vulgate and in Jerome’s translation. As the context makes clear, Paul is describing general standards of behaviour expected of the Christian individual and, according to these standards, ‘jesting’ is on a par with speaking of fornication (porneia). In the verse that follows and that develops the same idea, Paul goes on to speak of the fornicator (pornos), the unclean (akathartos) and the covetous man (pleonektēs, identified as the idolater), as individuals who are excluded from the kingdom of Christ and of God. Surprisingly for most modern readers, eutrapelia is therefore classified alongside the most unchristian of activities. For some members at least of John Chrysostom’s audience, the unchristian nature of eutrapelia seems also to have required explanation. In his sermon on this passage of Ephesians, he provides a lengthy commentary which seeks to explain the presence of eutrapelia in Paul’s list of proscribed activities.5 In this, as in many other sermons, Chrysostom opposes eutrapelia and its related verb eutrapeleuomai to proper Christian behaviour.6 Specifically, eutrapelia is contrasted to   4 On the close connection between laughter and theatricality see also Stenger in this volume.  5 John Chrysostom, In ep. ad Eph. 17, PG 62, esp. 118–20.   6 On Chrysostom’s attitude to laughter see Halliwell 2008: 495–512.

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the fear of divine punishment (In ep. ad Cor. PG 61.64) and the mourning (penthos) and lamentation (odurmos) that befit the pious Christian (In ep. ad Eph. 17, PG 62.118). Eutrapelia is associated with shamelessness (aischrotēs) (In ep. ad Eph. 17, PG 62.119 and In ep. ad Coloss. PG 62.389) and the ‘corrupt’ or ‘rotten words’ (sapros logos) of Ephesians 4.29 (In ep. ad Eph. 17 PG, 62.103); it is a perverted use of the tongue which should be used to praise the Lord (In ep. ad Eph. 17, PG 62.120) and should be banished even from weddings (In ep. ad Coloss. 62.389). On several occasions, one can detect the difficulties involved in a blanket ban on wittiness in ordinary social situations. Chrysostom has to explain, as if in reply to an imaginary objector who raises the same question as Jacob of Sarugh’s imaginary interlocutor, exactly why laughter and the humour that causes it are so dangerous. Wittiness (eutrapeleia or asteia), explains Chrysostom, may not seem sinful in itself but it leads to worse things.7 It brings about a dangerous dissolution of the soul (diachusis)8 and makes the soul soft (malakos).9 It seems here that eutrapelia is not simply the expression of verbal humour, as implied by the English translation ‘joking’ or ‘jesting’, but a complex of behaviours and dispositions in which both saying and doing humorous things play a part, as do both causing and indulging in laughter. Laughter itself is proscribed for similar reasons: ‘Laughter (gelōs)’, he explains at one point, ‘is not a sin by nature but it becomes a sin if it is taken further for, from laughter comes joking (eutrapelia), from joking comes obscenity (aischrologia), from obscenity come obscene acts, from obscene acts come punishment and retribution.’10 Laughter, therefore, is the top of a slippery slope that leads inexorably from eutrapelia to actions, and even if many people do not think of it as a sin, it leads to sinful behaviour.11 The need for such arguments confirms that the sinfulness of laughter and of the complex of behaviours brought together under the heading of eutrapelia was not spontaneously accepted by Chrysostom’s audience. They needed to be persuaded of the dangers of wittiness and laughter, just as they needed to be persuaded of the dangers that lurked in the theatres, and this act of persuasion involved a fundamental redefinition of terms and a reorientation of attitudes and behaviour. As has been noted by Stephen Halliwell (2008: 500–2), establishing a connection between laughter  7 John Chrysostom, De Lazaro, PG 48.980 and Ad Populum Antiochenum, PG 49.159. See also Stenger in this volume.  8 John Chrysostom, Ascetam facetiis uti non debere PG 48.1055; In ep. ad Eph. 17, PG 62.118; In ep. ad Hebraeos, PG 62.122.  9 John Chrysostom, Homily on Ephesians 17, PG 62.119. 10 John Chrysostom, Adversus ebriosos, PG 50.440; cf Ascetam facetiis uti non debere PG 48.1055 and In Matthaeum hom. 86 PG 58.767. 11 John Chrysostom, Ad populum Antiochenum, PG 49.158–9.

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mime and the dangers of laughter 223 and the theatre was one part of Chrysostom’s strategy and one that can, I think, tell us a great deal about the problem with laughter. First, it is necessary to look briefly at the meaning of eutrapelia specifically before the fourth century ce. A TERM AND ITS MEANINGS: SHIFTING ATTITUDES TO EUTRAPELIA

As Stephen Halliwell underlines in his study of Greek laughter,12 the term eutrapelia underwent a dramatic shift in meaning between the classical period (Aristotle in particular) and later periods. In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, 4.8, eutrapelia is a positive quality, part of a ‘genial rapport between friends’.13 Although there are negative uses of the term to be found in Hellenistic and Roman authors, the outright condemnation of eutrapelia is usually provoked by its being used to the wrong degree (excessively, in a way that is demeaning to others) or in the wrong situation. So Paul’s apparent blanket ban is new and has serious consequences, particularly in Greek patristic writing. The effect in the Latin west is slightly different in later centuries due to the intervention of Thomas Aquinas, who tries to find a place for wit within a Christian way of living. In order to do this he appeals to the Aristotelian conception of eutrapelia, translated as iucunditas, for which he finds some support in early Christian texts, perhaps unaware that the same term was used by Paul in the Greek version of the New Testament to designate the unacceptable face of laughter and translated into Latin as scurrilitas.14 If Paul’s words found such fertile ground in the Church Fathers it was because this ground had been well prepared. Part of this preparation was related to the cultural context in which the theatre and theatrical laughter played such an important part. Paul, of course, was not referring directly to the theatre but to everyday activities by Christians. However, the potential connections to the theatre are clear and were to be exploited by the Church Fathers. For one thing, the Letter to the Ephesians links eutrapelia with mōrologia, the language of fools, mōros being not just a pejorative adjective applicable to anyone but also a semi-technical term, equivalent to the Latin ‘stupidus’, used to designate the shaven-headed fool who 12 Halliwell 2008 (and in this volume); Rahner 1961. 13 Halliwell 2008: 310. Halliwell draws a line linking this passage and the Politics, where play is presented as a necessary relaxation. Cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.4, 1381a3–8, where he notes that sharing a joke is an important aspect of friendship. 14 See Screech 1998: 138. Aquinas’ discussion is to be found in his Summa Theologica, Question 168.

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was the central figure in mime troupes and who was the source of a great deal of the comic effect, often by being the target of jokes and of stage violence.15 More strikingly still, the Latin term used to translate eutrapelia, scurrilitas, derives from scurra, ‘buffoon’, a word that from the Augustan period onwards had come to designate first and foremost the theatrical fools of the mime. It would seem, therefore, that the Latin translators understood the ‘jesting’ spoken of by Paul as being somehow comparable to the activities of the stage entertainers. Then there is the fact that whatever activity Paul disapproves of in his Letter clearly involves the actions and words of one who makes others laugh, and this is precisely the meaning of one of the terms for mime actors: gelōtopoioi – ‘laughter makers’. The theatrical connections of eutrapelia are therefore implicit in the New Testament, as John Chrysostom, in his commentaries on this passage, emphasises by using the term kōmōdein as an equivalent and by capitalising on the social distinction between his audience and the despised outcasts who performed on stage.16 More than that, I would like to suggest that the institution of the theatre, whose presence and importance in the late antique cities of the east are shown by the attention paid to it in the writings of the Church Fathers, played a role in the understanding of wit and laughter in general and in the definition of the term eutrapelia in particular. My general underlying hypothesis is that the Church Fathers, Chrysostom in particular, had an acute understanding of the theatre and of its effects on audiences. If we look at their accounts of the theatre of their day not as descriptions but as elements of a larger argument designed to make their listeners reassess their relationship to the theatre and its place in their lives, we can see some of the claims as covers for other, deeper, problems. First, however, it is necessary to try to isolate some of the characteristics of the humour of the mimes. THEATRICAL LAUGHTER The mime If we take the comments of the critics of mime (not all of whom were Christian by any means) at face value, this was a pointless, crude and obscene art. In his discussion of dinner-party entertainment, Plutarch mentions skits (paignia) that were too low even for the ‘slaves who 15 On the mime see Wiemken 1972; Webb 2008: 95–138. 16 John Chrysostom, In ep.ad Eph. 17, PG 62.119–20.

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fetch shoes’.17 The frequent charges of obscenity levelled at the mime relate to the scenarios, which seem often to have involved illicit affairs, like modern bedroom farce, in which the wife hides her lover from her husband.18 Chrysostom’s own remarks about the mime create an unforgettable image of actress-prostitutes (pornai) cavorting naked onstage (an image which seems to be confirmed by Prokopios of Caesarea’s highly contentious account of Theodora’s stage career in the Secret History, 9.20–3). In rather the same way, the Lives of the actormartyrs, Saints Genesius, Gelasinos and Porphyrios, portray a theatre that was institutionally anti-Christian.19 However, a broader survey of the evidence suggests a more nuanced picture: mime mocked everyone, various ethnic and religious groups (Jews and Goths are among the other targets mentioned), men and women alike, members of various social ranks and both the lay and the religious. Chorikios, for example, mentions a range of trades and craftspeople who featured in the plots of the mime.20 In the same vein, a Latin epigram for the actor Vitalis praises his skill at depicting ordinary men and women and at representing ‘the faces, gestures and words of people speaking so that you would think that many people were speaking with one mouth’.21 Members of the church were not immune, as Justinian’s legislation banning the mockery of clergymen and nuns by laypeople, including actors and actresses, strongly suggests, but they were clearly not the only targets, nor was mockery of the clergy confined to the stage.22 Despite the protestations of Chorikios in his speech In Defence of the Mimes, the mime was neither gentle nor politically correct. It did rely on mockery and derision, the actors were laughed at, but, through them, categories of people in society were also targeted more or less directly. Beyond this, it is difficult to assess the nature of the mimes’ humour given the state of our sources (and because talking about humour is a paradoxical enterprise that risks making the subject disappear). Most of our witnesses were hostile and are therefore unlikely to be giving us a clear view of their subject. Moreover, the two most substantial mime scripts that have been preserved on papyrus are not 17 Plutarch, Table-Talk, 7.8 (712E) = Csapo and Slater 1994: V.19. 18 For an astute and balanced discussion of the ‘adultery mime’ see Andreassi 2013. 19 For the story of Genesius see Weismann 1977; the story of Gelasinos is told by John Malalas, Chronicle, 12.50; for Porphyrios see Van de Vorst 1910. The idea of the ‘anti-Christian mime’ is to be found in Longosz 1993, discussion in Webb 2008: 125–8. 20 Chorikios of Gaza, In Defence of the Mimes, 110; see also the list of surviving titles of Latin mimes in Panayotakis 1995: xviii. 21 ‘Fingebam vultus, habitus ac verba loquentum, / Ut plures uno crederes ore loqui.’ Latin Anthology (Riese 487a 15–16, 22). 22 Webb 2008: 127.

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obviously funny. This is partly because they are very fragmentary, and partly because a great deal of the humour will have been physical and will have relied on stage business that is mostly not detectable. What we can say with reasonable certainty is that the mime favoured transgressive situations. The adultery mime is the best known of these, pitting the wife and her lover against the stupid husband, but there were clearly many other scenarios. The best-preserved papyrus (P.Oxy. 413) contains one script that plays on high classical l­ iterature – Iphigeneia in Tauris and the Odyssey – as well as a second script that gives centre stage to a married woman in love with her slave.23 What these scenarios have in common is their exuberant challenge to the established order, whether this order is represented by the husband or by high-style texts, and this in turn points to the potential social importance of the mime performance as a moment when the normal order of things could be temporarily disrupted. What we know of the mime in fact fits very well with the characterisation of jokes offered by Mary Douglas in an article originally published in 1970.24 Here, Douglas notes how jokes play on the social structure in place, overturning it or mirroring it. Quoting Freud and Bergson, she goes on to identify a further aspect of jokes in their unleashing of ‘the energy of the unconscious against the control of the conscious’ (Douglas 1999: 154). Whether or not we wish to go down the routes suggested by this reference to the unconscious, this characterisation seems to me to be particularly appropriate to the anarchic energy which is often ascribed to the mime in ancient sources.25 I would suggest that it is possible to see a manifestation of this energy in the archetypical adultery plot in the figures of the lovers who outwit the husband, whose ability to exercise control is revealed to be minimal. On the micro-level, we know that mimes were known for their verbal wit, something that brings us closer to the specifics of eutrapelia. In republican Rome, the actress Dionysia was credited with helping her lover, Marc Antony, acquire this important quality in an orator.26 Again, this verbal wit is hard to pin down but some examples may give us an indication. The Latin Life of Genesius records a joke that was part of a parodic baptism scene. When the main character tells his friends that he feels ‘heavy’ (i.e. with sin) and wishes to feel lighter (i.e. by baptism), they respond by asking, ‘What do you want us to do about it, do you think we are carpenters?’, shifting from the metaphorical and religious meaning of the statement to a literal and 23 See Santelia 1991; Andreassi 2001; Hall 2010. 24 Douglas 1999. 25 See, for example, Cicero, Pro Caelio, 65 (= Csapo and Slater 1994: V.15). 26 Cicero, To Atticus, 10.16.5.

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mime and the dangers of laughter 227 quotidian one and undercutting the former in the process. Although we need to be cautious when taking a source like this one at face value, such plays on the ambiguity of language, and the incompatibility between different meanings of the same terms and between the systems of values that they imply, are in reality a common feature of verbal humour. Laughter in the theatre What was so troubling about the humour of the mime, apart from its very frivolity? One aspect of laughter in the theatres that may well have concerned the Church Fathers was its involuntary and very physical nature.27 John Chrysostom expends a great deal of energy on explaining to the members of the congregation that the mere sight of the mime actresses on stage sets off an involuntary reaction in the male viewer, describing this reaction in terms that are both physiological and psychological: the image of the mime actress lodges itself in the mind of the viewer. Moreover, like all other theatre-goers, the spectator of the mime leaves the theatre in an altered state, burned by its fires, bearing its wounds and even carrying away the image of the mime actress like an invisible mental mistress.28 Laughter is a similarly involuntary and highly physical reaction and, whether in the theatre or in social settings, it is associated by Chrysostom with another dangerous state, diachusis or the ‘melting’ or ‘dissolution’ of the soul, as we saw above.29 This psychic damage in itself might be sufficient reason to ban laughter. Another powerful and dangerous aspect of laughter was its function as a creator of social cohesion; in contrast to weeping and mourning, which can be either communal or individual, laughter tends to assume a group dynamic or at least two participants. Nothing creates solidarity as much as laughing at the same targets, be they Goths, Jews, Christians, stupid husbands or fishmongers. The Church Fathers were clearly aware of the role of the theatre, and of other public spectacles, in creating such a dynamic even if this factor is rarely voiced directly. It surfaces most clearly in Augustine’s story of his friend Alypius (Confessions, 6.8) who was dragged to a gladiatorial show by friends and became so fascinated by the sight, against his will and despite all his efforts to put up an active resistance, that 27 On the problems posed by the involuntary and corporeal nature of laughter see Halliwell 2008: 314. 28 See Webb 2008: 168–83. 29 John Chrysostom, Ascetam facetiis uti non debere PG 48.1055; In ep. ad Eph. 17, PG 62.118; In ep. ad Hebraeos, PG 62.122.

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he left the theatre a changed man, one of the crowd. It also seems to lie behind the passage from Jacob Sarugh with which we began, and in which the ban on the theatre is motivated above all by the fact that the Christian and the actor belong to different groups: the assembly of Christians and the group of those who are infected by the filth of the theatre. Mime, eutrapelia and the problem with laughter At some moments John Chrysostom specifically links the eutrapelia of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians to the stage practices of his day. In his homily on Ephesians he does this in two ways. One is in an ­argument that is dependent on the social status, or lack of it, of the mimes, whom he classes among the atimoi, reflecting both the widespread prejudice against performers and the specific legal disabilities they suffered.30 Chrysostom attempts here to create an aversion to joking by playing on the association of comedy with the despised people of the stage: Οὐχ ὁρᾷς τοὺς λεγομένους γελωτοποιοὺς, τοὺς κόρδακας; οὗτοί εἰσιν οἱ εὐτράπελοι. ᾿Εξορίσατε, παρακαλῶ, τῶν ὑμετέρων ψυχῶν τὴν ἄχαριν ταύτην χάριν· παρασίτων τὸ πρᾶγμα, μίμων, ὀρχηστῶν, γυναικῶν πορνῶν· πόῤῥω ψυχῆς ἐλευθέρας, πόῤῥω εὐγενοῦς, καὶ δούλων πόῤῥω. Εἴ τις ἄτιμος, εἴ τις αἰσχρὸς, οὗτος καὶ εὐτράπελος. Πολλοῖς δὲ καὶ ἀρετὴ τὸ πρᾶγμα εἶναι δοκεῖ· καὶ γὰρ τοῦτο πένθους ἄξιον. ῞Ωσπερ ἡ ἐπιθυμία κατὰ μικρὸν εἰς πορνείαν ἐξώκειλεν· οὕτω καὶ τὸ εὐτράπελον ἐπίχαρι εἶναι δοκεῖ, οὐδὲν δὲ τούτου ἄχαρι μᾶλλον. Don’t you see the people called ‘laughter makers’, the indecent dancers (?)? These are the jesters (eutrapeloi). Banish, I beg you, from your souls this graceless entertainment. This practice belongs to parasites, mimes, dancers, harlots; it is far from belonging to a free soul, or a noble soul, far even from slaves. If a man is without honour, if he is base, he is also a jester. In the eyes of many, this practice is a virtue; this is indeed worthy of mourning. Just as desire gradually leads to fornication, so jesting seems to be pleasant but nothing is more unpleasing.31 Here, Chrysostom uses a particular form of argument in which the subject and predicate are reversed: mimes are atimoi, mimes jest, 30 See Hugoniot 2004; Webb 2008: 44–57. 31 John Chrysostom, In ep.Eph. 17, PG 62.119.

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mime and the dangers of laughter 229 therefore everyone who jests is atimos. The other argument used in this homily is far more telling and interesting because it holds the key, I think, to what was unacceptable in the laughter evoked by the mimes. More importantly still, it may help us to understand what could be also be wrong with everyday wit. This is the passage immediately before the argument just quoted, where Chrysostom reminds his listeners of the root meaning of the Greek word eutrapelia. ῞Ινα δὲ καὶ μάθῃς, ὅρα καὶ αὐτὸ τοὔνομα· εὐτράπελος λέγεται ὁ ποικίλος, ὁ παντοδαπὸς, ὁ ἄστατος, ὁ εὔκολος, ὁ πάντα γινόμενος·τοῦτο δὲ πόῤῥω τῶν τῇ πέτρᾳ δουλευόντων. Ταχέως τρέπεται ὁ τοιοῦτος καὶ μεθίσταται· δεῖ γὰρ αὐτὸν καὶ σχῆμα καὶ ῥῆμα καὶ γέλωτα καὶ βάδισιν καὶ πάντα μιμεῖσθαι· καὶ σκώμματα δὲ ἐπινοεῖν χρὴ τὸν τοιοῦτον· δεῖ γὰρ αὐτῷ καὶ τούτου. In order to understand, consider the word itself: eutrapelos is the name given to the versatile man, the man of many disguises, the unstable man, the easy man, the man who becomes all things. This is far from the servants of the rock. Such a man is quick to turn and transform himself for he needs to imitate gestures and words and laughter and gaits and everything. Such a man must also invent jokes, for he needs these. The relevance of his observations about versatility to the theatre is immediately clear, particularly in the firm association of versatility with constant imitation (πάντα μιμεῖσθαι). Although the ability to change constantly was associated first and foremost with the pantomime dancers, who regularly played several roles within the same drama, it could also be attributed to the mimes, who took on a variety of roles, whether within a single performance made up of a series of skits and plays or over their whole career. John Chrysostom is expressing here the opposition to, even the fear of, theatrical mimesis that informs his discourse on the theatre. This distrust of mimesis is a key motivation for the Christian rejection of the theatre in general, and is as important as the rejection of alleged obscenity or anti-Christian sentiment in the theatres. Mimesis is problematic because of the multiplicity that it introduces, as Chrysostom makes clear in this passage in which multiplicity, flexibility and versatility are contrasted starkly with the immovable rock of Christianity. However, in this particular passage, Chrysostom is not only talking about the wit of mimes on stage. Rather, he is using them as an additional argument against succumbing to the

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t­ emptation to indulge in wittiness in everyday life. The versatility he wants to avoid is that of the average teller of jokes, but the humour of the mimes as outlined above can, I think, help us to understand what the link might be between the two senses of eutrapelia: the versatile and the jester. As suggested above, the humour of the mimes worked by destabilising the spectators’ vision of institutions and their understanding of words, revealing hidden vulnerabilities and disjunctions. This is the connection between the two senses of the word: a jester sees things differently and enables others to glimpse that difference, as the author of the anonymous poem on Vitalis makes clear when the actor refers to the astonishment (horruit) and shame (errubuit) experienced by spectators who saw themselves reflected in the mirror he held up to them.32 There is therefore a cognitive contagion involved in humour in addition to the physiological contagion of laughter mentioned above. If we add in to the equation the effect of laughter in creating group cohesion, we can see an additional way in which humour can threaten to modify the identity of those who laugh in response: a Christian who laughs at a joke about Christians is distanced from himself or herself or from that particular aspect of his or her identity.33 It is not difficult to see why this versatility of mind could be considered as  dangerous by a commentator such as John Chrysostom, for whom the ideal was total, unwavering commitment to a single, unified truth. CONCLUSION It is impossible to know whether these questions had any influence on Paul’s choice of the term eutrapelia, nor is it possible to claim that the root sense of versatility is always active in all uses. I would argue, however, that John Chrysostom, who was an extraordinarily perceptive social observer and knew the theatre and its influence well, activated this sense of the word eutrapelos because it did correspond to the real impact of humour both on stage and in life. It would seem, therefore, that Jacob of Sarugh was not avoiding the 32

Ipse etiam, quem nostra oculis geminabat imago,   Horruit in vultus se magis nosse meos. O quotiens imitat meos per femina gestus   Vidit et errubuit totaque muta fuit! Latin Anthology (Riese 487a17–20). 33 In his homily on Ephesians. John Chrysostom denounces the jokes made by Christians about ritual and Scripture, jokes that also imply a certain distance between teller and subject matter. See John Chrysostom, In Ep. ad Ephes. 17, PG 62.120.

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mime and the dangers of laughter 231 question when he spoke about contagion in order to explain precisely what the problem posed by laughter was. Rather, he was expressing in another way this fear of the affective and cognitive alteration that could be brought about by an effective joke.

14 LAUGHTER ON DISPLAY: MIMIC PERFORMANCES AND THE DANGER OF LAUGHING IN BYZANTIUM Przemysław Marciniak Humour and performance are inextricably linked together by the performers we conventionally describe as ‘mimes’ – gelōtopoios, geloiastēs, gelōtoponos.1 Mimes are probably the most elusive part of the Byzantine performative tradition; the nature of mimic performances is difficult to ascertain, as they left no material traces; there are no scripts, texts or detailed illustrations of performances (the only exception being the illustrations of acrobats and music entertainers).2 Visual sources regarding the costumes worn by mimes are equally unreliable and can be interpreted in various ways.3 This has led modern scholars to be extremely sceptical about the possibility of reconstructing any history of the Byzantine mime, despite the fact that I am very grateful to Meg Alexiou for the invitation to the conference – I had the great pleasure of talking with her about humour and Prodromos in Dumbarton Oaks, where we both spent summer 2010 as Fellows. I would like to acknowledge the ­financial support of the National Science Centre, project UMO–2013/10/E/HS 2/00170.   1 On Byzantine mimes see Tinnefeld 1974: 323–43 (after 692) and recently Marciniak 2014b.  2 Most illustrations of music performers are very conveniently assembled in Maliaras 2007: 517–75. There are illustrations of mimes’ performances recorded on the twelfth-century frescoes in the north-west tower of St Sophia in Kiev where actors wearing animal masks can be seen fighting each other. Whether or not we can say that it was possible to see similar performances in Constantinople is unknowable: see Maguire and Maguire 2007.  3 Spyridon Lambros suggested in his article on the Byzantine jesters that some special costume for jesters existed (Lambros 1910: 372–98). Though I find this extremely doubtful (and even more doubtful that there was one costume, which remained the same throughout centuries), some scholars try to identify the elements of such attire. In the analysis of the depiction of a mocking performance by Michael III and Gryllos found in the Madrid Skylitzes, it was suggested that the pointed hats were parts of the mimes’ costume: see Maguire and Maguire 2007: 112–13. Yet the pyramidal hats do not seem to be associated exclusively with mimes: Choniates mentions such a hat in association with Andronikos I Komnenos (see Parani 2003: 68–9), while Manasses in the description of a dwarf says that the dwarf was given a hat, which was neither too wide nor in the shape of a pyramid; on Manasses’ ekphrasis see Messis and Nilsson 2015. What is more,

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there is adequate evidence for the existence of mimes throughout the Byzantine period.4 Moreover, in the light of existing evidence even the importance of the canons of the Council in Trullo (691/692), which are traditionally believed to put an end to theatrical performances, should be seriously reconsidered.5 Perhaps the most important methodological problem is to define what ‘mime’ – both as an actor and a performance – meant in Byzantium. Sources offer an abundance of terms to describe entertainers: mimos, skēnikos, paigniōtēs and the already mentioned gelōtopoios, geloiastēs, gelōtoponos.6 In fact, it seems that some terms were used interchangeably and could have a wide range of meanings.7 Perhaps at some point the term ‘mime’ came to signify not only the mimic actor, but also ‘a mighty company of lesser entertainers, many of whom must have provided amusement and interest during the performance of mimic drama’.8 In other words, the term gradually shifted in meaning, ceasing to denote ‘a mime’ in the Roman sense of the word and, instead, being used to denote various entertainers whose detailed nature is difficult to grasp. There is not one single piece of evidence for the existence of mimographs in Byzantium. In other words, Byzantine mimes left the stage and started p ­ erforming on the streets as jugglers, acrobats and, to use a modern word, clowns. When mentioning mimes in his book of advice, Kekaumenos (eleventh century)9 very often does so in connection with the qualification politikos – ‘zur Stadt gehörig, volkstümlich’ (‘belonging to the city, folksy’).10 Perhaps in this way Kekaumenos categorises the Kievan hats worn by the entertainers depicted in the church look, contrary to what Maguire stated, rather different, and, what is even more important, the Kievan performers are musicians, not mimes: see Totskaia and Zaiaruznyi 1988: 143–55.   4 Cyril Mango dismisses the topic by stating ‘The mime and the pantomime may have lingered on until the end of the seventh century when they were banned by Canon 51 of the Trullan Council’: Mango 1981: 344. See also Puchner 2006: 42–3: ‘It is not acceptable to construct out of this material, ritual mummery and martial dances such as the misinterpreted “Gothikon” (tenth century), a continuous tradition of mime lasting till the halōsis, the fall of Constantinople in 1453.’ See also Puchner 1983: 311–17.   5 For an extensive discussion on this issue see Marciniak 2014b: 127–8.  6 Trapp et al. 1994–) translates παιγνιωτής as ‘mime’, ‘Schauspieler’. Alexander Kazhdan defines a mime as an actor. Basically, this is of course true, but unfortunately does not help us much to understand what kind of actor a mime could be; see Kazhdan et al. 1991: 2, 1375a.   7 See also Puchner 1983: 311–17.   8 Nicoll 1963: 84.   9 Rouché 2003: 23–37. 10 Trapp et al. 1994–: s.v. politikos. See, for instance, Kekaumenos, οὐ λέγω δὲ πολιτικὸς οἷον μῖμος καὶ παιγνιώτης (‘By a political (philosopher), I don’t mean like a mime or a buffoon’; trans. C. Rouché), in Spadaro 1998: i. 23.

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mimes as belonging to popular or street entertainment. Elsewhere he says: ‘As for the unworthy, mimes, and those whom they call public men, if you wish to benefit [them], benefit them with a few coins.’11 This might be seen as further proof that, then as now, the streets of cities were crowded with various performers entertaining passers-by for small change. Therefore ‘a Byzantine mime’ signified rather a generic performer, and the Byzantine authors seem to use this term quite freely. The sources available are consistent in suggesting that the performative practices of Byzantine mimes were based on verbal abuse,12 mock fights and skits13 and perhaps also mock suicides.14 While the presence of mimes is attested throughout the Byzantine period, the bulk of the evidence concerning the ways in which they performed comes from the twelfth century, which may, amongst other things, point to intensified interest in various aspects of performativity expressed by authors from this period. Thus it is reasonable to assume that in most cases mimic modes of performing must have been quite similar – the difference might have 11 Kekaumenos, Consilia et Narrationes, English translation (http://www.ancientwisdoms.ac.uk/folioscope/greekLit%3Atlg3017.Syno298.sawsEng01%3Adiv6&view Offsets=-286). 12 The Life of St. Irene Abbess of Chrysobalanton in Rosenqvist 1986: 44, 18–21: ‘One of them [the demons], being more evil as well as more insolent than the others, seemed to approach her and sneer at her, shouting such words as mimes usually utter. “Irene is made of wood”, he said, “she is carried by wooden legs”, and he spoke still other nonsense.’ 13 Zonaras, while commenting on the fifty-first canon of the Council in Trullo, noted that: ‘Of this kind are the actions of the mimes . . . who incite unseemly laughter with slaps to the head and loud noises’, PG 137, col. 693, translation after Maguire 1999: 200. The same information can be found in Zonaras’ commentary on the forty-fifth canon of the council in Carthage, which mentions performers (skēnikoi) who make people laugh with slaps to the head and noises; cf. Rhalles and Potles 1852–9: iii.414.   Similar information can be found in Balsamon’s commentary, where he writes about the mimes who get smacked on the head; see PG 138, col. 180. Canonists’ testimionies are supported by a fragment from Theodore Prodromos’ satire which describes what seems to be a performance of mimes: ‘Ask, if you will, those who perform on the scene, how their cheeks, when slapped, habitually make noise, how their voice at one moment imitates somebody wailing, at another somebody threatening and sometimes somebody grieving. How their ankles and feet are well flexed and bent for kordax and how they prepare every other dance.’ See Romano 1999: 306. I use the new, unpublished edition by Migliorini 2010: 32–3. 14 As could perhaps be inferred from the description of the performance of one Satyrion from the Prodromic novel Rhodanthe and Dosikles; see De Rhodante et Dosiclis amoribus in Conca 1994: IV, 214–316. A thorough analysis of this passage can be found in Roilos 2005: 275–88. The verbal and visual humour of Byzantine mimes might have been quite similar to what their predecessors presented on stage: see Panayotakis 1997: 317.

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depended not on the name but rather on the place of the performance. Those performing in streets and at fairs offered, at least theoretically, a less refined form of entertainment than the performers from the ­aristocratic and imperial milieux.15 In fact the only sharp distinction our sources make is between ‘mimes’ and ‘musicians’.16 The Byzantine attitude towards mimes has its roots in late antique controversies regarding the inappropriateness of the mime.17 Byzantine authors repeat traditional accusations, although, at times, the context of their complaints is not fully understood. It seems that Byzantine authors criticised, mainly, two aspects of mimic performance: the uncontrollable and indecorous laughter which resulted from it (I shall come back to this issue at a later stage) and the very act of imitating (μίμησις). Bishop Arethas, commenting on the treatise The Dance,18 where Lucian stated that a dancer presenting the madness of Ajax looked as if he had been truly mad, said: τοιοῦτο τι καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν καθ’ ἡμᾶς γέγονε χρόνων. δαιμονῶντα γὰρ τινες τῶν ἀκροατῶν νέων ἐκμιμούμενοι οὕτως ἑάλωσαν τῷ πάθει, ὥστε τὸ λοιπὸν τῆς ζωῆς μὴ ἀνενεγκεῖν τοῦ πάθους ἀλλὰ συναπελθεῖν τῇ ὀλεθρίῳ ταύτῃ μιμήσει.19 Something similar occurred also in our time. Some young listeners imitating faithfully the possessed one were caught up in the experience to such a degree that for the rest of their lives they were not restored from this state but departed with this wretched imitation. According to Walter Puchner, Arethas states that ‘even in his time a dancer of pantomime was corrupting the young; it remains unclear, however, what exactly is meant here by “pantomime”’.20 However, ‘pantomime’ is never mentioned in this passage; what Arethas discusses is rather the corrupting power of imitation – some young people imitated stories about possessed people and became possessed 15 Lynda Garland has recently proposed that ‘The pinnacle of the mimic profession was to become a court jester, or mime’ (Garland 2006a: 178). Our sources clearly suggest a difference between court and street performers, but how one could become a court jester is impossible to know. 16 See Marciniak 2014b with bibliography. 17 See, for instance, Magoulias 1971: 233–52; Webb 2008. 18 Lucian, The Dance 83: εἰς τοσοῦτον ὑπερεξέπεσεν ὥστε οὐχ ὑποκρίνασθαι μανίαν ἀλλὰ μαίνεσθαι αὐτός (‘He so overleaped himself that it might well have been thought that instead of feigning madness he was himself insane’). 19 Rabe 1906: 45, 83 (De saltatione). 20 Puchner 2002: 312–13.

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themselves. An echo of a similar accusation appears to reverberate centuries later in the commentaries of John Zonaras:21 Σκηνὴ δέ ἐστιν ἡ προσποίησις καὶ ὑπόκρισις, ὅθεν καὶ σκηνικοὶ λέγονται οἱ ὑποκρινόμενοι, καὶ ἀπεικάζοντες ἑαυτοὺς ποτὲ μὲν δούλοις, ποτὲ δὲ δεσπόταις, ποτὲ δὲ στρατηγοῖς καὶ ἄρχουσιν. Ὥσπερ οὖν ταῦτα ἐκώλυσεν ὁ κανὼν διὰ τῶν μίμων, οὕτω καὶ τὰς ἐπὶ σκηνῆς ὀρχήσεις . . .22 Skēnē is a pretense (prospoiēsis) and impersonation (hupokrisis), that is why actors (οἱ ὑποκρινόμενοι) are called skēnikoi, presenting themselves now as slaves, now as masters and now again as generals and rulers. So the canon forbade the mimic performances as well as dances on the stage . . . In contrast, bishop Eustathios of Thessaloniki seems to hold a rather high opinion of ancient hupokrisis and the actors when he says: Καὶ τοιαύτη μὲν ἦν ὅτε ἡ ὑποκριτικὴ ἐπίδειξις, μίμησις οὖσα προσώπων τε καὶ πραγμάτων ἔλλογος . . . Καὶ ἦν ὁ τότε ὑποκριτὴς ἀρετῆς ἁπάσης διδάσκαλος, παρεισάγων μὲν εἰς τὸ θέατρον καὶ τύπους κακιῶν, οὐχ ὥστε μὴν μορφωθῆναι τινα πρὸς αὐτὰς, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἐκτρέψασθαι.23 And so was then the theatrical performance, which was a reasonable imitation of characters and events . . . And at that time an  actor was a teacher of all virtue, introducing in theatre bad characters, not in order that a person might become like them but in order to turn people away [from them]. Ancient mimēsis was ἔλλογος, endowed with reason, whereas, as it seems, Byzantine mimic performances, according to the Byzantine churchmen, did not perform any pedagogical function, but focused only on mindless laughter. As Eustathios points out, hupokrisis degenerated at the point at which comic genres came into existence.24 Mimic 21 In a recent paper Maroula Perisanidi analyses the twelfth-century canonical commentaries on entertainement; her focus, however, is rather on distinctions between laity and clergy: see Perisanidi 2014. 22 PG 137, col. 693–6. 23 Tafel 1832: 89 (= De simulatione, PG 136, col. 376). 24 ‘In the old days hupokrisis and the artist who practiced it represented something good. Since, though, it was impossible that even that good thing would be left uncorrupted . . . wily life contrived such things, plotting an invidious craft against beneficial hupokrisis. First it invented satyr dramas – mixture of deeds and words of heroic figures that combined seriousness with ­laughter; . . . and after this satiric

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laughter on display 237 performances centred on inciting laughter seem to be a clear example of such a degeneration. Therefore, in what follows I would like to take a closer look at the relationship between laughter and mimic performances. ’TO LAUGH AND PLAY AT ONCE’25

In surveying theories of humour throughout the centuries Salvatore Attardo commented upon the Byzantine period in the following way: ‘From the point of view of humour theory, the Middle Ages were really the “dark ages”, because there was little theorising on humour. The only name worth mentioning is that of John Tzetzes (1110–1185?).’26 Even though Attardo is technically right – there is no specific treatise on humour – the Byzantine theory of humour can be extrapolated from other texts.27 The Byzantine attitude towards laughter – as an  expression of humour – can be characterised as deeply ambivalent. On the one hand, church writers and officials condemned laughter, yet on the other hand, chronicles, letters and other writings offer a picture of a society which enjoyed humour ‘based on ridicule wherein we regard the object of amusement as inferior and/or ourselves as superior’. 28 In Byzantine sources, performances of mimes are strongly connected with laughter.29 Ruth Webb, discussing the late antique mime, asks: ‘Laughter was clearly at the centre of the mime but what kind combination of the serious with the hilarious, the comic hupokrisis flourished. This hupokrisis did not deal with heroic characters anymore, except incidentally. In general, this kind of hupokrisis, which was involved with vulgar matters and thus represented a violated form of its genre, would have passed unnoticed if the comic poems had not enticed the ears of the spectators and, thanks to their eloquence, had not survived as reading material for those who lead prudent lives’. Translation from Roilos 2005: 233–4. 25 See Ptochoprodromica, poem 1, 15–18: Κἂν φαίνωμαι γάρ, δέσποτα, γελῶν ὁμοῦ καὶ παίζων, ἀλλ᾽ ἔχω πόνον ἄπειρον καὶ θλίψιν βαρυτάτην, καὶ χαλεπὸν ἀρρώστημα, καὶ πάθος, ἀλλὰ πάθος! Though I seem, lord, to laugh and play at once, my pain is boundless, my grief profound, and gravest illness, yes, real suffering.

I am very grateful to Margaret Alexiou for providing me with her unpublished edition and translation of Ptochoprodromica. 26 Attardo 1994: 33–34. 27 See Pizzone in this volume. 28 Bardon 2005: 463. For examples of such humour see Garland 1990a. 29 Certainly laughter is not the only emotion evoked by the mimes: the sources mention that mimes staged weeping. Cf. Sideras 2002: 60: ‘ἀλλὰ μίμοις καὶ ἀκολάστοις γυναίοις, ἄκουσι πολλάκις καὶ μισθοῦ κλαίουσι’; also Prodromos’ satire Amathes, above, n. 13.

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of laughter did these plays provoke?’30 The Byzantine answer to this question seems to be rather easy: indecent. Byzantine canonists, while discussing canons related to performances, always stress that performative laughter is improper. Balsamon speaks about indecent laughter (γέλωτα ἄσεμνον), while Zonaras, commenting on the same fifty-first canon of the Council in Trullo, describes the laughter incited by mimes as unseemly (γέλωτας ἀπρεπεῖς).31 Both canonists inscribe themselves in a well-established Byzantine way of discussing laughter.32 Already in the sixth century a collection of questions and answers authored by two monastic writers, Barsanuphios and Joseph, included a faithful questioner asking what inappropriate laughter is (γέλως ἀπρεπής).33 The answer is that there are two types of laughter: shameful laughter (connected with free speech and foul language) and mirthful laughter, a result of cheerfulness; but both are the offspring of freedom of speech and both ultimately lead to debauchery. Even though, as far as we can judge from the testimonies at hand, mimic laughter and humour are perhaps less verbal and based more on clownish behaviour, the danger for the spectators remains. This is explicitly confirmed in the twelfth century by Zonaras, who, in the commentary to the fifty-first canon of the Trullanum, states that this law had been introduced to forbid things such as mimic performances which cause the relaxation of the soul in an unnecessary manner and stir up thunderous and loud laughter.34 Balsamon, commenting on the sixty-second canon of the Council in Trullo, gives as an example of comedy the plays of Aristophanes and of tragedy the iambic verses of Euripides.35 This is not usually taken seriously as a possible source of information concerning whether ancient drama was actually staged during the commentator’s time or not.36 According to Puchner, Balsamon may have been displaying his learning rather than referring to actual performances.37 This discussion is in fact irrelevant: Balsamon explicitly states that he intends 30 Webb 2008: 116 31 PG 137, col. 693. 32 On the laughter in the texts of church writers see Adkin 1985: 149–52. 33 Barsanuphius et Joannes, Quaestiones et responsiones ad coenobitas, in Neyt and de Angelis-Noah 2000–1: letter no. 458. 34 PG 137, col. 693. 35 Ζητητέον οὖν τίνα εἰσὶ τὰ κωμικὰ πρωσωπεῖα, τίνα τὰ τραγικὰ καὶ τίνα τὰ σατυρικά. Καὶ κωμικὰ μέν εἰσι τὰ γελωτοποιὰ καὶ ἐφύβριστα, ὡς τὰ συγγραφέντα παρὰ τοῦ Ἀριστοφάνους· τραγικὰ τὰ περιπαθῆ καὶ θρηνώδη, ὡς τὰ τοῦ Εὐριπίδου ἰαμβεῖα. PG 137, 730. 36 Such a possibility was suggested by Wellesz 1961: 86; Marciniak 2004: 13. 37 Puchner 2002: 317. Puchner repeats his arguments once more in Puchner 2006: 43: ‘The repetitions of the condemnations are misleading: when Balsamon in the twelfth century talks about comic, tragic and satiric masks, about Aristophanes

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to explain what the comic, tragic and satiric masks are (ζητητέον οὖν τίνα εἰσὶ τὰ κωμικὰ προσωπεῖα, τίνα τὰ τραγικὰ καὶ τίνα τὰ σατυρικά). Theatrical masks are for the twelfth-century Byzantines clearly an artefact of bygone days.38 What is really important here is the way in which the canonists describe the masks, inscribing them in their contemporary performative framework. Balsamon says that the masks are γελωτοποιὰ καὶ ἐφύβριστα, inciting laughter and wantonness like the writings of Aristophanes. Interestingly enough, in Theodore Prodromos’ Bion Prasis Aristophanes is described in a similar way: τίς γὰρ ἂν σωφρονῶν γελοιαστὴν οἰκέτην καὶ παίκτην πρίαιτο . . .39 In Prodromos’ text Aristophanes remains the only unsold ancient bios, mostly because of the verbal attacks on the potential buyer, which are funny but indecent. (Aristophanes says, for instance, ‘I shat myself from fear, I shat myself!’)40 Performative laughter is seen as something offensive and licentious, as a disturbance of taxis causing ataxia. Aristophanes becomes the embodiment of the corrupted comedic hupokrisis, as explained by Eustathios,41 especially when contrasted with solemn Euripides. Therefore, what is consistently reproached by canonists is uncontrollable laughter. This does not mean that the canonists oppose entertainment as such. Both Balsamon and Zonaras create a not entirely clear distinction between decent and indecent performances. This opposition seems to be built on the emotions aroused by a performance. If a show triggered uncontrollable and indecorous laughter it was seen as indecent. Balsamon singles out ‘royal games’, which he describes as ‘honourable’ (epitimia) exactly because they do not lead to cheerfulness (relaxation?) and indecent laughter (γέλωτα ἄσεμνον).42 The ‘honourable games’ are pole-mounted acrobats, Maron, Achilleus and Oktoechos. Apart from the acrobats,43 it is not very clear what kind of ‘honourable games’ the canonist refers to. Maron may either and Euripides, he is displaying his classical education and erudtion rather than depicting surrounding reality.’ 38 Eustathios of Thessaloniki, who discusses satyr-plays and comedy in his treatise On hypocrisy, never implies that they could have been staged in his times: see De simulatione, Tafel 1832: 89. What is more, Eustathios very clearly states that comedies survived as ‘reading material’ (περιεσώθησαν εἰς ἀνάγνωσιν τοῖς ἐλλόγως βιοῦσιν). 39 See Marciniak 2013: 231. 40 Migliorini 2010: 132. 41 Tafel 1832: 89. 42 Tafel 1832: 89. 43 There is an exhaustive recent study on the depiction of the acrobats, including kontopaiktes in Byzantine art: see Kepetsi 2014: 345–84. For the description of the performance of a kontopaiktes see Liudprand’s Antapodosis in Chiesa 1998: vi. 9. Trans. by Wright in Liudprand of Cremona 1993: 155.

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be an allusion to wine or may perhaps mean a throw of the dice.44 But such entertainment can hardly be thought of as invented only after the Council in Trullo.45 The meaning of the word Achilleus is equally unclear. Since Homer’s popularity during the Komnenian period and with the imperial family, in particular, is well attested, it would be tempting to think that Balsamon means here either a public reading of a fragment of the Homeric text or perhaps a performance based on the Iliad (possibly in the vein of ancient Homeristai?).46 The easiest to decipher is Oktoechos, which probably means some sort of musical entertainment.47 Balsamon’s suggestion that non-laughing games were invented to replace those which caused laughter corresponds well with the information given by Zonaras, who in his commentaries on the canons of the Council in Carthage delineates a distinction between honourable and dishonourable performers. One type, the honourable (entimoi), is approved by the law and can perform before the emperor, while the other type, thought to be dishonourable (atimoi), performs at public feasts or on market days.48 Once again, what differentiates these two types is the fact that the latter can lead spectators to laughter with nonsensical actions (γέλωτα τοῖς ὁρῶσι κινοῦντας). However, it is not entirely clear what is meant by the statement that the honourable type is approved by the law (οἱ νόμοι τῆς πολιτείας). Should we understand Zonaras’ information as a suggestion that there were professional groups of entertainers organised in guild-like corporations which could be legally hired? Or that at the Komnenian court there was a group of musicians and acrobats which formed a part of the imperial retinue?49 Such an observation could perhaps be supported by the testimony of William of Tyre, who recorded the reception by Manuel I of King Amalfy I of Jerusalem, who visited Constantinople in 1171:50 44 See Brill’s New Pauly and LSJ s.v. Maron. 45 On Byzantine games, see Bryer 1967: 453–9. 46 Marciniak 2014b: 134. On the Homeristai in Byzantium see Maguire and Maguire 2007: 40. 47 Oktoechos is ‘a liturgical book containing the hymns of daily Orthros, Vespers, Eucharist, and Saturday mesonyktikon . . . The name oktoechos was used for these hymns from at least the 11th C.’; see Kazhdan et al. 1991: 3, 1520. On Oktoechos see Wellesz 1961: 139–40. 48 Rhalles and Potles 1852–9: iii. 414 49 Odo of Deuil in De profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem describes the reception held in honour of Louis VII by Manuel II: ‘Convivium illud sicut gloriosos convivas habuit, sic apparatu mirifico, dapum deliciis, voluptuosis iocorum plausibus aures et os et oculos satiavit’ (Deuil lib. 4, pp. 66–7). Similarly, Choniates says that Alexios Angelos indulged in after-dinner laughter (ἐπιδόρπιον γέλωτα; Choniates 540). This must mean some sort of entertainment but its detailed nature is unknowable. 50 Runciman 1982: 153–8.

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laughter on display 241 Sometimes on certain holidays he invited the Lord King and his men for the refreshment and novelty of games [ludorum] – nor did they shame the honor of both – where he ordered shows with many musical instruments and songs, marvelous in their sweetness and adorned with skillful harmonies; also modest linedances with young girls and pantomimes [histrionum], admirable in their gestures while yet observing a refined character.51

Interestingly, William also points to the fact that the performances, including histriones, which possibly means mimes here, were decent (servata tamen morum disciplina). Whether or not he specifically means that they did not incite any unseemly laughter or did not involve (e.g.) nudity is in fact unimportant. This fragment suggests that the imperial version of entertainment was much more modest than what was happening, according to the canonists, on the Constantinopolitan streets. The so-called Tractatus Coislinianus (tenth century?) recommended that there should be ‘a due proportion of fear in tragedies and of laughter in comedies’.52 The accusations recorded in the commentaries clearly show that Byzantine mimes, even though unaware of the existence of such a treatise, included more than ‘a due proportion of laughter’. Paradoxically, what we know of the Byzantine sense of humour suggests that every stratum of Byzantine society enjoyed simple, slapstick-like, sometimes physiological jokes (kicking somebody’s posterior, throwing excrement, the emperor’s guests falling into his pond, etc.).53 Byzantine mimes, as far as we can judge from the bits and pieces preserved in various literary sources, responded to this taste. Regardless of what the canonists say, low mimic humour apparently enjoyed popularity – had it not been the case, why would there have been constant warnings against such entertainment? Describing royal games and all ‘honourable’ entertainment, Balsamon and Zonaras create a somewhat artificial reality. It is interesting that the vivid description of the St Demetrios panegyris included in ‘Timarion’ does not mention any form of street performers. If we are to believe the canonists, these were the specific occasions which attracted the 51 ‘Interdum etiam feriis intermissis, dominum regem cum suis ad recreationes et ludorum novitates, que utriusque non dedeceant honestatem, aliquotiens invitat, ubi et musicorum genera instrumentorum varia et cantus admirande suavitatis, consonantis distinctos artificialibus, choreas quoque virginum et histrionum gesticulationes admiratione dignas, servata tamen morum disciplina, precipit exhiberi.’ See William of Tyre, Willelmi Tyrensis archiepiscopi Chronicon, in Huygens 1986: i. 945. English translation Andrew W. White (personal communication). 52 Janko 1984: 36. 53 Garland 1990a; general introduction, Marciniak 2014a.

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‘dishonourable’ performers (τοὺς δὲ ἐν πανηγύρεσι καὶ δήμων ἄλλαις συνάξεσιν ἐπιδεικνυμένοις τοιαῦτα . . . ἀτίμους ἡγοῦνται).54 We can only guess why mimes are not part of the story – most likely because their behaviour would not correspond well with the general description of St Demetrios’ festival.55 Of course, the warnings of the churchmen reached only the elite who were the target readership of the canons’ commentaries. We can only imagine whether the preachers of twelfth-century Constantinople expressed the same concerns, as did John Chrysostomos or Jacob of Serugh in centuries before, while addressing their less educated flock. Mimic performative humour might have been the most representative emanation of Byzantine humour: if mimes wanted to survive and be paid for their efforts (as Kekaumenos, quoted above, suggested), they had to please their audience and incite unseemly laughter.

54 Rhalles and Potles 1852–9: iii. 414. 55 On the description of the fair see Vryonis 2001: 202–4.

15 THE POWER OF AMUSEMENT AND THE AMUSEMENT OF POWER: THE PRINCELY FRESCOES OF ST SOPHIA, KIEV, AND THEIR CONNECTIONS TO THE BYZANTINE WORLD Elena Boeck The largest Orthodox church of the eleventh century, St Sophia of Kiev, challenges the boundaries between the sacred and profane spheres. It unites under one roof carefully constructed representations of the sounds, movements, amusements and merriments of the Byzantine court and invocations of the stillness, silence and tears of Orthodox piety. These two irreconcilable realms were brought into dialogue for prince Iaroslav the ‘Wise’ (died 1054), a second-­ generation Christian who prevailed over his rivals after decades of fratricidal conflict. While in Byzantium these two spheres had long ago established a clear modus vivendi, in Iaroslav’s Rus’ their relationship was just being formulated. The fresco decorations of St Sophia’s princely towers were created as a sophisticated artistic and architectural stage-set for the wise prince. Executed as part of a comprehensive programme of elevating obscure Kiev onto the stage of world politics, the images display intimate knowledge of Constantinopolitan court spectacle, pageantries of power and imperial amusement.1 I argue here that its imagery disrupts the Byzantine balancing act between sacred and profane spheres. It projects a sophisticated message about the power of amusement and the amusement of power. The significant civilisational capital embedded in the imagery of musical performances helped to mark Kiev as a new place of refinement. Simultaneously it revealed the prince’s hand   I would like to thank Douglas Cairns and Margaret Alexiou for the invitation to the symposium, their gracious hospitality, stimulating discussions and dedication to steering this volume into print.   1 The bibliography on this topic is extensive. For a recent discussion, see Boeck 2009.

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in valuing and balancing the two spheres, as well as his ability to move between them. POLITICS OF PLACEMENT: ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN THE SACRED AND PROFANE WORLDS The profane frescoes of the turrets of Kiev’s St Sophia constitute a unique and singularly important collection of secular images (see Fig. 15.1). They are the only large-scale, extant medieval representations of courtly pleasures associated with the Byzantine capital. In their sweeping vision of imperial pleasures they provide unparalleled glimpses into performances of imperial power and the mechanisms of control that made them possible. Their singularity rests in their celebration of authority, which is not refracted through the prism of the church. We do not encounter heaven-granted coronations, close affiliations with the Mother of God, King David, angels or saints. Instead we behold the uncensored pleasures of power. The visual fanfare of the multi-sensory imperial amusements in the south-west tower culminate in the so-called ‘minstrels’ scene (Fig. 15.1). This fresco was a riddle for its early interpreters due to the heavy-handed over-painting and ‘restoration’ that it suffered

Figure 15.1   Church of St Sophia (Kiev, Ukraine), south-western turret, view of the ‘minstrels’ fresco (photo by George Majeska), BF.S.1979.87 49a, Image Collections and Fieldwork Archies, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, dc.

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in the mid-nineteenth century. The scene was initially identified as a ­spectacle that combined minstrel performance and dancing.2 Cleaning of the fresco in the Soviet period revealed a previously concealed organ and the ‘minstrels’ metamorphosed into a group of eleven musicians.3 In medieval Christian discourse, encounters between the sacred and profane spheres were meant to be didactic, structured and triumphantly reassuring for the sacred narrative. In the centuries-long struggle for primary authority, emperors gradually submitted to certain constraints imposed by the church and its ideological narrative. A key moment in this process unfolded during the iconoclast period (c. 726–843).4 Emperors tried to retrieve aspects of the public and political authority that they were in danger of losing to the church. One of the most famous examples in the struggle over images and political messages was the purported destruction by emperor Constantine V of a monumental public image of six ecumenical councils that was set up by the Milion (the zero-mile marker), which stood in the vicinity of the hippodrome. The emperor supposedly replaced the pious image with a mosaic representing profane chariot races. The celebratory dominance of the church’s visual messages in the public sphere triumphed with the restoration of icon veneration in 843. The first act in the restoration of images signalled the church’s triumph: the icon of Christ was returned to its place over the entrance to the imperial palace (the Chalke gate), following its purported deposition by the iconoclast emperor Leo III in 726 or 730. This was a powerful signal that imperial power was renegotiating relations with the ecclesiastical authority. While in Byzantium tensions between emperors and patriarchs continued with frequency, the relative balance of power between the two sides established a rough equilibrium in the aftermath of the Orthodox victory. Orthodox expectations dictated retreat of the profane to confined places in Constantinople, such as the hippodrome, or to the marginal spaces of private contemplation.5 When used in the Christian context, profane images were intended to amplify the power of the sacred narrative, rather than to display independent agency.6 For this reason Byzantine secular art still remains elusive.7   2 See, for instance, Kondakov 1888.   3 Totskaia and Zaiaruznyi 1988.  4 For the most recent and comprehensive discussion of the complexities of this period, see Brubaker and Haldon 2011.   5 See, for instance, Kepetzi 2014.   6 For instance, in the twelfth century Theodore Balsamon vehemently objected to ‘cupids and other abominable things on panels or on walls and in other media’ in a discussion of a canon of the Council in Trullo. Quoted in Cutler 1995: 317.   7 See Grabar 1936; Darkevich 1975; Maguire and Maguire 2007; Walker 2012.

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At the same time considerable verbal and limited visual evidence testifies to the great power of amusements to project imperial identity, diplomacy, public ceremonies of the imperial capital and diversion in the private lives of emperors. These interests converged in the hippodrome: the central public space of Constantinople and the place that was least constrained by the church.8 Established by Constantine I in the fourth century, this multi-functional, imperial institution was adorned with ancient sculptures and served as the place for chariot races, ambassadorial processions, spectacular acrobatic amusements (such as attempts to fly), no less spectacular public executions and other performances. These were staged for the emperor, his guests and the city’s residents. Remarkably, the only extant medieval representation of the Constantinopolitan hippodrome graces the walls of Iaroslav’s church. In the imperial palace amusements took centre stage in royal banquets, diplomatic displays and even private imperial moments. The prominence of amusements at court depended on individual imperial preferences. Descriptions of pleasure could complement as well as censure an emperor and his historical memory. While Alexios I was purportedly very pious, Constantine IX was reported to be a practical joker.9 Regardless of an emperor’s personal preferences, finding an appropriate balance between the enjoyment of pleasure and the performance of piety was a key aspect of imperial decorum. In Byzantine historical discourse Michael III provides perhaps the greatest example of character assassination developed through the narrative prism of inappropriate amusements.10 He is excoriated for  racing a chariot while an important Constantinopolitan church was engulfed in flames, loving music (the lyre), engaging in ­subversive behaviours such as immoderate drinking, easily fraternising with commoners and otherwise casually disregarding imperial decorum.11 Such didactic exempla helped to keep imperial behaviour in check. In Rus’ the situation was very different. The territory was nominally Christianised in 988 by the will of Iaroslav’s father, a formerly pagan and polygamous prince named Vladimir.12 The Rus’ church fully depended on the financial and political benevolence of princes for its livelihood and protection, especially in its formative early years. The relative power between the church and political authority was very   8 See Pitarakis 2010. See also Andrade 2010.   9 Garland 1990a: 12–13, 26. 10 Ljubarskij 1987. 11 Skylitzes 1983: 109–10. 12 For a good introduction to the subject, see Franklin and Shepard 1996.

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much in flux and had to be negotiated at every turn of events. This negotiation explains why the world of courtly pleasures forcefully and unapologetically intrudes into the princely towers of St Sophia. The elaborate nature and sizeable presence of profane musical instruments and secular pleasures on the walls of its princely towers are unique within the Orthodox world. The presence of frescoes of pleasurable performances under the roof of the most important Kievan church challenges the balance of power between the sacred and profane spheres, as defined in Byzantium. This is why these frescoes were designated as ‘a curious monument’ soon after their rediscovery in the nineteenth century.13 They are baffling because they simultaneously display collision and collusion between the sacred and the profane spheres. In the Orthodox tradition, encounters between church authorities and rulers were imagined in a triumphal vein as teachable moments that led to ecclesiastic triumphs and amplified regal piety. In the recently enlightened territory of Rus’ the need for such performances  of Orthodox power arose frequently. We witness a particularly rich confrontation between the two spheres in an encounter between prince Sviatoslav and St Feodosii of the Kievan Caves monastery, which purportedly took place in the latter part of the eleventh century: One day our blessed and God-bearing father Feodosij went to visit [the prince]. As he entered the room where the prince was sitting, he saw many people playing instruments in front of him: some were playing on dulcimers, others were raising their voices in tuneful notes, while yet others were playing on the organ; they were thus all making merry and playing music, as is customary before a prince. The blessed one sat down near him and looked at the ground, and after making a slight prostration he said, ‘Will it be like this in the world to come?’ The prince’s heart was immediately touched by the blessed one’s words, and he shed a few tears and told the musicians to stop. Henceforth whenever he ordered them to perform and heard of the arrival of the blessed Feodosij, he would tell them to keep quiet and make no sound.14 The saint staged a very effective didactic performance of his power in the princely political space. The pious text provided an appropriately Orthodox narrative arc for the collision between sacred and profane 13 Tolstoi and Kondakov 1891: 147. 14 Heppell 1989: 77.

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realms.15 The resounding triumph of the sacred realm and the resulting retreat of the profane one would have been reassuringly familiar and satisfying to the Paterikon’s ecclesiastic audience, but its relationship to the real balance of power between the secular and profane in Kiev is questionable. This confrontation exposes important facets of the normative cultural expectations that governed the two spheres. The court was a complex, multi-sensory space of performative movements and sounds that vied for the attention of the prince, who presided over the grand spectacle. There several types of sounds competed, such as an organ, dulcimers and merry voices. This collection of sounds would have been familiar to the pious audience of the Paterikon, for it echoes Psalm 150:3–4, ‘Praise him with sound of trumpet: praise him with psaltery and harp. Praise him with timbrel and choir: praise him with strings and organs.’ We also learn that ‘making merry’ was the normative performative setting of the court, and that pageantry and spectacle were established attributes of princely power. The Paterikon’s audience learned too that the saintly presence had the power to modify a princely cultural space and to nullify its aural enhancement. The confrontation also revealed the weapons that the saint deployed in his battle against the profane world. St Feodosii’s ‘performative utterance’ about impending judgement produced the necessary, spiritually sobering behaviour modifications in the prince.16 The narrative trope of the Last Judgement had been widely and successfully deployed in other Orthodox triumphs over wily princes who were bent on pleasure and other wrongdoings – from a pagan Bulgarian ruler17 to the iconoclast emperor Theophilos.18 The saint shamed and subdued the prince with the most powerful weapon in his arsenal: invocation of the final judgement and the 15 Although the text represents an encounter between two historical personages who lived in the second part of the eleventh century, the Paterikon postdates the purported events by at least a century. The text reflects the realities of spiritual life among the Rus’ in the twelfth–thirteenth centuries, while its earliest extant manuscripts date to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; Tschizhewskij 1964: vii, x. 16 The concept of ‘performative utterances’ was developed and introduced into scholarship by J. L. Austin. See Austin 1979: 233–52. 17 According to Theophanes Continuatus, the Bulgar ruler Boris authorised a Byzantine artist to paint any image that the latter wished on the walls of Boris’ palace. The artist painted the last judgement, thereby ‘when he [Boris] had seen the finished painting, he conceived thereby the fear of God, and after being instructed in our holy mysteries, he partook of divine baptism in the dead of night’. Translated in Mango 2000: 191. 18 On the official Orthodox efforts to rehabilitate Theophilos, see Afinogenov 2004; Karlin-Hayter 2006.

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the power of amusement 249 fears associated with it. As a result, Sviatoslav immediately switched codes from a ruler experiencing pleasure to a pious Christian. He signalled this situational change of identity by means of a visible, powerful emotional response: the prince shed tears of contrition.19 If we believe our monastic rhetorician, the prince’s behavior modification had an enduring effect: he ordered the merriments and music to stop whenever St Feodosii visited him again. The imposition of stillness and silence signalled the princely submission to the saint and heralded an Orthodox victory over the noisy profane world. In the process of retelling, the Paterikon’s readers and listeners were also reminded about the inadmissibility of courtly pleasures in a contemplative, saintly life. The proper path to salvation was paved with God-pleasing silence, stillness and tears. But that was often an unattainable ideal. Orthodox rules for profane roles

Before considering the unusual images of St Sofia we will examine an image type that reflects the church’s view of secular merriment and musical instruments. The didactic tension between the impropriety of merriment and solemnity of piety is richly visualised in the image-type of the Mocking of Christ, which figured prominently in the Passion cycle, especially in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century church decorations (see Fig. 15.2). Textual narratives of the Mocking appear in all four gospels and emphasise the role of soldiers as the part of the crowd that taunted Christ.20 The earliest extant Orthodox representations of the Mocking of Christ to include musicians and dancers date to the eleventh century, while the most elaborate visualisations were produced during the Palaiologan period.21 In these images Christ is made into a spectacle for perfidious painted onlookers.22 Their performance of iniquity shocks the pious viewer. The scene effectively juxtaposes the solemnity of the Christian drama with the profane 19 According to Martin Hinterberger: ‘Since tears of contrition could be shed only by the grace of God, tears were considered the visible sign that God accepted the regret and contrition of a human being; they could therefore also be used politically’ (Hinterberger 2010: 130). 20 Matthew 27:27–30; Mark 15:16–20; Luke 23:35–8; John 19:2–5. For the illustration of the Mocking in the Byzantine illustrations of the New Testament, see BnF, ms. gr. 74, fol. 55v. See Derbes 1996: 99. Traditional iconography of the Mocking of Christ (without the merrymakers) appears in Panagia Perivleptos in Ochrid (1294/5) and St Nicholas at Prilep (1299). See Keiko 2006: 161. 21 Keiko 2006: 159; Zarras 2010: 194. 22 In the description of another image Keiko notes: ‘Christ, led by a dancing youth, becomes a subject of spectacle’ (Keiko 2006: 160).

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Figure 15.2   Church of St George (Staro Nagoričino, Macedonia), the Mocking of Christ (photograph by Ivan Drpić).

pleasures of music and dancing.23 As in the binary verbal discourse of the Paterikon, these images create a powerful visual discourse. They establish an intense contrast between the central, static Christ and the dynamic movement of merrymaking around him, thereby amplifying the depths of Christ’s suffering. The transience and instability of these profane performances are embedded in their iconographic variations. While the central figure of Christ lends consistent stability to representation, the presence of soldiers, the number of dancers and types of musicians vary notably from image to image.24 The most elaborate composition of this didactic contrast between timeless sacrality and ephemeral pleasure is preserved in the fourteenth-century church of St George, Staro Nagoričino (in Macedonia), which does not include any soldiers among the crowd.25 We behold the central, static son of God 23 These images are discursively complex. Ann Derbes observed that in the Old Testament music had both positive and negative valances. While it is celebratory in Psalm 150, it is negative and derisive in Lamentations 3:14 and the Book of Job 30:1–9. Further, see Derbes 1996: 105–6; Galavaris 2000. 24 For the range of iconographic variants see Keiko 2006: 159–62; Zarras 2010: 194–5. See also Dujcev 1969: 79. 25 The foundational study of this image was published by Radojčić 1939. For the most recent discussion of the Passion cycle in Staro Nagoričino, see Zarras 2010.

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s­ urrounded by five musicians, three dancing figures and a large group of onlookers. The dancers are represented mid-movement with their arms and legs swinging wildly. This image is an ideological opposite of the celebratory noises and movements that surrounded Sviatoslav.26 The painted aural environment of this image would have translated into the tremendously loud and varied sounds of two horns, a drum, cymbals and a flute.27 But here these visual evocations of sound were meant to shock rather than please. This image embodies disorder and inversion of balance between the sacred and profane spheres.28 This type of image of Christ’s suffering was expected to bring pious beholders to tears, in contrast to the crowd that mocks Christ by revelling in transitory auditory pleasures and rapturous enjoyment of music. The context of princely patronage had the potential to heighten tensions between the sacred and profane spheres. Painted programmes could lead to confrontations between the two spheres, or result in hidden dialogues between political and ecclesiastical powers. The church of St Nicholas, which was built for a Wallachian prince in Curtea de Argeş (Romania) in the second half of the fourteenth century, demonstrates the complexities as well as the interpretative opportunities provided by such balancing acts (see Fig. 15.3).29 Like St Sophia in Kiev, this was a flagship princely church that embodied Wallachia’s stewardship of Orthodoxy in conjunction with the ­ establishment of the Hungro-Wallachian Orthodox bishopric in 1359.30 The church provides two particularly rich dialogical representations, which delineate appropriate and inappropriate relationships between the secular and sacred spheres. The first image is the nowfamiliar Mocking of Christ, which is painted on the south wall of the church together with the other scenes of the Passion (see Fig. 15.4). Unlike the Staro Nagoričino image, secular elements are heavily abbreviated in this version of the Mocking of Christ. The curtailed profane margins consist of a single drummer, a sole dancer, and several soldiers and onlookers. The contrast between stillness and motion in the Mocking of Christ provides a deliberate inversion of order and decorum.31 Such 26 For the discussion of the Mocking as an inversion and mockery of Christ’s kingship, see Radojčić 1939: 17ff. 27 See Pejović 1993. 28 Maguire and Maguire 2007: 139. 29 For the most recent discussion of its frescoes and their restoration, see Mohanu 2011. 30 Barbu 1996: 86. The church was attached to the palace. It also served as the burial church for the Wallachian princes. 31 Maguire and Maguire 2007: 139.

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Figure 15.3   Church of St Nicholas (Curtea de Argeş, Romania), view from the west (photo by author).

Figure 15.4   Church of St Nicholas (Curtea de Argeş, Romania), the Mocking of Christ (photo by author).

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a ­juxtaposition purposefully reinforced the boundaries between the sacred and profane realms.32 Just as St Feodosii subdued his earthly prince with a didactic and emotional contrast, so too do the images of the Mocking of Christ. They were meant to instil in viewers an appreciation of the enduring power of Christian sacrifice and aversion for the transitory and tainted pleasures of the profane world. Here, as well as in other churches that feature this cycle (like Staro Nagoričino), this is the only scene in which the secular world rudely and jarringly intrudes into and challenges the sacred narrative. Another image in the visual programme of the church of St Nicholas demonstrates that profane images, when properly subdued, could serve to amplify the power of the church (see Figs 15.5, 15.6). In this case a dynamic procession of jewels and rulers is painted with great detail in the most prominent part of the church – its apse. This is a highly unusual image of the Old Law or Ark of the Covenant. This scene appears above the image of Christ administering the eucharist to the apostles and below three scenes of Christ’s miracles. The centrally placed altar is positioned within a three-domed tent (see Fig.  15.5). The altar is richly laden with four large golden vessels (a vase, a coffret, representing the Ark of the Covenant, two candle-holders),33 and its front is draped with a sumptuous veil featuring a central, bust-length image of the Virgin orant. Two cherubim flank the altar, while the bowing figures of Moses and Aaron censer it. While Aaron is wearing a mitre, the head of Moses is graced by a crown.34 Although rare and unusual, representations of the Ark appear during this period in images from Byzantium and the Balkans. However, the cortege of gift-bearing figures makes this image exceptional (see Fig. 15.6). Comprising six figures on the left and six figures on the right, a procession of kings bearing gifts approaches the divine altar.35 The kings wear enormous gold crowns, which are encrusted with large gems. Dressed in an abbreviated loros – the scarf of Byzantine emperors – 32 This strategy was established in the post-iconoclast discourse as noted by Leslie Brubaker: ‘the iconophiles represented themselves as personifying the sacred life (by weeping, fasting, and remaining celibate), and presented the iconoclasts as exemplifying profane existence (by laughing, eating and committing “unnatural acts”)’ (Brubaker 1989: 31). 33 These objects include the vase with manna and a seven-branch candle-holder. Beljaev 1930: 318. 34 Both Moses and Aaron wear priestly garments. For the argument that the crown of Moses signifies a Byzantine emperor, while the mitre of Aaron signifies the patriarch, see Barbu 1996: 82. For a broader discussion of Moses and Aaron as models for imperial and ecclesiastical roles in Byzantium, see Dagron 2003: 110–11. 35 For the discussion of this image, see Beljaev 1930: 318–19; Dumitrescu 1989: 151–2; Barbu 1996: 81–6.

Figure 15.5   Church of St Nicholas (Curtea de Argeş, Romania), Christ administering the eucharist (lower register), the Old Law (upper register), painting in the apse (photo by author).

Figure 15.6   Church of St Nicholas (Curtea de Argeş, Romania), the Old Law or the Ark of the Covenant, painting in the apse (Beljaev 1930: pl. XLVI).

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they carry golden and gem-encrusted vessels that are nearly as large as their royal porters. These are gifts for the altar, which is already laden with golden objects. This image is also rich in movement. The rulers are animated – some look back, others bend forward, their steps suggesting uncoordinated motion – and have been called ‘dancing figures’.36 Though the twelve rulers represent the twelve tribes of Israel (Book of Numbers 7),37 their message had contemporary resonance. This gift-laden procession is likely to have evoked the Constantinopolitan ritual in which emperors made offerings to the Great Church during liturgy.38 This interpretation of the remarkable and striking iconography marginalises secular power and consigns it to a supporting role in a narrative that glorifies the power of the church. The very prominent presence of the secular rulers in the programme of St Nicholas was thus framed within the ideological expectations of the church. In this case the riches of the secular world were visibly and appropriately offered to the divine world, reinforcing the church’s ideal balance of power and reminding Wallachian princes about their assigned roles in the church. The two images in the church of St Nicholas visualise the ecclesiastical model of the appropriate balance between the sacred and profane worlds. In the Mocking of Christ, music and dancing represent worldly insubordination to the sacred narrative. The copious, exaggerated wealth delivered to the Ark by the twelve kings embodies the desired submission of political authorities to the church. Submission frames this image as the appropriate balance of the relationship between the two spheres. While these verbal and visual exempla embody an idealised sacred triumph over the profane world, the pleasurable princely frescoes of St Sophia challenge the Orthodox rules for profane images in its spaces. They defiantly deviate from Sviatoslav’s submission to the rules of the church at his own court, or the princely submission to the Ark in the Wallachian princely church. PROFANE PLEASURES OF POWER IN A TOWER The decorated turrets of St Sophia do not reinforce the appropriate balance between sacred and profane spheres. A tour de force of princely power, St Sophia’s prominent profane images are unapolo36 Dumitrescu 1989: 152. 37 Beljaev 1930: 319. 38 Robert F. Taft noted that these gifts ‘were vessels and a purse, not bread and wine’ (Taft 1975: 29 n.76). See also Beljaev 1930: 320–2.

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getically pleasurable and political. They celebrate performances of power and control.39 The Rus’ prince strove to realign the balance of power between the sacred and profane spheres. In the medieval period the turrets could be entered only from the exterior of the church and were not accessible to the public.40 They led to and from the princely balcony, which afforded the prince a privileged view of the costly mosaics of the Virgin and the communion of the apostles in the apse. They also enabled him to limit access to this privileged view to the chosen few who were admitted into his space. The decorated turrets of St Sophia were an intentionally politicised space and a conspicuous financial investment.41 Their painted frescoes celebrate the centrality of spectacle in medieval statecraft. An assertively celebratory ideology of political power shaped the ideological and iconographic content of these images, while the imperial Constantinopolitan spectacle formed the core of this painted store of civilisational capital. Such pastimes and pleasures as hunts, chariot races at the hippodrome, and musical and acrobatic performances, as well as figural decorative roundels on the ceiling that imitated the designs of costly imported silk or metalwork, with the representations of mythical beasts and other exotica unfolded before the princely eyes.42 The prince and his retinue ascended to the balcony through the south-west tower. The closed, ascending spiral arrangement of the turret’s physical space would have required the viewer to encounter the images sequentially, as though in a continuous narrative.43 While some of the princely pleasures are arranged into large-scale narratives (such as the hippodrome), others appear as single scenes (such as  hunts). I have argued elsewhere that as the prince mounted the steps to his princely gallery, the performances of the hippodrome unfolded before his eyes: first the starting gates, then the races, then a musical scene, then the acrobats.44 Though the 14-metre-long hippodrome fresco is deservedly the most famous decoration of the princely tower, among the painted amusements of the church we can still behold a nearly 5-metre-long fresco of an elaborate musical 39 Boeck 2009: 294–5. 40 Vysotskii 1989: 125–6. 41 Even vertical spaces between the original medieval steps were adorned with mosaic tesserae, the kind of costly decoration that was otherwise reserved for the figural decoration of the apse. See Kresal’nyi 1972: 69. 42 See the somewhat problematic, but very useful, monograph Vysotskii 1989, on the secular frescoes of St Sophia. 43 The condition of the north-west tower is far too fragmentary to allow extensive conclusions about the nature and narrative patterns of its decoration. 44 Boeck 2009: 287–90.

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performance, once misidentified as so-called ‘minstrels’.45 These images reveal none of the negative prejudice that pleasurable secular pursuits  habitually  elicited in the ecclesiastical circles (see Fig. 15.1 above). The multi-sensory celebration of power displays Iaroslav’s familiarity with prestigious Byzantine imperial amusements. This was the final pleasurable scene that the prince beheld before stepping out onto his balcony. It is also the largest extant image of musical performances from the Byzantine world (see Fig. 15.7). Consisting of eleven figures, the composition celebrates the visual and aural fanfare of multi-sensory imperial amusements. The assemblage of figures represents eleven musicians, who play eight different instruments.46 This visual collection of people, instruments and sounds is unique in the Byzantine world. In Iaroslav’s princely tower, music was assigned a place of uncontested importance in the performance of princely power. Here we witness a very different view of the relationship between the secular and sacred spheres from that in the St Feodosii narrative above. Church authorities had been vehemently and verbosely antagonistic to the sounds of music and the presence of musicians and musical instruments in their spaces, as we witnessed in the images of the Mocking of Christ. Although representations of music occasionally entered Byzantine imagery, they were meant to praise God, rather than imperial power.47 Representations of the sounds of music appear far more rarely in church decorations than in manuscripts. The psalms are filled with music, and manuscript images of King David as a musician will illustrate this point. In images like the aforementioned Psalm 150, David is often represented playing music to honour God – his instrumental range varying from organ (such as Vat. Gr. 333, fol. 45v) to psaltery (such as Codex Taphou 53, fol. 203r).48 Even these sounds of Old Testament praise were supposed to be understood by Christians allegorically,49 for the sounds of instrumental music were inadmissible in Orthodox churches. The decorations of Iaroslav’s tower further expand the boundaries of the secular sphere, for our prince was very much alive to the sounds of imagined music under the roof of his church. 45 For the precise measurements, see Totskaia and Zaiaruznyi 1988: 143. 46 Totskaia and Zaiaruznyi 1988: 143ff. 47 Musical instruments also occasionally appear in the images of the Nativity and the Last Judgement. See Pejović 1993: 71. 48 Bachmann 1966; McKinnon 1968; Darkevich 1975: 132–5; Page 1977; Braun 1980: 319; Pejović 1993: 71. 49 McKinnon 1968: 4ff.

Figure 15.7   Church of St. Sophia (Kiev, Ukraine), southwestern turret, reconstruction of the orchestra, after Totskaia and Zaiaruznyi 1988 (artwork by Brian Boeck).

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The fresco’s restorers believed that the image was a truthful testament of the prince’s pleasures. They insisted that the image accurately conveyed medieval reality of sounds and that, therefore, the fresco authoritatively represents probably the largest medieval orchestra, and demonstrates the remarkable skill of highly accomplished performers capable of masterful coordination.50 Eight musicians are represented playing seven different musical instruments to the right of an organ. Just as Dutch still-lifes assembled together flowers of all seasons, so Kiev’s musicians signified the possible combinations of pleasurable sounds, rather than an actual orchestra. They constitute a significant component in a curated collection of princely prestige: just as the painted horses could not actually race up the walls of the tower, so too all of the musicians would not have performed together. Their diversity signifies distant knowledge and familiarity with the prestigious centre, rather than the material reality of the actual Kievan spectacle.51 So which sounds are included in the collection of the wise prince? To the left of the organ the eight musicians are organised into a symmetrical U-shaped configuration. The front row (closest to the viewer) includes three musicians from left to right: one holding bells (?),52 the second one playing a small pair of drums (?),53 while the third one is playing a rectangular harp (or a psaltery).54 The back row includes a left-handed transverse flute player, a musician with cymbals, and two trumpet players. Between the trumpet players and the harp player stands the final performer with a pear-shaped lute. While some of the instruments were visible before the cleaning 50 Totskaia and Zaiaruznyi 1988: 155. 51 For the most recent musicological assessment of these musicians, see Currie 2014: 433–8. 52 Reconstruction of this musical instrument as bells is highly problematic. It is based on the restorers’ interpretation of an oval shape (8 × 8.5 cm), which they discovered at a height of 4 cm above the wrist of the performer. They interpreted this shape as a bell. For their visual comparanda Totskaia and Zaiaruznyi used an eleventh-century French fresco (Totskaia and Zaiaruznyi 1988: 152). I suggest that another, much more Byzantine instrument could fit the oval shape: a rattler or clapper. These instruments are represented in eleventh- and twelfthcentury Byzantine miniatures (Vat. Gr. 747, fol. 90v; Vat. Gr. 746, fol. 194v; Mt. Catherine, Sinai, Ms. Gr. 61, fol. 235v). See Braun 1980: 324. 53 The reconstruction of drums is based on the following evidence: (1) the performer has clenched fists; (2) there is a semicircular outline by his left hip. Totskaia and Zaiaruznyi were at first tentative with this reconstruction: ‘in front of us is a seated figure who was also, apparently, playing some kind of musical instrument’ (Totskaia and Zaiaruznyi 1988: 153). 54 The restorers insist that the instrument is not a psaltery on account of its rectangular shape. In another context Braun identified an iconographically similar instrument as a type of psaltery precisely because of its rectangular shape. Braun 1980: 319.

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the power of amusement 261 and restoration of the 1980s, other instruments were definitely or tentatively identified only in the process of that restoration. Thanks to the work of I. F. Totskaia and A. M. Zaiaruznyi the range of the uncovered or proposed instruments now includes wind instruments (the flute and two trumpets), string instruments (a harp and a lute) and percussion instruments (cymbals, a pair of hand-held bells, and small drums).55 This musical assembly has a triumphal, confident character. It is represented as an appropriate and necessary facet of princely power. In the profane sphere the role of this entertainment is assuredly positive. As we encountered in the Mocking of Christ, within the narrative established and controlled by the church music had a very different role. All of the instruments that were used to torment Christ – t­ rumpets, drums, cymbals and flute – here praise the prince in St Sophia. The two images testify to the irreconcilable differences between the values and expectations of the sacred and profane narratives. While the modern desire to behold in this image medieval Kievan reality echoes Iaroslav’s ideology of power, this multi-referential image represents an aspirational collection of instruments, skilled performers and specialised knowledge. The painted instruments do not exactly represent the sounds of praise in honour of the prince; rather they compound the symbolic value of his foreign knowledge, as do the painted hippodrome, hunts of exotic animals and representations of mythical beasts. It is not the instruments we should marvel at, but their audacious presence in a church. They mark a space where the prince gained the upper hand over the church. The eight musicians form an encyclopaedic collection of courtly sounds. They embody the aural facet of merrymaking for the pleasure of the powerful prince. Their number and range stand for countless configurations of music-making and possible soundscapes that they could be commanded to perform. The range of the painted musical instruments, their imagined sounds and the skills required to create those sounds are simulated on a single wall of a unique church which embodies the intersection of imperial hierarchies, cross-cultural interaction and performances of power. These scenes served to compound Iaroslav’s symbolic civilising capital. They also testify to the astounding power of the prince over his church. The painted musicians represent an important facet of Iaroslav’s performance of power in the profane and sacred spheres. They articulate imperial power at a unique cultural and chronological junction: the early moment of the Rus’ civilised discourse and engagement 55 See Totskaia and Zaiaruznyi 1988: 146–54. See also Currie 2014: 437.

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with distant knowledge. They also embody the fluidity of boundaries between the sacred and profane spheres in the newly enlightened world, where Christian and imperial images were together part of the prince’s prestigious collection. For Iaroslav there was no contradiction in the inclusion of the sacred and profane images under the same roof. There was no disjunction between representing the sounds of princely praise and the prince’s contemplation of his newly acquired faith, because St Sophia was constructed for the prince. At that particular historical moment for that particular prince the totality of St Sophia was not an opposition between the sacred and profane spheres, but a unified political space. With this building Iaroslav was able to outperform his Byzantine counterparts. He was able to accomplish what no contemporary Byzantine emperor could, for he brought under one roof the two pillars of his authority: Christianity and display of Byzantine imperial pleasures. Unlike the tribute-bearing painted rulers of the Wallachian princely church, who gladly submitted to the power of the church, St Sophia of Kiev had to adapt to its prince. This building created a new balance between the sacred and profane spheres, in which Christian decorum had to accommodate the princely patron.

16 LAUGHING AT EROS AND APHRODITE: SEXUAL INVERSION AND ITS RESOLUTION IN THE CLASSICISING ARTS OF MEDIEVAL BYZANTIUM Alicia Walker Scholars have interpreted comical aspects of middle Byzantine classicising art to be slapstick in nature or to derive from the nonsensical or the absurd.1 Works of art that depict amusing vignettes or characters are recognised as entertaining, but they are not perceived to communicate serious, coherent messages to their viewers. In contrast, I propose that some works of middle Byzantine art employed visual humour to do more than simply amuse their audiences. Specifically, humour could fac­ili­tate the critical exploration of social power.2 In this way, funny imagery could accomplish serious work, introducing themes and ideas that were more easily, or more effectively, joked about than discussed directly.3 This phenomenon is especially apparent in imagery that engaged critically with the power of female sexual allure and the moral dilemmas it posed.4 I propose that two well-known objects considered in   1 For instance, Cutler 1984/5; Papagiannaki 2010: 342–6. A more nuanced understanding of the possibilities of Byzantine humour in the textual tradition, with a useful survey of interdisciplinary theories of laughter and humour, is found in Haldon 2002. For a general introduction to Byzantine humour, albeit one that does not recognise its visual history, see Marciniak 2014a.   2 John R. Clarke’s exploration of visual humour in Roman art has been an indispensable model for my own analysis. Of particular value, Clarke offers a useful road map for adapting William Martineau’s and Mikhail Bakhtin’s seminal theories on the social function of humour to the analysis of visual humour in pre-modern societies. Martineau 1972; Bakhtin 1984b; Clarke 2007. On the social function of humour, also see Zijderveld 1983; Kuipers 2008.   3 The serious work to be performed through Byzantine humour is emphasised by Halsall 2002: 2–3, 11–13.  4 In analysing humorous imagery that was directed (at least in part) towards a female audience and engaged with serious issues of female subjectivity, this chapter attempts to expand the study of Byzantine humour in new directions. Regarding the comparatively humourless attitude in studies of the history of Byzantine gender and the uncharted territory of gendered humour in Byzantine society, see Halsall 2002: 2, 15–16, 20–1; Haldon 2002: 68–71.

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Figure 16.1   Veroli Casket, Byzantine, Constantinople (?), second half of tenth century or eleventh century, wood overlaid with carved ivory and bone plaques with traces of polychrome and gilding, h. 11.5 cm, l. 40.3 cm, w. 16 cm, Victoria and Albert Museum, no. 216–1865. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

this chapter – the Veroli Casket (Figs 16.1–16.4) and the San Marco Censer (see Figs 16.8–16.10, 16.13–16.14) – are concerned with Byzantine social norms surrounding the pursuit or resistance of sexual attraction. These issues were explored through imagery that drew from standard iconographies of sexual power found in Byzantine art, which in turn related to prominent genres of secular literature: the Graeco-Roman mythological and epic narratives that remained popular throughout Byzantine history, and the romance novels produced at the Komnenian court in the twelfth century. John Haldon has pointed out that for humour ‘to function effectively, it must bring two independent but internally consistent frames of reference into play’, with the resulting situations of ‘ambiguity, contradiction, inconsistency or semantic uncertainty’ creating comic opportunities.5 I propose that laughter erupted from the incongruity between the reality of Byzantine social norms and the fictional alternatives found in myth and romance, and that this humour was socially purposeful. Without a doubt, Byzantine society was decidedly patriarchal, even misogynist, and women exercised social power rarely and to a limited degree.6 Yet the imaginary realms of myth and romance permitted subversive female types, whose behaviour challenged Byzantine mores, especially in matters of sexual agency.7 I argue that by giving   5 Haldon 2002: 56–7.   6 Regarding the role of women in Byzantine society and the challenges still lingering in the study of gender in Byzantium, see James 1997; Garland 2006b; Herrin 2013. For the depiction of women in Byzantine art, see Meyer 2009.   7 On this point, see especially Garland 1990b; Jouanno 2006. Regarding Byzantine sexual mores in general, see Laiou 1992; James 1999.

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these imaginary narratives palpable form in ivory and silver, the Veroli Casket and San Marco Censer encouraged viewers to fantasise about upending expected gender roles, while ultimately warning them against any actual transgression of social proscriptions. Indeed, as Liz James has emphasised, because most works of Byzantine art were produced for male audiences, or by men for female consumption, we must see them as products of this patriarchal system and as serving its interests.8 At the same time, however, we can remain open to the possibility that female viewers interpreted artistic programmes in their own ways, perhaps producing alternative readings that contravened men’s intentions.9 The primary type of humour employed in the Veroli Casket and San Marco Censer is inversion, a comic strategy that lends itself well to visual representation.10 These works of art were able to communicate complex messages in non-verbal terms because their viewers were fluent in the iconographic vocabularies the objects upended. Classical narratives were well known to middle Byzantine elite audiences in both textual and visual form. During the early and middle Byzantine periods, a substantial corpus of objects was decorated with epitomised imagery from the famous tales of Graeco-Roman tradition, and educated medieval Byzantine viewers would have recognised core iconographic motifs from the most prominent of these stories.11 We can reasonably speculate that elite viewers were not only familiar with the standard meanings of stock motifs and scenes but also sensitive to unanticipated deviations from the norm that inversion introduced. The combination of the well-established and uncompromising gender roles of Byzantine society with the familiar iconographic conventions of Byzantine art created the opportunity to transgress the audience’s deeply entrenched expectations, and to make them laugh in the process. In his illuminating analysis of Roman visual humour, John R. Clarke identifies inversion as a particularly useful tool for depicting   8 James 1997: xviii: ‘Byzantine images are, overwhelmingly, designed and created by men; they formulate and reflect a culture designed by men for women and  for  men; their images of women are men’s images of women, a male response  to women and a male response to the relationship between men and women.’   9 Regarding the possibility of alternative or subversive readings by female viewers in the Roman context, see Clarke 2007: esp. 208–9. On Byzantine women’s potential capacity to manipulate patriarchal social structures and legal systems to their own ends, see Neville 2006. 10 Regarding inversion as a distinct type of humour, see Noonan 2014. 11 For an overview of classicising iconography in Byzantine art, see Weitzmann 1951.

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serious messages in funny ways.12 Inversion offers an effective strategy for addressing the social pressures that build up around asymmetrical power relations because such imagery not only relieves tension through the temporary subversion of authority, but also reaffirms the existing social order once the laughter has died down and life returns to normal. In this respect, it is worth noting that the transient nature of humour is one of its characteristic features.13 Its impermanence can be understood as an aspect of its utility for those members of society invested in the status quo; once the joke dissipates, so does its subversive power. I suggest that in the objects discussed here, both the inversions they depict and the impermanence of the humour they incite are essential to understanding their messages. For although the audience is initially indulged in delightfully destabilising visual allegories of ‘women on top’, deeper consideration of the iconographic programmes and the narratives they evoke leads the viewer to conclude that such disruptions can exist under only temporary and fictional conditions. In this way, the objects examined here employ humour as a tool of social commentary, but also as a means of social control, allowing viewers to explore taboo subjects and fantasise about rebellious sexuality, while rendering them conscious of the serious perils and punishments that such actions provoke in reality.14 THE HUBRIS AND HUMILIATION OF APHRODITE The Veroli Casket is a relatively large, oblong container, measuring about 11 by 40 by 16 cm (4 by 16 by 6 inches), and is composed of elephant tusk and animal bone reliefs affixed to a wooden core.15 The 12 Clarke 2007: 7–9, 218. Distortion, another key category of visual humour identified by Clarke (2007: 133–61), is also apparent in middle Byzantine art, especially in the depiction of outsiders. For example, see discussion of the so-called Darmstadt Casket, an ivory box that depicts a humourous portrayal of the Persian King Darius, opponent of Alexander. The portrait parodies characteristic features of conventional medieval Islamic ruler imagery in order to construct a derisive image of Alexander’s adversary and in so doing to establish the superiority of the Greek King and, more importantly, the Byzantine emperor, who viewed Alexander as a royal prototype. See Walker 2012: 108–43, esp. 127–31. On the strategy of exaggeration in visual humour and its efficacy in articulating superiority over cultural others, see Zijderveld 1983: 49–52; Clarke 2007: 87–107. Regarding middle Byzantine jokes about foreigners and provincials as a tool for consolidating core Byzantine identities, see Haldon 2002: 58–60. 13 A point emphasised by Haldon 2002: 48. See also Kuipers 2008: 373–4. 14 Regarding Byzantine attitudes towards erotic love and the potentially destabilising effects it was feared to incite, especially outside of wedlock, see Laiou 1992: 67–111. 15 This chapter introduces a discrete part of my current research on the Veroli Casket, the full version of which will appear in a forthcoming article discussing the

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laughing at eros and aphrodite 267 casket has been dated to the tenth or eleventh century and was probably made in the Byzantine capital, Constantinople.16 Earlier studies of the Veroli Casket typically treat its programme in only general terms, proposing that it reflects middle Byzantine esteem for the pagan past in the form of a medieval antiquarian or renaissance spirit, but that these classical models are incompletely or incorrectly understood, resulting in semantically incoherent assemblages of unrelated narrative vignettes.17 When scholars do perceive an underlying logic to organise the imagery, it is understood to hinge on generic themes or purely formal features; for example, as Anthony Cutler suggests, ‘emotional tenor or superficial aesthetic considerations’ such as ‘symmetry, balance, and a unifying tone’.18 Cutler does see humour in the Veroli Casket’s programme, interpreting its scenes as burlesque renderings of ancient myths that parody the elevated narratives of classical tradition.19 Similarly, Henry and Eunice Maguire view the programme as comical, but understand the imagery to denigrate the Graeco-Roman tradition, presenting it as inferior to the Byzantines’ own Christian identity, and to disempower the images of pagan deities so as to avoid idolatry.20 Inherent in these interpretations is a tendency to position the classical tradition as outside of Byzantine cultural identity and to view the Veroli Casket and related works as antagonistic towards the Graeco-Roman models from which they draw. In contrast, I believe that while the Veroli Casket certainly invites laughter, it does not totality of the box’s iconographic programme, its relationship to eleventh-century Byzantine elite society and its function as a tool for women’s ethical formation. 16 For the eleventh-century date, see Beckwith 1962: 20–3. For a date in the middle or second half of the tenth century, see Cutler 1996: 230. Regarding Constantinople as the likely production site of the so-called rosette caskets, see Cutler 1984/5: 46. 17 Weitzmann 1951: 152–4, 202–3; Cutler 1984/5: 42–4; 1996: 240–1; Papagiannaki 2010: 342–3. The larger historiographic issue informing such interpretations is the notion of a ‘Macedonian renaissance’ in the tenth and eleventh centuries, which is argued to have promoted and revived classical literature and classicising art in the middle Byzantine era, but in a superficial or corrupted manner (see esp. Weitzmann 1951: 198–208). The term and its premise have been long since discredited by scholars of Byzantine literature and art alike; however, the renaissance concept still lingers tacitly in the interpretation of middle Byzantine classicising objects. On this historiographic problem, see Hanson 2010. 18 Cutler 1984/5: 42; 1994: 241; Maguire 2004: 13; Maguire and Maguire 2007: 164–5. 19 Cutler 1984/85: 44–5. Following Cutler, Papagiannaki (2010: 342–3) proposes that the unifying theme of the Veroli Casket’s programme is that of farce inspired by the staging of classical myths in the mimic plays performed in Constantinople during the late antique and medieval periods. Chatterjee (2013) takes a decidedly different approach to the object, arguing that the Casket encourages self-­ conscious reflection on the process of viewing and that it promotes a dialogue between Orthodox Christian and classicising modes of reception. 20 Maguire 2004; Maguire and Maguire 2007: 165–6.

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Figure 16.2   Detail Veroli Casket showing scenes of Aphrodite and Ares and erotes with animals. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Figure 16.3   Detail Veroli Casket showing scene of Aphrodite and Ares and erotes with animals. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

­ isparage the pagan tradition wholesale. Instead it encourages the d viewer to take seriously the particular narratives it depicts by reflecting on the moral qualities and quandaries of the characters in each scene.21 A vignette depicting the Graeco-Roman goddess of erotic love, Aphrodite, exemplifies the comic inversion and social critique at work in this object.22 In the right-side panel on one of the long sides 21 Indeed, I propose that if the Veroli Casket was intended as a mockery of the pagan tradition, we would expect to see the characters depicted in formal terms that exaggerate their appearance and render them physically distorted. Instead, the figures on the Veroli Casket are formed quite beautifully, according them authority both artistically and culturally. For situations in which strategies of visual distortion are employed in Byzantine art with derisive intentions, see note 12 above. For examples of visual parodies of Greek deities in Roman art that exaggerate and distort conventional iconographic types, see Clarke 2007: 134–40. 22 This chapter limits discussion to only one side of the Veroli Casket. I offer a full analysis of the object’s iconographic programme in my forthcoming study. For an overview of Aphrodite’s appearance in early and middle Byzantine art of the public and private spheres, including discussion of relevant panels on the Veroli Casket, see Papagiannaki 2010: esp. 342–6.

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of the Casket, Aphrodite stands at the far left, unabashedly spreading her arms to reveal her body in full frontal exposure as she stands in relaxed contrapposto (Figs 16.1–3). In her right hand she holds a lighted torch and with her left hand she pulls her cloak from her body, a clear indication that an amorous encounter is soon to follow. The cloak slides down her back, its ends visible under her right arm. To her immediate left stands her lover, Ares, the god of war, who wears his standard attribute of military dress. Ares’ pose complements that of Aphrodite, with his right leg casually crossed over his left. He holds a spear in his left hand, but his gaze is diverted from his armaments, and his shield rests neglected behind his right foot. Instead, his attention is absorbed by Aphrodite. He affectionately cups her chin in his right hand, a sign of affection found commonly in Graeco-Roman depictions of amorous couples, and one that persisted in late antique and middle Byzantine iconography.23 While Ares’ gesture suggests that he maintains the upper hand in their relations, the viewer easily recognises that it is Aphrodite’s nude body that is the true agent of control. As Ruth Webb has noted, Byzantine ecclesiastical authors from the early Church Fathers to John Zonaras, the middle Byzantine commentator on canon law, were wary of female sexual allure and the power wielded by enticing women. They condemned female dancers and prostitutes who exposed and contorted their bodies to attract the attention of male viewers and, in so doing, incited erotic desire, thereby corrupting their audiences morally and spiritually.24 In fact the late fourth-century Christian commentator John Chrysostom warned of the danger posed by even the verbal description of a harlot.25 He claimed that the memory of a wanton woman could become lodged in a man’s mind, inflicting spiritual harm on him again and again. In this way, both Chrysostom and Zonaras implied that the seductress usurps the dominant role usually reserved by men in early Christian and Byzantine society, thus emasculating and victimising the male spectator by means of capturing and controlling his gaze and assaulting him mentally and spiritually.26 23 Regarding the conventional nature of this motif, see Cutler 1994: 56–7. For discussion of the gesture as a sign of consensual erotic love in Byzantine art, see Meyer 2009: 254–5. 24 See Webb 1997c: 131–5; 2008: 168–73. For Zonaras see Rhalles and Potles 1852–9: ii.425–6. 25 Webb 1997c: 132. For John Chrysostom see In Ioannem (Homily 18) in Migne 1862: 119–20. 26 Leyerle 1993; Webb 1997c: 131–5. As Leyerle and Webb observe, the late antique and Byzantine concept of the male gaze and its vulnerability diverges significantly from the dominant agency accorded to it in contemporary visual theory, as, for example, in the seminal study of Mulvey 1975. For valuable reconsiderations of

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In the same way, we can appreciate that an actual depiction of the nude Aphrodite would have been seen by some viewers as a powerful and immediate threat to the male soul. Needless to say, her nudity also transgresses Byzantine expectations for female modesty and subjugation.27 Indeed her brazen presentation may have elicited embarrassed tittering from demure or prudish viewers. But the real humour of the scene comes not from the fact of Aphrodite’s exposed body but rather from the effects of this body on those around her, especially Ares. The scene depicts Aphrodite’s ability to quell the wrathful spirit of Ares through seduction, thereby attesting to the power of female allure and the potential for erotic desire to undo the strongest of men. This idea is conveyed pointedly by Ares’ abandonment of his shield and disregard for his spear, objects that function both as symbolic emblems of virile power and as literal tools of defence against adversaries. Aphrodite’s removal of her own cloak foreshadows the complete disrobing of Ares that will ensue. By disarming her lover, Aphrodite asserts the profound and irresistible influence of female sexual allure, while Ares exemplifies the helplessness of men before it.28 Further emphasising the intended message of this vignette, the scenes surrounding Aphrodite and Ares reiterate the theme of inverted power dynamics. The conventional imagery of Roman bucolic and hunting scenes is turned topsy-turvy as wild beasts are terrorised by childlike erotes who cajole and abuse the fierce creatures of land and air.29 At the far right (see Figs 16.2 and 16.3), a vigorous steed is tamed by two erotes, one of whom tightens a harness around the animal’s neck, while the other, crouching beneath the horse, subdues the beast

(footnote 26 continued) contemporary theories of the gaze in relation to ancient art and visuality, including critical assessment of Mulvey, see Blundell et al. 2013: esp. 5–6, 9–13; Rabinowitz 2013: esp. 195–6; Ruffell 2013: esp. 247–8, 254–7. For a useful overview of ancient theories of vision from which Byzantine ideas of the empowered gaze developed, see Rabinowitz’s discussion of the erotic/gendered gaze as reflected in ancient Greek tragedy; Rabinowitz 2013: esp. 205–13. 27 On Byzantine attitudes towards nudity as both a positive and negative attribute in art, literature and society, see Hanson 1999; Zeitler 1999; Maguire 2004; Maguire and Maguire 2007: 97–134; Meyer 2009: 279–81. 28 The removal of Ares’ weapons and their neglectful disarray upon the bedroom floor are key iconographic features in Roman illustrations of Aphrodite and Ares’ adultery, representing the actual and figurative disarming of the god of war. See Clarke 2007: 169–72. 29 The Roman tradition of bucolic and hunting iconography survived in early and middle Byzantine works of art, including the well-known mosaic in the Great Palace of Constantinople (see Maguire 2001), illustrations of pseudo-Oppian’s Cynegetica (see Spatharakis 2004), and an eleventh-century illuminated copy of Gregory of Nazianzos’ homily on spring (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. gr. 533, fol. 34).

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Figure 16.4   Detail Veroli Casket showing scene of erotes with animals. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

in a less conventional manner. The sexual nature of the horse’s subjugation is significant because it casts an erotic tone over the reversal of roles transpiring throughout the two panels. The theme of sexual domination is also at play in two scenes that can be understood to depict visual parodies of well-known mythological narratives of divine rapes. To the immediate left of the fellatio vignette, a bull with a rider recalls the climactic moment in the story of the rape of Europa (see Figs 16.2 and 16.3), when Zeus, in the form of a bull, swept the unsuspecting maiden from the shores of her father’s kingdom and whisked her over the sea to the island of Crete, where he claimed her virginity. Yet in the visual parody of this myth on the Veroli Casket, the bull is whipped into shape by one of Aphrodite’s minions, who raises a lash in his left hand and takes aim  at the bull’s rump. Another eros enjoys the ride, training the enormous bull to his will.30 While in the myth it is Zeus who overpowers the defenceless maiden Europa, here the erotes beat the male animal into submission. In the upper right corner of the left-hand panel another vignette may represent a reversal of expected sexual roles that, like the parody of Europa 30 An actual scene of Europa and the bull appears on the lid of the Veroli Casket. Beckwith (1962: 3–8; following Weitzmann 1951: 184–6) reads the lateral image discussed here (see Figs 16.2 and 16.3) as another literal depiction of Europa, showing a subsequent moment in the narrative. But several inconsistencies between the two figures mounted on bulls argue against his reading. Perhaps most significantly, as Cutler (1984/5: 44) has observed, the eros shown from behind is likely to be male, while Europa on the lid of the container, who is depicted frontally, is decidedly female. In addition, the characters’ hairstyles differ, with Europa’s hair pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck, while the eros’ hair is cropped closely and takes the form of bulbous curls; on the lid, Europa is clothed (as are her female companions and the maenads who lead the procession before her) but the eros on the bull is nude; and finally, the proportions of the figures’ bodies differ, with Europa paralleling that of the female figures to her right, while the eros shares a body type with the other erotes who surround him.

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and the bull, draws from a specific mythological narrative. An eros driving an eagle down from the sky recalls the familiar iconography of Zeus and Ganymede (Figs 16.2 and 16.4).31 Yet here, instead of the defenceless boy carried aloft by the enamoured god, we see a bold – and by all expectations powerless – youth reining in the fiercest and strongest of predatory birds. Orchestrating a composition of mounting chaos, the eagle veers towards another group: an enormous stag, entangled in ivy tendrils, cowers before two erotes, one of whom forces the animal’s head towards the harness held by his accomplice (see Figs 16.2 and 16.4). The ivy, an attribute of Dionysus, may evoke the god of wine, who was often a co-conspirator in the escapades of Eros. To the left of this group, a swift hunting dog is wrestled to the ground by an eros, who leaps in the air to grasp the hound. The animal presents a strong parallel to the hunting dogs that attack a hare in the Great Palace mosaic at Constantinople (Fig. 16.5), and the comparison makes evident the Veroli Casket’s visual inversion of nature’s usual order. The dramatic diagonal of the dog’s body contributes forceful energy to the composition, creating a sense of things spinning out of control. Even the erotes’ erstwhile partner in crime, Dionysus, does not escape unthreatened: his own animal attribute, the panther, is molested in the final vignette at the far left. One eros tightens a leash that winds around the giant feline’s neck and grasps her muzzle as he heedlessly draws the fierce cat’s maw to his own face, a parody of the tense (and more distanced) poses of armed hunters attacking a tiger in the Great Palace Mosaic in Constantinople (Fig. 16.6). A second eros reclines under the cat and grabs her teats to nurse. The panther’s submission is apparent from her tail, which wraps docilely around her leg. Finally, in the upper right corner of the right-hand panel, above the scene of Europa and the bull, appears a distinctive motif of an eros diving into a basket (see Figs 16.2 and 16.3). Flowing from the lower lip of the woven container are small round forms. They are difficult to identify conclusively, but a comparable detail is found in a floor mosaic of the so-called Hippolytus Hall at a sixth-century mansion excavated in Madaba, Jordan (Fig. 16.7).32 Scholars have previously identified this scene as a moment in the narrative of Eros’ chastisement when he attempts to hide from his mother. This reading is supported by the scene at the centre of the mosaic panel, in which Eros has been recovered and delivered to Aphrodite, who 31 For the conventional iconography of the rape of Ganymede in Graeco-Roman art, see Boardman et al. 1988: part 1, 162–9, part 2, 88–96. 32 Piccirillo 1993: 51, 54–5, 65–6, figs 3, 6, 23.

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Figure 16.5   Rabbit attacked by hunting dogs, Great Palace, Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey), Byzantine, mosaic, sixth century. © Pavle Marjanovic/Shutterstock.com.

Figure 16.6   Hunters attacking a tiger, Great Palace, Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey), Byzantine, mosaic, sixth century. © Pavle Marjanovic/ Shutterstock.com.

spanks him with a sandal.33 Michele Piccirillo identified the objects spilling from the basket in the mosaic as flowers, in which case they might serve to show the disorder Eros caused as he desperately 33 Maguire 2004: 15.

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Figure 16.7   The Punishment of Eros by Aphrodite, Hall of Hippolytus, Madaba (Jordan), Byzantine, mosaic, sixth century. © Robert Harding Picture Library Ltd/Alamy.

evaded capture. Yet Piccirillo also sees the vignette as an allegory of ‘a poem in which a honeycomb with bees flying away is used to symbolise both the sweetness and sting of love’.34 His suggestion raises the possibility of an alternative iconographic reading that would be more consistent with the basket’s placement in mid-air on the Veroli Casket. The forms may instead be a swarm of bees, indicating that the basket is a hive. The motif could epitomise Pseudo-Theocritus’ Idyll 19, in which Eros was stung while stealing honeycomb from a beehive.35 Overcome with fear and pain, he rushed to his mother for consolation; however, Aphrodite ridiculed her son, pointing out that the pain inflicted by his arrows was significantly more acute than the sting of a bee. In other words, the story showed that Eros can dish it, but he can’t take it. In the Veroli Casket, if the vignette is interpreted as Eros’ raiding of a beehive, the motif can be understood to parallel the other scenes of erotes terrorising ordinarily fierce animals. Yet it also suggests that even these diminutive dominators are unexpectedly routed when seduced by the intoxicating scent of roses or the sweetness of honey. 34 Piccirillo 1993: 66. Piccirillo does not identify the poem, but no doubt he refers to Pseudo-Theocritus’ ‘The Honey Stealer’ (Idyll 19). See Hopkinson 2015: 234–5. 35 Angar 2009: 148; Hopkinson 2015: 234–5.

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These secondary vignettes of ostensibly vulnerable, childlike figures pacifying the most powerful and threatening of beasts amplify the disruptive nature of the relationship between Aphrodite and Ares. We can only assume that Ares will soon follow in the footsteps of these numerous debilitated creatures, thereby making a mockery of male social and sexual prerogatives and the ‘natural’ order that accords such privileges.36 The humour here is, of course, in keeping with a longstanding tradition circulating around the irrepressible force of Aphrodite’s sexual appeal and her minions’ collusions in her conquests. For Byzantine viewers, whether women or men, this scene could easily remind them of the capacity of female allure to conquer the most virile of men, and the scornful humour to be derived from witnessing the hardiest of warriors enfeebled by the softness of female flesh. It is impossible to know the exact circumstances under which the Veroli Casket was viewed, but a hypothetical profile of its intended audience can be constructed from certain characteristics of the object itself. The central panels of the casket are fabricated from a small number of large pieces of ivory, which is unusual. Middle Byzantine containers depicting non-religious iconography are typically constructed in composite from multiple, small plaques of bone.37 Substantial panels of ivory were more commonly reserved for devotional icons.38 The generous use of ivory in the Veroli Casket marks it as a work of luxury art accessible only to the privileged classes of Byzantine society.39 The carving of the scenes is highly refined, confirming the elevated level of its production and reception, as well as its expense.40 Furthermore the iconography is rendered with great specificity and density, anticipating an audience that was well educated in Graeco-Roman myths, was able to recognise individual scenes, and enjoyed the challenge of discerning the semantic unity and variety of the programme.41 Finally, an unusual feature characterises the overall 36 Regarding the loss of male social status as a result of erotic subjugation to a woman, see Agapitos’ discussion of the mid-fourteenth-century Tale of Achilles in this volume. Of interest to the present chapter, the text involves a work of art, which was commissioned by the hero in the process of his grappling with lovesickness: Achilles orders a painting of Eros to be hung in his tent and then laments over the social and emotional suffering he has endured at the hands of the god of love. 37 Cutler 1984/5; 1985: 32–7. 38 Cutler 1994: 59–61. 39 Cutler 1985: 32–7; 1994: 59–61. 40 For discussion of the carving of the Veroli Casket, which is exceptionally fine for a non-devotional ivory object, see Cutler 1994: 63, 117, 151; 1996: 230. 41 There exist several disarticulated ivory or bone plaques showing classicising motifs carved in comparable technique, but no other complete box of the Veroli Casket’s

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iconography of the box: it shows a predominance of mythological women.42 It is reasonable to speculate that the atypical emphasis on female protagonists was intended to cater to an elite female viewer.43 If a wealthy, educated, female spectator is hypothesised for the Veroli Casket, the function of the object can be considered with respect to her ownership. Given that the majority of the mythological women depicted on the box were renowned for their physical beauty, it may be that the casket functioned as a safe box for jewellery or cosmetics. Indeed the Veroli Casket had a lock affixed that could have equipped it to serve this purpose.44 If we imagine that the container held precious objects or substances used by a female owner to enhance her physical beauty, we can appreciate how she might have gazed upon this scene of Aphrodite as she adorned and primped her own body, and reflected on her capacity to manipulate the sexual desires of men and, in so doing, to wreak havoc on the expected order of things. From this perspective, the programme of the Veroli Casket can be understood not only to depict the inversion of natural and social power dynamics in the fictional domain of Graeco-Roman myth but also to prompt an actual woman to consider how she, too, might challenge middle Byzantine norms of female modesty and sexual subjugation. The social and sexual inversion depicted in this scene might have appealed to female viewers in specific ways, offering release from and alternatives to women’s usual subaltern position, and thereby enabling them to imagine other possibilities. Yet the reality of Byzantium’s emphatically patriarchal society leaves little space for men to remain the butt of this joke. Indeed, further reflection on the narrative of Aphrodite and Ares’ liaison reveals a less amusing (footnote 41 continued) calibre is preserved, making it impossible to know if these other, individual plaques participated in coherent iconographic programmes. It may be the case, as Cutler (1984/5: 36, 46) has hypothesised, that high-quality boxes like the Veroli Casket were produced as unica and then copied in low-end, mass-produced versions for the open market. 42 Europa, Iphigenia, Hygieia and the water nymph Peirene have been identified in other scenes on the box. Speculation regarding a fifth female figure has generated suggestions including Helen, Phaedra or a second depiction of Aphrodite. See esp. Beckwith 1962: 3, 14–16; Papagiannaki 2010: 342–3. 43 Additional support for the idea that the Veroli Casket was intended for female consumption is found in the numerous images of Aphrodite depicted in late antique jewellery and other objects related to female adornment. These intimate objects encouraged the user to model herself after the goddess (Elsner 2003). I propose that the Veroli Casket prompts a similar comparison between the box’s female owner and Aphrodite, albeit with caution regarding the degree to which Aphrodite should be followed as an exemplar. For a survey of late antique and early Byzantine objects depicting the goddess Aphrodite, see Buono 1987. 44 Cutler 1994: 150.

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denouement (at least for Aphrodite) that ultimately affirmed the expected order of Byzantine gender and sexual relations. The story of Aphrodite and Ares’ adulterous affair might have been chosen for its moralising potential. As the narrative unfolds, Hephaestus, god of metalworking and Aphrodite’s husband, learns of her betrayal and schemes to punish his wife and her lover for their offence.45 He fashions a metal net so fine it is practically imperceptible, and lays it across their bed. During the lovers’ next tryst, Hephaestus snares them in the act, and then invites all the gods to witness their disgrace. Needless to say, within this extended narrative Aphrodite bears the brunt of the joke, raising an important caveat for the hypothetical female owner of the Veroli Casket, who might thus note the potential folly of her own sexual escapades.46 From this new perspective, we can appreciate how the Veroli Casket’s audience – whether male or female – is expected find humour in the scene, but to do so while disdaining Aphrodite because to valorise the goddess’ transgressions would implicate the object’s maker and audience in the goddess’ moral corruption.47 The viewer must scorn Aphrodite, laughing at her, not with her, because to react otherwise would be a tacit endorsement of her socially disruptive behaviour. EROS REFUSED Exploration of female sexual allure directs the programme of another middle Byzantine object, a magnificent gilded silver incense burner in the treasury of San Marco in Venice shaped in the form of a miniature building (Fig. 16.8).48 A pair of doors provides access to an interior chamber in which aromatic substances were set to smolder, and the perforated domes and peaks allowed scented smoke to escape. The object is a rare survival of a domestic implement used to spread sweet 45 The adultery of Ares and Aphrodite is mentioned by many Greek and Latin authors; the most extensive accounts are found in Homer’s Odyssey (8.287–398) and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (4.189–211). 46 Aphrodite’s situation, and the moralising lesson Byzantine viewers were expected to discern in her example, recall female characters who adopt the masculine gaze in ancient Greek tragedy. As Rabinowitz observes, these women challenge traditional gender identities by assuming characteristics of male authority and honour. Yet their socially disruptive behaviour leads inevitably to their oppression – and often death – at the hands of male characters such that the female characters are ‘coded as masculine but not as powerful’. Rabinowitz 2013: 200–3, at 203. 47 Regarding the role of derisive humour in social regulation see Kuipers 2008: 368–72. 48 The following discussion of the San Marco Censer draws from my paper delivered at the International Conference on the Ancient Novel, Lisbon, Portugal, July 2008. See Walker 2011.

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smells throughout the home.49 It is relatively large, measuring 36 by 30 cm (c. 14 by 12 inches), and has handles affixed that allowed it to be moved with ease. The censer is typically dated to the twelfth century and is associated with the court of the Komnenian dynasty.50 Recent scholarship interprets the iconography of this object through the lens of the romance novels produced for the Komnenian court in the twelfth century.51 Indeed erotic love and sexual morality were a point of overriding concern (and amusement) in the Komnenian romances.52 At some point after its initial production – possibly upon its arrival in the Treasury of San Marco – the object was adapted to serve as a reliquary, and crosses were mounted on the domes of the pavilion. But its original iconographic programme was entirely non-Christian, employing motifs that derive from mythological and romance traditions that were prevalent in middle Byzantine literary culture. In a series of eight framed squares running around the lower walls of the kiosk, a human couple and real and fantastic animals are rendered in relief. On the doors at the front of the building is depicted another human pair, in this case representing the personifications of virtues (Figs 16.8 and 16.9). The man at the left is inscribed ΑΝΔΡΙΑA (sic: Courage or Manliness) and is clothed in military attire.53 The woman at the right is identified as Η ΦΡΟΝΕСΙС (sic: Prudence or Good Sense). She wears a distinctive double-skirted dress and makes the characteristic gesture associated with Prudence, raising her right index finger to the side of her head to indicate reflection. Both figures are nimbed. 49 There were various motivations for burning incense in the home, from practical concerns, like warding off insects and promoting health through good smells, to more recreational purposes such as creating a welcoming and luxurious environment for guests or a relaxing atmosphere for amorous couples. On the use of incense in the early Byzantine domestic sphere, see Caseau 1994: 117–33. Trahoulia notes that the Censer could be easily imagined as a bedroom furnishing, scenting the space so as to set the mood for intimate encounters; Trahoulia 2008: 37–9. I prefer to see it as designed for portable use, allowing it to function in both public and private areas of the home; Walker 2011: 64–5. 50 For a full account of evidence in support of a twelfth-century date, see Angar 2009. 51 See Trahoulia 2008; Angar 2009; Walker 2011. Regarding the courtly audience of the twelfth-century novels, see Jeffreys 1998. On the literary culture of the Komnenian court, see Mullet 1984; Magdalino 1993: 336–56. 52 See Garland 1990b; Nilsson 2001: 96–137; Jouanno 2006. 53 Although unusual, the depiction of Courage as a man is found in the canon table of a twelfth-century Byzantine Gospel book (Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, Felton Bequest, 1960 710– 5), in which Prudence also appears. Both personifications stand on columns as if they are statues. In this manuscript, Courage and Prudence are the first of eighteen personifications, which first introduce the ‘secular’ or ‘imperial’ virtues (Prudence, Courage,  Justice, Truth), and then

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Figure 16.8    Censer, Byzantine, Constantinople (?), twelfth century, silver, 36 × 30 cm (c. 14 x 12 in), Treasury of San Marco, Venice, Italy. © Photo: Per gentile concessione della Procuratoria della Basilica di San Marco, Venezia, Italia.

Like the Veroli Casket, the San Marco Censer displays a prevalence of male–female pairs and affords women unusual prominence. I believe these heterosexual pairings, along with the real and fantastical beasts that accompany them, connote the threat of unbridled passion transition to the ‘monastic’ virtues (e.g. Faith, Hope, Simplicity). See Riddle 1984: 25; Ševčenko 2001: 97. See also Jeffreys 2005: 309–23; Angar 2009: 143; Walker 2011: 62.

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Figure 16.9   Detail of the San Marco Censer showing personifications Andrea and Phronesis flanked by a lion (left) and a griffin (right). © Photo: Per gentile concessione della Procuratoria della Basilica di San Marco, Venezia, Italia.

as well as steadfast resistance to sexual temptation.54 Like the Veroli Casket, the San Marco Censer confronts these taboo subjects with a sense of humour, clearing a path for jocular reflection on issues that might otherwise have been too unseemly to consider openly.55 In addition, both objects lead the viewer along a path towards, but ultimately past, erotic desire, thereby fulfilling social expectations in the resolution of their iconographic programmes. The building represents a palace or garden pavilion. This identification is relevant to an understanding of the object’s connection to the Komnenian romances because in these stories, amorous dalliances are often set in pleasure gardens.56 Female protagonists are encountered in gardens, and garden ekphraseis commonly follow descriptions of the heroine herself.57 The iconography of the object further evokes the theme of erotic love and its resistance. 54 The heterosexual pairs may also relate to an increased concern for marriage in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which Jeffreys (1998: 195–9) suggests as one of the motivating social factors behind the resurgence of interest in the literary genre of the romance novel in twelfth-century Byzantium. 55 Regarding the essential role of humour in the erotic discourse of the Komnenian novels, see Nilsson in this volume. 56 Littlewood 1979: 97–9, 103–7; 2008; Garland 1990b; Barber 1992; Nilsson 2001: 97–101, 212–13; Jouanno 2006; Trahoulia 2008: 34; Walker 2011, 62–3. Regarding the category of pleasure – as opposed to functional – gardens in Byzantium, see Littlewood 2002. 57 Littlewood 1979: 98–100.

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As a result of its disproportionately large size and stark isolation, the image of Eros diving into a basket punctuates the series of reliefs that encircles the sides of the censer (Figs 16.8, 16.10). This motif resembles a similar one on the Veroli Casket, discussed above (see Fig. 16.3), but does not depict bees, and the woven container on the San Marco Censer has handles at its side, suggesting that rather than a hive, it instead represents a basket like that depicted in a pastoral scene of a peasant feeding a donkey in the Great Palace Mosaic at Constantinople (Fig. 16.11). The image on the San Marco Censer probably depicts Eros evading chastisement by Aphrodite. A similar motif of mischievous but cowardly erotes is found in a depiction of them playing with the armaments of Herakles in an eleventh-century illustrated manuscript of Pseudo-Oppian’s Cynegetica (Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, cod. Gr. Z 479, fol. 24r) (Fig. 16.12).58 Indeed, as Ingela Nilsson points out elsewhere in this volume, although Eros is identified as the god of love in the Komnenian romances, he in fact operates as something more akin to the personification of carnal desire. As the linchpin for much of the narrative development in these stories, Eros illustrates the tremendous power of physical attraction, both to move and gratify the protagonists, but also to torment and imperil them. The Censer itself might be understood to have evoked the danger of erotic passion because, when in use, it would have glowed red from the smoldering embers within, recalling for the viewer the burning desires that Eros incited as well as their harmful potential. The other reliefs around the lower walls of the San Marco Censer can also be understood to evoke the power of erotic love and the control that women wielded through it.59 On one side a female siren seduces her male companion with a persuasive tune played on her flute (Fig. 16.13), while on the other side a man gestures imploringly towards a female companion who rebuffs him (Figs 16.10 and 16.14). In both these scenes, female figures are afforded a high degree of influence over their male counterparts. The female siren enthralls her male partner, and the woman rejects the advances of her insistent companion, who grovels before her. Even the personification of Prudence stands as an equal to her mate, Courage (see Figs 16.8 and 16.9). The enchanting female siren may refer allegorically to the sexual magnetism that lurks within the poised female figures in the other panels. 58 Weitzmann 1951: 121–3; Spatharakis 2004: 83–6. In a subsequent scene of the same manuscript (fol. 33r), Eros turns his arrows against the gods, reasserting his formidable power and destructive influence over mortals and divinities alike. 59 For further discussion of the destabilising effects of romantic love and the subversion of expected social order resulting from Eros’ taking the side of the enamoured, see Nilsson in this volume.

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Figure 16.10   View of the San Marco Censer showing depictions of animals, Eros in a basket, an amorous couple, and a centaur. © Photo: Per gentile concessione della Procuratoria della Basilica di San Marco, Venezia, Italia.

Indeed the desperate, grovelling man has clearly been overcome by desire for his female counterpart, assuming a subservient, undignified pose in relation to her. The pair might be understood as a visual allegory of the suffering endured in situations of unrequited love, and the man might be seen as a victim of the guilty Eros, who hides in a basket to evade punishment in the adjacent vignette (see Fig. 16.10). But while the programme of the San Marco Censer toys with

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Figure 16.11   A peasant feeding a donkey, Great Palace, Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey), Byzantine, mosaic, sixth century. © Pavle Marjanovic/ Shutterstock.com.

Figure 16.12   Detail showing Herakles and the Kine of Geryon, from Pseudo-Oppian’s Cynegetica, Byzantine, c. 1060, pigment on vellum, Venice, Biblioteca Marciana cod. Gr. Z 479, fol. 24r. © Biblioteca Marciana, Venice.

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Figure 16.13   Detail of the San Marco Censer showing sirens playing instruments flanked by a lion and a griffin. © Photo: Per gentile concessione della Procuratoria della Basilica di San Marco, Venezia, Italia.

Byzantine conventions of sexual power dynamics, it does so only to  tease. Ultimately any hint of subversion is resolved through the affirmation of social norms. We might at first suspect that the couple at the doorway is about to pass over the threshold of the building and indulge their desires within the pavilion, but we soon realise that these figures represent an alternative outcome. Courage and Prudence withstand the temptation to enter the kiosk, where physical satisfaction would be gained, but virtue would be lost.

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Figure 16.14    Detail of the San Marco Censer showing an amorous couple, a centaur attacking a lion, and a griffin. © Cameraphoto Arte, Venice / Art Resource, NY.

Their steadfastness is mirrored by the poised lion and griffin that flank them. Unlike the rearing lion and charging centaur on the back of the Censer (see  Figs  16.10,  16.14), these beasts resist their base nature and do not threaten to attack, perhaps reflecting how the couple at the door have tamed their own wild desires. Indeed the Censer suggests that Eros, while powerful, is by no means invincible, depicting him as a mischievous, yet cowardly child, who hides to escape punishment. In this respect, the message of the programme might ultimately insist on the triumph of human virtue over the wiles of Eros, although any claim to the moral high ground is more playful than serious. In his commentary on the rulings of the seventh-century Council in Trullo, the twelfth-century canonist Theodore Balsamon criticised

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wealthy Byzantines who decorated their homes with scenes of Eros and his pernicious temptations.60 Balsamon’s comment confirms that images of Eros were popular in domestic decorative programmes of the era, thereby identifying a context of use for an object like the San Marco Censer. He cautions that such depictions should be avoided or destroyed because they spur viewers’ sexual appetites, a warning that echoes similar concerns voiced by Chrysostom and Zonaras, noted above. But where Balsamon perceived carnal temptation and moral corruption, other viewers of the era might have engaged with such iconography to meditate on the charms and traps of erotic desire. The San Marco Censer offered jocular scenes of mild seduction, emphatic rejection and amorous chastity, thereby creating a visual field for ethical reflection. More than a mere decoration, the censer invites the viewer’s contemplation of its iconography and recollection of real-life situations of attraction, refusal and abstinence. The expected response to these challenges is found, of course, in the male and female pair at the entrance of the pavilion, who remain courageous and prudent at the threshold of temptation. While the possibilities offered by the various vignettes on the Censer raise serious ethical questions, its programme allows for their lighthearted exploration.61 One could chuckle at the siren, seeing in her another side to the female figure of Prudence, who like all women possessed a capacity to seduce. Steadfast Courage might find the other side of his nature exposed through the wild force of the untamed lion and centaur. Indeed there is something amusing about the personifications’ earnest resistance of carnal pleasures, such that some viewers might have perceived Prudence and Courage to be mockeries of the prudish ideals promoted by Christian doctrine and canon law. Similarly the plaintive male supplicant, rebuffed by his love interest, could elicit contemptuous snickers as much as sympathy. Yet in the midst of this entertaining visual discourse on the destabilising force of Eros, the audience is left with little doubt about the proper comportment for both the depicted figures and viewers themselves. In this way, we can see the Censer employing humour to achieve the serious task of guiding moral deliberation and formation.

60 Balsamon affirmed the seventh-century ruling of the Council, which stated that sensuous or erotic imagery was immoral and spiritually threatening; Rhalles and Potles 1852–9: ii.545–6; Mango 1972: 234. 61 On the importance of humour in the negotiation of the pains and pleasures of erotic desire in the Komnenian novels, see Nilsson in this volume.

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laughing at eros and aphrodite 287 CONCLUSIONS

I have argued that the Veroli Casket uses visual inversions of RomanByzantine bucolic and hunting scenes to amplify and reiterate the topsy-turvy character of Aphrodite’s sexual subjugation of Ares, encouraging the viewer to laugh at these characters and thereby reject them as ethical models. Similarly the San Marco Censer draws together erotic imagery of heterosexual couples, Eros and wild beasts to reflect on the power of carnal desire and the proper response to its temptations. The effectiveness of comic imagery in these objects relies on the viewer’s fluency in Byzantine cultural conventions and artistic models. It was the familiar social parameters and visual language of gendered sexual power that equipped these objects to be funny by contradicting the expectations of their audiences. While both works of art encourage the viewer to claim a position within the bounds of convention, they also attest to the fact that the transgression of these norms was very much part of Byzantine fiction – and, no doubt, reality. On one level, the Casket and the Censer explore, and in so doing set loose, the power of female sexual allure and the possibility of gender-transgressive behaviours. Yet on another level, these objects lead viewers past erotic desire and rebellion, directing them towards appropriately moralising sentiments and actions. Perhaps some Byzantine viewers were affronted by the iconographic programmes of these objects, while others were titillated by their taboo subject matter. Still others may have recognised their own reflections in the depictions of the mythological and romance characters who contravened social and religious proscriptions. In any case, whether they felt scandalised, aroused or implicated by such images, Byzantine viewers could – and, we can only assume, did – smile about them.

17 COMFORTING TEARS AND SUGGESTIVE SMILES: TO LAUGH AND CRY IN THE KOMNENIAN NOVEL Ingela Nilsson The Greek novel is known primarily for being sentimental and romantic, bringing both novelistic characters and readers to tears with its distressing stories, dramatic lamentations and emotional expressions of love. The young protagonists fall in love at first sight, elope in order to be together against their parents’ will, but are soon separated and undergo various trials before they are finally reunited, forgiven by their parents and happily married. This type of story line indeed allows for multiple misfortunes, often multiplied by parallel narratives told by ‘fellow sufferers’ who have also fallen in love and ended up in trouble. Of course, there is not only distress in the novels, but also moments of both intense emotion and erotic tension. Even such instances are, however, most often filled with a certain bittersweet quality, a sense of joyful sorrow (charmolypē) or a mixture of happiness and sadness.1 Both the sufferings of the protagonists and their happiness depend on the workings of Eros – traditionally referred to as the god of love, but in fact representing physical desire. Eros triggers the story by making boy and girl fall in love, causing their elopement and subsequent painful separation. At the same time, he is the cause of internal pain, causing much suffering and misery with his arrows. Being injured by Eros leads to an illness: ‘There is no medicine for Love, no potion, no drug, no spell to mutter, except a kiss and an embrace and lying down together with naked bodies.’ (Ἔρωτος γὰρ οὐδὲν φάρμακον,

Meg Alexiou has been an immense inspiration ever since Ole Smith introduced me to her and her work in 1992. It is accordingly a great pleasure to contribute to this volume, and I would like to thank Meg Alexiou and Douglas Cairns for kindly inviting me to contribute and for offering valuable comments on my chapter. I am also grateful to Adam Goldwyn, who read successive drafts of this contribution and offered fruitful critique.   1 On suffering and lamentation in romantic discourse, especially the Palaiologan romance, see Agapitos in this volume; on charmolypē, see also Hinterberger in this volume.

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οὐ πινόμενον, οὐκ ἐσθιόμενον, οὐκ ἐν ᾠδαῖς λαλούμενον, ὅτι μὴ φίλημα καὶ περιβολὴ καὶ συγκατακλιθῆναι γυμνοῖς σώμασι.)2 Since this can only happen within the boundaries of marriage, which in the world of the novel usually takes place at the very end, the protagonists find themselves in constant distress, infected as they are by Eros. At the same time, nothing can cause such intense pleasure as desire, along with severe confusion that makes the characters want to both laugh and cry.3 Eros and his effect on his victims are thus at the very centre of the novelistic narrative, triggering the story and following the ­protagonists until the final (most often implicit) sexual relief. In this chapter I shall explore the mixture of happiness and sadness, or rather the combination of tears and laughter, in the Komnenian novel, written in imitation of ancient Greek models during the midtwelfth century in Constantinople.4 One may take for granted that tears more or less always represent sadness and laughter happiness, but it is clear that both laughing and crying can take on quite different functions and meanings in ancient and Byzantine novels.5 My point of departure is the idea that not only tears and laments but also laughter and smiles in the novels could, and perhaps even should, be seen in relation to the workings of Eros. As we shall see, smiles and laughter often indicate the presence of desire and sometimes create confusion, departing from but at the same time closely adhering to the basically sad story of the loving couple’s misfortunes. Tears and laughter are not opposites; in the novels they work together under the influence of mighty Eros. RHODANTHE AND DOSIKLES Starting with the verse novel by Theodore Prodromos, Rhodanthe and Dosikles, we find ourselves with a narrative filled with lament and weeping. It thus adheres closely to the presentation of the story in the third part of the novel’s dedicatory poem:   2 Long. 2.7.7. English translation by Gill in Reardon 1989: 306.   3 On Eros as painful pleasure and madness, see Carson 1986. See further below, pp. 308–10 and nn. 44–6.   4 For Greek text (with Italian translation) of all four Komnenian novels, see Conca 1994; for English translation with introductions and notes, see Jeffreys 2012. For an overall study of the Byzantine novels, including the late Byzantine romance, see Beaton 1996; for a brief introduction to the Komnenian novel with an updated bibliography, see Nilsson 2016. The novel by Constantine Manasses, which has been preserved only in excerpts, will not be considered as a narrative whole here, though relevant fragments will be brought into the comparative discussion.   5 The history of emotions in Byzantium remains to be written, but on tears and sorrow see e.g. Maguire 1977; Hinterberger 2006; Grünbart 2008; Mullett in this volume; on laughter and humour, e.g. Garland 1990a; 2006c: 163–5; Marciniak 2008; 2011.

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comforting tears and suggestive smiles 293 Κούρης ἁργυφέης καλλιστεφάνου τε Ῥοδάνθης καὶ κούρου Δοσικλῆος ἀγαπρεπέος τε καὶ ἐσθλοῦ ταῦτα, φυγαί τε πλάναι τε κλυδώνων οἴδματα, λῃσταί, ἀργαλέαι στροφάλιγγες, ἐρωτοτόκοι μελεδῶνες, δέσμα τ’ ἀλυκτοπέδαι τε καὶ ὀρθροφόροισι μελάθροις εἱρκτοσύναι, θυσίαι τε παναισχέες, ἄλγεα πι[κρά], φαρμακόεντα κύπελλα καὶ ἁρμονίης παραλύσεις, ἕν δέ γάμος τε λέχος τε καὶ ἱμερόεντες ἕρωτες. These [are the adventures] of the silvery girl Rhodanthe with the lovely garland and of the valiant and comely youth Dosikles, the flights and wanderings and tempests and billows, brigands, grievous eddies, sorrows that give rise to love, chains and indissoluble fetters and imprisonment in gloomy dungeons, grim sacrifices, bitter grief, poisoned cups and paralysis of joints, and then marriage and the marriage bed and passionate love.6

The emphasis is on suffering from the very start: the opening of Rhodanthe and Dosikles is modelled on that of Heliodorus’ Aethiopica and thus marked by death and gloom.7 The first words uttered are a lament, performed by the weeping hero Dosikles. He laments his misery, but above all his fear that a barbarian will see and desire Rhodanthe, which could lead to both of their deaths. A young man hears him and asks him to tell his story, thus bringing in a narrative device drawn from the ancient novel by Achilles Tatius.8 We should note the reason for the two strangers to exchange their stories: πάντως δὲ πάντως ἡ κακῶν κοινωνία φέρει παρηγόρημα τῷ πεπονθότι, ἐλαφρύνει δὲ τοῦ πόνου τὴν φροντίδα   6 Ed. Agapitos 2000: 175–6, vv. 17–24. English translation: Jeffreys 2012: 20; cf. Jeffreys 2000. See also the prologue of Drosilla and Charikles, found only in one manuscript, likewise emphasising the sufferings of the lovers (Jeffreys 2012: 351), but cf. the curious verses found in some manuscripts of Hysmine and Hysminias, hinting at the ‘chaste’ advice of the – in practice – not so chaste novel (Jeffreys 2012: 177)   7 On Prodromos and Heliodorus, see Agapitos 1998b.  8 Ach. Tat. 1.2. The device in Prodromos’ version contains a reversal of narrative order: the stranger tells his story first. While the Heliodorian opening tends to be seen as programmatic for Prodromos’ novel, it is worthwhile noting how this influence from Tatius is crucial for the narrative structure of Rhodanthe and Dosikles.

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καὶ τῆς ὀδύνης τὴν κάμινον σβεννύει, ὕδωρ ἐπιστάξασα παραμυθίας. Indeed and indeed, to share miseries brings comfort to the sufferer, lightens the burden of pain and quenches the furnace of distress, sprinkling the water of consolation. (R&D 1.144–7) In view of the ancient novel’s overall aims, among which – according to Longus – is to ‘comfort the distressed’ (λυπούμενον παραμυθήσεται),9 the act of exchanging sad stories becomes a central narrative device not only within the story: λέγων γὰρ ἴσως ἐξεώσεις τὸν πόνον καὶ κουφιεῖς με τῶν μακρῶν στεναγμάτων. for perhaps by telling it you will excise the pain and relieve me of long lamentations. (R&D 1.156–7)10 The first books of the novel turn out to consist of more or less constant laments. Dosikles finds out that the young man, Kratandros, is ‘a fellow sufferer’ (R&D 1.165: ταὐτοπαθῆ), one who has been injured by Eros. He tells his story (R&D 1.158–426), which is basically a lament on the brutal death of his beloved Chrysochroe, inside of which is the dirge of the father at the death of his daughter (R&D 1.212–69), followed by the ‘counter-dirge’ by Kratandros himself (R&D 1.277–310).11 The first book ends with Kratandros urging Dosikles once more to tell his story, again underlining weeping and tears: ‘κλαυθμοὺς μέν, οἶδα, καὶ ῥοὰς τῶν δακρύων ἡμᾶς ἀπαιτεῖς, συννεώτερε ξένε’, ἔφη Δοσικλῆς οὐκ ἀδάκρυτον λόγον· ‘τῶν γὰρ παλαιῶν εἰς ἀνάμνησιν φέρεις· ὅμως (τί γὰρ πάθωμεν αἰτοῦντος φίλου;) ἐντεῦθεν ἀρχὴν ἡ διήγησις λάβοι.’   9 Long. proem 3. 10 Cf. also R&D 3.149 ‘Thus far they went in their conversation with each other, / their pain briefly relieved.’ (Οἱ μὲν τοσαῦτα τῷ πρὸς ἀλλήλους λόγῳ, /  μικρὸν καθυφιέντος αὐτοῖς τοῦ πόνου·). 11 Note the difference between a lament on a death and a lament on the speaker’s misfortunes; see Jeffreys 2012: 28 n.27.

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comforting tears and suggestive smiles 295 ‘You are asking from me, fellow temple attendant and stranger, weeping, I know, and floods of tears’, said Dosikles as he spoke not without tears, ‘for you bring recollection of things long past. Yet (for what may we endure at a friend’s request?), my story may take its beginning from this point.’ (R&D 1.510–15) The story of Dosikles and his beloved Rhodanthe is then told at a symposium in book 2 and at the beginning of book 3. Again, there is endless weeping both in the story itself and as a reaction to the story.12 The first instance of laughter in the novel does not appear until the middle of book 2, and then within a dream: Dosikles tells Rhodanthe of his feelings and she laughs: ἔγνων ἐπ’ αὐτοῖς καὶ γελῶσαν τὴν κόρην, καί μοι τὸ μειδίαμα σύμβολον μέγα ἔδοξε τοῦ μένοντος ἐν στέρνοις πόθου. And I realised that the girl was laughing at this and her smile seemed to me to be a favourable token for the passion that was in her breast. (R&D 2.339–40) Since it is part of a dream, the laughter turns out to be an illusion only adding to the hero’s pain: νυκτὸς γὰρ ἦν ἄθυρμα καὶ παίζων ὕπνος καὶ μειδιῶν ὄνειρος εἰς νόθους πόνους. for night is a tease and sleep a jester and dreams mock at spurious pains. (R&D 2.347–8) This is, in fact, the only laughter in the novel that is related to the love story; but significantly so, since it is understood by the hero as a sign of pothos. Other laughter appears primarily as reactions to astonishing, burlesque or humorous performances.13 The remaining instances 12 E.g. in R&D 2.44 (father’s teardrops at death of son) and 2.165–8 (as Dosikles is asked to tell the story of himself and Rhodanthe he groans, and the host Glaukon weeps in response). 13 Most notably in R&D 4.122–417, the description of a sumptuous dinner party with entertainment. On this episode, see Roilos 2005: 260–75. On laughter at performances (and the performative potential of literature), see Alexiou 1999 on the Ptochoprodromic poems, esp. pp. 91–102. See also Boeck and Marciniak in this volume, and further below, pp. 303–4.

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of laughter all appear as an expression of the mixture of happiness and grief.14 These two kinds of laughter – perhaps we may call them the burlesque and the sad laughter – can also appear together, as in book 3 when the drunken sailor Nausikrates appears to be still drinking in his sleep, τὴν δεξιὰν μὲν ὑπάγων ὑπὸ στόμα (ὡς οἷα κόνδυ δεξιῶς ὠρεγμένην), συνεκροφῶν δὲ τὸ πλέον τοῦ σιέλου. bringing his right hand up to his mouth (as though it were skilfully raising a cup) and gulping down more of his saliva. (R&D 3.21–3) The amusing scene causes ‘hilarity in the midst of misery’ (R&D 3.33: Γελᾶν . . . ἐν κακοῖς), as it cheers up the suffering protagonists. This passage may be compared with other episodes towards the end of the novel, such as the following: ἔκλαιον, ἤλγουν, ἐξεκάγχαζον μέγα, κρατῆρα μικτὸν ἡδονῆς καὶ δακρύων κιρνῶντες ἐξέπινον ἄχρις εἰς μέθην. They wept, they grieved, they burst into laughter; mixing a wine bowl mingled with happiness and tears they quaffed to the point of drunkenness. (R&D 8.168–70) Such a mixture of laughter and tears is a common narrative element in novels both ancient and Byzantine, often placed towards the end of the story in relation to a reunion (of the lovers with each other, or of lovers with their parents). Here, Dosikles’ happy reunion with his own and Rhodanthe’s father reminds him of Rhodanthe, who is still missing. At the memory of his beloved he secretly suffers in the midst of the celebrations (R&D 8.210–16), a reaction for which he is rebuked by his father (R&D 8.262–3). As Rhodanthe soon after turns out to be one of the servant girls, Dosikles cannot believe this ‘bizarre spectacle’, this ‘overwhelming dream’ (R&D 8. 368–9: τὸ φάσμα τοῦτο τὸ ξένον . . . ὁ πλατὺς ὄνειρος) and thinks that Fate is ‘making a jesting mockery’ of his tears (R&D 8.371: γελᾷς, Τύχη, γέλωτα μεστὸν δακρύων).15 Prodromos’ narrative is thus constantly built on joy 14 See R&D 9.468 (tear of joy) and cf. 9.243 (joy mingled with fear). 15 Cf. R&D 2.347–8 on dream as jester, cited above.

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comforting tears and suggestive smiles 297 mingled with unhappiness, and the change from one to the other, along with – it seems – a certain scepticism towards happiness and the idea of a happy end. HYSMINE AND HYSMINIAS

Eumathios Makrembolites, writing his novel Hysmine and Hysminias in prose either before or slightly after Theodore Prodromos, ­composed  a narrative in which lament plays a decidedly smaller role.16 The opening itself offers a clear break with the Heliodorian tradition, depicting not a battlefield but a procession in which the hero-narrator is celebrated as a virginal herald of Zeus. The novel is a consistent first-person narrative, and all events are thus described through the perspective of Hysminias. This narrow focus results in a narrative quite different from the other Greek novels and offers a tale of a young man’s sexual awakening as depicted by himself.17 Hysminias meets Hysmine for the first time in book 1, when he is received as herald in a household of a foreign city, and the beautiful daughter of his host flirts with him at dinner. Her behaviour upsets and confuses the innocent young man, culminating in a scene in which she washes his feet – ‘an honour accorded to heralds’ – and kisses them: συνέχει τούτους, κατέχει, περιπλέκεται, θλίβει, ἀψοφητὶ φιλεῖ καὶ ὑποκλέπτει τὸ φίλημα· καὶ τέλος ἀμύττουσα τοῖς ὄνυξι γαργαλίζει με. Ἐγὼ δὲ τἆλλα σιγῶν καὶ φέρων ἄκων ἀνεκάγχασα· ἀνένευσεν ἡ κόρη, καὶ ἀτενῶς ἰδοῦσά με μικρὸν ἐμειδίασε καὶ πάλιν κατένευσε, κἂν ἐγὼ τοῖς ἔρωσιν οὐκ ἐπένευον· she holds them, she clasps them, she embraces them, she presses them, she kisses them silently and sneaks a kiss; eventually she scratches me with her fingernails and kisses me. I put up with all the rest in silence but at this I could not suppress my laughter; the girl shook her head and, looking at me intently, smiled slightly and nodded her head again, even though I had done nothing to encourage her amorous advances. (H&H 1.12.3–4) 16 For a recent discussion of the dating of the novels, see Jeffreys 2012: 7–10 (Prodromos), 161–5 (Makrembolites), 275–6 (Manasses), 342–3 (Eugenianos); for the internal sequence, cf. MacAlister 1990; 1991; Agapitos 1998b; 2000. 17 On the narrative point of view of Hysmine and Hysminias, see Alexiou 1977; 2002a: 111–27; along with Nilsson 2001: esp. 145–54.

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The first laugh and the first smile of this novel are thus strategically placed in an erotically charged context. It has been suggested by Fabrizio Conca that the tickling is a sign of the presence of Eros,18 which indeed seems to be supported by the smile of Hysmine – a knowing smile, suggesting an erotic situation that Hysminias does not yet grasp. His friend Kratisthenes explains the situation to him a little later, inquiring about the laughter he overheard: ‘By all that is fortunate, the maiden is in love with you, and what a lovely maiden!’ (H&H 1.14.4: Τῆς εὐτυχίας . . . παρθένος ἐρᾷ σου, καὶ παρθένος οὕτω καλή). The tickling, the laughter and the smile thus indicate the presence of Eros and anticipate the desire that Hysminias will soon learn to know. As we saw above, a similar erotic smile appears in R&D 2.339–40, when Rhodanthe’s smile is interpreted as an ‘erotic token’ by the hero in love. While that smile is unique in the fairly severe novel by Prodromos, the erotic smile in the first part of Hysmine and Hysminias turns out to be programmatic for the much more erotic and playful story of Makrembolites. Other flirty and passionate smiles and laughter follow, among which is a variation of the tickling episode in a dream of Hysminias: ‘If she tickles my foot, I too will tickle the girl, and I will make her burst out laughing from pleasure and passion’ (H&H 3.4.5: ἂν γαργαλίσῃ μου τὸν πόδα, καταγαργαλίσω τὴν κόρην αὐτός, καὶ πείσω ταύτην ἐξ ἡδονῆς ἀνακαγχάσαι καὶ ἔρωτος). As the couple get to know each other and start engaging in conversation, Hysminias notes every  smile he manages to tease out of Hysmine, obviously taking them as encouraging and even erotic: ‘she greeted me in return more openly and smiled rather amorously, and filled my entire soul  with ineffable delight and pleasure and made me brim over with boldness’ (H&H 5.6.4: ἀντεπροσκύνησε φανερώτερον καὶ λίαν ἐρωτικὸν ἐμειδίασε καί μου τὴν ψυχὴν ὅλην ἐπλήρωσεν ἡδονῆς ἀρρήτου καὶ χάριτος, καὶ θάρρους ἐνέπλησεν).19 Once they are sure of themselves and their feelings, female kissing can even mingle with laughter: ‘She kisses me uninhibitedly, laughing as she does so and saying as she laughs . . . ’ (H&H 9.16.2: ἀνυποστόλως φιλεῖ, φιλοῦσα γελᾷ, καὶ γελῶσά φησιν . . . ). Passion is, however, not free from pain: Eros is cruel and desire hurts in spite of its pleasures. Hysminias, like all lovers, spends sleepless nights tossing and turning ‘as though I was being roasted on coals, like some strange sacrifice being cooked up for Eros’ (H&H 3.4.1–3: ὡς ἐπὶ πυρᾶς ὀπτούμενος πυκνὰ στρεφόμενος ἦν, ὥσπερ τι θῦμα καινὸν ἐξωπτημένον τῷ Ἔρωτι). The ambivalence of pain and pleasure is rep18 Conca 1994: 510. Cf. D&C 3.142–3 (Eros disguised as a mosquito tickles the heart of a lover with his wing). 19 See also H&H 4.3.3, and cf. below on D&C.

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comforting tears and suggestive smiles 299 resented in the behaviour of the lovers, as they perform a sort of mime at dinner. Hysminias has now fallen in love and engages in intense flirting with the girl, who is serving the wine. καὶ πίνων τὸν πόδα θλίβω τῆς κόρης, πόδα κατεπιθεὶς τὸν ἐμόν· ἡ δὲ σιγῶσα τῇ γλώσσῃ τῷ σχήματι λαλεῖ καὶ λαλοῦσα σιγᾷ· δάκνει τὸ χεῖλος καὶ τὴν ἀλγοῦσαν καθυποκρίνεται· συνέχει τὴν ὀφρύν, στυγνάζει τὸ πρόσωπον καὶ οἷον ὑποστενάζει λεπτόν· ἐγὼ δ’ ἀλγῶ τὴν ψυχὴν ἐκ μόνου τοῦ σχήματος καὶ τὸν μὲν πόδα τοῦ ποδὸς ἀφαρπάζω τῆς κόρης, τῇ χειρὶ δ’ ἀντιπαρέχω τὸ ἔκπωμα. And as I drink I squeeze the girl’s foot, putting my foot on top of hers. She keeps silence with her tongue but her appearance speaks volumes and she is eloquent in her silence. She bites her lip and pretends to be in pain, she wrinkles her brow, she makes a grimace and sighs gently. My soul is pained by her gestures alone and I immediately remove my foot from the girl’s and with my hand return the cup. (H&H 4.2.1–2) The pain of desire is thus expressed through the pleasure of touch: ‘As she mixes the wine again, I squeeze her finger; she lets out a gentle whisper, “I am in pain,” and the whisper was full of pleasure and brimming with passion’ (H&H 4.1.3: ἧς καὶ πάλιν κιρνώσης θλίβω τὸν δάκτυλον· ἡ δ’ “Ἀλγῶ” καθυποψιθυρίζει λεπτόν· καὶ ἦν τὸ ψιθύρισμα μεστὸν ἡδονῆς καὶ στάζον ἐξ ἔρωτος). The pain of desire also causes tears, not only as an expression of sorrow and pain but sometimes as a means of achieving certain ends. Thus, Hysmine – in an erotic dream of Hysminias – uses tears as a weapon against his increasingly violent advances. In order to defend her breasts, she curls up and barricades them ‘as a city defends a citadel’ (ὡς πόλις ἀκρόπολιν): καὶ κάτωθεν μὲν ἀνέχει τὰ γόνατα, ὡς ἐξ ἀκροπόλεως δὲ τῆς κεφαλῆς ἀκροβολίζει τὸ δάκρυον, μονονοὺ λέγουσα· “Ἢ φιλῶν μαλαχθῇ μου τοῖς δάκρυσιν, ἢ μὴ φιλῶν ὀκνήσει τὸν πόλεμον.” And further down she raises her knees as she shoots off a tear from the citadel of her head, all but saying, ‘Either he loves me and will be softened by my tears, or he doesn’t love me and will shrink from battle.’ (H&H 3.7.4)20 20 On the erotic combat of this dream passage, leading up to the hero’s first sexual climax, see Alexiou 1977: 38, and now also Nilsson 2013: 176–81.

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Similar tears appear in book 5, as Hysminias is making an advance in  real life and Hysmine resists firmly, speaking and then ‘dissolving into floods of tears’ (H&H 5.18.1: κατὰ ποταμοὺς κατεκένου τὸ δάκρυον). Hysminias is convinced and they both cry as they embrace and ‘were drenched with tears’ (H&H 5.18.2: τοῖς δάκρυσιν ἐβρεχόμεθα). More traditional sorrow and lament also appear in Hysmine and Hysminias, but only in the second half, starting with the ill-omened sacrifice in book 6, which anticipates the elopement and separation of the lovers.21 It should be noted, though, that the scene of the sacrifice has strong comical undertones, ranging from the pompous tone of the captain and the unceremonious hurling of the girl (H&H 7.15.2: τῆς νεὼς τὴν κόρην ἐξεσφενδόνησε) to the piteous and dramatic behaviour of Hysminias, which forces the crew to ‘offload’ him at the nearest shore (H&H 7.16.2: με τῆς νεὼς ἐξεφόρτωσεν).22 Dramatic and sorrowful events thus often seem to contain a parodic or at least playful note in Makrembolites’ take on an ancient novel, placing the hero in a world he cannot quite handle.23 Later on in the story, Hysminias sheds many a tears as he remembers Hysmine and their former happiness, crying at events that remind  him of things he once experienced himself. As the feet of his master – now herald, while Hysminias has become a slave – are washed by the daughter of the house, Hysminias is in great pain: ‘I, recollecting the caresses given my feet by my Hysmine’s hands and lips, gave vent to a great and grievous sigh from the depths of my innermost being, and my eyes filled with tears’ (H&H 9.5.2: ἐγὼ δὲ τὰ περὶ τοὺς ἐμοὺς ἀναλογισάμενος πόδας ἔκ τε χειρῶν καὶ χειλέων τῆς ἐμῆς ἐκείνης Ὑσμίνης χαριεντίσματα πνεῦμά τι μέγα καὶ λίαν ὀδυνηρὸν ἐξ ἐμῶν μέσων ἐγκάτων ἀνέσπασα καὶ δακρύων ἐπληρώθην τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς). The former tickling and laughter in the presence of Eros  is thus, in the latter part of Hysmine and Hysminias, replaced by tears and pain, all the while leading up to reunion and the happy ending. 21 The only traditional sorrow in the early part of novel is the imagined sorrow of Hysminias’ parents at H&H 3.9. Laments are clustered at book 7 (the storm when Hysmine is thrown into the sea, and Hysminias is put ashore because of his excessive crying, 7.16.2) and book 10 (laments of mothers and fathers on children, 10.10.1). Note also the tears of joy at H&H 5.8.3. 22 For an analysis of this passage and its intertextual characteristics, partly in relation to Makrembolites’ model Leucippe and Clitophon, see Nilsson 2001: 216–18. See also Alexiou 1977: 32; Beaton 1996: 61. 23 On the characterisation of hero and heroine in Hysmine and Hysminias in comparison with that of Achilles Tatius, see Nilsson 2001: 249–56.

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comforting tears and suggestive smiles 301 DROSILLA AND CHARIKLES

The novel by Niketas Eugenianos, written in verse, is often described simply as an imitation of Prodromos’ novel, but as far as tears and laughter are concerned the narrative is quite different. The less complex narrative structure, the reduced focus on philosophical digressions, and the strong influence from Hellenistic love poetry all contribute to the impression of a ‘light-hearted variation on the more ponderous R&D’.24 The bucolic tone inspired by Longus and  Theocritus certainly helps in creating ‘frivolous overtones’,25 and Eugenianos was most probably influenced also by Hysmine and Hysminias. Laughter and smiles appear much more frequently than in Rhodanthe and Dosikles, often mixed in an interesting manner with the discourse of lament. The opening of the novel is similar to that of Prodromos, filled with tragic pathos and weeping, but the gloomy scene is soon and suddenly contrasted with the setting of a beautiful garden which frames and underlines the beauty of the heroine, Drosilla (D&C 1.77–158). The first mention of laughter is inserted into a lament of Charikles, after the couple has been separated and Charikles put in prison. He speaks to himself and asks what has happened to Drosilla, where she is and how she is: Κλαίεις; Γελᾷς; Ὄλωλας; Ἐρρύσθης φόνου; Χαίρεις; Θλίβῃ; Δέδοικας; Οὐ φοβῇ ξίφος; Ἀλγεῖς; Κροτῇ; Πέπονθας; Οὐ πάσχεις φθόρον; Do you weep? Do you laugh? Are you dead? Have you been saved from death? Are you happy or sad or afraid? Do you not fear the sword? Are you in pain or being beaten or suffering? Surely you are not enduring rape? (D&C 1.234–6) Laughing is thus here clearly representing a state of mind, indeed the opposite of crying. The fears of Dosikles are interrupted by a fellow prisoner, who asks him to put an end to his lament and speak, ὡς ἂν τὸ πλεῖστον τῆς ἀθυμίας βάρος ἐκ προσλαλιᾶς κουφίσῃς αὐθαιρέτου· 24 Jeffreys 2012: 373 n.54. 25 Jeffreys 2012: 350. On the influence of Theokritos on Eugenianos, see Burton 2003.

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λύπης γάρ ἐστι φάρμακον πάσης λόγος, ψυχὴ δὲ πάντως οὐκ ἂν ἄλλως ἰσχύσοι πῦρ ἐξαναφθὲν θλίψεων κατασβέσαι, εἰ μὴ πρὸς ἄλλον ἐξαγάγῃ τὸ θλίβον, παρηγορεῖν ἔχοντα τοὺς λυπουμένους. so that you may relieve the main weight of despondency by a spontaneous discussion. For speech is the remedy for all grief, and certainly the soul would have no other way of quenching the fire of affliction, once it is kindled, unless it expresses the cause of the affliction to another who is able to console the afflicted. (D&C 1.267–73) As in the novel by Prodromos, the significance of telling your sufferings as a means of relieving your pain is thus strongly emphasised, in the following also as a reciprocal act: Καὶ γὰρ σὺ σαυτὸν κουφιεῖς στεναγμάτων ἐμοὶ παριστῶν δῆλα τὰ θλίβοντά σε καὶ τὸν Κλέανδρον τὸν συνεγκεκλεισμένον ἐλαφρυνεῖς με τῶν ἐμῶν παθημάτων· Thus you will lighten your own groans by revealing to me what grieves you, and you will also relieve me, your fellow inmate Kleandros, from my own sufferings. (D&C 2.36–9) Pain in Drosilla and Charikles is explicitly connected with desire, the pain of being struck by Eros. Thus Kleandros, the fellow prisoner of Dosikles, πολύδακρυς γὰρ γίνεται πάντως Ἔρως ψυχαῖς ἐπαχθὴς ἐμπεσὼν τεθλιμμέναις. for Eros always gives rise to many tears when he makes a massive onslaught on afflicted souls (D&C 2.26–7) Kleandros is not only a fellow prisoner, but a fellow sufferer: Ἀλγεῖς; Συναλγῶ· δακρύεις; Συνδακρύω· ποθεῖς; Ποθῶ, καὶ ταῦτα καλὴν παρθένον.

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comforting tears and suggestive smiles 303 Are you in pain? I am in pain too. Do you weep? I weep with you. Do you feel desire? I feel desire too, and for a beautiful maiden. (D&C 2.48–9) This pain is indeed the erotic suffering that is prevalent in the Hellenistic epigrams that clearly inspired Eugenianos, as well as in the novel by Longus. At the same time, Eros is represented not only by pain, but also by smiles and laughter. The first hint of this is the laughter or giggle of Kalligone, as she is being courted by Kleandros (D&C 2.111).26 The young girl is ‘as yet unaware of love’ (D&C 2.108: ἐρωτικῶν γὰρ ἀδαὴς ἦν εἰσέτι), so she is overcome by embarrassment and does not know what to do. Indeed, Eros himself smiles in one of the playful love songs in Book 4, warning listeners of the cruel power of desire: Ἂν προσχαρές τι μειδιῶντα προσβλέπῃς, πλήττει τὰ πολλὰ καὶ κατασφάττειν θέλει· If you glimpse him with a charming smile, he is most likely to strike and want to kill. (D&C 4.168–9) The erotic smile may seem sweet, but it hides the savage game of Eros: προσμειδιᾷ γὰρ θηριόστερνος μένων καὶ προσγελᾶν ἔοικε παίζων ἀγρίω ὁ τοξοχαρής, ὁ θρασύς, ὁ πυρφόρος. and he smiles while remaining wild at heart, and he appears to joke while playing a savage game, the bold, fire-bearing archer. (D&C 4.179–81)

Eros accordingly causes both tears and laughter, a central theme of the novel. Laughter is implicit in the playful erotic songs in book 3,27 Drosilla seems to smile in her sleep – apparently under the influence of Eros,28 and the protagonists gently poke fun at each other’s gender roles.29 There are also burlesque episodes causing laughter, such as the old woman Maryllis dancing until she farts; the laughter 26 The text has simply ἐγγελῶσα, but the context indeed suggests the ‘nervous giggle’ that Jeffreys has chosen in her translation; Jeffreys 2012: 365. 27 D&C 3.135–326. 28 D&C 4.335. 29 D&C 5.51–60, where Charikles is ‘jesting a little in response’ about female jealousy. Cf. H&H 9.23, and below.

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is, however, reciprocal, because the woman might cause the young people to laugh at her, but she also thanks them for having brought laughter into her life.30 But close to laughter is always potential grief, as happiness may suddenly turn into misery in the world of the novel. This becomes particularly clear in book 8, as the death of Kalligone becomes known and Kleandros suddenly dies from grief (D&C 8. 311–14), just as the protagonists are finally starting to see the end of their own problems: Οὕτω, Δροσίλλας καὶ Χαρικλέος μέσον οὐκ ἠμέλησε δυσμένεια τῆς Τύχης πολὺν φορυτὸν συμφορῶν συνεισφέρειν καὶ λυπρὰ χρηστοῖς ἐμπαθῶς συμμιγνύειν. Thus around Drosilla and Charikles Fate’s hostility did not cease scattering the debris of disaster and painfully mingling distressing events with happier ones. (D&C 8. 317–20)31 This mixture of delight and grief continues all the way into the happy ending: ἔχαιρον, ἤλγουν, εὐθύμουν, ἐδυσφόρουν, ἠγαλλίων, ἔκλαιον, ἐκρότουν μέγα· τὸ τῆς χαρᾶς δάκρυον ἔρρει πλησμίως, τῆς χαρμονῆς ὁ θρῆνος ὑψοῦτο πλέον. they rejoiced, they grieved, they were happy, they were despondent, they laughed, they cried, they burst into loud applause. Tears of joy flowed abundantly, laments of happiness were raised even more. (D&C 9.164–7)32

EROTIC SMILES IN THE MIDST OF TEARS We may conclude, then, that tears and laughter appear in rather different measures in the three Komnenian novels. Prodromos puts 30 D&C 7.274–95 and 7. 310–15. On this passage, see Roilos 2005: 288–300; Garland 2006c: 175. 31 Cf. also the mixture of delight and grief in D&C 5.68 and of happiness and misery in 9.109–42. 32 For tears of joy, see also D&C 9.281.

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his narrative focus on the capriciousness of life: happiness cannot be trusted, because even for lovers there is plenty of misfortune and pain.33 Narrative suspense is here built on joy mingled with unhappiness, and the change from one to the other. When characters smile or laugh, it is most often at a burlesque or parodic event. Makrembolites, by contrast, postpones misfortune in favour of the mixture of erotic pleasure and pain. Narrative tension is partly identical with erotic tension, and smiles and laughs play a significant role in the amorous games of the protagonists. Desire hurts, but it also brings happiness. In the novel of Eugenianos we find yet another narrative treatment of tears and laughter, representing a more playful attitude to life: it contains both love and lament, but also singing and playing – in most cases related to Eros. With these differences in mind, let us look at the recurring features that characterise tears, laughter and smiles in the Komnenian novel. First, the effect of sad stories as they are told within the narrative: they bring to tears narrator and listener alike, while comforting them at the same time. As noted above, this feature is particularly prominent in the novels by Prodromos and Eugenianos, as the heroes narrate their sufferings to ‘fellow sufferers’ as a means of relief, sometimes even bringing smiles or laughter. In Makrembolites’ novel the situation is slightly different, since the hero-narrator has no equal with whom to share his misfortunes, but tells his story only to characters of superior power: first to his new master and mistress, then to Rhodope, the mistress of Hysmine.34 In both cases, Hysminias is forced to tell his story against his will, with tears running down his face. καὶ πάλιν ἡ δεσπότις πρός μέ φησιν· ‘Ἰδού σοι καιρὸς τῇ γλώσσῃ κατὰ μέρος ἡμῖν καταζωγραφῆσαι τὰ σά.’ Ἐγὼ δὲ καὶ μόνον ἐπιμνησθεὶς ἐλεεινὸν ἐβρυχησάμην ἐγκάρδιον, πολλὰ δὲ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν κατέσταξα δάκρυα, ‘Φείσασθε,’ λέγων, ‘δεσπόται, δυστυχημάτων ἐμῶν, μὴ τὴν τράπεζαν εἰς κοπετὸν μεταβάλω καὶ πένθους ὑμῖν κρατῆρα κεράσωμαι.’ Καὶ λέγων οὐκ ἔπειθον καὶ μὴ πείθων ‘αἰαῖ, τὸ δοῦλον ὡς κακὸν πεφυκέναι’ φημί, ‘τολμᾷ θ’ ἃ μὴ χρὴ τῇ βίᾳ νικώμενον.’ Once again the mistress said to me, ‘Look, now it is time for you to picture your circumstances for us in words.’ I, at the mere 33 This is indeed one of the central topoi of the Greek novel, brought to the fore in Prodromos’ novel. Cf. the so-called ‘principle of alternation’ in Greek narrative, i.e. the idea that no human life is without vicissitude, discussed in Cairns 2014. 34 H&H 8.11.2–8.14; 9.12.2–9.14.

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r­ecollection, let out a piteous groan from my heart, and shed many tears from my eyes, saying, ‘Be sparing with my misfortunes, masters, lest I make the banquet a misery and pour out for you bowls of grief.’ But my words did not persuade them and, having failed in my persuasion, I said, ‘Alas, what an evil thing it is to be a slave, to be compelled by force to endure what should not be demanded.’ (H&H 8.12) As Hysminias comes to the end of his story, he again dissolves into tears and his mistress says ‘Your affairs are a play in themselves, a complete tragedy’ (H&H 8.14.1: Ὅλον δρᾶμα τὰ κατὰ σὲ καὶ ὄντως τραγῴδημα). The misfortunes of the subordinate slave thus become the entertainment of the superior mistress, and Hysminias does not experience tears of relief but only tears of pain in order to please his owners. In Makrembolites’ novel, the internal listener’s sympathy with the protagonists’ misfortunes does not appear within the story, but is rather transferred to the extradiegetic comment at the end of the novel: ‘Whatever in mankind is most responsive to passion will appreciate all the charming passion in this story; whatever is chaste and virginal will respond to its restraint; whatever is more inclined to sympathy will pity our misfortunes’ (H&H 11.23.1–2: Ὅσον μὲν οὖν ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἐρωτικώτερον, τῶν πολλῶν ἐρωτικῶν χαρίτων ἡμᾶς ἀποδέξεται, καὶ ὅσον παρθενικὸν καὶ σεμνότερον, τῆς σωφροσύνης πάλιν ἀγάσεται· ὅσον δὲ συμπαθέστερον, ἐλεήσει τῶν δυστυχημάτων ἡμᾶς). The author thus turns the internal listener into an external listener, drawing on the device used by Longus in his novelistic proem, stating that his narrative will ‘cure the sick, comfort the distressed, stir the memory of those who have loved, and educate those who haven’t’ (ὃ καὶ νοσοῦντα ἰάσεται, καὶ λυπούμενον παραμυθήσεται, τὸν ἐρασθέντα ἀναμνήσει, τὸν οὐκ ἐρασθέντα προπαιδεύσει.).35 The effects of sad stories thus seem to have the power to move beyond the boundaries of the novelistic narrative. Second, tears have numerous functions in the novels. They are often used as a way of expressing sorrow or sympathy with someone else’s sorrow, but they also appear as a reaction to happiness or desire. Moreover, tears are used in order to achieve an effect or a reaction from others. Considering the case of Hysminias cited above, crying at the memory of his misfortunes, he seems to be crying in order to dissuade his master and mistress so that he will not have to tell his story.36 35 Long. proem 3. English translation by Gill in Reardon 1989: 289. 36 Cf. D&C 6.130–9, where the Arab Chagos releases the boys, affected by their grief. Cf. Grünbart 2008 on weeping as a symbolic act in order to visualise the distress of a situation and thus create compassion and/or compliance.

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comforting tears and suggestive smiles 307 Not only does this have no effect, but his sad story does not seem to raise compassion but rather offer a sort of entertainment (a drama, a tragedy). In addition, the tears of Hysminias seem to arouse the desire of the mistress; later on, as she tries to seduce him, she asks why he cries so much rather than making love to her. A similar thing happens with Rhodope, who begs Hysminias to tell his story, even though tears overwhelm his speech, and then immediately embraces him and kisses him. The effect of Hysminias’ tears is thus thwarted, since they do not help him to refrain from telling his misfortunes, but rather lead to new complications, offering pleasure to and stirring desire in his mistresses. This may be compared to female tears being used in order to convince either the hero or a male aggressor to leave her alone. Thus Hysmine cries when Hysminias tries to make love to her, Eros having staged a war with modesty: ‘Eros kindled before my eyes the torch of passion in his hands and tossed the flame towards my soul. Modesty poured out fountains of tears from the girl’s eyes’ (H&H 4.23.2: ὁ μέν μοι τὴν ἐν χερσὶ λαμπάδα κατ’ ὀφθαλμῶν ἀνῆψεν ἐρωτικῶς καὶ τὴν φλόγα πρὸς τὴν ψυχὴν μετερρίπιζεν, ἡ δ’ ὅλας πηγὰς δακρύων ἐκ τῶν τῆς κόρης ὀφθαλμῶν ἀνεστόμωσεν). Even if these tears do not stop Hysminias (but a sudden sound from someone coming does), they are clearly shed with such an aim. Tears may even affect Eros himself, as in Drosilla and Charikles, when the god appears to the heroine in a dream, telling her that he has heeded the tears shed by Charikles.37 In this latter case we should note that male tears are as frequent in the novels as female tears, in spite of the more frequently inserted remarks on the tears of women. ἄφες τὸ πενθεῖν καὶ τὸ μακρὰ δακρύειν (θηλυπρεπὴς γὰρ ἡ ῥοὴ τῶν δακρύων) Cease grieving and weeping at length (for floods of tears are fit for women) (R&D 1.149–50) says Kratandros to Dosikles in Prodromos’ novel. Women are often  described as inclined to weep, and mothers in particular,38 but  novelistic heroes and fathers too cry in order to express 37 D&C 3.5–7: ‘Eros appeared to me in the evening of the day before yesterday / and joined you to me, Kleandros, in marriage, / heeding, so he said, the tears which you had shed’ (Ἔρως ἐπιστὰς τῇ πρὸ τῆς χθὲς ἑσπέρᾳ / ἐμοὶ συνῆψε σέ, Κλέανδρε, πρὸς γάμον, / ὡς εἶπε, προσχὼν οἷς ἐπένθεις δακρύοις). Cf. H&H 3.1.4–5 (though with no tears). 38 E.g. D&C 2.360: ‘for women are inclined to weep / but mothers are prone to much weeping’; see also D&C 2.491; 9.220–27; R&D 1.149–50; 2.361–2; 3.407–8; 3.488.

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sorrow  and   compassion, or indeed to achieve a certain effect or advantage.39 Interestingly, a related use of laughter may be observed in the novels. The curious episode in Rhodanthe and Dosikles in which the magician Satyrion performs before the court of Gobryas, faking his own death and resurrection, is a burlesque and possibly satirical depiction of courtly entertainment, but the ultimate aim of the performance is to impress Artaxanes so that he tells his master Bryaxes of the wondrous powers of Gobryas.40 The performance provokes first roaring laughter (R&D 4.224–5), then weeping and wailing (R&D 4.232–3), then singing and entertainment. The resurrection of Satyrion – himself ‘an unsmiling Hades’ (R&D 4.225: ᾍδης ἀμειδὴς) – implies a comical relief mixed with biblical undertones, carrying reminiscences also of the ancient novel by Achilles Tatius in which a similar event takes place.41 A comical event, provoking laughter mixed with fear and amazement, accordingly becomes a way of gaining power. Third, the smile and laughter of Eros and those injured by his arrows: as already noted above, smiles tend to imply an erotic tension in the novels, especially in those by Makrembolites and Eugenianos. The heroines’ ‘erotic’ smiles, tender laughter and giggling imply the presence of desire and love. In view of the indecent connotations of female laughter, such behaviour probably appeared as sexually charged to a contemporary audience.42 As we saw above, the encouraging smile of the girl appears even in Prodromos’ more chaste novel,43 and the sexy and dangerous smile of Eros also takes other forms. As Dosikles tells his friends about his predicament and the force of Eros, he describes how ὀργίζεται δέ, κἂν δοκῇ γελᾶν τάχα. γελῶν δὲ πέμπει τῶν βελῶν τὰς ἐντάσεις he is in a rage, even if he seems to smile. As he smiles he lets loose the violence of his weapons. (R&D 2.423–34)44 39 See e.g. D&C 8.93–8. On male tears in the same century, see Mullett in this volume. On the characterisation of hero vs. heroine in Hysmine and Hysminias, see Nilsson 2001: 249–56. 40 R&D 5.63–88. On this episode, see Roilos 2005: 260–88. 41 Ach. Tat. 3.15; 3.20–1. Cf. Alexiou 2002a: 111–27 and Plepelits 1989 on Hysmine and Hysminias and its complex use of Christian allusions. 42 See Garland 2006c: 163–4 on especially female laughter as vulgar, licentious and impious. 43 R&D 2.339–40, cited above. 44 Cf. D&C 4.168–9, 4.179–81, cited above.

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Eros the bittersweet (γλυκύπικρος), known in the Greek tradition from Sappho’s fr.130 onwards, is thus present also in more chaste contexts. To be a ‘slave of Eros’ is a sweet experience that involves bitterness, as underlined by Hysminias: ‘Hysmine, you are the only mistress I have acquired through Eros, I have been sold to your love alone, I am subjected to your bond, and I am Eros’ slave. My bond of slavery is bittersweet, and cannot be erased’ (H&H 9.22.1: Ὑσμίνη, σὲ μόνην δεσπότιν ἐξ Ἔρωτος κέκτημαι· σῆς μόνης ἔρωτι πέπραμαι, σῇ γραφίδι δουλογραφοῦμαι καὶ δοῦλος Ἔρωτος γίνομαι, καί μοι τὸ δουλογραφεῖον γλυκύπικρον, ἀναπόνιπτον).45 At the same time, even in a chaste maiden such as Rhodanthe, who sleepless longs for marriage, desire causes pain rather than sorrow.46 Eros is indeed an illness with only one cure; or as it is put in one of the excerpts from the novel of Constantine Manasses, Aristandros and Kallithea: Εὐνὴ καὶ νὺξ καὶ φίλημα, περιπλοκὴ καὶ κοίτη ψυχῶν θεραπευτήρια τοῖς ἐρωτοκεντήτοις. Bed and night and kisses, embraces and a couch are balm to the souls of those tormented by love. (fr. 111) The torments of love are accordingly expressed in both weeping and laughing modes in the novels, and desire is represented as both internal and external pain. Makrembolites is certainly the Komnenian novelist to stage this in the most explicit manner, as he arranges for the heroine to playfully bite the lips of the hero: Ἡ δέ μοι γενομένη περὶ τὸ στόμα δάκνει μου τὸ χεῖλος καὶ τοὺς ὀδόντας αὐτῆς ὅλους τοῖς ἐμοῖς κατεφύτευσε χείλεσι· καί μοι περὶ τὴν ψυχὴν ἐβλάστησαν ἔρωτες καὶ γιγάντων παλαμναιότεροι. Ἐγὼ δ’ ἀλγήσας συνέσχον αὐτὰ καὶ οἷον ἐστέναξα, ἡ δ’ ‘Ἀλγεῖς τὰ χείλη;’ φησίν· ‘ἀλλ’ ἤλγησα κἀγὼ τὴν ψυχήν, ὅτε μου ταῦτα καὶ σὺ τὸν ἔρωτα προπετῶς ἐπὶ τῆς τοῦ πατρὸς τραπέζης ἐξεφαύλισας.’

45 The use of the word γλυκύπικρον here does not seem random, in spite of the Sapphic ἀμάχανον having been replaced by ἀναπόνιπτον. For Sappho in Byzantium, Garzya 1971 remains the only (very brief) study, but it is a topic that certainly deserves more attention. On γλυκύπικρος as indicating a chronological experience, being first sweet, then bitter, see Carson 1986: 3–9. 46 R&D 7.170–83. The bittersweet experience of Eros thus seems to be something different from the ‘joyful sorrow’ of charmolypē, at least within the context of the novels, since it involves physical (sensory) pain rather than an emotional state of mind.

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As she is clasped to my mouth she bites my lips, and planted her teeth firmly on my lips; and Erotes grew within my soul, more pugnacious than giants. I was in pain, I compressed my lips and seemed to sigh; she said, ‘Do your lips hurt? But my soul was pained too when you so precipitously spurned my love at my father’s banquet.’ (H&H 4.22.1) Hysmine, cheeky but chaste, thus gets back at Hysminias for having rejected her first advances, reciprocating emotional suffering with physical pain. The joke is on him, since Eros – the pain of pleasure – is always on Hysmine’s side. THE METALITERARY SMILE In the passage cited above, Hysmine is gently making fun of Hysminias’ initial behaviour. He was an ignorant lover, and had to be taught by Eros as his private tutor. There is certainly a comical tone in Makrembolites novel, present also in Eugenianos’ Drosilla and Charikles, most often in the form of teasing lovers’ quarrels.47 By way of conclusion, I should like to consider briefly the function of comical passages from the implied reader’s angle and from a metaliterary perspective. As we have seen, the Komnenian novels offer not just laments and suffering, but also comedy, ranging from burlesque slapstick (the old woman who dances and farts in Drosilla and Charikles) to subtle irony (Hysmine in the example above). A different kind of joke in Drosilla and Charikles takes us beyond the novelistic narrative, beyond the smile or laughter that appears within the story, and creates a link between the author-narrator and the reader-listener. I am thinking of the fairly well-known passage in which the heroine Drosilla is wooed in a very unsuccessful manner by a brutish character called Kallidemos. He recalls a number of love stories, most of them badly chosen, in order to excite the girl, but the only effect is that she smiles. The smile is reported to the reader only in the words  of Kallidemos, who misinterprets it as a recompense for his stories and thus a positive response.48 To the reader familiar with the conventions of the ancient and Komnenian novel it is, however, quite clear that the brutish Kallidemos makes a fool of himself and that Drosilla therefore smiles at him. Moreover, the smile of Drosilla is a smile 47 In H&H, the ignorant hero modelled on Hippolytos may be seen as a partly comical character in the first part of the novel. On the ‘comic modulations’ of the Komnenian novel, see Roilos 2005: 225–301. 48 D&C 6.382–643; for the smiles, see 6.538, 6.555. On this passage, see Jouanno 1989; Burton 2003; Nilsson 2014: 180–5; 2016.

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comforting tears and suggestive smiles 311 shared by the reader, since the rhetorical skills of Kallidemos are so weak and therefore laughable in the learned circles in which the novels were composed. The episode thus stages a laughter shared by the internal character and the external reader, at the expense of another internal character, possibly representing an implicit ignorant reader. In fact, the laughter seems to be shared also by Eros; Kallidemos, full of himself and his amatory art, goes on to elaborate on the workings of desire, duly enumerating the bow, the arrows and the burning fire, and ironically adding ‘How wild you are even when you smile sweetly, Eros’ (D&C 6.610: Ὡς ἠγρίωσαι, κἂν γλυκὺ γελᾷς, Ἔρως). This is indeed a feature that has been noted by characters in both Eugenianos’ and Prodromos’ novels; only Kallidemos does not seem to understand the full implications of the sweet smile of desire. The suggestive smiles of the heroines of the Komnenian novels were probably completely out of character for women of the twelfth century, but within the fictive boundaries of the novel they were accepted tokens of desire. The novels, filled as they are with endless changes of fortune followed by a happy ending, might indeed comfort the reader, educating and reminding him or her of romantic events both happy and sad, but they certainly also entertain – not only by means of clever rhetoric and learned references, but also with comical elements and a certain amount of humour – always in the presence of the mischievous Eros.

18 DO BROTHERS WEEP? MALE GRIEF, MOURNING, LAMENT AND TEARS IN ELEVENTH- AND TWELFTH-CENTURY BYZANTIUM Margaret Mullett The title of this book, Greek Laughter and Tears, suggested to me a focus not on bereavement or resulting emotion (grief) or process (mourning) or specific ritual or literary responses to it (lament) but on the non-textual, the physical manifestations (tears) of emotion, process and ritual response.1 This is perhaps a slightly literal interpretation, and it is already clear that it does not get us very far, in that ink or paint has to be mixed with the tears before we can see them.2 Weeping is hardly non-textual for us. But I think that we may start with tears and see how far this can take us. I thought immediately of the reaction in a long poem of Theophylact Hephaistos of Ochrid,

I am very grateful to Douglas Cairns and the Leventis Foundation for the invitation to a wonderful event, and to Meg Alexiou for so much more, from superb teaching at Birmingham long ago to constant inspiration through the sight of her most recent work.  1 These distinctions in English usage should not be taken for granted. The Geneva emotions grid project (http://www.affective-sciences.org/content/theoryand-goals) works with 142 emotion features grouped in five main categories: (1) appraisal, (2) bodily reactions, (3) expression, (4) action tendency and (5) feeling (subjective experience), which can map on to our list. Tears are regarded as (3) facial expression rather than (2) bodily arousal reactions. It is of course very hard to detach the physical manifestations of emotion from other emotion features, especially when, for example, πένθος/πενθεῖν and cognates can mean both grief and mourning, feeling and action tendency. Earlier tendencies among neuroscientists to arrive at agreement on a sequence in an emotion experience from event to communication have given way to a more nuanced bunching of cognitive appraisal, p ­ hysiological symptoms, motor expression, action tendencies, regulation (conscious or unconscious), representation and communication of emotional experience. On the revolution in neuroscience see Reddy 2001: 3–33, and for the grid (24  emotions × 29 languages) and its various models, see http://www. affective-sciences.org/content/words. For recent treatments, from the points of view of philosophy and affective science see Deonna and Teroni 2012; Colombetti 2014.   2 See above, p. 126.

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do brothers weep? 313 archbishop of Byzantine Bulgaria, to the death of his brother around 1107:3 he begins: Δακρύων ϑέλω θαλάσσας τὸν ἀδελφὸν ὡς δακρύσω

1

I long for an ocean of tears to weep for my brother

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Νάματα τῶν ὑδάτων παύσατε πάντες οἱ ποταμοί, δακρύων ῥεῖθρα λαβόντες

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Rivers, still the flow of your waters, Since you have received floods of tears

13

And the poem ends: Πένθος ἁμῆς γενέθλης πῶς ποτε λήξει; 111–12 Χεῦσιν ἐμῶν δακρύων τίς καταπαύσῃ; How will the mourning of our family ever end? Who will stop the flow of my tears?

111–12

So the poem is structured on this concept of a torrent of tears, creating a very wet and violent poem, a tsunami of emotion and lament and mourning. It reminded me of the tear-bath in Libanios.4 And this leads us into the search for a context. Do we see weeping in Byzantine texts of this period? Who is it that weeps? Who is encouraged to weep, who excluded? What does that weeping express? And how are tears viewed? Do princes weep? Can a bishop mourn? Big boys don’t cry, do they? I thought back to an argument in the autumn of 2010 in Dumbarton  Oaks over tears. Were princes in the Middle Ages expected to weep? Byzantinists and neo-Hellenists thought not. Men were expected to rein in emotion and its physical expression as a performance of masculinity. They had a part to play in the rhetorical celebration of mourning, and that was not thrēnos or goos though it could be monody; it was more likely to be in the prose genres (or versions) of epitaphios or consolatio, and to focus   3 Theophylact, poem 14, ed. Gautier 1980: 369–75. For a full translation see the appendix to this chapter, pp. 334–7.   4 See Stenger in this volume, p. 173.

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on praise.5 Since Margaret Alexiou’s Ritual Lament, reinforced by anthropologists like Seremetakis, we have believed that it was the women’s part in Byzantium to lament, and that thrēnos and moirologia are female genres.6 Indeed some would go further: ‘to examine death in Inner  Mani is to look at Maniot society through female eyes’; ‘weeping was in the classical period the prerogative of women’; ‘lament has come to be seen as the female genre par excellence’.7 On that occasion western medievalists disagreed, and I have found others since who do, especially those (interestingly) working on crusader texts,8 but they point also to medieval France. Charlemagne weeps and even faints from sorrow and King Arthur weeps in romances.9 They point out that real men and especially kings did weep and were expected to; it demonstrated the fineness of their feelings and the elegance of their expression of them. Others, though, do not agree. Kostas Yiavis argues that the norm in courtly literature is aversion to excessive displays of emotion (for example when mourning) for kings, less so for courtiers; queens are somewhere in the middle.10 He also suggests that eastern models agree: in the Shahnameh, Esfandyar says he will not shed tears for his two sons who have been killed, and the scheming queen Sudabeh is shown up by her tears.11 In western courtly literature he suggests that kings cry only (1) over mortal danger or a very grave calamity or (2) in order for the author to show, not tell, their inadequacy. When Arthur mourns excessively his lords chastise him   5 There is as yet no comprehensive treatment of the rhetorical side of Byzantine death literature. For a useful register of texts from the sixth to the fifteenth centuries, see Sideras 1994, and for consolation, a beginning for the ninth to twelfth centuries is Sarres 2005. For the ascetic tradition a classic is Hausherr 1982, which deals with tears throughout.   6 Alexiou 1974; Seremetakis 1991; Holst-Warhaft 1992.   7 Seremetakis 1991: 15; Loraux 1986: 45; Suter 2008b:156.   8 I am grateful to Timmie Vitz and Yvonne Friedman for conversations on this issue.   9 For Charlemagne, see Chanson de Roland, laisse 164, lines 2215–21, ed. Whitehead 1968: 65, trans. Sayers 1957: 136 at the death of Oliver; for King Arthur, La Queste del Saint Graal, Le départ, ed. Pauphilet 1923: 4, trans. Matarasso 1969: 49 after the appearance of the Grail at Camelot and the swearing of the oath of the quest. The first chapter ends: ‘and even those men who fancied themselves hard and proud shed tears at this leave-taking’. 10 K. Yiavis, personal communication. 11 Abolqasem Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, trans. Davis 2006: 407, 179; when Esfandyar hears the news his heart clouds with rage, sighs escape his lips, and tears stand in his eyes. When he sees the bodies, however, he asks for weeping to cease. Sudabeh’s clothes-ripping, hair-tearing and face-scratching are in response to the duplicitous capture of her husband Kavus by her father, in indignation and anger, not weakness.

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do brothers weep? 315 It is no worship, iwis, to wring thine hands; To weep als a woman it is no wit holden! Be knightly of countenaunce, als a king sholde And leve such clamour, for cristes love of heven! 12

Further perspectives, further texts, may well be necessary, but for now let us leave aside the western medieval disagreements and return to Byzantium. Who weeps? Recently a few fundamentals have shifted to allow us to rethink our position. RECENT PERSPECTIVES Tears do not only mean grief First, the work that is gradually getting under way on emotion in Byzantium, largely generated by the groundbreaking work of Martin Hinterberger, reveals that tears were a function not only of grief, but also of compunction, anger, compassion and charmolypē.13 Let us note that scientific approaches also establish that tears do not map on to a single emotion.14 And those tears are regarded by Byzantines as different: the tears which are a sign of pressing grief, the tears of pure passion, tears with a message, tears as a weapon, tears of joy, imploring tears.15 We should also note that crying is regarded as a mystery by biopsychosocial and social neuroscience researchers: ‘When compared to the large scientific literature on emotion, surprisingly little is known about crying.’16 It is sometimes possible to establish what tears are not, for example a surefire indicator of sincerity,17 but ‘The question of why it is that we cry has always been a challenge for behavioural researchers.’18 All agree though that, when driven by emotions, weeping is a uniquely human mechanism,19 12 Alliterative morte Arthure, 3977–80, ed. Benson 1994: 250, trans. B. Stone 1988: 157. The occasion is the death of Gawain. 13 Hinterberger 2006; 2010. 14 Kappas 2009: 420. 15 See Hinterberger in this volume, pp. 132–3, 141–2. The communicatory function of tears in prayer is explored across Christian, Sufi, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu and Aztec spirituality in Patton and Hawley 2005. 16 Vingerhoets, Bylsma and Rottenberg 2009: 439. 17 Blanchfield 2012. In the introduction to that volume, Elina Gertsman writes that an anonymous twelfth-century homily ‘alerts us to the rich world of medieval tears, while suggesting that weeping was open to a variety of interpretations and as such was understood as an intrinsically ambiguous act’; Gertsman 2012: xii. 18 Kappas 2009: 419. 19 Vingerhoets, Bylsma and Rottenberg 2009: 440; Kappas 2009: 422: ‘According to the current state of knowledge there are no animals besides humans that produce tears as a consequence of emotional processes.’

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and,  it should be added, ‘ubiquitous in ancient and modern literature’.20 Tears are not innocent Second, we know that in an ascetic environment where weeping was  a gift from God, an art and an ascetic exercise, it was not harmless,  though it could be heroic. The Life of Cyril Phileotes ­ of around 1140 has a chapter where the saint and the hagiographer discuss tears. It begins with Nicholas Kataskepenos, the ­hagiographer, asking a faux naïf question: ‘can you weep whenever you want?’, and after the eleven pages of florilegium material on tears which ensues, the chapter leads into two interconnected stories told by the author to the saint (he was desperately trying to get a word in edgeways), to show that some tears come from God and some come from the devil. One of these stories is about a hero of the ascetic life and one about a deserting cabbage-stealer. The latter tries to model himself on the former, realising his huge cachet in the  ­monastery, and is rewarded by a lying dream in which he is hailed as patriarch by the deacons of the Great Church and wins only ridicule and rejection for his pains when they are revealed as demons. The other is about tears that come from God, and the ascetic from the Black Mountain who overdoes the katanyktical canon by reciting it constantly in his cell and has to be forced to surrender the book for his own health. Even so, and these are good tears shed by a good man, he dies.21 The story is a powerful indicator of the perceived dangers of dehydration braved by heroic ascetic masculinity. He was not alone, of course. St Arsenios’ eyelashes fell out, and Isaiah of Gaza was visited by two monks, one of whom wept day and night and simply stopped eating.22 The ascetic theorists John Klimakos and Mark the Monk differentiate between bitter and sweet tears, or between false (crocodile) tears, the turbulent tears that come from the passions, and the gentle gifts from God.23 Anthropologists report on modern Greek lament that ‘tears 20 Fögen 2009a. That volume, Fögen 2009b, contains papers on tears of pleasure, Konstan 2009; of repentance or love, Ramelli 2009; and of despair and thanksgiving, Pazdernik 2009. 21 Nicholas Kataskepenos, Life of Cyril Phileotes, ch. 42.8–13, ed. Sargologos 1964: 200–5. 22 Apa Arsenios 40–2, PG 65:105C–108A; John Rufus, Plerophoriai on Isaiah of Gaza, ed. Nau 1912: 164. 23 John Klimakos, Ladder, 5, PG 88: 776A; Mark the Monk, On Those Who Think they are Justified by Works, 83, ed. de Durand 1999: 154.

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are both water and poison’:24 black, burning, bitter and poisoned.25 Tears can be very dangerous indeed. Emperors do weep Michael Grünbart has recently documented some cases of imperial tears in answer to Gerd Althoff’s tabulation of occasions when early medieval kings in the west wept. Althoff suggests (1) loss of friends and family, (2) tears of remorse, (3) hearing affecting pleas from subordinates, (4) to demonstrate the virtues of Christian kingship, and (5) when he takes his leave of friends and family.26 Grünbart takes up the suggestion of ritual staging of tears and sees a ceremonial ­function for imperial tears in Byzantium, not encoded in the prescriptive texts. He points to the Ash Wednesday procession in 912 recorded by Haroun-ibn-Yahyah27 where the emperor carries a golden box of dust, and when prompted by an official, opens it, kisses the dust and weeps to signify the transience of the life of this world. He also sees this as a deliberate manipulation of the audience, a staging of kingship, perhaps not as overtly as suggested by Procopius of Justinian (he could weep without feeling joy or sadness), but certainly as a responsibility of leadership, as Kekaumenos saw, to be seen to show compassion, sympathy, tears and mourning.28 The Byzantine equivalent to Althoff’s list appears to be (1) meetings with the holy, (2) mourning, (3) remorse, (4) sympathy and (5) pretence.29 So we know that emperors did weep in Byzantium, theatrically, and that ascetic holy men wept, heroically. They could be regarded as exceptions to the rule that real men don’t weep. But did real Byzantine men weep from grief? THE POEM AND ITS CONTEXTS The poem I want to go back to the poem with which I began and put it in context. It is metrically anacreontic: twelve eight-syllable lines in eight stanzas with a twelve-syllable couplet at the end of each, making 112 lines in 24 Danforth 1982: 111. 25 For tears sweet as honey see Alexiou 2002b: 125. 26 Althoff 1996: 243–51. 27 Treitinger 1956: 148. 28 Procopius, Anekdota, VIII.24, ed. Haury 1963, 54.13–18; Kekaumenos, Strategikon, 2, ed. Wassilewsky and Jernstedt 1896: 3. 29 Grünbart 2008.

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all. The first stanza begins confessionally, δακρύων  θέλω θαλάσσας, identifies the bereavement, and expresses what it means in terms of the loss of a light on the road to d ­ arkness. First-person/third-person oppositions follow, and Theophylact c­ompares himself to Niobe, turned into a rock. But λάαν ἄν πλάσῃ Θεός με τὸ πάθος πάλιν δακρύσω· χρόνος οὐ λύει τὸ πένθος, νεαρὸν μένει χρονίζον. Even if God moulds me as a stone I shall weep for this suffering again; time is no healer; mourning stays fresh and endures.

10

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All of the other seven stanzas address Demetrios, through each refrain addresses a different group. In 2 he addresses his brother, describing his virtue and achievement, contrasting it with his defeat by death and the impact on Theophylact, the fever ὃς ἐμὰς μάρανε σάρκας, ὃς ἐμὸν πέπωκεν αἷμα ὃς ἐμὰς φρένας φλογίζει ὃς ἐμὸν νόον σκοτίζει. that wasted my flesh that has drunk up my blood that sets my brain on fire that darkens my mind.

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And the refrain talks of how his tears become acorns and raise a forest of oak trees, not a tree alone like Daphne. The third stanza asks what goos could possibly satisfy him, weeping over his brother’s virtues, young in body, old in virtue, and he puts on funeral attire. The fourth stanza praises Demetrios: Βραχυμυθίην ποθῶ σου· Εϋκοσμίην γοάω· Μετρίον φρόνημα κλαίω, ὃ Θεοῦ φίλοις ἐτήρεις· ζέσιν, ἥν ἔχες κολούων ὑπερηφάνους, δακρύω.

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do brothers weep? 319 I yearn for your brevity of speech I bewail your decorum, I weep over your moderation of mind that you held towards the friends of God the indignation with which you rebuffed the overweening is what I mourn.

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He was a sea of love, a chain for friendship. Who could consider these  qualities without tears? And he urges the younger man to capture  a ray of the sun in the night since the earth hides his own brilliance. Stanza 5 presents his present situation surrounded by howling dogs, locusts and other plagues, all of which Demetrios used to deal with. The refrain addresses ‘all you good of heart, weep without ceasing’. Stanza 6 puts him in a family context, though Theophylact begins by asking ‘who will lighten my cares?’, but then he goes on to ask who will guide his nephews. And the refrain wonders how the family will receive the dreadful news of his death. Stanza 7 takes us to court and Demetrios’ standing vis-à-vis the emperor, but the stanza takes us back to Euripos, the home of Theophylact’s family, and the moans and lamentations that arise there, which Demetrios can hear from the grave. Stanza 8 mentions the colleagues at the Great Church: how will they bear his loss? Who will entertain them as generously? He ends with the double question: how will the mourning of our family ever end? Who will stop the flow of my tears? Generically, is it a lament? It clearly cannot be a ritual lament: it is not written for prothesis or ekphora, and is devoid of funeral context.30 It is not even a re-enacted ritual lament, an expression of grief described at a later date; its force is absolutely of the moment. It also cannot be mapped easily on to the Suter–Wright criteria: topoi including themes, metaphors and imagery, stylistic features including anaphora, anadiplosis, polyptoton, cries and repetitions, and metrical features like antiphony and lyric metres overtaken by iambodochmiacs which speed up and heighten the emotion.31 In that Wright’s c­ riteria are for laments in tragedy, the requirement for the lament to end the play is meaningless. Metrical demands also make no sense when the metre is so different, and where exclamations and cries feature large. But Theophylact’s poem does meet other criteria, including some of Wright’s and also 30 Alexiou 2002b: 3–51; Suter 2008b, who distinguishes ritual lament from lament, and also from lamentation (generalised weeping). 31 Wright 1986; Suter 2008b: 157–8; she uses these criteria in the analysis which follows.

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some of Alexiou’s: there are repetitions (my care, my heavy cares), and there are antitheses (then/now, I/you), strophe and refrain; past and present, the mourner and the deceased. If we look at Alexiou’s topoi of lament there are lights and journeys, oaks and seas, seas of tears.32 I think that it must be seen as a lament. Contexts for the Demetrios poem There are various contexts for this poem. First, it is one of a pair of poems. The second poem is thirty-two lines long, in iambics (Byzantine twelve-syllable verse),33 and starts with a battery of questions: Τίς συστελεῖ βίαιον ὁρμὴν πρακτόρων ̆ σεκρετικῶν στόματα φράξει βατράχων Σοφοις δικασταῖς ἐμμελὴς ἔσται φίλος Συγκλητικοῖς τίμιος ἠθῶν ἀξίᾳ;

1

Who will humble the violent assault of the taxmen? Who will close the mouth of the frogs of the sekreton? Who will be a suitable friend to wise judges? Who will be respected by senators for the worthiness of his morals?

1

How will Theophylact do without him? Lines 14–17 explore the oppositions between his youth and his grey wisdom, Theophylact the old advised by Demetrios the young, and then Theophylact begs the dead man not to abandon him, and recalls how he was . . . μοι γλῶττα λαμπρὰ καὶ στόμα Δραστήριος χείρ, ἀσφαλὴς ποδῶν βάσις νοῦς, ἀκοή, φῶς καὶ πνοὴ καὶ καρδία καὶ πᾶν μέλος χρήσιμον εἰς ὑπουργίαν καὶ λῆμμα καὶ κίνημα καὶ προθυμία λύσις μεριμνῶν, εὐμαριστὴς πραγμάτων καὶ νῦν ἄνωθεν ταῦτα μοι πάντα γίνου.

20

. . . for me a brilliant tongue and mouth, an effective hand, a firm basis for my feet, a mind for me, hearing, light, breath and heart,

20

25

32 For these criteria including topoi, Alexiou 2002b: 102–205. 33 Ed. Gautier 1980: 377. Again, the translation is given in full in the appendix to this chapter, p. 337.

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do brothers weep? 321 and every limb serviceable to use, at once argument, excitement, eagerness, dissolver of cares, dextrous handler of affairs, so now also be all this to me from on high.

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Resolution comes with the thought that Demetrios has parrhēsia with God and can do for Theophylact at the court of heaven what he used to at the court of Alexios. It is personal, private, a portrait of a brotherly relationship, and offered to him as a graceless grace for the tomb. It also has lament features: oppositions of past and present, the dead and the mourner,34 but it focuses on the material in stanzas 5 and 6 of the anacreontic poem and neglects the tears. The pairing of two pieces in different metres or forms is fairly common in Theophylact’s oeuvre; he likes to offer variatio, often to the same recipient, so a short and a long poem on receptions in tents (one perhaps for delivery in a tent, the other for embroidery on a tent),35 a letter and a poem about borrowing a volume of Galen’s medicine,36 and here anacreontics and iambics on the death of his brother. Second, the story of the illness and death of Demetrios comes through clearly in Theophylact’s letter-collection. We see the beloved brother as fearless letter-bearer across the winter Vardar,37 as the recipient of the treatise on eunuchs38 and as Theophylact’s campaign manager in Constantinople;39 then we begin to see a weakened brother, affected by the change of climate in Ochrid, the dearth of vines. He was unable to eat, he had a permanent headache and a stomach full of fluid.40 He tells the bishop of Kitros that Demetrios had a distaste for all medicines, though Theophylact had tried oxysacchari on him.41 By the time he writes to Nicholas Kallikles, the imperial doctor with the emperor in Thessaloniki, ‘my brother salutes you but out of the gates of hell, through which he is led to Hades by the hand of consumption’. He asks Nicholas to help him protect his property in Ekklesiai 34 Lines 1–9 future; 10–17 past and present; 18–19 exhortation; 20–6 past and present again; 27–32 resolution; 17: γέροντα παῖδα βελτιῶν με παῖς γέρων; see also 9–12 parrhēsia/sigē. 35 For the tent poems, 11 and 12, see Gautier 1980: 367, and my reading of them, Mullett forthcoming b. 36 Ep. G112 to Nicholas Kallikles, ed. Gautier 1986: 537; poem 3, ed. Gautier 1980: 351. 37 Ep. G90 to the chartophylax, G93 to Nicholas Kallikles, G110 to Niketas, the doctor of the emperor, ed. Gautier 1986: 469, 477, 531. 38 Ed. Gautier 1980: 17–331; see Messis 2012. 39 Ep. G93 to the archiatros Nicholas Kallikles, ed. Gautier 1986: 477. 40 Ep. G133 to Demetrios, G111 to Nicholas Kallikles; G113 to the bishop of Kitros, ed. Gautier 1986: 591, 535, 539. 41 Ep. G113 to the bishop of Kitros, ed. Gautier 1986: 539.14.

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where Demetrios is.42 Something very close to the moment of death is described in a letter to the Doux of Veroia Constantine Komnenos. Theophylact recalls seeing his brother’s face lit up, the joy of the soul appearing in the face.43 He tells the bishop of Debrai almost in passing, hoping that the God who took away the brother who had become everything to him would not leave him without help.44 The third account is another letter to the bishop of Kitros which mentions, a third of the way through, the death of his brother, as ‘the heaviest of my cares’. This was the brother ‘who depended on my breath, who was everything and contributed everything to me who would throw himself in the path of fire and swords so that I might remain relaxed and free from pain’, the brother of the iambic poem. Theophylact describes his own physical condition, slipping away into complete weakness in sympathy with his brother.45 Third, there are three parallel poems by other brothers. One is poem 44 of Christopher of Mytilene on his brother John.46 It comprises eighty twelve-syllable verses, very fragmentary, and begins by addressing him in the tomb. The tone is more reflective, less apparently distressed than Theophylact’s two poems, which suggests a date further removed from the death than Theophylact’s, or indeed Christopher’s cycle of three poems for his sister Anastaso, which are written for three ritual stages: anacreontics round the bier (prothesis), dodecasyllables at the funeral procession (ekphora) and at the funeral itself, as well as a pair of poems dealing with the reception of the cycle.47 Lines 1–15 are a lament section, in which Christopher describes his brother as extinguished in the tomb, contrasted with his ability to spark the flames of grief in the writer. In line 9 Christopher weeps strongly, and in 10–14 he evokes thlipsis and penthos, stenagmos and goos, intensifying the lament to the point of transition at 16 when he ‘turns his aulos towards praise’. Lines 17–49, much of which is lost, deal with the qualities of his brother: his grace, his eloquence, his learning, his asteiotēs, his gifted hands, his honour, his moderation of character. ‘Everything of yours is good, O you who are the home of good things.’ From line 50, he returns to lamentation, but in narrative guise, recalling the mourning of the family and in particular his mother’s words addressed to her son, with piercing looks and snuffling tears which 42 Ep. G112 to Nicholas Kallikles, ed. Gautier 1986: 535.15–22. 43 Ep. G123 to Constantine Komnenos, ed. Gautier 1986: 563. 44 Ep. G122 to the bishop of Debrai, ed. Gautier 1986: 561. 45 Ep. G121 to the bishop of Kitros, ed. Gautier 1986: 559; for discussion of the death of Demetrios see Mullett 1997: 91–4. 46 Christopher of Mytilene, poem 44, ed. Kurtz 1903: 26–9. 47 Christopher of Mytilene, poems 75–9, ed. Kurtz 1903: 46–51; for an analysis see Bernard 2014: 84–7.

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do brothers weep? 323 drip from her over the dying man: the wetness of grief we have seen in Theophylact is evoked here. The last moments, the last speech of John are remembered, as the divine hands of angels approach, addressed to Christ, calling for pity. This allows a final transition to a prayer in the last seven lines to the all-powerful, all-knowing Logos, asking him to remember his servant. We cannot know whether Theophylact knew this poem, but his own is less grounded in ritual or narrative than Christopher’s, and the praise and lament are integrated throughout. The other two are metrical epitaphs, and in both cases the brother has engraved and decorated the tomb; in both cases the passer-by is addressed. The first is in thirty-eight twelve-syllable lines by Isidore Meles for his brother Constantine, archdeacon of Arbanon, monk of the monastery of St Andrew.48 Isidore appears from line 3–9 as having set up the skia of his dead brother as a kind of consolation. Lines 10–22 establish the life and praxeis of Constantine through his career to the taking of the schema at the end, Θρῆνον λιπὼν μέγιστον αὐτοῦ τοῖς φιλοις, Έξαιρέτως δὲ καὶ πλέον τῷ συγγόνῳ. Leaving great lamentation among his friends, especially and above all to his kinsman. We then return to Isidore’s tomb and its painting: the dead man at the feet of Christ, the Virgin with St Andrew, St Nicholas and Theodore Stratelates are represented, even the community of monks, all presented as praying (lines 34–8) to ‘the philanthropic Word’ for a place of delight for Isidore and the salvation of his soul. The other epitaph of eighteen lines is in Marc.gr. 524 and presents a tomb designed for two Antiocheites brothers: Theodore-Theodosios, who has already died, and John, who is described as the stonemason, making deep marks through dripping tears. The first four lines recall Psalm 132 (133):1, ‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!’, and make play with the cohabitation of brothers in life and in death, with the bitterness of separation. Lines 5–12 describe the deceased, and at 13 the patron John reappears to carve out with his bitter tears a double tomb, a common bed, for their long sleep. Lines 16–18 address the Bridegroom, the lamp of light, in the final prayer to allow John to see the light as he enters the spiritual marriage-chamber. This poem with its homosocial overtones touches on tears while conforming to the topoi of the epitaph: the address 48 Ed. Salaville 1928: 403–6.

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at 5, inviting thrēnos, and the bitter weeping of John at 14. Even the emphasis on the closeness of the brothers cannot in this form produce the oceans of Theophylact, merely the drip which can work upon stone. All three parallels include or refer to lament, though they are not generically thrēnoi.49 Fourth, there is of course a much wider rhetorical context of funerary rhetoric by brothers for brothers. In the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries Nikephoros Basilakes wrote a monody for his brother Constantine, Michael Choniates wrote a monody on his brother Niketas, and Nicholas Mesarites wrote an epitaphios logos on his brother John.50 The funerary rhetoric of the twelfth century is enormously rich, and more epitaphioi, monodies and consolations survive than any other rhetorical genre; there is a clear sense that writers were aware of the boundaries between genres and their functions: epitaphios logos primarily to praise, consolatio primarily to console, thrēnos and monody to mourn; Panagiotis Agapitos has shown how skilfully rhetors of the period moved between and merged them; in fact each genre also contains germs of the others.51 And the models of sibling rhetoric of the Cappadocians, Gregory of Nazianzos on his brother Kaisarios, his sister Gorgonia and on his friend Basil, Gregory of Nyssa’s life of Makrina, lie behind all this twelfth-century achievement.52 Fifth, there is some evidence to suggest that the relation between brother and brother was thought to be particularly strong in early Komnenian society.53 In Anna’s Alexiad she makes great play of the relationship between her father and his brother Isaac, who might himself have been proclaimed emperor and stood back in favour of 49 B140 (82/84), ed. Lambros 1911: 44–45; ed. Spingou forthcoming. I am very grateful to Foteini Spingou for sharing her transcription and translation with me and discussing this fascinating but problematic text. 50 Nikephoros Basilakes on Constantine, ed. Pignani 1983: 235–52; Michael Choniates on Niketas, ed. Lambros 1879–80: 345–68; Nicholas Mesarites on John, ed. Heisenberg 1923: I, 16–72. 51 Agapitos 1998a; 2008. 52 Gregory of Nazianzos, or. 7, on Kaisarios (BHG 286–Oration 7), ed. and trans. Calvert-Sebasti 1995: 180–245; Gregory of Nazianzos, or. 8, on Gorgonia (BHG 286–Oration 8), ed. trans. Calvert-Sebasti 1995: 246–99; Gregory of Nazianzos, or. 43 on Basil (BHG 245–Oration 43), ed. and trans. Bernardi 1992: 116–307; Gregory of Nyssa, Letter on the Life of Makrina (BHG 1012), ed. and trans. Maraval 1971: 136–266. 53 Here I am grateful for discussion with Nathan Leidholm, who is preparing a study which will adduce other contemporary case studies. For brother–brother emotion at another period of Greek history see Danforth 1982: pl. 7. Here in Alexander Tsiaras’ photograph, one of Thanasis’ two brothers standing at the head of the coffin, ‘overcome with emotion, collapses into the arms of those standing behind him’.

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do brothers weep? 325 his brother. Anna compares them to the classic friendship couple of Orestes and Pylades: Όρέστην μὲν οὖν καὶ Πυλάδην φίλους ὄντας τοσοῦτον τὸν πρὸς ἀλλήλους πόθoν ἔχειν φασίν, ὡς ἐν καιρῷ μάχης ἀμελεῖν μὲν εκάτερον τῶν καθ’ ἑαυτοῦ πολεμίων, ἀμύνειν δὲ τοὺς ἐπιφερομένους θατέρῳ καὶ προαρπάζειν ἅτερον τὰς πρὸς θάτερον ἐρχομένας τῶν ὀιστῶν βολὰς τὰ στέρνα ὑπέχοντας. τοιοῦτον καὶ ἐπὶ τούτοις ἦν συνορᾶν. ἄμφω γὰρ τἀδελφὼ καὶ τοὺς κινδύνους προαρπάζειν ἐβούλοντο καὶ τὰς ἀριστείας τὲ καὶ τιμὰς καὶ ἁπλῶς τἀγαθὸν θατέρου ἴδιον ἅτερος ἐλογίζετο καὶ αὖ τοὐναντίον, τοσοῦτον τὸν πόθον πρὸς ἀλλήλους εἶχον. According to legend Orestes and Pylades were friends, and so much affection did they have for one another that in the crisis of battle each ignored the enemies attacking himself and bore aid to his friend, shielding him with his own breast from the volleys of arrows. One could see a like affection in the case of Isaac and  Alexios, for each was willing to face dangers for the other and they shared prizes of valour and honours and in general the good fortune of the other, so great was their mutual attachment.54

The Nicomachaean Ethics makes the point that close friendships are possible and particularly valuable within families;55 fictive kinships which are also affective relationships, like friends, co-pupils and cogodparents, are often in Byzantine texts couched in terms of brother– brother relationships.56 The expressed relationship of brother to brother in texts did not signal merely colleague-hood among bishops, though that relationship did form a basis for other more affective relations like the very frequent uncle–nephew relationship, signalled by naming the nephew after the episcopal uncle.57 So Theophylact’s poem has some support from other rhetorical texts and perceptions of personal relations. But as a male thrēnos it is still very unusual in Byzantine literature. Is it simply unusual or is it actually transgressive? 54 Anna Komnene, Alexiad, 2.1.4., ed. Reinsch and Kambylis 2001: 56.42–6, trans. Frankopan 2009: 51; the relationship is absent in book 1, where Alexios is introduced, developed in book 2, and has the literary effect of easing the effect of Alexios’ coup, to idealise a messy accommodation. By the end of book 3 Alexios’ mother has been installed as regent and Isaac has been forgotten. 55 Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics, 8.12.8 (1161b). 56 Mullett 1997: 172–4. 57 Mullett 1997: 172–5; see the classic series of articles by Stiernon 1961, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966.

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margaret mullett The gender issue

The gender issue has recently been brought to the fore by Leonora Neville. In a recent article58 she looks at what many have seen as the excessive complaint of Anna Komnene in the Alexiad, which undermines Anna’s attempt to be taken seriously as a classicising historian. Neville suggests that Anna transgresses gender roles by trying to write history and so attempts to write in a more acceptable genre for women by beginning and ending her history with lamentation, and by observing scrupulously the boundaries between history and lament, demonstrating that she is capable of writing both. Neville does not argue explicitly that men do not enact proper male behaviour by lamenting, but her model is roughly binary: lament is appropriate for a woman, history is not. She nowhere deals with the inclusion in Niketas Choniates of laments for the city,59 or with the model of Pamphile of Epidauros, an earlier woman historian, included in the Souda and Photios’ Bibliotheca.60 It is perhaps as well that she does not take that extra step and argue that lament is inappropriate for a man, for recently there has been much concern with male lament in ancient Greek literature. Ann Suter’s work in the collected volume Lament, and more recently in the Athens conference in honour of Margaret Alexiou held a few months before the Edinburgh meeting, suggests that of the forty-two passages determined by Elinor Wright’s criteria, eighteen show a male lament and twenty-six a female (with two showing both).61 Five plays have only male lamentation, six only female. Further, she does not believe that males always try to control female lamentation, or that men who lament are presented as feminised. She says, ‘if we had only the evidence of tragedy to inform us, we might not see lament as a particularly gendered genre’.62 And in a study specifically on tears in tragedy, not on ritual lament, she sees tears as ungendered: ‘the evidence does not show that they are overwhelmingly female, nor that men are inevitably feminised by them’.63 She shows how tears can aid characterisation (Elektra weeps all the time, Polymestor in the Hecuba is shown to be cruel by his false tears).64 She scrupulously notes that 58 Neville 2013. For a more nuanced treatment of the relationship between history and lament in the Alexiad see Quandahl and Jarratt 2008. 59 See Angold in this volume, pp. 338–52. 60 On Pamphile, see Souda, π 139, ed. Adler 1928, 4:15–16; Photios, Bibliotheca, cod. 175, ed. Henry 1960, 2:170–1. 61 Suter 2008b; 2009; forthcoming. 62 Suter 2008b: 156. 63 Suter 2009: 81. 64 Suter 2009: 72.

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there is little weeping in the laments. And we should not forget that as early as 1984 Monsacré showed in Les larmes d’Achille that men cry abundantly and without shame in the Iliad; five years later, Richard Martin described Achilles as ‘the one hero most practiced in the genre of lament’.65 But Theophylact was not an epic or a tragic hero, but a bishop trained in the rhetorical schools of Constantinople, and at least twice he genders excessive weeping.66 His job was to remind his flock that their lost ones were in a better place, that the Resurrection made everything different and that they should rejoice that their loved ones had died. His training was in the prose genres of rhetoric, which put a premium on control and the skills needed to negotiate the tricky area of family befuddled by pathē – Menander warns the orator that bereaved people have no tolerance for long speeches – and to get the right balance between praise, mourning and consolation.67 The closest his training came to lamentation was the prose monody, a short speech designed for the death of a young person.68 ‘What is the purpose of monody?’, asks Menander, and answers, ‘to lament and express pity’. His prescription allows for the relationship between speaker and deceased, whether kin or not (a non-kin speaker mixes encomia with lament so that the encomium is the occasion for the lament; a relative ‘should lament no less’, emphasising personal deprivation, as Theophylact does, ‘who will take care of it, who will preserve it?’), and for the age of the deceased. The monody should start with treatment of present, past and future (what might have been), then a description of the funeral and of the deceased. But management of emotion was what rhetoric was about, and the rhetor is not expected to be in the throes of pathos himself; he is expected to be in control. What then was it that made brother-for-brother lament possible for Theophylact? 65 Monsacré 1984a; Martin 1989: 86–7. The best account of extravagant male weeping in Homer and the participation of men in funerary ritual on geometric vases, as well as the gender changes from the mid-seventh century on, is van Wees 1998. 66 Theophylact, Commentary on the Gospel of St John, PG 124:100: ‘to have no feeling and no weeping is bestial; but to weep too much and to be fond of lamenting is womanly’; cf ep. G53 to Gregory Kamateros, ed. Gautier 1986: 309: ‘For those who are sick in body, it is the woman’s part to beat the breast, strike oneself and tear the face, but it is the doctor’s part to calm everything and to think out a solution for the sick man.’ 67 Menander rhetor, treatise II, XVI monody, ed. and trans. Russell and Wilson 1981: 206; on rhetoric and control (restraint and arousal) of the passions, see Webb 1997a: 112–27. 68 On monody see Hadjis 1964: 177–85; Soffel 1974; Menander rhetor, ed. Russell and Wilson 1981: 200–6.

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margaret mullett FACTORS SUPPORTING MALE LAMENT

First, of course, the traditions of heroic ascetic weeping and of imperial weeping were available to Theophylact. And there were also plenty of biblical models which affected descriptions of imperial weeping. Manuel I cries at Myriokephalon that his water is mixed with blood because King David, a model of (mostly) just kingship, did just the same.69 David’s lament for Jonathan was another male–male lament with resonance for him in view of the use of kinship vocabulary for friendship and comradeship. ἀλγῶ ἐπὶ σοί ἄδελφέ μου Ιωναθαν ὡραιώθης μοι σφόδρα ἐθαυμαστώθη ἡ ἀγάπησίς σου ἐμοὶ ὑπὲρ ἀγάπησιν γυναικῶν.70 I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother You were very dear to me Your love for me was wonderful More wonderful than that of women. Second, the use of anacreontics for lament in Federica Ciccolella’s Barberini grec 310 sets an example in one katanyktikos and one thrēnetikos poem by Elias synkellos, in Ignatios the deacon’s katanyktical poem to his pupil Paul, and the anacreontic of Leo Magistros on Theoktiste his daughter (a second poem and an epitymbion on his courtier brother are preserved in lemma alone).71 They are few among the epithalamia and bath poems and ēthopoiiai of the manuscript, but they show that it was possible for a man to write anacreontic laments. None of the other brother–brother poems  is  in  anacreontics, but another poem of Christopher of Mytilene, for his sister Anastaso, is.72 This brings us very close 69 Niketas Choniates, Istoriai, 6.65–84 ed. van Dieten 1975: 182–3; trans. Magoulias 1984: 103; Anna, Al., 7.7.2, ed. Reinsch and Kambylis 2001: 221.42–3, trans. Frankopan 2009: 201: Alexios weeps warm tears over the 300 Archontopouloi killed at Charioupolis in 1090 and calls each one by name. 70 2 Samuel 1:26. This text was directly picked up nearly thirty years later when Peter Abelard included it in his six Planctus, of which, interestingly, half are voiced by men: two by David and one by Jacob over his sons (rather than the more usual Rachel) as well as the communal lament of Israel on Samson; the exceptions are Dinah over Sichem and the daughters of Israel over Jephthah’s daughter. See Dronke 1970: 114–49; Alexiou and Dronke 1971; Ruys 2014. 71 Elias Synkellos, poems 1 and 2, Ignatios the Deacon, poem 1; Leo Magistros, poem 1 on Theoktiste, ed. Ciccolella 2000: 4–31, 40–55, 65–71, 66–70. 72 Poem 75, ed. Kurtz 1903: 46–7.

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to the milieu of Theophylact’s education in Constantinople in the 1050s and 1060s.73 Third, every visit to church would have thrown images of male weeping, mourning and lament before Theophylact’s eyes. Two years after The Ritual Lament came out, Henry Maguire published a study of the depiction of sorrow in Byzantine art.74 The image of the Koimesis at Theophylact’s episcopal church of Hagia Sophia Ochrid shows the gesture of arms thrown up by the apostles round her bed,75 and the version painted at Asinou within a year or two of Theophylact’s poem has various representations of both male and female grief. The apostles lean over the bier, with faces drawn with grief, and in galleries close by, women weep and wail – in fact also weep and veil.76 And representations of St John, along with Nikodemos and Joseph of Arimathea, also appear grieving alongside the women in prothesis and ekphora after the death of Christ. Theophylact did not live long enough to see the major developments of the mid- and late twelfth century in which Passion cycles on church walls show extended scenes of deposition,77 thrēnos78 and entombment,79 and thereafter increasingly agitated depositions,80 muscular entombments81 and maternally exercised thrēnos scenes at that.82 Nor did he live to see the major watershed Maguire notes with the thirteenth-century compositions,83 but the period that Maguire identifies as the development of the representation of emotion in Byzantine art does include the period of Theophylact’s life.84 Perhaps 73 On the dating see Gautier 1980, 131; Mullett 1997: 43–53. For literary reactions to death in this period see Agapitos 2008. 74 Maguire 1977. It was an extraordinarily, and for Byzantium unusually, advanced study, predating work on emotion in both classical and western medieval studies by decades. See Mullett and Harvey forthcoming. 75 Hamann-MacLean and Hallensleben 1963: Bildband pl. 26. 76 The Koimesis of the Virgin at Asinou (1106), Weyl Carr and Nicolaides 2013: 60, fig. 2.25; detail: Evans and Wixom 1997: 112. On weeping and veiling see Cairns 2009. On lament in the Koimesis see Kalavrezou forthcoming. 77 As at Nerezi: see Sinkević 2000: fig. 45. 78 As at Nerezi: see Sinkević 2000: figs 46, 48. 79 As at the entombment in the burial chamber at Chrysostomos (early twelfth century), Ševčenko 2011: pl. 15.3. 80 As at Kurbinovo in the 1190s: see Hadermann-Misguich 1975: pl. 72. 81 As at the Anargyroi, Kastoria: see Ševčenko 2011: pl. 15.7. 82 As at St Clement Ochrid in the 1290s: see Hamann-MacLean and Hallensleben 1963: Bildband, pl. 168. 83 Maguire 2012. 84 Maguire 1977 sees four stages of the introduction of emotion: (1) the introduction of deposition and entombment scenes from the tenth century, (2) the addition of extra mourners in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, (3) the more emphatic facial expressions of the twelfth century, and (4) the introduction of violent gestures into scenes of Christ’s Passion in the thirteenth century. Robert Ousterhout in

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the premier example of brother–brother lament available to the Byzantines is seen at the Crucifixion: ‘Son, behold your mother; mother, behold your son.’ It may be seen on an icon in Athens dated to the thirteenth century,85 but already in the early eleventh some representations of the Crucifixion including Hosios Loukas show St John manifesting the ‘standing gesture of sorrow’ (the toothache gesture) of Maguire’s analysis.86 Not all do: Daphni, for example, has the Virgin weeping and veiling with a handkerchief, but John calmly addressing the viewer; more crowded scenes of the Crucifixion like Nea Mone cram in more and more women instead of allowing John to mourn.87 The crucial point is that it is unreasonable to believe that Theophylact had not seen images of John weeping at the foot of the cross. The proposal of Horst Hallensleben and Richard HamannMacLean is that a Passion cycle of Entry, Lazaros, Crucifixion and one other (Deposition, Entombment or Myrophores) was to be found in the central west bay between the dome and the Koimesis on the west wall of Theophylact’s cathedral church, visible as he preached or officiated.88 And it is not only the icons on the wall that give precedent for male lament; liturgy itself does, and is in Byzantium necessarily performed by men. The epitaphios thrēnos of Holy Saturday orthros, with its burial procession and embroidered textile dating from the fourteenth century, is a development of a twelfth-century kanon devoted to the Virgin’s lament in Good Friday compline, itself a development of daily compline with its supplicatory compline and Friday compline with its kanon paraklētikos addressed to the Virgin, at a time when

(footnote 84 continued) Ousterhout 2013 sees two stages: the thrēnos iconography developing into participatory mode at Nerezi, and full theatrical mode at the Peribleptos Ochrid. Nancy Ševčenko in Ševčenko 2011 painstakingly reconstructs a subtler development in both liturgy and images. She connects the move from canons on the Virgin’s lament in Good Friday compline to the fourteenth-century full-blown congregational epitaphios thrēnos in Holy Saturday orthros with developments in art, from entaphiasmos to epitaphios thrēnos: the static Osios Loukas, through the static but emotional Koutsovendis entombment (labelled as entaphiasmos) and the Nerezi thrēnos with movement of the Virgin to the energetic tomb-ward movement of the Anargyroi at Kastoria and Kurbinovo. She sees a later stage as resulting from Manuel I’s welcome of the relic of the lithos and the entombment being seen as epitaphios thrēnos by around 1200, labelled as such in Patmos in the thirteenth century. 85 Drandaki, Papanikola-Bakirtze and Tourta 2013: 136 pl. 56, in which the Virgin stands ‘straight as a stele’, but St John demonstrates the ‘toothache gesture’. 86 For Hosios Loukas see Chatzidaki 1996: 32 fig. 19; Maguire 1977: 140–50. 87 See the Crucifixions at Daphni (Beckwith 1993: 254, fig. 219) and at Nea Mone (Mouriki 1985: ii. fig. 32, with detail in figs 33–41). 88 Hamann-MacLean and Hallensleben 1976: 226–7.

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monks commemorated the dead of their community. And earlier Virgin’s laments in Romanos or George of Nicomedia were, in the middle centuries of Byzantium, sung by male priests.89 Whoever was voiced here was voiced by a male hieromonk, possibly already by contemporaries of Theophylact.90 Fourth, we should note that the Christos Paschon, the Byzantine tragedy, contains not only seven Virgin’s laments but also a short St  John’s lament.91 I belong to those who would like to see it  as a mid-twelfth-century piece,92 so I cannot use it to support Theophylact’s decision to write laments. But I can suggest that it is a  parallel literary response to the representation of St John at the foot of the cross in icons and wall-paintings. In the play St John is there to theologise and to ease the transition to the Deposition with Joseph of Arimathea and Nikodemos, but he first reacts to the death of Jesus: Δέσποινα πανκοίρανε, μῆτερ τοῦ Λόγου, αὐτὸς κἀγὼ τέθηπα, μὴ φέρων βλέπειν φρικτὸν θέαμα, Δεσπότην τεθνηκότα, ζωὴν τὸν ἐμπνέοντα τοῖς ζῶσι πνοῆ, στένω τε πυκνὰ καὶ χέω θερμὸν δάκρυ. Έλπὶς δ’ὅμως τρέφει με καὶ θρηνῶν φέρω· οὐ γὰρ ἀπιστῶ τοῖς λόγοις τοῦ Δεσπότου. Ἡ καλλιφεγγὴς ἡμέρα δὲ τριτάτη τὸ τέρμα δείξει τῆς τρεφούσης ἐλπίδος· ἣ μὴ παρέλθοι, καὶ θανεῖν με συμφέρει.93 Sovereign Lady, Mother of the Word, I also am amazed, and I cannot bear to look upon this terrible sight, my dead Lord, He who gave life to the living with his breath, I moan bitterly and shed warm tears.

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89 The fundamental article is Alexiou 1975. 90 Ware forthcoming; Ševčenko 2011: 147–262. 91 Christos Paschon, ed. Brambs 1885; ed. Tuilier 1969. It comprises 2,602 iambic lines on the subject of the Passion of Christ. The Virgin’s laments are at 130–352, 639–726, 932–1018, 1309–1465, 1818–31. It is a tissue of lines and half-lines from (in order) Medea, Hippolytus, Rhesus and Bacchae plus rather fewer from Hecuba, Orestes and Troades; there are some quotations from Prometheus Bound and the Agamemnon. For analysis of the laments, see Mullett forthcoming a. 92 Since Hunger 1968 the text has been re-dated to the twelfth century, but that dating and attribution, even after work in the 1960s by Hörandner, need to be defended. Authorship has been variously ascribed to Constantine Manasses, John Tzetzes and Theodore Prodromos. 93 Ed. Tuilier 1969: 206.

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But hope nurtures me and while lamenting I can bear it. I have faith in the words of the Lord. The brilliant light of the third day will show the end of the hope which maintains me. If this does not come to pass, I would wish to die.

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As in many laments, he cannot bear to look on the deceased; he contrasts the dead Lord with his life-giving activities; at 1002 comes the tearful vocabulary: στένω τε πυκνά καὶ χέω θερμόν δάκρυ, and at the end, after the theologically correct expression of hope in the Resurrection, he wishes he might die; all these are regular topoi of medieval lament. John’s lament is short but fully a lament. And fifth, it has just recently become possible to think of literati in the age of Theophylact writing pathos in a woman’s voice. Stratis Papaioannou has shown how Psellos negotiated gender, rhetoric and the passions in his own voice. Papaioannou shows how the hesitation to associate emotion with the author or speaker had many exceptions in rhetoric. In some kinds of writing, largely funerary rhetoric and letter-writing, pathos was called for, and there were important models like Gregory of Nazianzos’ funeral oration for his friend Basil the Great. And Psellos developed his use of pathos through protean use of gender, representing himself sometimes as male, sometimes as female, and then as mother, as seductress, as prostitute,94 just as Theophylact placed himself as Niobe and Daphne in lines 7 and 27 of his first poem. Theophylact was close to if not a pupil of Psellos95 and I suggest that he learned well. The school exercises ēthopoiia and prosopoiia provided training for men writing as women, a training which led to the kind of expertise96 which made writing for the heroines of the twelfth-century novels possible.97 The most popular of the collections 94 Papaioannou 2013: 192–231. 95 Theophylact nowhere says Psellos was his teacher, but in a letter asking Gregory Kamateros to give Psellos’ grandson a job, he stresses his eloquence, his charm and his influence on Theophylact; G27 to Gregory Kamateros, ed. Gautier 1986: 219–21. 96 Webb 2001: 289–316; Kraus 2007. 97 Interestingly, though heroines do weep in the twelfth-century novels, and though they insist that ‘floods of tears are fit for women’, so do men, in fact more so: in Theodore Prodromos’ Rhodanthe and Dosikles, for example, Dosikles (five times), Androkles, Kratandros, Stratokles and Straton. The most elaborate of the included laments are those of fathers: Androkles at 1.206, ed. Conca 1994: 74, rends his garments, cuts his hair, tears his cheeks, and laments 1.212–69, ed. Conca, 74–8 (in a reported lament for a real death), antiphony by Kratandros 277–310, ed. Conca, 78–80; at 9.210–15, ed. Conca, 288, Straton wails, groans and begins to weep (for a supposed death). Meg Alexiou reminds me of the self-parody of Hysminias as weeping hero in Hysmine and Hysminias, in which he is dumped out of the boat at the next landing place. For the redemptive role of tears see

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of progymnasmata, that of Aphthonios, gives as its example for the ēthopoiia ‘what words Niobe might say when her children lie dead’.98 Aphthonios’ Niobe addresses present then past then future: she regrets giving birth to children since now she only gives birth to tears; she traces her misfortune to her father Tantalus and her unfortunate exchange with Leto; now her lot is of weeping for each child and grieving at the loss of what was a source of pride. And then she asks where she can turn, what she can hold to, like Theophylact in his stanza 6, and finally decides to ask the gods to change her nature for another. Even then she fears that she will continue weeping even as a rock, just like Theophylact’s fear in his first stanza: λάαν ἃν πλάσῃ Θεός με τὸ πάθος πάλιν δακρύσω.

10

Even if God moulds me as a stone I shall weep for this suffering again.

10

Theophylact longs for tears, yet regrets the excessiveness of his and Niobe’s grief, while seeing it as unavoidable and insoluble: Πένθος ἁμῆς γενέθλης πῶς ποτε λήξει; Χεῦσιν ἐμῶν δακρύων τίς καταπαύσῃ;

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How will the mourning of our family ever end? Who will stop the flow of my tears?

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Theophylact speaks as Niobe, but he does not need a female persona  in which to lament or weep. He laments also as celebrant and rhetor – inescapably male personas in Byzantium – with the tears of emperors, holy men, King David, John the Evangelist, Joseph of Arimathea and the apostles at the Koimesis before him, and with the possibilities of rhetorical monody and funerary anacreontics available to him in which to express his grief. I end with a dictum of Kallistos Ware: ‘tears are complex and polyvalent, far more so than laughter’.99

Alexiou 2002a: 126 and Nilsson in this volume; for the amorous function of tears in the novel see Agapitos in this volume. 98 Aphthonios, 11. On Ethopoiia, ed. Rabe 1926: 34–6, trans. Kennedy 2003: 115–17. 99 Ware 2005.

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Anacreontic verses of Theophylact Hephaistos, who was archbishop of Bulgaria, on the death of his brother Demetrios: I long for an ocean of tears to weep for my brother, whom I had as a light shining before me on the road that was fated to darkness. I stumble along his dark road since he suffered extinction in death. The grief of Niobe which I feel utterly possesses my heart. Even if God moulds me as a stone I shall weep for this suffering again; time is no healer; mourning stays fresh and endures.

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Rivers, still the flow of your waters, Since you have received floods of tears. You were revealed as a treasury of virtues in these last days when Beliar the misleader’s power subdued everything; suddenly with his harsh sword death subdues you, the sword of foul-smelling consumption bringing violent fever that wasted my flesh that has drunk up my blood that sets my brain on fire that darkens my mind.

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And let my grief raise a thicket of oaks Whose acorns are drops of tears. What lamentation will satisfy me as I weep over your virtues? You were the doctor of poverty for mortals in deprivation, there is no way to measure your benevolence.

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O poverty in sackcloth, take sackcloth now And weep over him who provided the clothing. I yearn for your brevity of speech I bewail your decorum, I weep over your moderation of mind that you held towards the friends of God the indignation with which you rebuffed the overweening is what I mourn. You were a sea of love, you were seen to be a chain of friendship; the fear of God governed you but love lifted you up; who could bring to mind without tears all these good qualities? And, light of the sun, put on the night, As earth hides the brilliance of his virtues. Dogs now bark around me, the dogs you used to scare and drive off, for, alas, they have seen me deprived of my sturdy stick. Who will be found to drive them away for me when they attack me savagely? They are the unjust offspring of a just city. Who will bear the burden of the fisc Now you, alas for me, lie in the grave? Locusts and hailstones and grasshoppers Are little enough compared with the violence of the taxman. All you good of heart weep without ceasing Since this good heart has drawn to itself its fate. Who will lighten my cares, beloved brother, my heavy cares?

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Who will nurture in pleasant hopes the progeny of the family, now that the tomb has covered you, who were our nourisher in hope? Who will be our nephews’ inspiration in harmony, ensuring that they acquire wisdom entwined with the due ordering of virtues, accentuating life with reason, putting the stamp of reason on life?

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O wretched generation, how will you receive In your ears the bitterness of this news? You were beloved of the emperor who loves only the good For he does not love without judgement, He who judges evenly, ruling by the greatness of his thought over the race of mortals. All in the senate that is superior in dignities and stands close to the emperor, having won equivalent honours, looked to you as the bearer of virtue and glorified you as was fitting.

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You hear the moans, the lamentations Which arise from Euripos on account of you. Longing for your gravitas are the learned old men whom you had through the Holy Wisdom as most honoured colleagues. For you possessed with your even temper the indissoluble link of friendship. Who will deem worthy of hospitality the companions dear to God, opening his house freely to all of them? And who will offer so much honour towards the saints now you are dead? How will the mourning of our family ever end? Who will stop the flow of my tears?

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do brothers weep? 337 Iambic verses on the same subject: Who will humble the violent assault of the taxmen? Who will close the mouth of the frogs of the sekreton? Who will be a suitable friend to wise judges? Who will be respected by senators for the worthiness of his morals? To whom shall I blurt out the pain which torments me, 5 when I do not have you as doctor for my sufferings? To whom should I entrust my secret design since I no longer have you as steward to hold my projects? Who will reveal himself to me as a wise counsellor, talking to advantage, not to harm me, 10 speaking by the criterion of truth not in order to please, now you, alas, have met with the final silence? Often you used unassumingly to advise me in old age, deeply regretted brother of mine, seasoning your words with the salt of respect, 15 you escaped the suspicion of being a wilful young man, you, a child like an elder, made me better, an elder like a child. But you, who live through a corpse, do not, by depriving me of the sight of you, totally abandon me, who am a corpse though living. But in that you were for me a brilliant tongue and mouth, 20 an effective hand, a firm basis for my feet, a mind for me, hearing, light, breath and heart, and every limb serviceable to use, at once argument, excitement, eagerness, dissolver of cares, dextrous handler of affairs, 25 so now also be all this to me from on high. Well do I know your confidence in the face of God Just as I know God’s presence in relation to you, a presence effected for you by purity. It is your brother’s mouth that speaks to you these words, 30 And though an ill-favoured favour upon your tomb Do you yourself, kindly judge, receive this.

19 LAMENTS BY NICETAS CHONIATES AND OTHERS FOR THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE IN 1204 Michael Angold I Perhaps Meg Alexiou has said all that needs to be said in her Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition1 about the famous lament for the fall of Constantinople, with which Nicetas Choniates concludes his narrative of the sack of the city by the Latins.2 Other treatments of this lament have had little to add.3 As one might expect from Nicetas Choniates, his lament is in literary terms a highly accomplished piece of writing interweaving a major theme – the parallel of the fall of Constantinople and the fall of Jerusalem – with a minor theme – the struggle of Hellenism against the forces of barbarism. He develops the latter more fully in his De Signis, as it is conventionally known, where he itemises the classical statuary destroyed by the crusaders.4 Normally, as Anthony Kaldellis has warned, it is a mistake to take anything that Nicetas Choniates writes at face value.5 However, the lament is not laughter in disguise. Choniates rebukes those who to the strains of the lyre make fun of Constantinople’s plight. In this case, he means exactly what he says, which may be the reason why there is so little to say about it. Choniates’ History contains another lament for the fall of Constantinople, which Nicetas Choniates purports to have extemporised as he passed through the gates of Constantinople into exile.6   1 Alexiou 1974: 86.   2 Nicetas Choniates 1975: 576–82.   3 E.g. Demoen 2001: 120–2; Simpson 2013: 287–8.   4 Nicetas Choniates 1975: 647–55. It is interesting that this is the only detailed consideration from the Byzantine side of the looting and destruction wrought by the crusaders in 1204. There is nothing similar on relics, which we know from western sources were of consuming interest to the Latins and looted on a massive scale.   5 Kaldellis 2009: 77–101.   6 Nicetas Choniates 1975: 591–2.

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He reproached the walls of Constantinople, which stood as tall as ever, for failing to protect the Byzantines. He beseeches the city to intercede with God for them, but the main theme is what is going to happen to them now that they have been torn away ‘like darling children from their adoring mother’. This lament is far more emotional and personal than his earlier and much more formal lament. It has more in common with the other laments for Constantinople penned by Nicetas Choniates and others, such as his brother Michael, in the funeral orations which they delivered in the aftermath of the fall. These are of great value for the way they bring out the emotional response of a group of highly educated members of the Byzantine elite to the fall of Constantinople. It is this emotional response on which I shall concentrate. There will be precious little laughter, but plenty of tears shed and not shed. It was felt that the inability to shed tears when overcome by sorrow added to the intensity of grief, for, as Michael Choniates explained, without tears there was no ‘easy release of the pain nurtured in the soul’.7 But first of all there is the question of whether works of rhetoric can serve as a guide to emotional states. Traditionally, rhetoric has given Byzantium a bad name.8 More specifically, funeral orations were dismissed as empty and dishonest emotionalism in an anonymous Byzantine tract entitled ‘Monody for Monodists’.9 Thanks to the palaeographic skills of Daniele Bianconi we know that the author of this piece was John Katrares, an obscure early fourteenth-century copyist from Thessalonica.10 Bianconi disposes of the possibility that he was simply copying an earlier text. The manuscript is not only an autograph, but also a working copy with many corrections and additions in Katrares’ hand with no attempt to incorporate these into the text. The reasons behind his denunciation of those delivering funeral speeches must first of all be sought in the rivalries there were among the literati of early fourteenth-century Thessalonica. Whether it had more general application is another matter. The charge brought by Katrares was that ‘threnodists’, as he calls them, used the funeral oration as a vehicle of false emotion. Recourse to heightened emotion put them on the same level as drunkards. However, I don’t think drunkenness so bad as your unrestrained and unbounded behaviour displayed when delivering funeral orations, for there is nowhere safe from your lamentations: not the   7 Michael Choniates 1879: i.359.5–6   8 Most famously, Jenkins 1963: 46.  9 Sideras 2002. 10 Bianconi 2006: 69–91. I have to thank Professor Niels Gaul for this reference.

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market places, the meeting halls, nor colonnaded mansions, not just by day but even at night.11 They contended among themselves to give reality to the sorrows of Niobe. To which the author’s retort was ‘Better you were turned to stone! It would at least mean that you stopped delivering funeral orations!’12 The author had in mind rivals who made a living out of delivering funeral orations. He thought that they had no sense of the appropriate. They did not understand the restraints needed for the effective expression of emotion. The author seems to be idealising a past, when funeral orations were the work not of hired hacks, but of men of learning, who were friends or close relatives of the deceased. This would have been a view favoured by the accidents of survival, which ensured that a much higher proportion of funeral orations of exactly this kind were available to later generations.13 Included among these were Nicetas Choniates’ monody for his brothers-in-law Michael and John Belissariotes, Michael Choniates’ monody for his brother Nicetas, and Nicholas Mesarites’ epitaphios for his brother John. The emotions revealed strike me as perfectly genuine and all the more powerful for the constraints that respect for the rules of rhetoric imposed. Their grief for the deceased relatives had an extra dimension, in the shape of the disaster which they had all lived through. The expression of their sorrows over the departed merged with despair over the fall of Constantinople. As in almost all societies, so at Byzantium the expression of emotion was laudable, as long as it conformed to a code of behaviour. The charge made against ‘threnodists’ by John Katrares was that their behaviour was inappropriate. He accused them of being like women who sit beside corpses and, in the words of Euripides, ‘heap tear upon tear’.14 They were like actors or loose women who are paid to mourn the dead. Katrares was not condemning an appeal to the emotions, but making the point that to be effective these needed to be under control. As Meg Alexiou has underlined, this had normally meant making sure that at funerals and commemorations women were kept in their place, separate from the men.15 A chance conversation that Michael Psellos had with one of his relatives at the time of his sister’s death makes it clear that it was the father who would lead the lamentations for a daughter, not the mother, who might be inconsol11 Sideras 2002: 58.122–4. 12 Sideras 2002: 52.55–7. 13 Sideras 1994. 14 Sideras 2002: 56.96–9. 15 Alexiou 1974: 28–9, 42–3, 47.

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able but was expected to remain silent.16 The funeral orations were intended to put a masculine stamp on proceedings. That in other circumstances women might join in the process of lamentation is apparent from an episode recounted by Nicetas Choniates in his History. As Andronikos I Komnenos was being brought back to Constantinople to face execution, he began singing a lament contrasting his high birth and past good fortune with the fate that awaited him. The women with him improvised responses to his lamentations that were even more pitiful.17 This is something quite different from the formality of an epitaphios or a monody, where women’s voices were absent. II My starting point will be the monody which Nicetas Choniates composed after the fall of Constantinople for the deaths in quick succession of his brothers-in-law John and Michael Belissariotes.18 His grief was so overwhelming that he found it impossible to cry. He too used the image of Niobe, ‘who was not able to cry like a human, but as a stone was able to endure unbearable suffering’.19 He complained that he suffered even more: ‘I have the worst of both worlds. Having acquired a stone-like inability to cry I have lost the ability to suffer unflinchingly.’20 This was the result of the magnitude of interwoven disasters that he had experienced, culminating in the deaths of his brothers-inlaw, who were among ‘the brightest and the best’.21 Why was humiliation and misfortune saved up for a generation like theirs, which embodied all that was best in the Byzantine ideal? In other words, permeating Nicetas Choniates’ grief for the deaths of his brothersin-law was a need to understand the catastrophe that had overtaken Byzantium. It was slightly more than this. There were many who blamed Nicetas Choniates and his like for the fall of Constantinople. He was at pains to counter such accusations. He traced the immediate failure of the Byzantine government to the decision taken by the emperor to dismiss John and Michael Belissariotes from office. It was Choniates’ opinion that as long as they carried out the public administration, society shared in the general prosperity. With the departure of the Belissariotes brothers from office, to quote Nicetas Choniates, ‘the fortunate state of affairs disappeared, u ­ nleashing life-destroying 16 Criscuolo 1989: §15, 115.877–80; Kaldellis 2006: 76. 17 Nicetas Choniates 1975: 348.77–86. 18 Nicetas Choniates 1972: no. 15.147–69. 19 Nicetas Choniates 1972: 148.15–17. 20 Nicetas Choniates 1972: 148.21–3. 21 Nicetas Choniates 1972, 149.11.

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forces’.22 Not everybody will agree with Choniates’ viewpoint, but it coloured his reaction to the fall of Constantinople. It was the venality, ambition and sheer stupidity of others which delivered Constantinople to the Latins. As a result ‘the Queen of Cities, renowned among cities, became a military camp for an obscure and motley band of foreigners’.23 This was cause for tears at the shame of being humiliated by people who had swooped down on Constantinople, destroying with fire its ‘beautiful arcades and glittering halls’ and accumulating ‘piles of all sorts of money’.24 This was of superficial importance compared with their deliberate attempt to humiliate the most prosperous of citizens.25 What really hurt was the disrespect shown to the Byzantine way of life, as exemplified by its leading lights, such as Nicetas Choniates and his circle. As a way of expounding the Byzantine predicament Nicetas turned to the fall of Troy. He uses Hector’s words ‘Now is steep Ilios wholly plunged into ruins’ (Iliad 13.772–3)26 to express his bitter grief over the fall of Constantinople. He also remembered ‘how bitterly Hector complained and how grief-stricken he was when he saw overcome in battle by the Achaeans his warrior commanders, men who were the best when it came to fighting and displayed their skill in defending the walls and moat of Ilios’, and were judged by men of discernment as ‘more able than any others for their powers of administration’,27 in other words people like Nicetas himself. There is nothing quite so humiliating as being bested by those c­onsidered your inferiors. To express the depths of grief he felt for the deaths of his brothers-in-law he offered the prayer from Euripides’ tragedy of Hecuba, ‘“Would that my arms, hands, hair and feet had voices”, so that all touched by common sufferings might produce in harmony a lamentation.’28 He chose this prayer deliberately because of the similarity of circumstances that united Trojan and Byzantine. The parallel with Troy might have been apposite, but it was depressing, because Troy never recovered from the sack. It left Nicetas with the painful question of, as he put it, ‘How do we face up to our expulsion from our homeland, which will not easily be reversed?’29 Exile eventually brought Nicetas, with only one brother-in-law, John 22 Nicetas Choniates 1972: 159.16–24. 23 Nicetas Choniates 1972: 160.14–16. 24 Nicetas Choniates 1972: 150.1–4. 25 Nicetas Choniates 1972: 150.5–7. 26 Nicetas Choniates 1972: 149.26–8. 27 Nicetas Choniates 1972: 150.7–15. 28 Nicetas Choniates 1972: 164.17–19. 29 Nicetas Choniates 1972: 148.32–3.

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Belissariotes, as companion, to Nicaea; the other, Michael, having died along the way. It would have been better, Nicetas complained, if they had never seen Nicaea. Its citizens were inhospitable and took pleasure in their plight. The only consolation that Nicetas drew from John’s sudden death not long after they reached Nicaea was that he thus ‘avoided being numbered among the men of the present, who are deceitful’. Nicetas was referring to men of the fifth age, Hesiod’s age of iron.30 He was looking back to their days in Constantinople as, if not a Golden Age, then at least a Silver Age, where men of quality were appreciated: ‘It is now a generation of iron and I know that to men of iron all the benefits flow, while intellectual pursuits are without good reason disregarded.’31 These were the men accused by Nicetas Choniates, in the lament contained in his History, of celebrating to the music of the lyre the misfortunes of Constantinople, by making a comedy out of its tragedy and fun of its afflictions. Nicetas Choniates insisted that John Belissariotes’ early death meant that his end was more fortunate and much more honourable than if he had lingered on. He did not die as a worthless peasant or a despised immigrant, which Nicetas thought was his lot.32 It left the historian disoriented. He now felt a burning sensation like that fire which rained down indiscriminately and devoured our houses with the flames leaping to the tops of those lofty, gilded, three-storied mansion . . . Now have I truly experienced the meaning of pillaging and plundering and the bitterness of being led away into captivity; now I am an object sold as booty; now I am plundered and pillaged.33 Grief over his brother-in-law’s death revived the horrors of the sack of Constantinople and led to a proper appreciation of what had happened. It is the best example of the way Nicetas conflated personal loss with the fall of the city. Nicetas Choniates is able to use his monody for his brother-in-law as an outlet for the emotions triggered by the fall of Constantinople. These were primarily those associated with humiliation and loss of status. He had seen a noble ideal, which people like him embodied and orchestrated, overthrown by the sheer stupidity of members of the imperial family in collusion with the forces of barbarism. What Nicetas leaves unsaid is that he had been quite powerless to prevent 30 Nicetas Choniates 1972: 165–6. 31 Nicetas Choniates 1972: 166.4–5. 32 Nicetas Choniates 1972: 166.1–4. 33 Nicetas Choniates 1972: 166.25–31.

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this happening. His impotence was only underlined by his irrelevance to the new world which was taking shape. III Nicetas Choniates lingered on at Nicaea until 1217. His elder brother Michael, the archbishop of Athens, was shocked by the news of his death, which must have reached him several months later. His reaction was to compose a monody for the benefit of the many relatives and associates of Nicetas who had found refuge in Greece. Michael’s viewpoint on the politics of his times was rather different from his brother’s. Nicetas knew something of conditions in the provinces, because during his early career he had served as a fiscal official in Thrace and elsewhere, but latterly he had held high office in the central administration at Constantinople, culminating in the post of grand logothete, which effectively put him at the head of the administration. His brother Michael had gone as long ago as 1182 to Athens, as its archbishop. Thanks to his character and ability he was a success in the job.34 It helped to have powerful contacts inside the government at Constantinople. These included his brother Nicetas. But Michael became increasingly disillusioned with Constantinople and the imperial government. On the eve of the fall of Constantinople he found himself alone defending the city of Athens against a local tyrant, Leo Sgouras. Michael succeeded in driving him off. Compared with Michael’s own troubles the fall of Constantinople did not seem of immediate importance. In a letter which served as a monody for a nephew of his murdered by Sgouras, he contrasted the comparative restraint of the Latin conquerors with the barbarity of Leo Sgouras and his men. ‘Compared to him’, Michael Choniates observed, ‘even the Italians seem blameless. For the evils which they have caused seem less pernicious than those he perpetrated, with the result that the Romaioi find foreigners more civilised and on the whole more principled.’35 While Choniates had conducted a brave defence of Athens against Leo Sgouras, he surrendered the city without a fight to the Latins. He preferred, however, to go into exile rather than live under Latin rule. There were limits to his good opinion of the Latins. In exile he had time to ponder the real meaning of the fall of Constantinople, which he sets out in his monody for his brother.36 His description of the sack of the city is perfunctory: ‘The New Sion in the 34 Angold 1995: 198–212; Shawcross 2014: 65–95, esp. 78–89. 35 Michael Choniates 2001: 100.192–208. 36 Michael Choniates 1879: i. 345–66.

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same way as the Old was abandoned, taken, and plundered. It was emptied of its population, some of whom either by mischance or by the skin of their teeth emigrated to Nicaea in Bithynia.’37 There they now lived, but as suppliants. Michael Choniates was more sanguine than his brother. He thought that the exiles brought education and an example of good conduct which improved the morale of the weak and feeble. He believed that while his brother had his companions from Constantinople around him he did not think unduly about his expulsion from Constantinople. Echoing Thucydides’ Nicias (7.77), Michael Choniates insisted that it was not walls or tall houses and arcades and squares that made a city, but the good character, decorum and piety of its citizens.38 It meant that while Nicetas and his fellow exiles lived, ‘it was as though the acropolis of Constantine survived unconquered’,39 for they seemed the incarnation of all it stood for. As Michael Choniates said of John Belissariotes, they were ‘the embodiment of the best in our political system’.40 But after they had departed to what he calls ‘the senate in the sky,’41 people felt the true meaning of the loss of Constantinople. It was only then that their lamentations started, ‘realising that the city had been utterly overthrown and its most precious possession defiled and had suffered the complete exhaustion of its rich treasures’.42 The personal consequences could be even more painful. Michael Choniates thinks of his brother’s widow, who had ‘sought a dignified death in old age with him’, left instead ‘seated on the floor in some corner dressed in black amidst a swarm of young children and infants, bewailing her pitiful widowhood and her orphaned children’.43 Her older children had all gone their separate ways and ‘must lament and cry aloud all by themselves’.44 Michael Choniates was emphasising how family solidarity suffered as a result of the fall of Constantinople, a consequence of which was the dispersal of the Byzantine elite. Michael Choniates brings out more clearly than his brother had in his monody for John Belissariotes that the fall of Constantinople represented the destruction of an ideal, which was epitomised by its educated elite. Their very presence had kept its memory alive in exile. The archbishop makes no ringing declaration that their example will preserve the ideal; the unspoken assumption being that it has died 37 Michael Choniates 1879: i. 354.8–11. 38 Michael Choniates 1879: i. 354–5. 39 Michael Choniates 1879: i. 355.9–10. 40 Michael Choniates 1879: i. 356.8–9. 41 Michael Choniates 1879: i. 355.14. 42 Michael Choniates 1879: i. 355.20–3. 43 Michael Choniates 1879: i. 357.10–14. 44 Michael Choniates 1879: i. 357.15.

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with them. Michael Choniates regretted that ‘such a cornerstone of Christendom had been shattered’; that ‘such a network of charitable institutions had been overturned’.45 The imperial office, as such, is not mentioned. He conceded that the principles underlying Byzantium’s political system were something to be proud of.46 But, even if he refrains from blaming the imperial family directly, as his brother did in his History, he concedes that constant changes of ruler had deprived the emperor of authority.47 The Byzantine ruling class had brought their tragedy upon themselves. Its members deserved what they got. However, Michael Choniates managed to rescue something from the humiliation of the fall of Constantinople. It gave his brother an opportunity to show his true mettle. He embroiders an episode mentioned almost in passing in his brother’s History, where Nicetas Choniates explains in a few lines how he rescued a young girl from the clutches of a licentious Latin by enlisting the aid of other westerners, and how he returned the girl safe and sound to her father. In the monody Michael Choniates goes on for nearly three pages about the bravery of his brother in facing up single-handed to the ravening Latin, without ever mentioning the support Nicetas had from other Latins.48 It was undoubtedly an act of great bravery on Nicetas’ part, but, as presented by his brother, it was also proof that he was not tainted by the moral degeneracy of the Byzantine ruling class, which had delivered Constantinople to their enemies. IV A similar point was made in the monody delivered by Euthymios Tornikes over the tomb of his uncle, the long-serving archbishop of New Patras, Euthymios Malakes.49 He was unable to stop weeping, though he did not know whether it was out of grief for the fall of Constantinople or for the death of the archbishop, which occurred in quick succession. The first came about as punishment for the sins of its people, whereas the archbishop was full of virtue and free of sin.50 Euthymios Malakes was one of Michael Choniates’ allies and mentors.51 He was very much a political bishop. He was archbishop of New Patras for nearly forty years. His see in central Greece 45 Michael Choniates 1879: i. 355.24–6. 46 Michael Choniates 1879: i. 354.25–6. 47 Michael Choniates 1879: i. 352.17–18. 48 Michael Choniates 1879: i. 360–4. 49 Darrouzès 1968: 76–89. See Darrouzès 1965: 149–55; Kolovou 1995: 53–74. 50 Darrouzès 1968: 76.6–8. 51 Angold 1995: 201–3.

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was relatively poor and obscure and he spent much of his time in Constantinople, where he was in demand as an encomiast.52 His was a powerful voice in the patriarchal synod and he played an important role as an intermediary between Constantinople and Greece. The last we know of him comes from a letter he received from Michael Choniates regretting that his return to Greece from Constantinople had been put off yet again. The contrast that the latter draws between the former’s comfortable life in Constantinople and his own precarious position in Greece suggests a date shortly before the arrival of the crusaders under the walls of Constantinople in August 1203.53 At some point Malakes abandoned Constantinople and made his way back to Greece. He was buried at Chalkis in Euboea, which was on his route back to his see. It is most probable that he left Constantinople before its final fall to the Latins in April 1204, because he was part of a wave of refugees which left before Euthymios Tornikes, who lived through the sack of Constantinople and was captured by the Latins. Tornikes arrived in Chalkis to find Malakes dead, but he derived consolation from the latter’s tomb.54 It was compensation for the destruction during the sack of the city of one of his most treasured possessions: Malakes’ Book of Wisdom.55 Its lessons would have provided him with much-needed guidance through the difficulties he faced. The book does not survive among Malakes’ works. It is likely to have been a florilegium with a strong moral content, because Euthymios Tornikes insists that Malakes had foreseen the cosmic cataclysm that overtook Byzantium, ‘which the waft of our sins set in motion’.56 Like many others over the centuries Malakes will have been critical of the moral degeneracy he saw all around him. The Old Testament roots of Byzantium ensured that there were always prophets crying in the wilderness.57 When disaster finally struck, this was thought to absolve such men of any responsibility for the outcome. V Euthymios Tornikes’ monody is a work of modest proportions, unlike the epitaphios which Nicholas Mesarites delivered over his brother John’s grave on 16 March 1207.58 It is far more ­substantial 52 See Darrouzès 1965: 155–63; Magdalino 1993: 462–9; Stone 2010: 55–65. 53 Michael Choniates 2001: no. 79.105. 54 Darrouzès 1968: 80.28–30. 55 Darrouzès 1968: 79–80. 56 Darrouzès 1968: 76.11–12. 57 Magdalino and Nelson 2010b: esp. 72–6. 58 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: no. II/I.

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than any of the funeral orations discussed so far. But there are similarities in the way that Tornikes and Mesarites present their subjects. Both were holy men who predicted the catastrophe which awaited Byzantium because of its sins. Commemorating them became all the more urgent because of the destruction during the sack of Constantinople of their major works, which were their most appropriate memorial: Malakes’ Book of Wisdom and John Mesarites’ Commentary on the Psalms. Malakes was a political bishop, whom it was difficult to turn into a hero around whose memory the defeated and confused Byzantines could regroup and recover a sense of pride and purpose. By way of contrast, John Mesarites was a hesychast, who defied the Latins to do their worst. There can be little doubt that his brother was deliberately casting him as a hero of Orthodoxy, whence the long physical descriptions. As if to emphasise his brother’s moral integrity Nicholas dwells lovingly on John’s long, flowing beard.59 The Mesarites were a family of bureaucrats, but their fortunes had faded in the generation before 1204. The hopes of the family had rested on John, who at an early age had been appointed didaskalos of the psalter.60 But he was also unfortunate enough to have been adopted as a confidant by the emperor Andronikos Comnenus.61 After the latter’s downfall John was a hunted man and found refuge in the life of a hesychast.62 His reputation as an ascetic allowed his rehabilitation and he became Alexius III Angelos’ confessor, with honoured access to the imperial court. He was able to devote himself to his compilation of a commentary on the Psalms. The anticipated rewards from the emperor failed to materialise, because of the arrival of the fourth crusade under the walls of Constantinople. John had foreseen such a possibility, for he had been vouchsafed a vision in which he seemed to see a ship coming from the west and bringing fire across the seas. It contrived to fly through the air and land in the middle of Byzantium. All around it became fuel for the fire until the city was burnt to the ground and turned to ashes. Coming to his senses, he asked himself, ‘Can Byzantium expect such a calamity to arrive from the west?’63 Three days later he had his answer, when a messenger reported seeing the sea covered in trees just like the 59 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 39.4–12. 60 Browning 1963: 11–12. 61 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 33.9–12. 62 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 33–4. 63 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 41.18–25.

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land.64 After recounting his brother’s vision, which seemed to be an accurate prediction of what was to come, Nicholas Mesarites turned to his audience and asked its members whether or not his brother was chosen by God. He anticipated an affirmative answer.65 This incident is the hinge on which Nicholas Mesarites’ presentation of his brother’s mission turns. All his past life, his education, his feats of asceticism were preparation for his God-given role as a champion of Orthodoxy at a critical moment in Byzantine history. The gift of foresight allowed him to apportion blame for the catastrophe which Byzantium suffered. When we put to one side our Lord’s commands, we find our lives have no purpose. Should an emperor, who is only mortal, disregard and set aside His orders, will He who was before all eternity never bend his bow and unleash his destructive arrows, however loving of mankind He is?66 This is the only instance I have found in the funeral orations delivered in the aftermath of the fall of Constantinople where the emperor is explicitly blamed for the disaster that overcame the city. On the other hand, it is not absolutely clear whether Nicholas Mesarites was blaming a succession of emperors from the house of Angelos – that monstrous trinity, as he describes them elsewhere67 – or whether he had only the last of them in mind: the young Alexios Angelos, who had seized the throne with crusader support. John Mesarites was not blaming the emperor alone for the Byzantine failure. His criticism extended to the whole of Byzantine society. He compared the Byzantines to Jeremiah’s ‘precious sons of Zion’, who abominated righteousness and, as it were, cast lascivious glances at their neighbour’s wife and for the most part bore false witness.68 The Byzantines were guilty of all sorts of other offences ‘which are irreconcilable with and alien to Christian teaching’.69 Only when they were properly contrite and had abandoned their sinful ways would the Byzantines recover their own Zion. John Mesarites urged his fellow citizens ‘with tears running down their faces to beseech the mercy of Him who cares for us, lest we are weighed down with the heavy and bitter yoke of servitude’.70 64 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 41.25–8. 65 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 42.6–8. 66 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 43.21–4. 67 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 25.1–2. 68 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 43–4. 69 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 44.1–2. 70 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 43.26–7.

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A taste of what this would mean was all too apparent as the Latins rampaged through the conquered city. Incidentally, Nicholas Mesarites provides perhaps the most graphic depiction of the horrors of the sack of Constantinople, which he had lived through.71 He found refuge in the Great Palace of the Emperors,72 while his brother John abandoned his cell for what he had hoped would be the greater safety of the monastery of St George of the Mangana.73 It was not long, however, before the crusaders broke into the monastery, where they manhandled the monks, including John, in their eagerness to loot the monastery’s treasures. When he was questioned this was the answer he gave: Naked came I out of my mother’s womb. Therefore am I as bereft of fear as I am of possessions, so that I have absolutely no fear of robbery nor do I tremble in the face of this turn of events; I am not perturbed in the slightest nor do I go in fear. I have embraced divine love; I reject love of worldly delights, as a burden to be shaken off.74 His stance so impressed the conquerors that one of them got up and offered John Mesarites his seat. They talked through an interpreter. The crusader exclaimed at the end, ‘if the people of Byzantium had had such a man as their leader, we might have submitted and taken an oath of fealty’:75 the moral of the story being that even the enemy recognised true nobility, which the fall of Constantinople could not extinguish. This incident formed a prelude to the climax of Nicholas Mesarites’ epitaphios, which is provided by the debates between religious leaders on both sides over the differences separating the two churches. The drama is increased since the debates are set out in dialogue form. John Mesarites not only drafted the Byzantine replies but also assumed the role of chief spokesman. He was being cast in a heroic role. The Byzantines might well only have themselves to blame for their plight because of their sinful way of life, but this had not discredited their form of Christianity. On the contrary, it was the only thing left for them to cling to; the only thing which offered them any hope of reconciliation with God. To the charge that the Greeks were contumacious and refractory John Mesarites pointed out that they could all have left 71 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 46–7. 72 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 46.1–2. 73 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 45.31–2. 74 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 47.20–5. 75 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 48.14–16.

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laments by nicetas choniates and others 351 Constantinople and sought refuge in various centres of resistance that were growing up to Latin rule: However, we have not done so, making the correct estimation, as we see it, that it is pleasing to God that we do not flee from you, [because] you have been sent by God to chastise and discipline us. [Rather do we prefer] to submit to the painful things that He has inflicted upon us for our sins, but certainly not for our lack of faith. It is for this reason that we every day endure a myriad of evils suffered at the hands of your people and rejoice in Holy God, who has thus seen fit to wipe away our sins, [even though] we lack [our] daily sustenance. We may have been deprived of all possessions, but we still have one source of wealth – our hallowed and orthodox faith, which you cannot take from us, however much pain you contrive to inflict upon us. While we breathe, we shall never appear as traitors to our hallowed faith. It will not happen, even with the threat of death [hanging] over us.76 VI Everything else seemed to have been taken away. Having failed in its duty to unify and protect Byzantine society in the face of the enemy, the imperial office had passed into the possession of foreign conquerors. The learned elite which had run the official organs of government was now scattered among different provincial cities, where its members learnt just how unpopular they were. The lamentations we have considered were lamentations for their plight. But it was more than this: it was a recognition that the imperial ideal which validated their privileged existence was in danger of extinction. Orthodoxy was all that was left to cling to. The tears that were shed were for themselves and for the passing of an ideal. They were tears of helplessness and hopelessness, but also tears of contrition. It was part of a process of rehabilitation, at the centre of which was their Orthodox faith. That grasped, there was little need for tears, which are notably absent from John Mesarites’ confrontation with the Latins, as they are from one final lament. This was a piece by the exiled patriarch John X Kamateros, entitled ‘On the harm done to us by the Latins’.77 It begins with a lament for his fate, condemned to be a wanderer ‘without city or see’,78 and a lament for the sack of Constantinople by the Latins: 76 Nicholas Mesarites 1973: 62.19–32. 77 Archimandrite Arsenii 1892: 84–112. 78 Archimandrite Arsenii 1892: 84.10–12.

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What terrible and shameful acts have they not committed! They have dishonoured the dwellings of God; they have turned churches into stables and the most fragrant into dunghills. They have trampled under foot the most sacred of holy icons and have profaned altars by slaughtering pigs and sheep, where once was the blood of the ineffable sacrifice. They have desecrated the tombs of the saints and of ordinary believers.79 The patriarch concedes that to an extent the Byzantines had only themselves to blame for what had happened. They were guilty of the sin – if sin it is – of negligence, which had allowed the Latins to triumph, but in their triumph the Latins were guilty of much more serious crimes, for which they had been and were being punished. The patriarch reminded them that not so long ago you were driven from Jerusalem by the Arab. Does that mean that the Arabs are stronger in their faith than your church and its leader? So too were you overcome and slaughtered by the Scythian and the Bulgarian. Does that mean that they are more holy than you?80 The Latins were coming to a bad end as punishment for impiety against God, displayed in their failure to defend Jerusalem and in their sack of Constantinople. They had no idea how to honour God, so unlike the Byzantines, who now chose to go hungry and unclad rather than fail to celebrate the liturgy in appropriate fashion.81 The fall of Constantinople had tested the Byzantines and they had not been found wanting. The patriarch himself had gone through fire and water and expected that in due course it would earn him ‘heavenly repose’, for ‘I have preserved within me the grain of faith inviolate, which deserves its heavenly resting place.’82 He might have allowed himself a tear or two of joy.

79 Archimandrite Arsenii 1892: 84.22–85.8. 80 Archimandrite Arsenii 1892: 90.10–20. 81 Archimandrite Arsenii 1892: 95.10–14. 82 Archimandrite Arsenii 1892: 93.7–9.

20 ‘WORDS FILLED WITH TEARS’: AMOROUS DISCOURSE AS LAMENTATION IN THE PALAIOLOGAN ROMANCES Panagiotis Agapitos The combination of love and suffering is one of the oldest emotional conventions of erotic literature, since the ‘mental disturbance’ created by desire was viewed as a pathological sickness that acquired a personal as well as a social character.1 One might refer to such different examples as the portrayal of Deianeira in Sophocles’ Trachinian Women, the Bride in the Song of Songs or Dido in Vergil’s Aeneid. This disturbance is often expressed through the form of a sorrowful discourse, be it the complaint of the lover at the closed door of the beloved (the Hellenistic and Roman paraklausithyron),2 or the gloomy visions of unrequited or betrayed love, as in the case of Phyllis and Phaedra in Ovid’s Heroides (2 and 4). Assisted by school rhetoric, the Greek novels cunningly explored this sorrowful discourse. One telling example is the nocturnal monologue of Charikleia in Heliodorus’ Aethiopian Tale.3 The desperate heroine addresses to herself a ‘ritual lament’ (thrēnos) formed as a ‘character speech of an indefinite person’ (ēthopoiia)4 and placed in a theatrical setting – a discursive and generic mixture of great emotional power that explicitly impressed Michael Psellos in the eleventh century.5 For Charikleia’s threnodic soliloquy Heliodorus employed images and vocabulary from the laments in the Iliad and from tragic modelspeeches of Attic drama, as they were taught in the schools of Roman  1 For ancient Greek literature see, indicatively, Carson 1986; Thornton 1997; Calame 1999; for the Italian and Greek Renaissance see Peri 1996.   2 See Gärtner 2000.  3 Heliod. 6.8.3–9.1 (Rattenbury and Lumb 1937: 96–8); English translation in Morgan 1989: 479–80.   4 So the definition in the progymnasmatic collection of Pseudo-Hermogenes (Prog. 9; Rabe 1913: 20.19–20, with English translation in Kennedy 2003: 81).   5 For the text with an English translation see Dyck 1986: 90–9. For the essay in general see Agapitos 1998b: 132–7; Roilos 2005: 44–5.

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imperial times and, thus, immediately recognisable to the readers of the novel. An essential communicative element of erotic discourse is persuasion, since the lover needs to persuade the beloved to yield to his or her desire. For example, persuasion is a dominating feature of Ovid’s rhetoric in the individual epistles of the Heroides. The emergence of book-length erotic narratives in which love is represented in action, such as the novel, led to the formation of a typology of discourses among which the speeches of amorous persuasion and resistance play an important part, as, for example, in Achilles Tatius’ Leukippe and Kleitophon, where the Ephesian ‘widow’ Melite tries to persuade Kleitophon to sleep with her and he resists.6 Here the speeches are formed as erotic parodies of judicial declamations confirming or refuting a legal case, a type of rhetorical exercise taught systematically in school, thus also recognisable to the readers of Tatius.7 When the writing of novels re-emerged in Byzantium during the second quarter of the twelfth century,8 the Greek novel had been more or less redefined by Photios and Psellos as a narrative and performative genre of rhetorical display.9 Mimesis of the ancient novels was a major component of their Byzantine counterparts, because, within Constantinople’s competitive literary environment, writers in search of patronage and advancement had to present their art to a limited but highly learned aristocratic audience through a complex intratextual discourse.10 Within this context, the dramatic (qua performative) element of novelistic discourse grew to immense proportions.11 As a result, laments and lament-like monologues figure prominently in all kinds of narrative situations within the plot of the Komnenian novels, because lamentation was considered to be a prominent element of ‘tragic drama’.12 Amorous sensitivity is expressed through the use of ‘encased’ erotic subgenres, such as the sorrowful soliloquy, the amatory letter and the erotic song. One such extended and complex sequence is found in Niketas Eugenianos’ Drosilla and Charikles, written in c. 1140–5.13 Kleandros, the supporting male character,   6 Ach. Tat. 5.15–16 (Vilborg 1955: 98–100); English translation in Winkler 1989: 240–1.  7 See, for example, the relevant sections ‘On refutation and confirmation’ in Pseudo-Hermogenes (Prog. 5; Rabe 1913: 11) and Aphthonios (Prog. 5–6; Rabe 1926: 10–16); English translations in Kennedy 2003: 79, 101–5 respectively.   8 For this date see Agapitos 2000, along with the objections of Cupane 2000.   9 See Agapitos 1998b: 128–39. 10 See Mullett 1984; Agapitos 2012: 279–84. 11 See Agapitos 1998b: 144–56; Nilsson 2001: 224–7; Roilos 2005: 61–79. 12 Agapitos 1991: 209–12; 1998b: 140–4. 13 Nik. Eug. D&C 2.57–385 (Conca 1990: 55–73); English translations by Burton 2004: 25–41 and Jeffreys 2012: 363–73.

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having been struck by the ‘disease’ (nosos) of Eros, delivers to himself a lament-like erotic soliloquy, and then addresses to his beloved Kalligone four amorous letters of persuasion and sorrow, and a strophic paraklausithyron with refrain. All six poems are clearly marked as to their generic identity. Kleandros speaks through a didactic, amorously moralising discourse looking back to Theocritus, the Greek Anthology and the Anacreontea, as these were read since the ninth century.14 However, the emotions expressed are static and – so to speak – frontally displayed. We should not be too quick to criticise this rhetorical approach to composition based on intertextual authorisation and learned didacticism. Eugenianos was not alone in employing this technique within an erotic narrative. We find the same approach used by French writers, such as the anonymous poet of the Aeneas Romance from the middle of the twelfth century,15 where Lavinia delivers a complex lamentlike erotic soliloquy (Enéas 8141–388), closely modelled on Ovid’s Deianeira and Medea in the Heroides and on Seneca’s Phaedra, which were major school texts in the Latin west. The young heroine’s conflicting emotions for Aeneas are displayed in argumentative s­ elf-dialogue and introverted self-examination, discursive devices prominently found in Ovid and Seneca, thus being a case of intertextual authorisation similar to the practice of the Komnenian novels. We also find this approach among Persian writers, such as Fakhruddin Gurgani, who wrote his famous verse romance Vis and Ramin in the eleventh century.16 There, Prince Ramin, while falling in love with his cousin Vis, delivers to himself an erotic lament-like soliloquy (V&R §32) using handbook medical terminology and Persian love poetry of the late tenth and early eleventh century as his authorising intertexts. It is therefore important to understand that mimesis as dynamic intertextuality within a coded discourse of authority is a general characteristic of narrative composition in medieval times.17 Older scholarship easily pointed to the Greek novels as the actual ‘models’ of the Komnenian ‘descendants’ within a process of failed imitation and, thus, criticised Byzantine writers as unoriginal, though originality in our modern sense of the term was completely unknown, not to say incomprehensible for most pre-modern literary cultures.18 14 See Burton 2003. 15 Most recent critical edition with French translation by Petit 1997. 16 See the exact prose translation by Morrison 1972, but also the poetically inspired rendering by Davis 2008. 17 See Agapitos 2012: 276–96. 18 See Littlewood 1995 for a number of essays on various aspects of ‘originality’ in Byzantine culture.

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Imitation also played a major role in evaluating the production of erotic verse narratives in the vernacular idiom, a group of eight texts conventionally called the Palaiologan love romances.19 Here, however, imitation took on a different form, since these romances appeared to nineteenth-century scholars either as direct translations of Old French romances or as patchworks generally made up of themes and motifs from chivalric romance – whatever this modern generic term might have meant.20 The vernacular idiom of the Palaiologan romances (as contrasted with the learned idiom of the Komnenian novels) led to the belief that these fresh-looking narratives were popular literature governed primarily by oral composition. Scholarship of the past forty years has changed this particular image to a substantial extent.21 Nonetheless, the presence within the romances of various types of encased songs that appear to have strong similarities to Modern Greek folksongs is viewed as a clear indicator  of the broader folkloric and neo-Hellenic character of these texts.22 In fact, the largest presence of such encased poems is to be found in The Tale of Livistros and Rodamne (Ἀφήγησις Λιβίστρου καὶ Ροδάμνης). With its 4,650 verses, L&R is the longest among the surviving love romances.23 It was most probably composed around the middle of the thirteenth century at the Laskarid court of Nicaea.24 The romance displays an extremely strong performative character. We 19 For a good overview see Cupane 2004; for some interpretative approaches with substantial bibliography see Agapitos 2004; 2006b; 2012; Cupane 2013. 20 See Bruckner 2000 on problems of categorisation and generalisation for the western romances. 21 See Cupane 2003; Agapitos 2004: 7–16 with further bibliography. 22 See, for example, the statements of Politis 1973: 30–1, with reference to an ‘advance of modern Greek feeling’ concerning especially the encased songs. 23 For a critical edition of redaction alpha – the romance’s oldest ­surviving text – see Agapitos 2006a; it is this text that is used here. For all other redactions, versions and fragments, see the introduction in Agapitos 2006a: 160–233. For a critical edition with commentary of the Vatican redaction (c. 1475–80) see Lendari 2007. The English translation of L&R by Betts 1995: 95–192, which is not based on any critical edition of the text, is in many points inexact or even outright erroneous. 24 For this date of L&R see Agapitos 1993: 130–1; 2006a: 50–5. Carolina Cupane has in a number of papers (most recently in Cupane 2013) expressed her disagreement with my proposal and believes that a date of c. 1300–40 is more probable. Lendari 2007: 65–71 believes that the romance was composed in Constantinople between the late thirteenth and the early fourteenth century. In my opinion, the arguments of both scholars are too hypothetical. The recent proposal of Jeffreys (2013a: 17–20; 2013b), that the anonymous War of Troy should be dated between 1267 and 1281 and that L&R imitated this Greek adaptation of Benoit de SaintMaure’s Roman de Troye (and therefore postdates the end of the thirteenth century), is not convincing on textual and historical grounds; see Agapitos 2012: 291–2 for a case where the Greek WoT clearly uses L&R.

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‘words filled with tears’ 357 find the continuous use of first-person narrative distributed among five different characters, an intricate ‘Chinese box’ narrative structure, a high incidence of letters and songs, as well as an impressive ­open-ended epilogue by the main narrator inviting any later readers to re-tell the story according to their taste. L&R emphatically adheres to major structural features and rhetorical typologies of the Komnenian novels, such as division into books; first-person narrative perspective; in medias res narrative structure; night-and-day narrative sequences; the presence of a leading and a supporting couple of lovers; extended dream sequences; artfully crafted descriptions; the rhetorical system of organising the discursive mode and the inclusion of amorous soliloquies, amorous letters and songs; the use of a different metre from that of the main narrative for encased songs; and finally, the use of a poetological metalanguage to describe the craft of writing and the art of the poet. At the same time, L&R presents us with a series of wholly new features, such as a contemporary aristocratic setting; a set of characters whose ethnic origins are Latin (i.e. French and Italian), Armenian and Saracen but not Byzantine; elements of ‘Latin’ chivalric practice (oath of vassalage, jousting, hawk hunting, dress); and the presence of allegorical characters and allegorical exegesis. This apparatus led previous scholars to believe that the romance was composed in a Latin-occupied territory of Greece, such as Crete, Rhodes or Cyprus. In many ways, L&R is a text whose hybridity has caused a sense of uneasiness concerning its form, content and language, as well as its textual transmission. Amorous discourse as lamentation forms a prominent element of the romance’s complex poetic style and is primarily to be found in the second ‘chapter’,25 where the leading couple exchange letters and songs, while they also examine their feelings in internal monologues. In contrast to the Komnenian novelists, Eugenianos in particular, the exchange of letters and songs in L&R ceases to present a static discourse of rhetorical display, because it becomes a dynamic discourse of ritual initiation, in which the hero and the heroine develop emotionally by learning the ‘art of love’ (L&R 1237 ἐρωτοτέχνη).26 It is important to note that the exchange of letters, whose texts are written by the leading couple’s own hands, presupposes a fully literate and, therefore, aristocratic Byzantine society. No such writing of letters is to be found in Old French and Middle High German romance, a fact 25 The romance was composed in four chapters (logoi in the original), as the surviving headings for two such chapters indicate; see Agapitos 1991: 269–71; 2006a: 110–31. 26 For a detailed analysis of this scene (L&R 1252–2291 and 4072–275) see Agapitos 1996.

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that reflects the different level of literacy among western aristocracy during the twelfth century.27 In his discourses of persuasion, Livistros uses images that we find in Modern Greek folksongs. For example, in his sixth letter to Rodamne (1716–39), the young king first introduces the image of death as a result of amorous despair and then expounds the notion of consolation in relation to amorous bitterness and sufferance. Directly following this letter is Livistros’ seventh letter (1742–65): Λέγουν εἰς πέτρα ἂν σταλαγμὸς συχνάσῃ νὰ σταλάζῃ, κἂν οἷος ἔνι ὁ σταλαγμὸς καὶ οἷον τὸ λιθάριν,

ἐκ τοῦ νεροῦ τὸν σταλαγμὸν τὸν ἔχει ἀπαραιτήτως· καὶ εἶχα τοῦτο φοβερὸν καὶ πάντα ἐθαύμαζά το 1745 πῶς τὸ λιθάριν δύναται ὁ σταλαγμὸς τρυπήσειν. Kαὶ ὡς βλέπω ἀπὸ τοῦ πράγματος, τὸ ἔλεγον ἀπιστῶ το καὶ οὐκ ἔχω ὅτι ὁ σταλαγμὸς τρυπᾶ το τὸ λιθάριν·

ὁ σταλαγμὸς τοῦ πόθου μου τὴν πέτραν τῆς ψυχῆς σου χάρβαλον νὰ τὴν ἔποικεν ἀπὸ τὰ τὴν προσδέρει, 1750 ὁποὺ ἔχει ἀντὶ σταλάγματος πιττάκια τοσοῦτα, γραφάς μου πανεξαίρετας, λόγους ἐρωτικούς μου· ὅτι νομίζω ἂν ἔπεσαν τὰ λόγια τῆς γραφῆς μου εἰς πέτραν νὰ εἶναι ριζωτή, οἱ ρίζες της εἰς ἅδην, νὰ ἐξανεσπάσθην ἀπεκεῖ, νὰ αἰστάνθην τὸ πιττάκιν, 1755 καὶ ὅσα νὰ ἦτον ἄψυχος εἰς νοῦν νὰ μετεβλήθην. Λοιπὸν ἀπάρτι ὁ σταλαγμὸς ἀμηχανεῖ τῆς πέτρας, οὐκ ἔχει φύσιν τὸ λαλοῦν, ψεύδονται εἰς τὰ λέγουν· νικᾶ καρδία τῆς ἠθικῆς τὸν στερεωμὸν τοῦ λίθου, καὶ ἀποτουνῦν ἀμηχανεῖ καὶ ἡ δρόσος τῆς ψυχῆς μου 1760 καὶ ἀδυνατεῖ εἰς τὸν σταλαγμὸν καὶ τῆς καρδίας μου ἡ βρύσις. Tοῦτο λοιπὸν ἀπέμεινε, τὸ νὰ σὲ παρακαλέσω, τὰς θλίψεις τῆς καρδίας μου νὰ σὲ τὰς ἐγκαλέσω, καὶ ἀπέμεινεν εἰς διάκρισιν τοῦ πόθου σου, φουδούλα, καὶ εἰς τὸ εὐδιακριτόθετον τῆς ἰδικῆς σου γνώμης. 1765 They say that if a water drop will often drop on a rock, of whatever kind the drop might be and of whatever kind the stone,

by necessity from the dripping of the water it receives. 27 On this matter see Agapitos 2006b: 126–34.

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‘words filled with tears’ 359 This was for me an awe-inspiring thing and I always wondered 1745 how the drop of water is able to pierce the stone. But judging from the situation at hand, what I said I now doubt and I do not believe that the drop actually pierces the stone.

the drop of my desire would erode the rock of your soul and turn into a wreck by the force of its blows, 1750 since, instead of drops, my desire has all these epistles, my most exquisite letters, my amorous discourses. I think that should the words of my letter fall on a deep-rooted rock, its roots planted in the netherworld, it would be uprooted from there, it would have felt the letter, 1755 and even though inanimate, it would turn into a sensible being. Well, then, the water drop is powerless against the rock, there is no substance in what people say, they lie in what they maintain; the heart of the noble lady conquers the stone’s solidity, and as of now the dew of my soul is powerless 1760 and the fountain of my heart has only a weak drop of water. Only this, then, has been left to me, to beseech you, to present to you as a complaint the sorrows of my heart; all has been left to the discernment of your desire, fair maiden, and to the fair judgement of your own pronouncement. 1765

The rhetorical complexity of the letter as a poem of love is quite astonishing. The text’s argumentative framework is based on the ‘­confirmation–refutation’ device: the accepted opinion is that water can in time pierce a stone, but this proves false in the case of the lady, because the power of the amorous letters fails to pierce her stone-like heart. The stone withstanding external pressure is a symbolic image for patience in suffering.28 It is here connected to the image of water (the dew of the lover’s soul and the fountain of his heart), evoking the image of heat in the beloved one’s heart – a sense of sizzling discreetly creating sexual associations. Thus, Livistros begs Rodamne to show her good sense of justice and free him of his sorrows. 28 On this image see Politi 2002: 463–5.

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Amorous repartee is well represented in the exchange of letters scene, but also in the series of letters narrated towards the end of the romance. For example, we find a pair of letters reported by Rodamne (4085– 118), wherein the vegetal imagery of desire and pain is fully developed. The complex use of this imagery does not reflect ‘Hellenic’ sources, but again captures the similar imagery found in folksongs, though it is expressed by the use of a highly crafted, ‘learned’ rhetoric; for example, in the following letter of Livistros to Rodamne (4087–105): Κλωνάριν πόθου εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἐφύτρωσεν καρδίαν καὶ πόνου ἐρρίζωσεν δενδρόν, ἔδε παραδικία· ἀνθεῖ τοῦ πόθου τὸ κλαδὶν καὶ τὸ δενδρὸν τοῦ πόνου, ἐκεῖνο πόνου ὑπωρικὰ καὶ τοῦτο πόθου φύλλα. 4090 Tρυγῶ ἐκ τοῦ πόνου τὸ δενδρὸν ὑπωρικὰ πικρίας καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ πόθου τὸ κλαδὶν φύλλα γλυκέας ἀγάπης· γλυκαίνει ὁ πόθος ὀλιγόν, πικραίνει ὁ πόνος πλέον, καὶ ἔναι ὁ πόθος λιγοστὸς καὶ πλεονάζει ὁ πόνος. Kαὶ ἔναι τοῦ πόνου τὸ δενδρὸν καὶ τὸ κλαδὶν τοῦ πόθου 4095 κόρης ὡραίας ἀσχόλησις καὶ μυριοτυραννεῖ με· θέλω τοῦ πόνου τὸ δενδρὸν τοῦ νὰ τὸ ἐξανασπάσω καὶ εὐθὺς ἐπαίρνει σύρριζον καὶ τὸ κλαδὶν τοῦ πόθου, ἐκεῖνον ὁποὺ ἐρίζωσε μὲ τὴν ἐμὴν καρδίαν, ἐπαίρνει τὴν καρδίαν μου, ἐβγαίνει μετὰ κείνην. 4100 Ἐγὼ τοῦ πόθου τὸ κλαδὶν ἐλεῶ νὰ τὸ ἀνασπάσω καὶ λέγω: ‘Ἂς ἔναι μετ’ αὐτὸ εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν καρδίαν πόθος καὶ πόνος ὀδιὰ σὲν καὶ τὸ ποθῶ πονῶ το, καὶ ἰδέ το ἀπάρτι τὸ πονῶ μὴ τυραννοῦμαι ἀδίκως.’ 4105 A branch of desire sprung up in my heart, and a tree of pain took root: what an injustice! The twig of desire blossoms and so does the tree of pain, the latter bearing fruits of pain, the former leaves of desire. 4090 From the tree of pain I harvest fruits of bitterness and from the twig of desire I gather leaves of sweet love, desire sweetens me a little, but bitter pain grieves me even more; thus, desire is meagre, while pain is in abundance. The tree of pain and the twig of desire are the amorous concern 4095 for a fair maiden, and this torments me deeply; I want to uproot the tree of pain and immediately it also pulls the twig of desire from its roots, the one that took roots deep in my heart –

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‘words filled with tears’ 361 the twig takes away my heart, it comes off with it! 4100 I feel pity to pull out the twig of desire and say: ‘Let the tree of pain be together with this one; let then from now on desire and pain for you lie in my heart, and let me ache for what I desire; but you behold now what I ache for, lest I be unjustly tormented.’ 4105

The letter is built upon the idea that desire (pothos) and pain (ponos) are inextricably bound together as if having their root (riza) intertwined. This old notion is presented through vegetal imagery which is strongly connected to the life-giving forces of nature but also related to death.29 The finely executed figures of assonance around key words such as pothos/ponos and riza are combined with syntactical figures such as parallelisms (4987–8, 4091–2, 4104), chiasms (4089, 4095, 4097–8) or even a tricolon abundans (4093–4). Moreover, the letter begins and ends with the same imagery incorporating the notion of injustice (4087–8 ≈ 4104–5). L&R includes an impressive array of songs, two of them composed in octosyllabic couplets and not in fifteen-syllable verse.30 Most of these songs are characterised as a tragoudēman (‘song’),31 katalogin or katalegma (‘love song’).32 However, a pair of songs performed towards the end of the romance by the two heroes (3928–59) are called moirologia (‘laments’),33 even though they concern the amorous sufferings of the two men. In a desert-like landscape, Livistros and Klitovon (the Armenian prince who became Livistros’ friend) are on their way to meet Rodamne at her inn in Egypt, while Livistros has not seen his wife for two years after her abduction by Verderichos, the menacing Saracen emperor. The imagery and phrasing of the two songs, which combine the themes of love, exile and a sympathetic nature, bear strong resemblances to the style and vocabulary of Modern Greek folksongs of exile and lamentation.34 The first of the two songs, wherein Livistros sings his ‘lament’ to his friend, runs as follows (3930–41): Ἀναστενάζουν τὰ βουνά, πάσχουν δι’ ἐμὲν οἱ κάμποι, 3930 θρηνοῦσιν τὰ παράπλαγα, βροντοῦν οἱ λιβαδίες, 29 On the latter see Roilos 1998. 30 L&R 1641–6 (15-syll.), 1846–54 (15-syll.), 2044–65 (8-syll.), 2265–72 (15-syll.), 4205–24 (8-syll.), 4228–35 (15-syll.). 31 L&R 1640, 2264 + 2273, 4227. 32 L&R 1845 and 2043 (ἐρωτικὸν κατάλεγμα), 4204 (καταλόγιν). 33 L&R 3929 and 3945 respectively, while the act of singing is described as ‘lamenting’ (3942 ἐμοιρολόγειν, sc. Livistros). 34 For a brief comment on these two songs see Lendari 2007: 417.

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καὶ δένδρη τὰ ἐπαρέδραμα καὶ οἱ ραχωτὲς κλεισοῦρες ἔχουν τοὺς πόνους μου ἀκομὴ καὶ ἀντίς μου ἀναστενάζουν· λέγουν: ‘Ἐδιέβην ἀπεδῶ στρατιώτης πονεμένος, ἄγουρος ποθοφλόγιστος διὰ πόθον ὡραιωμένης· 3935 τὰ δάκρυά του εἶχεν ποταμούς, βροντὰς τοὺς στεναγμούς του, καπνὸν ἀπάνω εἰς τὰ βουνὰ τὸν πονοανασασμόν του· τὸν ἥλιον εἶχεν μάρτυραν, καὶ εἰς τόπους μετ’ ἐκεῖνον τὰ σύννεφα ἐσκεπάζαν τον, συνέπασχαν μετ’ αὖτον.’ Aἲ πόνος, φίλε Kλιτοβών, ἔδε καρδίας ὀδύνη, 3940 τὸν συμπονοῦσιν τὰ βουνὰ καὶ τὰ ἄψυχα συμπάσχουν. The mountains sigh, the plains suffer for me, 3930 the slopes lament, the meadows thunder, while trees I passed by and narrow mountain passes still hold my achings and sigh instead of me; they say: ‘An aching warrior passed by this place, a young man passionburned35 for the desire of a beauty. 3935 He took his tears for rivers, his sighs for thunders, the fog upon the mountains he took for his aching respiration; the sun he had as his witness, and in various places together with sun the clouds would cover him too, suffering along with him.’ O what pain and sorrow of the heart, my friend Klitovon, 3940 for which mountains and inanimate nature feel compassion and pity. The second of the two moirologia, wherein Klitovon sings about his lost love and his exile from Armenia, was excerpted by Nikolaos Politis in his anthology of Greek folksongs as an actual medieval folksong integrated into the romance.36 The song runs as follows (3946–56): Ἄγουρος μυριόθλιβος, ξένος ἐκ τὰ δικά του, τὸν ἐκατεβασάνισεν κόρης ὡραίας ἀγάπη καὶ ἔφυγεν ἐκ τὴν χώραν του καὶ ἀπὸ τὰ γονικά του καὶ εἰς ξένον κόσμον καὶ οὐρανὸν αἰχμάλωτος διαβαίνει, πόνους του ἡγεῖται τὰ δεντρά, θλίψεις τὰς λιβαδίας, 3950 35 The adjective ποθοφλόγιστος (‘inflamed by desire’), which I have freely rendered here as ‘passionburned’ (parallel to ‘sunburned’), is used by Klitovon to characterise Livistros at 2727–8, two verses whose imagery is very close to Livistros’ lament here. 36 See Politis 1914: 247–8, quoting from the Naples version, edited by Wagner 1881. Politis writes Ἆσμα δημοτικὸν παρεμβεβλημένον εὶς τὸ μεσαιωνικὸν ἔπος τοῦ ΙΔ΄ αἰῶνος πιθανῶς, “Τὰ κατὰ Λύβιστρον καὶ ῾Ροδάμνην”, while he titles the moirologin as καταλόγιν τοῦ ξένου στρατιώτου (‘song of the wandering soldier’).

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‘words filled with tears’ 363 καὶ ποταμοὺς τὰ δάκρυά του, βουνὰ τοὺς στεναγμούς του· ἀηδόνιν εἰς τὴν στράταν του νὰ κιλαδῇ ἂν ἀκούσῃ, οἱ κτύποι τῆς καρδίας του καὶ οἱ βροντοστεναγμοί του σιγίζουν τον νὰ μὴ λαλῇ, καρδιοφωνοκρατοῦσιν. Ἔδε στρατιώτου συμφορὰ τὴν πάσχει διὰ φουδούλαν, 3955 οὕτως ἔνι αἰχμάλωτος, ξένος εἰς ἄγριον τόπον. A young man overgrieved, a stranger from his own land, whom the love of a beautiful maiden has tormented and so he left his country and his parental land, wanders now as a captive through a foreign place and sky; he considers the trees to be his pains, the meadows his sorrows, 3950 the rivers his tears and mountains his sighs. Should he on his path hear a nightingale warble, the beats of his heart and his thundering sighs silence him so as not to sing, restrain his heart from shouting. Behold a warrior’s misfortune suffered for an amorous lady: 3955 thus is he a captive and a stranger in a wild place. Politis’ suggestion does not withstand scrutiny, since Klitovon’s song picks up and develops the imagery of sympathetic nature used by his friend. In Livistros’ ‘lament’ the mountains sigh and the meadows thunder on account of his amorous pains, and then these parts of nature speak and suggest that the young man’s tears were like rivers, his sighs like thunder. In Klitovon’s ‘lament’ the exiled warrior imagines that the trees were literally his sufferings and the meadows were his sorrows. Moreover, Klitovon’s lament includes words and images specifically related by Klitovon to himself in two earlier instances of the narrative.37 This is a most complex example of rhetorical interlacing between the two encased poems within the broader frame of this particular episode, but it is certainly not the way oral poetry was composed and performed. In the later romances amorous discourse as lamentation becomes more stylised. In The Amorous Story of Kallimachos and Chrysorroe (Τὸ κατὰ Καλλίμαχον καὶ Χρυσορρόην ἐρωτικὸν διήγημα), written 37 The adjective μυριόθλιβος (‘suffering sorrows ten thousand times’), which I have rendered as ‘overgrieved’ (parallel to ‘overjoyed’), is used by Klitovon about himself at 3685 (καὶ ὡς ἤμην μυριόθλιβος καὶ ἐγὼ ἐκ τὰ γονικά μου), when he talks to Rodamne about his exile from Armenia. Furthermore, 3948–51 echo similar images used by Klitovon when talking to Rodamne about his flight from home and his wandering along the narrow path where he met Livistros (3672–6).

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around 1320–40,38 we find two songs performed by Kallimachos disguised as a day labourer. The first song is referred to as ‘song’ (K&C 1670 tragoudēman) and ‘lament’ (1671, 1693 moirologin);39 it has a bipartite structure with an address first to Tyche and then to the moon (1673–92):40 Στῆσον ἀπάρτι, Τύχη μου, πλάνησιν τὴν τοσαύτην, στῆσον τὴν κακοπάθειαν καὶ τὸν παραδαρμόν μου, στῆσον τὸ τόσον μανικὸν καὶ τὸ κακόγνωμόν σου. 1675 Ἀρκοῦν σε τὰ μ’ ἐλύπησες, ἀρκοῦν οἱ συμφορές μου. Τύχη, καὶ τί τὸ σ’ ἔπταισα, Τύχη μου, τί σ’ ἐποῖκα καὶ τί παράλογον πρὸς σὲ ποτέ μου ἐνεθυμήθην καὶ τόσον τυραννίζεις με καὶ τόσον κακουχεῖς με; Καὶ τὸ νεροκουβάλημαν καὶ τὸ μιστάργωμά μου 1680 ἔχεις τα σὺ πρὸς ἔλεγχον καὶ χόρτασιν ἀπάρτι. Σελήνη μου καλόφωτε, βλέπεις τί τυραννοῦμαι. Καὶ γὰρ βραδύ, παρακαλῶ, πέμψον μικρὰν ἀκτῖναν, εἰς τὸ παλάτιν ἂς σεβῇ, κανεὶς μηδὲν τὴν ἴδῃ, τὴν Χρυσορρόην ἂς εἰπῇ τὸ συχαρίκιν τοῦτο: 1685 ‘Τὸν ἀγαπᾷς εὑρέθηκεν, ἀνέστη τὸν ἐξεύρεις καὶ σήμερον ὡς μισθαργὸς κηπεύει πρὸς τὸν κῆπον, νερὸν καὶ τὴν βισκίναν σου γεμίζει την καθ’ ὥραν φλόγα νὰ σβήσῃ τῆς ψυχῆς, κόρη, τῆς ἰδικῆς σου. Ἀλλὰ τὴν δρόσον τῆς φλογὸς τῆς ἐρωτοκαμίνου 1690 τὰ χείλη του τὴν γέμουσιν, τὸ σῶμαν του τὴν γέμει.’ Ποῖσε, σελήνη, μηχανήν, ποῖσε, σελήνη, πρᾶξιν. Cease now, Fortune of mine, this long wandering. Cease the wrongs and tortures you have inflicted on me. Cease this your rage and your malice; sufficient the sorrow you have caused me, sufficient my misfortunes. Fortune, how did I offend you? What did I do to you?

1675

38 Critical edition with French translation by Pichard 1956, but with many problems. The text is quoted from Cupane 1995: 58–213, who offers a revised text with an annotated Italian translation; English translation by Betts 1995: 37–90. 39 Cupane 1995: 159 n.114 considers that the word here does not mean ‘funerary lament’ in its technical sense but, more generally, ‘song full of sadness’. However, as the terms in L&R suggest, it is difficult to distinguish two different meanings. For example, in K&C 1670 the narrator states that Kallimachos μοιρολογεῖ τραγώδημαν (‘performs a lament-like song’), whereas at 1693 he states that the young prince πολλάκις ἔλεγεν τὸ μοιρολόγιν (‘repeated the lament many times’). 40 Cupane 1995: 158–60; I have in a few cases changed the spelling and the punctuation.

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‘words filled with tears’ 365 What madness did I conceive against you to make you persecute and abuse me so much? Now, the water I carry and my status as hired servant you have them as a test of me and to your satisfaction. O moon with your fair light, you see what I endure. In the evening, I beseech you, send down a tiny beam, let it enter the palace without being observed and let it tell Chrysorroe the good news: ‘The one you love has been found, the one you know has revived and today tends the garden as a hired labourer. All the time he fills your basin with water to quench, oh maiden, the flame of your soul. But his body, his lips, are charged with the dew which quells the flame of Love’s furnace.’ Perform this trick for me, O moon. Do me this service.41

1680

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The second song (2044–55), characterised as a katalogin (2043), picks up the imagery of the moirologin and turns it into a song of ‘happy conclusion’. Both songs are less ‘folkloric’ in style than those in L&R, while the moirologin seems to use two letters of Livistros, the one addressed to Tyche (L&R 1565–86) and the other to the moon (1862–78).42 In the Tale of Achilles (Διήγησις περὶ τοῦ Ἀχιλλέως) from the middle of the fourteenth century,43 we find a different kind of encased performative text that has an amorous-threnodic character. Achilles orders a painting of Eros to be made in his tent and addresses the god ‘with many tears’ (N 905 πρὸς ἐκεῖνον ἔλεγεν μετὰ πολλῶν δακρύων). This prayer-like soliloquy of the young warrior hero is specifically marked by a rubric (N 906–20): Λόγια μετὰ δακρύων ὁ μέγας Ἀχιλλεὺς εἰς τὸν φρικτὸν τὸν Ἔρωτα καὶ πλάστην τῆς ἀγάπης. ‘Ἔρω μου, τί σὲ ἔπταισα καὶ τί κακὸν σὲ ἐποῖκα καὶ τὴν καρδίαν μου σύρριζον καθόλου ἐξανασπᾷς την; Ἐμὲ σπαθία οὐκ ἔντρεψαν, κοντάρια οὐδὲ ὅλως, 910 καὶ ἀπὸ μόνου βλέμματος ἔσφαξές με ἐξάφνης; 41 Betts 1995: 70 (with modifications). 42 The moon, of course, is as of old a companion of lovers; see Cupane 1995: 161 n.116 on Theocritus’ second Idyll, possibly echoed in Nik. Eug. D&C 2.326–85 (Conca 1990: 69–73), where Kleandros sings a song addressed to the moon as he is about to visit his beloved Kalligone in the night. 43 Critical edition of the Naples redaction (Ach. N) with introduction and commentary by Smith 1999; unrevised text with Italian translation by Cupane 1995: 324–442.

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Ἔχεις με, Ἔρω, τρίδουλον, δοῦλον δεδουλωμένον· ἂν οὐ μ’ εὕρεις τοῦ θελήματος καὶ ἔξω τοῦ ὁρισμοῦ σου τὸν ἐμαυτόν μου δίδω τον μεθ’ ὅλης τῆς καρδίας, καὶ ὡς ἄδικον καὶ ἀλλότριον ὅρισε καὶ ἂς μὲ φονεύσουν· 915 εἰ δὲ εἶμαι τοῦ θελήματος καὶ τοῦ ὁρισμοῦ σου δοῦλος, διατί νὰ πάσχω, νὰ πονῶ, νὰ θλίβωμαι τοσοῦτον, νὰ ἀρνοῦμαι καὶ τὰς χάριτας, τοὺς συγγενεῖς καὶ φίλους; Τὸν ἐμαυτόν μου δίδω τον εἰς ἐδικάς σου χεῖρας καὶ εἴτι θέλεις ὅρισε, αὐθέντη, καὶ ἂς μὲ ποιήσουν.’ 920 Words filled with tears the great Achilles to horrifying Eros and creator of love. ‘O Eros, for what am I to blame and what did I do to you, that you pull up all of my heart along with its roots? Swords did not put me into flight, nor any lances whatsoever, 910 and you have suddenly butchered me on account of only one glance? You hold me, Eros, thrice your slave, a servant all-enslaved. Should you not find me of your will and outside your command, I give myself willingly to you and with all my heart, and you give orders to kill me as being unjust and alien.44 915 But if I am the servant of your will and your command, why should I suffer, ache and be thus afflicted, why deny life’s pleasantries, my relatives and friends? I give myself into your hands and whatever you wish, my lord, give your command and let them do it to me.’ 920 The rubric’s indication ‘words filled with tears’ suggests a threnodic content. The text is composed as a prayer in the form of a formal act of submission. The prayer is organised around images of death connected to the loss of male social status as a result of love, here appearing as the desirous gaze of the male subject upon the female object. Having thus lamented his downfall and subjugation to Eros, Achilles takes up his quill and begins writing his first ‘pain-inflamed letter’ (πονόφλογον πιττάκιν) to his beloved (N 921–3).45 How then is the use of a ‘folkloric style’, particularly in amorous discourse as lamentation, to be explained? The romances, especially those up to the middle of the fourteenth century, are composed with 44 ‘Alien’ (sc. to your power or domain). In Ach. N 65 the narrator uses almost the same phrase for the threat adressed to Achilles’ father by his wife’s brothers. 45 On this scene of letter-writing see Agapitos 2006b: 160–1.

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‘words filled with tears’ 367 all the means of school rhetoric, often in close dialogue with the twelfth-century novels and the other romances. Until the middle of the twelfth century the Komnenian court showed a special interest in erotic literature, but also a growing taste for performative texts composed in the vernacular idiom. In fact, the latter are texts in an innovative mixed style; for example, the Ptochoprodromika or some of Prodromos’ prose grammatical exercises.46 This interest in court poetry and erotic literature was picked up at the Nicaean court, where we even find the young emperor and passionate writer Theodore II Laskaris exploring literary plays with colloquial discourse in some of his letters, for example no. 216 in the modern edition.47 It should be pointed out that the vernacular idiom of poems like the Digenis Akritis or the Ptochoprodromika is not to be equated with ἰδιῶτις γλῶττα or ‘everyday language’, as Anna Komnene called colloquial discourse in a well-known passage of the Alexiad (2.4.9). This poetic idiom does not reflect the way people spoke on the street or at home, or even on semi-formal occasions.48 We do have some documents from the eleventh and the twelfth century preserving this everyday language as it was written down at the moment a wittness gave his oral testimony; for example, a document kept in the Iviron Monastery Archive and dated to 22 May 1008. Because such documents are not usually read by literary scholars, it will be useful to quote from the aforementioned document, in which the boundaries of a field (χωράφιον) are defined:49 + Εν ονοματι του πατρος και του υου και του αγιου πνευματος. Ημεις υ προαναφέρόμενυ ο τε Παυλος πρεσβυτερος ο Πλαβητζις και Ιωαννης παπας ο Σφεσδίτζις και Ιωαννης εξαρχος ο Στωγινας, υ και τους τειμίους και ζωοποιου σταυρους μετα παντὸς του οἰφους ηδιοχιρως πυησαντες, ευλογιτος ο Θεος και πατηρ του κυριου ημον Ιησου Χριστου ο ων ευλογιτος ης τους εῶνας, τουτο ύδαμεν και μαρτυρουμεν, οτι το χοραφιον, ὁπὲρ καταφυτευγι ο αρχιδιάκονος, του Φσεζέλι ῆτων και εδεσποζετον παρ’ αυτου και τον αυτου κλιρονομον· και ο μεν Παυλος πρεσβυτερος εκαμνεν αυτο και ετέλι τας μουρτὰς προς τον αυτον Φσεζελι και τους αυτου κλιρονόμους επει 46 See Agapitos 2014b. 47 See the text in Festa 1898: 268–70. 48 See my remarks on this passage from the Alexiad in Agapitos 2014a. 49 Actes d’Iviron I, 188–9 (no. 15): lines 10–13, 28–35, 39–46. The non-normalised text is printed in a simplified version from the diplomatic edition of Lefort, Oikonomidès and Papachryssanthou 1985; line separations, line numerations and indications of abbreviations are omitted; accents and breathings are placed as found in the document. The document is quoted purely to illustrate the gulf between everyday language and that of the poems discussed in this chapter.

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χρόνυς πολυς, ος επι Θεω μαρτυρι . . . Καγω Γεωργιος πρεσβυτερος, ο υος του μοναχου Νικηφορου του Τζετειριλεχα, ακήκοα παρα του μακαριτου μου πατρος και πρεσβυτέρου λεγωντος, και προς με και προς πολους, οτι, ευλογιτος ο Θεος και ευλογιμενι υπαρχει η βασιλεια αυτου, το χοραφιον, οπερ καταφυτευγι ο αρχιδιακονος Κωνσταντινος, του Φσεζελι του Αραβηνικιώτου ητον εκπαλε τον χρόνον και εδεσπωζετο παρ’ αυτου· μετα δε τιν αυτου τελευτν κατελιπεν αυτο και την απασαν αυτου υποστασιν Θεωφανους και Σιρας, τις αυτής θυγατρος, προσταξας αυτυς δουνε αυτο ψυχικον οπου δ’ αν θελισουν και βοῦλουνται, ος ελευθέρον ωντον τον πραγμάτον αυτου και κλιρονόμον αίτερον μι εχοντον . . . Εγράφι η παροῦσα δῶσις τον ζοντον φονον του τε Παύλου πρεσβυτέρου [and of the remaining four testifiers] δια χηρος Ανδρέου πρεσβυτέρου και δευτερεύοντος της καθωλικις εκλισίας, μηνι Μαηο κβ΄ ινδικτιωνος ϛ΄ έτους ϛφιϛ΄, παρουσία τον παρευρεθεντον και υπογραψαντον επι τη δωσι τον φονον αξιοπείστον και ενυπογράφον μαρτυρον + There follow the signatures of eight witnesses of which the last is the scribe himself; the witnesses certify that they have heard the oral testimonies as written; two indicative examples of such signatures are (lines 48 and 51): + Γεοργιος ο του μακαριωτατου επισκοπου ανεψιος ακικὼς τὰς ανοτερω γεγραμενας φονας υπεγραψα ειδη + Βασιλιος αποδρογαριος ω Ελαδικος ακηκος τὰς φωνὰς τὰς προγεγράμαινὰς υκηα χηρι υπεγραψα This is a very good specimen of colloquial discourse, but it neither looks like (Early) Modern Greek nor resembles the idiom of the vernacular poems. The latter is a gradually crafted style fitted for ambitious literary compositions.50 We happen to have one case where we can see how a socially defined speech act is transposed into a literary formulaic device of marked narrative importance. John Tzetzes in c. 1150 and Neophytos the Recluse in c. 1180 list the questions that a local person will ask a traveller just arriving at a specific place. In the case of Tzetzes, this is done to show the author’s dexterity in using foreign languages. Neophytos talks to his monks about a person who, contemplating the garden of Eden, starts lamenting and is being asked about his place of origin: 50 Though Jeffreys 2007: 72 is aware of such documents, he prefers to omit them  from  his discussion of what in his opinion is Modern Greek in Byzantine times.

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‘words filled with tears’ 369 καλῶς ἦλθες, αὐθέντα μου, καλῶς ἦλθες, ἀδελφέ· πόθεν εἶσαι καὶ ἀπὸ ποίου θέματος ἦλθες; πῶς, ἀδελφέ, ἦλθες εἰς τοιαύτην τὴν πόλιν; πεζός, καβαλλάριος, διὰ θαλάσσης; θέλεις ἀργῆσαι;51 Welcome, my master, welcome, my brother. From where are you and from what province have you come? In what manner, brother, did you come to this here city? On foot, on horse, by sea? Do you wish to stay? Καὶ ὡς ἐξ ἑτέρου δῆθεν προσώπου ἀποκρινόμενος ἔλεγε: ‘Καὶ ποίας χώρας ἦς, ἄνθρωπε, ἢ ἐκ ποίου λαοῦ, καὶ ποῦ τὰ σὰ ἴδια πεφύκασι; Καὶ τίς μέν σου ὁ πατήρ, τίς δέ σου ἡ πατρίς;’52 And answering as if he were another person, he was saying: ‘And of what country are you, my fellow, or of what race, and where is your home? And who is your father, what is your fatherland?’

These questions are expressed in χύδην ῥέουσα γλῶσσα or ‘disorderly flowing language’, as Eustathios of Thessaloniki characterised colloquial discourse.53 From the thirteenth century onwards we find this set of questions included in the romances and other related verse texts. However, the questions are now shaped into a recognisable literary idiom.54 Here are four examples ranging from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century: Livistros and Rodamne 3261–2 (c. 1240–60)55 πρῶτον ἐσὺ ἀφηγήσου με τὸ πῶς εὑρέθης ὧδε, γένους ἐγένου ποταποῦ καὶ χώρας ἀπὸ ποίας. 51 Tzetzes, Theogony 775, 777, 779, 781 (Hunger 1953: 305). These phrases render in colloquial Greek the original Latin questions asked by Tzetzes of the imaginary Italian traveller. These are: βένε βενίστι, δόμινε, βένε βενίστι, φράτερ. / οὖνδε ἒς ἒτ δεκουάλε προβίντζια βενέστι; / κόμοδο, φράτερ, βενέστι ἰσίσταν τζιβιτάτεμ; / πεδόνε, καβαλλάριους, περμάρε; βὶς μοράρε; (Theogony 776, 778, 780, 782). 52 Neophytos, Fifty-Chapter Book 23.1 (Sotiroudis 1996: 287). 53 On Eustathios and everyday language see now Agapitos 2015c. 54 This phenomenon has led some scholars to assume that such phrases are formulaic in an oral sense (Jeffreys 1973; Jeffreys and Jeffreys 1986; Eideneier 1991: 41–68) or that one author literally copies another (Spadaro 1977/8). However, these phrases represent conventions of literary composition that reflect social codes of behaviour and communication in a medieval literate society, not vestiges of orality or direct quotation; see briefly Agapitos 2006a: 171–5. 55 Agapitos 2006a: 383.

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first, you narrate to me how you found yourself here, of what lineage you are and from what country you come. Consolatory Fable, Leipzig Redaction 89–92 (second half of fourteenth century)56 Καὶ τότε πάλιν λέγει τον: ‘Λέγε με πῶς ἀκούεις καὶ ποῖον ἔνι τὸ κάστρον σου καὶ τίνες οἱ γονεῖς σου;’ Ὁ ξένος ὁλοπρόθυμα λέγει τον τ’ ὄνομάν του καὶ πόθεν ἦν καὶ ποταπὸς καὶ ποιοὶ ἦσαν οἱ γονεῖς του And then again he tells him: ‘Tell me how you are called, and which is your home town and who are your parents?’ The stranger willingly tells him his name, from where he is, who he is and who were his parents. Florios and Platziaflore, London Redaction 1380–1 (second half of fourteenth century)57 ἀναρωτᾷ τον, λέγει τον: ‘Τίς εἶσαι, πόθεν ἔρχεις; Καὶ χώρας ποίας καὶ ποταπῆς καὶ τί γενεᾶς ὑπάρχεις;’ he asks him and tells him: ‘Who are you, from whence do you come? And from what sort of country are you and of what lineage?’ Imberios and Margarona, Naples Redaction, f. 95v (c. 1450–70)58 ‘Πλὴν λέγω καὶ παρακαλῶ, ἀλλότριε καὶ ξένε, νὰ πῇς καὶ νὰ ἀφηγηθῇς τὸ ἀπὸ πόθεν εἶσαι, τὸ ἀπὸ ποῦ ἐγεννήθηκες καὶ ποῦ ’ν’ τὰ γονικά σου καὶ χώρας ποίας ποταπῆς καὶ γενεᾶς ὑπάρχεις.’ ‘But I say to you and beseech you, foreigner and stranger, to tell and to narrate from where you are, where have you been born and where is your paternal land, from what sort of country you are and of what lineage.’ In my opinion, Livistros and Rodamne represents a key moment in the new direction the genre of erotic fiction was taking in Byzantium. On 56 Cupane 1995: 652. 57 Cupane 1995: 542 for the text of the London redaction; the verses correspond to vv. 1407–8 in the ‘mixed’ text edited by Kriaras 1955: 168. 58 The text quoted here comes from the oldest, but still unedited Naples redaction (Neap. gr. B-III-27 of the early sixteenth century); it corresponds to vv. 760–3 of the ‘mixed’ text edited by Kriaras 1955: 230.

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‘words filled with tears’ 371 the one hand, the ideological and literary system of the Komnenian novels forms the structural scaffold that holds the romance’s building blocks together. However, the abandonment of the learned idiom and its intertextual ‘Hellenic’ discourse for the composition of larger verse narratives; the continuing use of basic everyday language in the schoolroom, as can be seen from schedographic collections of the thirteenth century and surviving dictionaries;59 the growing interest in folk wisdom through the collection of proverbs for school practice;60 the probable acquaintance in Nicaea with Old French romances in some oral form;61 and the close familiarity with the performative staging of the Komnenian novels were some factors that led poets to choose the literary vernacular idiom, and to use ‘contemporary aristocratic’ settings and the folksongs as another recognisable form of authoritative discourse. In other words, the Latin aristocratic setting and the folkloric style are the textiles used to dress the Komnenian scaffolding, thus forming part of the modernist aesthetics of vernacular romance. Luckily, there survives a striking text from Nicaea, where we can observe exactly how the mixed language of ritual court poetry and the images and phrasing of folk poetry are blended into a new literary entity. Nicholas Eirenikos, an otherwise unknown official at the Nicaean court, composed a set of ‘quatrains’ (tetrasticha) in fifteensyllable verse with a framing couplet ‘refrain’ (katalegma) for the wedding of emperor John Vatatzes and the young Princess Constance von Hohenstaufen in 1250.62 The song is organised in two pairs of three eight-verse stanzas. I quote here the first stanzas of each pair (vv. 1–8 and 28–35): Εἰς εὐφυῆ κυπάριττον κιττὸς συνανατρέχει, ἡ βασιλὶς κυπάριττος, κιττὸς ὁ βασιλεύς μου, 59 See Agapitos 2015b on such a dictionary, composed in the later twelfth century but surviving in a manuscript of 1343/4. 60 See Agapitos 2015a: 31–9 (Byzantine collections of Middle Greek proverbs). 61 Jeffreys 2013a and 2013b has argued for the Morea as the place for the transfer of romance material from Old French to Middle Greek. This is plausibly the case with some types of narrative, such as chronicles or antiquarian romances, but not with others, such as the love romances. Cupane 2013 believes that Constantinople alone was the place for this transfer, but there is no documentation for such a hypothesis. 62 Edited by Heisenberg 1920: 100–2. The full heading runs as follows: Τοῦ λογιοτάτου χαρτοφύλακος κυροῦ Νικολάου τοῦ Εἰρηνικοῦ τετράστιχα εἰς τὸν ἀρραβῶνα τῶν εὐσεβεστάτων καὶ ἐκ Θεοῦ ἐστεμμένων μεγάλων βασιλέων Ἰωάννου τοῦ Δούκα καὶ Ἄννης τῆς εὐγενεστάτης αὐγούστης, ἄνευ τῶν πρώτων δύο στίχων τοῦ καταλέγματος, οἷς καὶ τὰ τέλη ὅμοια (‘By the most learned chartophylax Nicholas Eirenikos quatrains on the betrothal of the most pious and by God crowned grand emperors John Doukas and Anna the most noble augusta, without the first two verses of the refrain, to which the last two are similar’).

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ὁ παραδείσου κοσμικοῦ μέσον ὡραίως θάλλων καὶ πάντα θέων καὶ κυκλῶν ἐν εὐλυγίστοις δρόμοις καὶ συλλαμβάνων εὐφυῶς καὶ στρέφων καὶ συμπλέκων 5 ἔθνος καὶ χῶρας καὶ φυλὰς καὶ πόλεις ὥς δένδρον. Εἰς εὐφυῆ κυπάριττον κιττὸς συνανατρέχει, ἡ βασιλὶς κυπάριττος, κιττὸς ὁ βασιλεύς μου. Φιλεῖ μαγνῆτιν σίδηρος, τὴν νύμφην ὁ νυμφίος, ὁ κραταιὸς τὴν εὐγενῆ, τὴν ἐκλεκτὴν ὁ Δούκας, ὁ πρὸς πολέμους ἀτειρὴς τὴν ἁπαλὴν νεᾶνιν. 30 Τὸν σιδηροῦν καὶ τὸν στρεπτὸν ἀπέθετο χιτῶνα καὶ νυμφικὴν στολίζεται καὶ χρυσανθῆ πορφύραν, καιρὸς καὶ γὰρ φιλότητος, οὐ μάχης, οὐ πολέμου. Φιλεῖ μαγνῆτιν σίδηρος, τὴν νύμφην ὁ νυμφίος, ὁ κραταιὸς τὴν εὐγενῆ, τὴν ἐκλεκτὴν ὁ Δούκας. 35 Around the well-grown cypress the ivy swiftly grows, the empress is the cypress, the ivy is my emperor, he who blossoms handsomely in the middle of a wordly paradise, he who ambulates and encircles everything in well-wound paths and who, well-grown like a tree, captures and turns towards him 5 and entwines nations and countries and races and cities. Around the well-grown cypress the ivy swiftly grows, the empress is the cypress, the ivy is my emperor. The iron loves the magnet, the bridegroom loves his bride, the strong lord the noble lady, the Doukas sovereign his chosen queen, he who stubbornly pursues wars loves the soft maiden. 30 The iron and wrought cuirass he has put aside and is adorned with nuptial, gold-shining purple, for it is the time for love, not for battle or for war. The iron loves the magnet, the bridegroom loves his bride, the strong lord the noble lady, the Doukas sovereign his chosen queen. 35 The song uses the vegetal imagery we found in Livistros and Rodamne, as well as the term katalegma in the context of a song performance.63 The main erotic image of the refrain of the second triad is that of 63 See Katsaros 2002: 255–68 for an excellent analysis.

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iron desiring the magnet (28–9 ‘The iron loves the magnet, . . . the Doukas sovereign his chosen queen’), an exemplum amoris appearing in L&R,64 but also used by Eugeneianos in his novel65 and, much earlier, by Tatius in his.66 Eirenikos’ quatrains are preserved on ff. 20r-v of the codex Laurentianus Conventi Soppressi 627, a paper manuscript written by a Nicaean scholarly hand around 1260.67 This very important miscellaneous codex also preserves a number of ceremonial court poems of the twelfth century and a substantial selection of Theodore Laskaris’ letters, among them the playful no. 216 with its everyday words. The manuscript also preserves as one unit – prefaced by a dedicatory poem to the young emperor Alexios II Komnenos (1180–3) – the texts of four out of the five surviving ancient Greek novels (Longus, Tatius, Chariton, Xenophon).68 In other words, the presence of Nicaean court literature and erotica in the same book is a clear indication of the literary interests of the Laskarid court in the middle of the thirteenth century. This also shows what kind of texts a writer needed to know in order to compose texts that would have been successful at court. Seven further manuscripts written in a Nicaean context transmit the Greek and Byzantine novels, along with court oratory and poetry of the Komnenian and Laskarid eras.69 It cannot, then, be a coincidence that Theodore Laskaris alludes to the reading of erotic narratives in a still unpublished text of his.70 Nor is it a coincidence that the strange dream Theodore describes in a letter to his teacher Georgios Akropolites (Ep. 49, written before 1253)71 bears striking similarities to the ‘modern’ imagery and ‘vernacular’ vocabulary of Livistros’ first dream (L&R 204–627).72 Having reached the end of my chapter, let me offer some concluding thoughts. Amorous discourse as lamentation does not, in my opinion, reflect a folkloric character of the vernacular romances. Initially, 64 L&R 177–8; Agapitos 2006a: 263. 65 Nik. Eug. D&C 4.138–9 (Conca 1990: 105). 66 Ach. Tat. L&K 1.17.2 (Vilborg 1955: 18). 67 For a basic description see Rostagno and Festa 1893: 172–6. 68 On this lost twelfth-century manuscript see Cavallo 1981: 414–15. 69 Agapitos 1998b: 126–7; 2006a: 52–3. 70 The text, bearing the heading Περὶ τῶν καθ’ αὑτόν (‘About the matters that concern himself’), is preserved in the ms. Vind. phil. gr. 321, f. 66r-v of the second half of the thirteenth century (Hunger 1961: 409–18). The passage in question is quoted by Angelov 2011–12: 243 n.38. This text is part of a set of unedited short texts of Laskaris (Hunger 1961: 412) on issues of moral philosophy, of which Dimiter Angelov and I are preparing a critical edition with translation and notes. 71 Festa 1898: 67–71. 72 On the political and textual relation of Laskaris’ works with Livistros and Rodamne see Andreou and Agapitos (forthcoming).

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within the context of the Laskarid court and then further developed in early Palaiologan Constantinople (two interlinked societies negotiating their immediate past and redefining their identity), the use of a ‘folkloric style’ was a conscious choice. It was made in order to capture a new emotional sensibility by means of a newly crafted poetic idiom that, following good Byzantine practice, required an authoritative discourse of reference. The gradual broadening of the readership of such amorous tales, and the move away from aristocratic audiences towards a more bourgeois milieu in the second half of the fourteenth century,73 allowed the various redactors to introduce more of such folkloric elements, sometimes even substituting the older Byzantine textual material, as is the case with the Vatican redaction of Livistros and Rodamne, dated to c. 1480,74 or the Vienna redactions of Florios and Platziaflore and Imberios and Margarona, dated to c. 1520.75 What was an aesthetic choice of poets working for a Byzantine courtly society turned into an essential compositional characteristic of Early Modern Greek poetry, culminating in the learned and simultaneously folkloric texture of Kornaros’ ‘medievalist’ Erotokritos in early seventeenth-century Crete.76

73 See Agapitos 2006b: 173–6. 74 See the critical edition of L&R V by Lendari 2007, along with the remarks of Agapitos 2006a: 216–19. 75 On the textual history of Florios see di Benedetto Zimbone 2000; for an edition of the Vienna redaction see Wagner 1870: 1–56. On the textual history of the Imberios see Jeffreys and Jeffreys 1971; for an edition of the Vienna redaction see Wagner 1874. 76 See, indicatively, Kaplanis 2006.

21 THE TRAGIC, THE COMIC AND THE TRAGICOMIC IN CRETAN RENAISSANCE LITERATURE David Holton In his Modern Greece: A Short History, C. M. Woodhouse (1984) has a chapter devoted to the period from 1453 to 1800, to which he gives the bleak title: ‘The Dark Age of Greece’. The implications are clear enough just from the dates, but since the time that book was first published in 1968, views of, and attitudes to, the centuries of Ottoman rule over the Greek-speaking people have undergone considerable modification. A number of myths have been exploded and more subtle and variegated accounts of the period are now available, from various disciplinary perspectives. Of course Woodhouse also mentions those western-ruled regions, such as Crete, that did not fall to Ottoman rule for another one or two centuries after 1453. But as far as culture is concerned, he offers a rather one-sided view. After trotting out the familiar story of the Venetians’ oppression and exploitation of the local population of Cyprus,1 he goes on: The story was clearly the same in Crete, which was in fact the one part of Greece in which apostasy to Islam took place on a considerable scale after the Turkish conquest. In both islands, however, as in the Ionian Islands and the Peloponnese, there were exceptions. The upper classes were more ready to side with the Venetian aristocracy which ruled them. At this level social and cultural relations between two Christian societies, even though they regarded each other as heretics, were possible in a way that was not possible with the Turks. It is significant that the one masterpiece of Greek literature during these centuries, the epic poem Erotókritos, was written in Crete in the 17th century   1 The myth has been effectively debunked by Benjamin Arbel in various publications; see particularly his article ‘Entre mythe et histoire: la légende noire de la Domination venitienne à Chypre’, in Arbel 2000: 83–107. For Cypriot culture under Venetian rule see also Holton 1998/9.

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by a poet with an Italian name, Vincenzo Kornaros (Cornaro). (Woodhouse 1984: 112–13) The extent of social and cultural relations between Venetians and native Cretans was, as we now know, much greater and much more significant than Woodhouse was prepared to believe. Indeed, we can justifiably talk of a Cretan Renaissance, the outcome of a lengthy social and cultural symbiosis, which enabled the spirit, ideas and values of the Italian Renaissance to be transmitted on Cretan soil and to inspire poets, intellectuals, artists and musicians. Erotokritos was by no means the sole work of literary distinction composed in Crete in those years. Perhaps even more important, in terms of the reception of the Renaissance and the vital re-engagement with the literature and thought-world of classical antiquity, was the revival of drama. From about 1580, tragedies and comedies were again being composed in Greek, for the first time since antiquity, but now in accordance with Renaissance neo-classical prescriptions and thanks to the mediating role of the Venetian Republic, which ruled Crete from 1211 to 1669. Seneca, Terence and Plautus are their ultimate models, inherited via Italian playwrights of the sixteenth century, but the Cretans grafted their works on to local traditions and realities, they employed the Cretan dialect, and their dependence on Italian models and literary fashions was far from servile.2 The surviving works from what must have been a significantly larger corpus include examples of ‘straight’ tragedy and comedy, but what is striking – and what prompts this chapter – is the frequent cooccurrence and intermingling of the tragic and the comic, or to put it more exactly, of tears and laughter. At the opening of the pivotal third act of Georgios Chortatsis’ tragedy Erofili the heroine foresees her fate: Τα γέλια με τα κλάηματα, με τη χαράν η πρίκα μιαν ώραν εσπαρθήκασι κι ομάδι εγεννηθήκα· γιαύτος μαζί γυρίζουσι και το ’να στ’ άλλο αλλάσσει, κι όποιος εγέλα το ταχύ, κλαίγει πριχού βραδιάσει. (Erofili III 1–4) Laughter with tears, and sorrow with delight, Were both conceived at once, and born together; So they go hand in hand and interchange, And he who laughs at dawn will weep ere nightfall.3   2 For an overview see Holton 1991.   3 All quoted translations of works by Chortatsis are taken from Bancroft-Marcus 2013. All other translations are my own, unless otherwise stated.

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tragic, comic and tragicomic in cretan literature 377 This quotation gives me the opportunity to clarify that we shall be concerned not so much with laughter as ridicule, laughing at someone, but principally with laughter as a manifestation of joy, happiness, good fortune, relief after an ordeal, celebration and contentment. As Erofili is a tragedy, we fully expect to observe the passage from happiness to disaster and misery in the course of the play. Persons of high estate are brought low, there are deaths by murder and suicide, and the atmosphere is doom-laden from the start. The play’s Prologue, spoken by Charos (Χάρος), the personification of death, prepares the audience for what is to come: και δίχως να με κράζουσι, συχνιά σ’ τσι γάμους μπαίνω, κι αρπώ νυφάδες και γαμπρούς, γέροντες και κοπέλια, και κάνω ξόδια τσι χαρές και κλάηματα τα γέλια. Σε πρίκα την ξεφάντωση κ’ εις στεναγμό γυρίζω πάσα τραγούδι, και ποτέ λύπηση δε γνωρίζω. (Prologue 82–6) I go to wedding-banquets uninvited To snatch up brides and bridegrooms, old and young: Their joys I turn to dirges, smiles to weeping, Revelry into sorrow I transform And every song to sighs, knowing no pity. A few lines later the audience is explicitly warned of the emotional effect the play will have on them: Λύπη ανιμένετε λοιπό να πάρετε όλοι τώρα, με δάκρυα να γυρίσετε στην εδική σας χώρα. (Prologue 109–10) Prepare, then, to feel pity, all of you, And to return with tears to your own country. This coupling of tears and laughter is not confined to works that belong formally to the genre of tragedy. The anonymous pastoral idyll The Shepherdess (Η Βοσκοπούλα) (ed. S. Alexiou 1963) begins with a romantic encounter of a shepherd and shepherdess, followed by a symbolic betrothal and steamy nights of passion. On their last night together, the shepherd complains to the sun that the sunrise will bring an end to his happiness: Και προς τον ήλιο, που ’χα πάντα θάρρος, κλαίω με παραπόνεση και βάρος: ‘Ω ήλιε μου, πολλή χαρά μου φέρνεις, για ποια αφορμήν εμένα τήνε παίρνεις;’ (Shepherdess 257–60)

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And to the sun, in which I always placed my trust, I weep with sore complaint and grief: ‘O my sun, who bring me so much joy, why will you now deprive me of it?’ As the girl’s father is due to return home – and it would be improper for the couple to be found together – the shepherd must set off to return to his flock. But first they exchange vows of eternal fidelity and he promises to return within a month. He departs tearfully: Με κλάματα κ’ εγώ από κει μισεύγω, πάγω τα πρόβατά μου να γυρεύγω κι αγάλι-αγάλι μάκρυνα τον τόπο με βάσανα, με πρίκες και με κόπο. (301–4) I also wept as I set out from there, making my way to gather in my sheep, and slowly left that place behind with torments, sorrows and with weariness. But he falls ill and by the time he has recovered sufficiently to make the journey, the shepherdess, thinking he has abandoned her, has died of a broken heart. The idyllic opening scene of flowery meadows and purling streams is replaced by a bleak landscape invoked by the shepherd’s lament. Μέρα-νύκτα να κλαίω, να θρηνούμαι, τα πάθη μου στα όρη να δηγούμαι· να κάμω τα θεριά να μ’ ακλουθούσι, να κλαίου μετά μένα, να πονούσι. (441–4) Weeping day and night and mourning my sad fate, I’ll tell my sufferings to the mountains; I’ll make the wild beasts follow me, and weep with me and feel my pain. His only solace is his pet lamb: Να κλαίγη εμέ τ’ αρνί κ’ εγώ την κόρη (453). ‘The lamb shall weep for me and I for the girl.’ This is a poem that initially presents itself as a romantic eclogue. The  opening lines, here quoted in the somewhat precious translation  of  F. H. Marshall (1929: 326), depict a conventional locus amoenus:

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tragic, comic and tragicomic in cretan literature 379 One morn to distant dell I pass, To pasture there my sheep on grass, Where trees and glades and streams abound, And fresh and tender reeds are found. Amid these trees on flower-strewn mead The timid deer are wont to feed Upon the fresh bedewèd green, While songs of birds are heard between. But lo! a slender, beauteous maid Like some fair vision haunts that glade! Her eyes upon her sheep were set, Her beauty such as suns beget . . . There is nothing that clearly hints at a tragic outcome until more  than halfway through the story, when the couple’s impending separation instigates a mutual bout of weeping and cursing of fate. The tragedy is all the more poignant because it is unexpected, but also because the story is related entirely by a first-person narrator. In the biblical drama Abraham’s Sacrifice (Η Θυσία του Αβραάμ) (ed. Bakker and van Gemert 1996) the reversal goes in the opposite direction. God’s commandment to Abraham to sacrifice his son is ­ countermanded by the angel just in time and Isaac is joyfully reunited with his mother Sarah. In this Cretan play, adapted from Luigi Grotto’s Lo Isach (written 1550–6) and plausibly attributed to Vitsentzos Kornaros, tears and lamentation give way to laughter and celebration. In the words of the servant Simban: Και πούρι όλα τα κλάηματα, τα βάσανα κι η πρίκα όλο δροσές κι όλο χαρές σήμερον εγενήκα. (1097–8) Truly all the weeping, torments and sorrow have today become total relief and happiness. Isaac himself, showing remarkable maturity for his tender years, addresses his stunned mother: Μάνα μου, επά ’ν’ το τέκνο σου, όλο χαρές γεμάτο· ανάστησέν το ο Θεός απού τση γης τον πάτο. Δε μου μιλείς; Δε μου γελάς και δε με κανακίζεις; Δεν είμαι εγώ ο Ισαάκ; Καλέ, δε με γνωρίζεις; Τα περασμένα εδιάβησαν και τα γραμμένα ελιώσα, επάψασι τα κλάηματα, τα βάσανα τελειώσα. (1117–22)

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Mother, this is your child, so full of joy, God has raised him up from the earth’s depths. Won’t you speak to me? Laugh and caress me? Is this not Isaac? Don’t you recognise me? The past is over, destiny’s unravelled, weeping has ceased and torment’s at an end. Kornaros’ lengthy verse narrative Erotokritos (ed. S. Alexiou 1980) belongs to the genre of romance – ‘ποίημα ερωτικόν’, as the first edition very precisely labels it – with a plot structure that, in its essentials, dates back to late antiquity. There are of course reversals that hold up the eventual union of Aretousa and Rotokritos: separation, exile, imprisonment, near-fatal wounding. But just when the reader expects a joyful reunion and recognition, Kornaros introduces a twist: the disguised Rotokritos (now calling himself Kritidis) relates  how he came across a dying man who entrusted him with a ring to return to Aretousa – the very ring she had earlier given to Rotokritos. Convinced that her beloved is dead, she sees no point in living; she launches into a protracted, moving lament, cursing her fate. Για σένα αφήκα τσ’ αφεντιές κ’ εμίσησα τα πλούτη, για σένα μ’ εσφαλίσασιν εις τη φλακήν ετούτη. Για σέναν ενεστέναζα, για σέναν είχα πόνους, για σένα βασανίζομαι σήμερο πέντε χρόνους· τσι πρίκες δεν εγύρευγα, τσι πόνους δεν εγροίκου, με τη δική σου θύμηση το ριζικόν ενίκου. Μοίρα μου, κ’ ίντα λείπεσαι να κάμης πλιο σ’ εμένα; Τη σήμερο μ’ ενίκησες, όχι στα περασμένα. Ό,τι κι αν είχα, επήρες τα· ίντ’ άλλο σου απομένει κ’ ίντ’ ανιμένει πλιο να δη ένας οπού κερδαίνει; (V 1001–10) For you I gave up power and rank, scorned and rejected wealth, for you I was imprisoned in this dungeon here. For you I’ve often sighed, for you I’ve suffered much, for you I’ve endured torments these five full years; I did not harbour bitter grief, I did not feel the pains, but with your memory I conquered destiny. O Fate, what more do you have in store for me now? Today you’ve beaten me – the previous woes I could bear. Whatever I once had you’ve taken; what more is left? Can the victor expect to see yet more victories? Finally her strength fails her and she collapses. Then Kritidis reveals his true identity and her tears become tears of joy:

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tragic, comic and tragicomic in cretan literature 381 Τα μάτια τση από τη χαρά ποτάμια εκατεβάζα και με τα δάκρυα, που ’βγανε με την πρώτη, δεν εμοιάζα. Τα πρώτα εβράζα ωσά θερμό, πρικιά, φαρμακεμένα, και τούτα ετρέχα δροσερά, γλυκιά και ζαχαρένια. (V 1103–6) Her eyes now poured forth torrents from her joy, quite different from those earlier tears she’d wept. The first ones burned like boiling water, poisoned, sour, while these flowed fresh and cool, and honey-sweet. But it was a close call; when Aretousa collapsed in a faint, even her nurse thought she was dead and began to lament her. The narrator has even warned Rotokritos in advance that the shock of learning of his death may kill her, but concludes by justifying his action: Μα ’λαχε τούτο γιατρικό· με τη χαράν η πρίκα τα δυο εσυγκεραστήκασιν ομάδι κ’ εσμιχτήκα· κι αν ήθελε φανερωθή ως ήρθεν εις τη χώρα, απ’ τη χαρά τση η Αρετή δεν ήζε πλιο μιαν ώρα. Τούτον εγίνη σε πολλούς, στην πρίκαν εγλυτώσα, μα στη χαρά εποθάνασι και ξάφνου επαραδώσα.

(V 755–60)

But this served as a remedy; for joy and grief were mingled and became fused together. If he’d revealed himself on his return, her joy might well have killed her on the spot! Such things have happened: many, released from grief, have then succumbed to joy and breathed their last. As we also saw in Erofili, joy and sadness are closely related, in their symptoms and, here, in their potential consequences. In these three works, then (The Shepherdess, Abraham’s Sacrifice and Erotokritos), tragic and happy-ending scenarios are intertwined and can even (in the case of Erotokritos) be treated in a playful, teasing way. This is all the more surprising given the fact that they belong to completely different genres: one is a pastoral idyll or eclogue, one a biblical drama and the third a romance. However, it is in tragicomedy that the tragic and the comic quintessentially come together.4 This term was first introduced by the Roman dramatist Plautus – as a joke actually – to characterise his   4 On the origins and development of tragicomedy see Foster 2004. Also useful is Hirst 1984.

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play Amphitryon. Moreover, tragedy with a happy ending was not unknown in the classical period, Alcestis being the example most often cited. But it is in sixteenth-century Italy that tragicomedy emerges fully fledged as a recognised type of dramatic work with broad popular, as well as courtly, appeal. Giambattista Giraldi Cinthio (1504–73) is the most important forerunner. He wrote theoretical defences of what he termed tragedie di lieto fine, and composed numerous examples. He also knew and discussed the term tragicomedia, though he regarded it as a type of tragedy rather than a separate genre. Often included in ‘tragedies with a happy ending’ are biblical dramas, such as the Cretan Abraham’s Sacrifice.5 But it was Giambattista Guarini (1538–1612) who seized the terminological bull by the horns: in his pastoral drama Il Pastor Fido (‘The Faithful Shepherd’) (1589) and in his theoretical work Compendio della poesia tragicomica (1601) he produced first an archetypal example and then a meticulously argued defence of tragicomedy as a legitimate genre. His views had already provoked fierce controversy, which need not concern us here, save to mention that one of his most vociferous opponents, to whom he responds in the Compendio, was a Cypriot by the name of Iason Denores, who also had Cretan family connections.6 Among the surviving works of Cretan Renaissance literature there are three examples of pastoral tragicomedy (tragicomedia pastorale), including one in Italian: L’Amorosa Fede, written by Antonios Pandimos of Candia, and published in Venice in 1620 (ed. Luciani 2003). There also exists an anonymous Cretan adaptation of Il Pastor Fido, regarded by some scholars as superior to its excessively complex and prolix model.7 The third, the work we shall now focus on, is an original Greek pastoral tragicomedy, Panoria, by Georgios Chortatsis, probably written in the last decade of the sixteenth century. Like L’Amorosa Fede it is set on Mount Ida, which the Cretans imagined as their own version of Arcadia.8 The principal intertexts of Panoria are Tasso’s Aminta and, unsurprisingly, Il Pastor Fido, which set the model, but it is an autonomous work of considerable wit and sophistication. Its plot is relatively straightforward: two upper-middle-class shepherds, Gyparis and Alexis, are in love with two shepherdesses, Panoria and Athousa. But the girls are passionate only about hunting: Panoria has turned down Gyparis flat, while  5 For the characterisation of Abraham’s Sacrifice as a tragedia di lieto fine see Bakker 1978: 113–14.   6 See Holton 1992; Panagiotakis 1998.   7 See, for instance, Rosemary Bancroft-Marcus in Holton 1991: 92. In her view, the Cretan version ‘surpasses the Italian original in lyricism and performability’.   8 See Bancroft-Marcus in Holton 1991: 79–83.

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tragic, comic and tragicomic in cretan literature 383 Alexis is too timid to declare his love for Athousa. Gyparis enlists the help of the old matchmaker Frosyni. Panoria’s father, Giannoulis, is concerned about his daughter’s excessive devotion to hunting and neglect of household tasks, and would also like her to marry. When Gyparis is again rebuffed by Panoria, he determines to kills himself but is prevented just in time by Athousa, who offers to talk to Panoria for him. Frosyni fails to influence Panoria, so asks Giannoulis to persuade her to accept Gyparis. Alexis finally plucks up courage to confess his love to Athousa, but she is horrified and refuses to discuss the subject. By now Giannoulis is losing his patience with both girls, but, determined to help the shepherds, he suggests they consult the nymph Echo. Echo, repeatedly, confirms that they should sacrifice to Aphrodite and their prayers will then be answered. Enter the dea ex machina. Aphrodite sends her son Eros to shoot his arrows into the girls, which of course does the trick. There is a further complication when the girls, now love-smitten, are told by a vindictive Frosyni that it’s too late: the shepherds have changed their minds. But finally the girls ask for forgiveness and everyone weeps for joy at the prospect of the double wedding. The Prologue is delivered by the goddess who personifies Joy (Χαρά). Introducing the play’s theme and addressing the audience, she declares that no lover can experience true joy without first suffering a multitude of sorrows and shedding bitter tears: . . . κι απ’ αγαπά και καίγεται ας ολπίζει το πως το κλάημα γλήγορα ’ς πολλή χαρά γυρίζει· μάλλιος πως δε μπορεί κιανείς σωστή χαρά να πάρει δίχως να γνώσει παραμπρός πρίκες πολλές και βάρη. . . . κι οι παιδωμές κι εκείνα τα κλάηματ’ απού γίνουνται για κορασίδας κάλλη δίδουσι μόνο τη χαρά του πόθου πλια μεγάλη. (Prologue of Joy 83–6, 88–90)9 He who burns with love Should hope that soon his tears will turn to rapture; In fact, no one can feel true joy, unless He first endures a weight of heavy sorrows. . . . so lovers’ torments And all the tears shed for a pretty girl Make Cupid’s joys, once granted, all the sweeter.  9 Quotations from Panoria follow the edition of E. Kriaras, in the revised version by K. Pidonia (Kriaras and Pidonia 2007).

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And certainly a lot of tears are shed, or at least talked about, in the course of the play: the nouns κλάημα (‘weeping’) and δάκρυ (‘tear’) and the verb κλαί(γ)ω (‘I weep’) occur a total of seventy-four times in the text. In the first two scenes of Act I the two shepherds strive to outdo one another in exaggerated expressions of sorrow, self-pity and lovelorn despair. Gyparis, overheard by Alexis, tells his sheep not to eat the grass because it has been poisoned by his bitter tears. Alexis responds that he has often seen the sun stop in its tracks at the sound of his weeping. For more than 200 lines they compare and contrast their fates, each regarding his own situation as the more hopeless. Their speeches are full of hyperbole, anaphora, bathos and rhetorical excess. Gyparis uses a folksong-like triadic structure followed by a chiasmus to describe Panoria’s indifference to his feelings: Τα πάθη μου τη θρέφουσι κι οι πρίκες μου τη ζιούσι κι εισέ πολλές οι πόνοι μου δροσές τήνε κρατούσι. Το γέλιο μου πρικαίνει τη, θλίβγει την η χαρά μου . . .

(Ι 123–5)

She thrives upon my pangs, lives on my woes, And from my agony derives refreshment. My laughter saddens her, she mourns my joy . . . Another memorable paradox occurs in Act II when Gyparis makes a long speech, bidding farewell to the world and lamenting his fate as he prepares to commit suicide. After apostrophising the forests and mountains, his friends, his sheep, his flute and his sword, he addresses Panoria, in absence, as the cause of his torment and source of his pain: θροφή των αναστεναμώ, δάκρυα των αμματιώ μου· χαρά τση πρίκας μου πολλή και πρίκα τση χαράς μου . . . (ΙΙ 528–9) Tears for my eyes, food for my sighs’ sustaining; Joy in my sorrow, sorrow in my joy . . . Fortunately Athousa, the beloved of his friend Alexis, emerges from hiding at this point and stops Gyparis from ending his life. A frequent motif is the use of tears as a weapon in a love suit. Frosyni is here warning Panoria to change her haughty ways – or she’ll end up an old maid – and offering her the benefit of her experience. Like Panoria, she too was an independent spirit, who preferred hunting wild animals to being wooed by young men:

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tragic, comic and tragicomic in cretan literature 385 Και με καιρόν εμέρωσα κι εγώ κι εκέρδαισέ με γείς άγγουρος απού πολλά, περίσσα αγάπησέ με. Κι όχι με ξύλο γή σπαθί, μα ’σανε τ’ άρματά του ταπείνωση και κλάηματα, πάθη και βάσανά του. (ΙΙΙ 193–6) And in due time I too was tamed; at last A youth who loved me dearly, madly, won me; And not by stick or sword; his weapons were Humility and tears, his pangs and torments. Tears are again employed in an attempt to win over a young woman a  few scenes later, but this time in a story. Alexis, still too timid to declare his love directly to Athousa, tells her that he heard a shepherd  crying for her. He is, of course, referring to his own lovesick plight: Χίλιες φορές εγροίκησα για σε ν’ αναστενάζει ένας βοσκός και θάνατο πρικύτατο να κράζει. Δεν ημπορεί ν’ αναπαεί, μα κλαίγει και θρηνάται. Μα να σου πει πως χάνεται για λόγου σου φοβάται.

(ΙΙΙ 493–6)

A thousand sighs I’ve heard a shepherd heave For love of you, wishing that he could perish; He cannot rest, just weeps and mourns; he fears to tell you that on your account he’s dying! The power of tears is carried to its limits when Alexis and Gyparis, respectively, wish that their sighs and tears could drown them or take them straight to the underworld: Γύπ. Αλ.

Ήθελα να γενήκασι οι γιαναστεναμοί μου φωτιά και λάβρα σήμερο να κάψα το κορμί μου· τα δάκρυά μου ποταμός ήθελα να γενήκα λίμνη βαθιά να κάμασι για να πνιγώ να μπήκα. Κι εγώ ήθελα τα δάκρυα μου τον Άδη να μπορέσα ν’ ανοίξασι συζώντανος για να ’θελά ’μπει μέσα· γή κάθα αναστεναμός να γίνετο λιοντάρι την πρικαμένη μου ζωή γιαμιά γιαμιά να πάρει. (IV 131–8)

Gyp. Would that today my sighs could be transformed To fire and flame, entirely to consume me! I wish my tears could turn in to a stream And form a deep, dark lake for me to drown in!

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david holton Would that my tears were able to unlock The gates of Hell, to let me enter living! I wish my sighs could take on lions’ form to rob me of my life and end my sorrows!

There is no doubt that these tears could also reduce an audience to a paroxysm of laughter, as the shepherds’ competitive hyperbole becomes more and more absurd. In due course, a resolution of the impasse and a remedy for their anguish will be brought about by the  agency of Aphrodite and her son Eros. The Priest prays to Aphrodite as the goddess who can turn tears to laughter: τον Άδη, τον παράδεισο ανοίγεις και σφαλίζεις κι όλες τσι χάρες τσι καλές, εσύ θεά, χαρίζεις: το γέλιο, την ξεφάντωση, τον πόθο, τη χαρά μας κι ό,τ’ άλλος αναγαλλιασμός βρίσκεται στα κορμιά μας· . . . Εσύ θεά, οχ τα βάσανα μόνια σου τσι λυτρώνεις, τσι πρίκες τωνε παίρνεις τως, χαρά τούσε γεμώνεις. (IV 281–4, 297–8) You seal and unseal Hell and Paradise; You give us, Goddess, all the gracious virtues, Laughter, enjoyment, passion and delight, And all the pleasures latent in our bodies . . . You rescue [lovers], Goddess, from their racking pain, Fill them with joy and take from them their sorrows. By the end the positive concepts of γέλιο, ξεφάντωση, πόθος, χαρά, αναγαλλιασμός (‘laughter’, ‘celebration’, ‘love’, ‘joy’, ‘rejoicing’) will indeed triumph over the βάσανα, πρίκες, κλάημα (‘torments’, ‘sorrows’, ‘weeping’) of tragedy. And in the Epilogue, Alexis invites the audience to celebrate the joyful outcome together with the denizens of Ida. For, he says, ‘no girl in all the universe has such a savage heart that a faithful lover can’t tame it, by weeping and toiling, and obtain his recompense’ (my translation): Γιατί καρδιά ’γριεμένη κιαμιά δεν έχει κορασά σ’ όλη την οικουμένη κλαίγοντας και δουλεύγοντας να μην τήνε μερώσει ένας πιστός αγαφτικός πλέρωμα να του δώσει.

(V 415–18)

Tears are again not just a necessary prerequisite but the actual means of bringing about the desired outcome, the transformation from unrequited to requited love.

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tragic, comic and tragicomic in cretan literature 387 We have examined four Cretan texts that teeter between tragic and happy outcomes: in all of them tears and laughter exist side by side and are mixed together. We can identify three basic ideas, or axiomatic statements, that encapsulate this juxtaposition: 1. Tears must always precede laughter. 2. Laughter is inevitably followed by tears. 3. Tears and laughter are inseparable from one another.

These maxims, for want of a better term, also underpin the plots of these works. It is obvious that the first can be associated with comedy or romance, the second with tragedy. The third is more philosophical, and it is therefore unsurprising that we encounter it in prologues (Panoria) and in moments of introspection (the b ­ eginning of Erofili Act III).10 Interestingly, it is also found in that very self-conscious text Erotokritos, in which much of the work’s poetics is artfully concealed in the discourse and asides of the narrator.11 And of course this inseparability of the tearful and the joyful finds its fullest realisation in tragicomedy. In his Compendio, Guarini frequently stresses the co-existence and mixing of the tragic  and the comic as the defining characteristic of the genre. For example: se sará domandato che fine è quello della poesia tragicomica, dirò ch’egli sia d’imitare con apparato scenico un’azione finta e mista di tutte quelle parti tragiche e comiche, che verisimilmente e con decoro possano stare insieme, corrette sotto una sola forma drammatica, per fine di purgar con diletto la mestizia degli ascoltanti. (Guarini 1914: 246) If I’m asked what is the aim of tragicomic poetry, I shall reply that it is to imitate with scenic apparatus an action made up and blended of all those parts, both tragic and comic, that can stand together with verisimilitude and decorum, merged into a single dramatic form, in order to purge the listeners’ melancholy with enjoyment. In the context of Modern Greek literature, the juxtaposition of tears and laughter, or sorrow and joy, that we have discussed here has been 10 We may compare the motif of the inseparability of joy and sorrow in the Prooemium of the Palaiologan romance Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe. See Lampaki 2014: esp. 48 and other references there. 11 On this topic see Kaplanis 2006 (where older bibliography can be found), but also other papers in the same collected volume.

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connected by one scholar to a ‘principle of the co-existence of opposites’ (αρχή της συνύπαρξης των αντιθέτων), which he goes on to identify in various literary texts, from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, as well as folksong (Kapsomenos 2006). But it is not necessary, in my view, to formulate a new principle in Greek literary tradition.12 The literary texts of the Cretan Renaissance are inspired by the intellectual milieu and specific models of the Italian Renaissance; but they also draw, in often subtle ways, on the native folk tradition of poetry, tales and beliefs. The antithetical structures13 of the latter and the Petrarchan tropes of the former may well lie behind this fondness for mixing the tragic and the comic, and hence a particular receptiveness for the new genre of tragicomedy, especially in the pastoral mode. I quote an example of each, in order to make the point. From a folksong: ― Καλώς τονε τον Κωσταντή, που φέρνει το μαντάτο. Αν είναι θλίψη να θλιφτώ, κι αν είν’ χαρά ν’ αλλάξω, κι αν είναι για το γάμο σου ολόχρουσα να βάλω. ― Δεν είναι θλίψη να θλιφτείς, μηδέ χαρά ν’ αλλάξεις, μηδέ και για το γάμο μου ολόχρουσα να βάλεις. (‘Του Νεκρού Αδερφού’)14 ― Welcome to Kostandis, who brings us news. If it’s grief I’ll go into mourning, if joy I’ll change my clothes, and if it’s about your wedding, I’ll put on golden robes. ― It isn’t grief for you to mourn, nor joy to change your clothes, nor is it about my wedding, to put on golden robes. We can set alongside these folksong verses an example of the Petrarchan so-called ‘motif of contradictions’, taken from the Cretan tragedy Erofii (Panaretos soliloquises): Το φως σκοτίδι μου γεννά, το πλούτος με φτωχαίνει, πρίκα μού προξενά η χαρά, το δρόσος με ξεραίνει. Σαν πύργος στέκω αδυνατός και τρέμω σαν καλάμι, δειλιώ κι αποκοτώ γιαμιά, γελώ και κλαίγω αντάμι.

(ΙΙΙ 215–18)

Light yields me darkness, riches make me poor; Joy brings me grief; cool water leaves me thirsty. 12 For similar phenomena in ancient Greek, see Seaford in this volume. 13 For an absorbing discussion of antithetical thought and structure in Greek tradition, and particularly with reference to folk laments, see Alexiou 1974: 131–60. 14 From a Cretan version of ‘The Dead Brother’, published by A. Kriaris (2nd edn 1920), and collected in Ioannou 1970: 39, lines 31–5.

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tragic, comic and tragicomic in cretan literature 389 Strong as a fort, I quiver like a reed; I laugh and weep at once; I’m bold and fearful.

Lassithiotakis15 compares the above passage with the Petrarchan lines: Pace non trovo, e non ò da far guerra; e temo, e spero; et ardo, et son un ghiaccio, et volo sopra ’l cielo, et giaccio in terra; et nulla tringo, et tutto ’l mondo abbraccio. (Canzoniere CXXXIV, 1–4) I find no peace and bear no arms for war, I fear, I hope; I burn yet shake with chill; I fly the Heavens, huddle to earth’s floor, Embrace the world yet all I grasp is nil.16 It is clear that there are antecedents in Greek folk poetry as well as in Petrarch and the Petrarchistic tradition for the kind of juxtapositions this chapter has explored. But perhaps it is unnecessary to propose a specific genealogy for the intermingling of the tragic and the comic that we have observed in Cretan literary texts. To quote Verna A. Foster (2004: 9): ‘The tragicomic is the basic pattern of human experience. It fits both the individual’s experience of life’s daily ups and downs and the human community’s broader perception of its own existence.’ To conclude: this mixing of the tragic and the comic – of tears and laughter – has a long literary history. It seems to strike a particularly resonant chord with poets and playwrights in Crete around the turn of the seventeenth century. In the works we have examined, the juxtaposition of laughter and tears is not only found rather frequently in antithetical lexical structures, but also serves as a means of heightening the dramatic tension in works that belong to a wide range of dramatic and narrative genres. The interplay of the comic and the tragic may well relate to and reflect ‘the basic pattern of human experience’, but it takes a poet to give it artistic expression.

15 Lassithiotakis 2010: 451–2. The volume includes four excellent studies on Petrarchism in Greek (Cretan and Cypriot) Renaissance poetry, pp. 441–566. 16 Trans. T. G. Bergin, quoted in Forster 1969: 123.

22 BELISARIUS IN THE SHADOW THEATRE: THE PRIVATE CALVARY OF A LEGENDARY GENERAL Anna Stavrakopoulou What do Hitler and Mussolini, Ben-Hur, Charlie Chaplin, Theseus and the Minotaur, Romeo and Juliet, Salome, Antiochus and countless other real or fictional personalities have in common? They all appear as protagonists in the Greek shadow theatre repertory. In a nutshell, the Greek shadow theatre (called, like its central character, Karaghiozis) is an offspring of the Ottoman Karagöz; it was transported to the Hellenic peninsula towards the end of the Ottoman era and flourished from 1890 onwards;1 we can situate its golden age in the 1930s and, after a temporary death in the mid-1970s, it is currently being resuscitated, and is trying to regain some momentum, with the use of contemporary technology, including the ubiquitous social networks. Thanks to its very flexible plot structure and most hospitable cast, all kinds of mythical and historical events can be represented on its two-dimensional screen by its equally two-dimensional puppets, whose voices all come from the multi-tasking puppeteer’s throat.2 Space and time are indicated, as in many other theatrical and fictional genres, through a simple mention of the location and the era; the audience does all the work in their minds, completing the minimal settings and travelling gladly in time, in order to interact with characters and situations as distant from each other as they are (most of the time) from the viewer. In Karaghiozis performances, the  Hellenisation of the genre was sealed with plays inspired by episodes of the Greek War of Independence, during the last decade of  the nineteenth century.3 Thus history and real historical facts entered the plots early on and historical plays continued to represent a big part of the repertory, given the desire of the audience to relive legendary moments of recent and less recent Greek history. Tears and   1 See Mystakidou 1982; Hadjipantazis 1984.   2 On the structure of the plot see Sifakis 1976; Kiourtsakis 1983; Danforth 1983.   3 Hadjipantazis 1984; Myrsiades 1985.

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belisarius in the shadow theatre 391 laughter blend together in all the ‘heroic’ (as they are called) plays of the repertory, from Athanassios Diakos (which includes the horrendous roasting of the hero on a spit, while Karaghiozis as a church warden keeps cracking one joke after another) to Karaghiozis the Chief Doctor of Hitler.4 In this chapter, I will explore the Greek shadow theatre performances that feature Belisarius, based on material kept at the Modern Greek Theatre Archive in the Institute of Mediterranean Studies, Rethymno, Crete. The material in question is notebooks written by Vassilaros, also known as Vassilios Andrikopoulos, who lived from 1899 to 1979, and who was one of the big stars of the genre, having witnessed both its golden era and its temporary demise.5 Although he belonged to a generation of mostly illiterate puppeteers, he had the advantage of literacy and an insatiable thirst for knowledge. During his retirement years, Vassilaros was prompted by Gregory Sifakis and Theodore Hadjipantazis to write down summaries of his plays for the sake of scholarship; as we will see, he produced beautifully illuminated manuscripts which, apart from the abbreviated versions of his performances, include all kinds of other comments pertaining to the shadow theatre and to his life in general.6 Given the paucity of sources when it comes to popular artistic genres, the above-­mentioned collection of notebooks represents the second most important archive for the study of the shadow theatre, following the Whitman/Rinvolucri collection of recorded performances housed at the Parry Collection at Harvard.7 For this chapter, I have chosen to explore the assimilation into the shadow theatre repertory of a Byzantine topic as a backdrop to the theme of laughter and tears. If one leafs through the Vassilaros Notebooks, one realises that in the plays summarised there, time is not linear: it is rather flat and circular; there, Constantine the Great (of the fourth century ce) meets Nebuchadnezzar (of the sixth century bce) with great ease in a play entitled Constantine the Great and the King  4 Diakos has been an all-time classic multi-evening performance, introduced into the repertory at the beginning of the twentieth century, with a plot borrowed from patriotic dramas. The summary of Karaghiozis the Chief Doctor of Hitler mentioned here features in the Notebooks of Vassilaros, kept at the Archive of the History of the Modern Greek Theatre in the Institute for Mediterranean Studies in Rethymno, Crete (Notebook 2, 1973). I would like to thank Dr Constantina Georgiadi, who is in charge of the Archive, for her help in my accessing and studying the material.   5 For an historically accurate biographical sketch, see Papageorgiou 2015b.  6 Hadjipantazis 1994 discusses the adaptations of literary texts for the shadow theatre, using the Vassilaros Notebooks and making a brief mention of the Belisarius play.   7 See Myrsiades 1983; Stavrakopoulou 1994; 2015.

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Nebuchadnezzar of Jerusalem.8 Karaghiozis interacts on a first-name basis with the emperors and addresses Constantine using nicknames, like Kotsarelo and Kotsariko; his main task in the very complicated, completely implausible plot is nothing less than the transportation of the Holy Cross from Jerusalem to Constantinople. There are four plays in total with Byzantine themes in the Notebooks: in addition to the one already mentioned, we have two versions of Belisarius and The marble king and Karaghiozis in Italy.9 The shadow theatre is one of many literary genres that embraced Byzantium, ever since the Byzantine era was officially included in the national narrative by Constantine Paparrigopoulos in his History of the Hellenic Nation (from 1853 onwards). Long before the shadow puppeteers, the dramatists of the nineteenth century had explored the fertile possibilities of Byzantine history, where imperial politics included drama, passions, murders and exile that had been lying unexploited so far, at least by Greek men of letters.10 According to Vassilaros’ notes, the big star of his performances, as far as Byzantine characters are concerned, is not an emperor or an empress, but the general Belisarius. Since the story of the real Belisarius is well known, let us have a closer look at its shadow theatre version.11 Before we focus on the Belisarius plot, we should remember that the shadow theatre is a conventional art form and the order of appearance as well as the functions of each character are rather specific, although quite flexible. As scholars (Sifakis, Danforth and Kiourtsakis) have demonstrated in their seminal studies of the 1970s and 1980s, the plot mechanism is set in motion by Hadjiavatis, who expresses a lack or need which will be addressed or filled by Karaghiozis. With this simple mechanism Karaghiozis obtains a role in all kinds of disparate plots, becoming a doctor, a baker, a scribe, an astronaut, a general, an old lady, a bridegroom and even a bride. He is thus present and   8 Vassilaros Notebook no. 5, consisting of 49 pp., 1973. In the Vassilaros version of Constantine’s story, his father (Constantius) is presented as an unpunished murderer who married Helen because she was educated, v­ irtuous and moral, so that they govern the state together in a spirit of justice.   9 The first version is entitled Justinian the Emperor (Notebook 8, 81 pp., 1971) and the second The Byzantine Persian-fighter field marshal Belisarius and the Emperor Justinian (Notebook 9, 89 pp., 1973); The marble king and Karaghiozis in Italy is in Notebook 10 (50 pp., 1974). 10 See Hadjipantazis 2006: esp. ch. 3 (78–116) on ‘The inclusion of Byzantium in the diagram of national history’, where the author actually qualifies ‘Constantinople as the lost paradise of the nation’s childhood’ (p. 81). 11 Chotzakoglou 2013 explores the presence of Belisarius in the shadow theatre tradition throughout the twentieth century, offering a comparative overview of the play as it was performed by countless puppeteers in a number of places and historical circumstances.

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belisarius in the shadow theatre 393 active both in stories with strong folktale elements (like The Enchanted Tree or Alexander the Great and the Accursed Snake) and in historical situations. The first version of Belisarius written down in the Notebooks, entitled Justinian the Emperor, features the following dramatis personae: Ιουστινιανός Αυτοκράτωρ Ιουστινιανός – Αυτοκράτωρ Βυζαντίου Θεοδώρα – σύζυγός του Τηλέμαχος – υπασπιστής του Βενέτης – Δήμιος Ναρσής – Στρατηγός Βελισάριος – Αρχιστράτηγος Αντωνίνα – σύζυγός του Καραγκιόζης – γελωτοποιός Βελισσαρίου Κίμων – υπασπιστής Βελισσαρίου Αδαμάντιος – ταξίαρχος Μαρία – θυγάτηρ Βελισσαρίου Αριστόδημος – Αξιωματικός Συνόρων Σίμχα – αντιπρόσωπος Βασιλέως Χοσρόη του Αου Χατζηαβάτης Χοσρόης – Βασιλεύς Περσών Αξιωματικοί Αυτοκράτορος Ιουστινιανού Βελισάριος γυμνός – τυφλός στην έρημο Μαρία γυμνή – κόρη του – συνοδός του Έρημος Άγρια Θηρία

Justinian the Emperor Justinian – emperor of Byzantium Theodora – his wife Telemachus – his aide-de-camp Venetis – Executioner Narses – General Belisarius – Marshal Antonina – his wife Karaghiozis – Belisarius’ fool Kimon –Belisarius’ aide-de-camp Adamantios - brigadier Maria – Belisarius’ daughter Aristodimos – Officer at the Borders Simha – representative of King Khosrow I Hadjiavatis Khosrow – King of the Persians Officers of emperor Justinian Belisarius naked – blind in the desert Maria – his daughter – naked in the desert Desert Wild Beasts12

The play starts with Hadjiavatis stating ‘if all of this is true, we will go to war’; in this version, as in the other one, Karaghiozis is the fool/ jester at Belisarius’ house and thus he is privy to all the household 12 It is not surprising that Vassilaros includes ‘Belisarius, blind and naked’, and his daughter ‘Maria naked’, as additional characters, because they have a different figurine. It is interesting as well that ‘Justinian’s Officers’ (as a group), as well as the ‘Wild Beasts’ of the desert, figure among the dramatis personae too, since they are also represented by group figurines.

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secrets. It seems that the general’s wife, Antonina, has a weakness for Karaghiozis, for her own purposes. Here is an example of the dialogue that takes place between them. Antonina (aside): This moron, I’ll use him to execute my plans . . . So, tell me, do you also love your Lady? Karaghiozis: I love you, but you eat very late in this house! Antonina: Karaghiozaki mou, if ever your lady needed to ask you for a favour, one that would make her the happiest of women, while today she is unhappy, what would you do? Karaghiozis: For you madam, I am capable of pouring my blood abundantly, as they pour the vegetable broth in the sinks.13 This dialogue marks the beginning of a useful ‘friendship’ for Antonina, who soon after starts confessing to Karaghiozis that she does not love her husband. Karaghiozis, who is there to defend Belisarius’ honour, responds by reminding her that her husband is fantasy material for lots of imperial ladies (‘But my lady, my master, whose bravery resounds all over Byzantium, whose figure is desired by all the patrician women, he makes you unhappy?! But this is unheard of!’14). To which she replies: No, my Karaghiozi, I want him to die now, I want to dye my lips  in his blood, I want to be free to take into my arms the man I really love. Let’s go to the kitchen so that I treat you to a meal – I have made an aioli with fried Bosphorus dolphin, meatballs and wine from Damascus, all-red like the emperor’s garb; come with me!15 13

Αντωνίνα (κατ’ ιδίαν): Τον ηλίθιον αυτόν, θα τον μεταχειρισθώ προς εκτέλεσιν, των σχεδίων μου. Ειπέ μου, αγαπάς, και συ την Κυρίαν σου. Καραγκιόζης: Σ’ αγαπάω, αλλά, αργείτε, να τρώτε εδώ μέσα. Αντωνίνα: Καραγκιοζάκι μου, εάν ποτέ, η κυρία σου ευρίσκετο, εις την ανάγκην, να ζητήση μίαν χάριν, από εσέ, διά της οποίας θα εγένετο, η ευτυχεστέρα των γυναικών – ενώ σήμερον, είναι δυστυχής, τι θα έπρατες (sic). Καραγκιόζης: Για σας κυρία μου, και για τον αφέντη μου, δύναμαι να χύσω το αίμα μου, κρουνηόν (sic), όπως χύνουνε, το ραδικόζουμο, στους νεροχύτες.

14 Μα κυρία μου, τον Αφέντη μου, του οποίου τη παλληκαριά, την αντιλαλεί ολόκληρον το Βυζάντιον, το ανάστημα, του Βελισσαρίου, που όλες οι αρχόντισες, θα επιθυμούσαν να τον σφίξουν στην αγκαλιά τους σας κάνει δυστυχή, μα αυτό είναι άνω και κάτω ποταμών. 15 Όχι, Καραγκιόζη μου, θέλω τώρα, να πεθάνη, θέλω να βάψω τα χείλη μου στο αίμα  του, θέλω να είμαι ελευθέρα να αγκαλιάζω εκείνον που πραγματικώς αγαπώ. Πάμε να σε περιποιηθώ, έχω φτιάξει σκορδαλιά με δελφίνι του Βοσπόρου, κεφτέδες και κρασί από τη Δαμασκό, κατακόκκινο σαν τη χλαμύδα του Αυτοκράτορος, έλα μαζί μου.

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Figure 22.1   ‘Karaghiozis as general Belisarius’ jester, with hearty laughs’ (from Vassilaros’ Notebooks).

Figure 22.2   ‘The bloody Antonina, wife of Belisarius, who destroyed him, 554 c.e.’ (from Vassilaros’ Notebooks).

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Figure 22.3   ‘The king of the Persians, Khosrow I, who was captured by Marshal Belisarius’ (from Vassilaros’ Notebooks).

Antonina is enamoured of a certain Kimon here (while his name in Procopius’ Secret History is Theodosius); this Kimon was supposedly baptised by Belisarius and the general entrusted his family to him every time he departed for the battlefield. As soon as the marshal leaves for his expedition, Antonina hastens to reveal her love to an appalled Kimon. The third act starts with Belisarius’ dream, in his tent on the battlefield, in which his wife hovered over him with a bloody sword, while his daughter was lying dead nearby. He attributes the dream to his worry for his family. The scenes on the battlefield are replete with action, which includes a traitor from the Persian side (a Christian snitch named Adamantios), who helps Belisarius capture Khosrow I. We see here that real history serves as a larger frame, in which the puppeteer rewrites every episode freely and unabashedly in order to educate and entertain his audience; historical accuracy is clearly sacrificed to simple verisimilitude. Although at first Belisarius treats the captured king in a very courteous manner, in the following scene he writes a letter to Justinian using as ink the blood of a Persian soldier killed by Karaghiozis. Karaghiozis is sent to Constantinople with the letter and, before delivering it to the emperor, makes a brief stop at home to grab a bite. After a well-seasoned description of what happened at the battlefield, he mentions the letter to the scheming Antonina, who replaces it with another one, which she

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Figure 22.4   Belisarius blind and Maria, his daughter (from Vassilaros’ Notebooks).

composes, using her own blood and adding deleterious content (for her husband).16 The change she introduces to the last paragraph of the letter presents Belisarius as an apostate. The fourth act continues in a crescendo of violence, with a furious Justinian ordering the blinding of his general upon his return to Constantinople, followed by the departure of the blind Belisarius for the desert, accompanied by his daughter Maria, who will be her father’s eyes, very much like Antigone in Oedipus at Colonus. In a subsequent dialogue between Antonina and Kimon, she reveals to him that she was the one who wrote the incriminating letter which led to the condemnation of Belisarius. When Kimon runs to disclose the truth to the emperor, Antonina kills him from afar with a poisoned arrow. The fifth and final act takes place ‘Ten years later’, as we read on the upper part of the white screen, in the desert, with Maria and Belisarius appearing half-naked, covered by leaves, in a lamentable condition. There, in the desert, they bump into the traitor who had helped Belisarius capture Khosrow; the recognition occurs when the blind Belisarius touches, feels, strokes a golden dagger that he had given as 16 There are several common folktale motifs (see, for instance, Aarne-Thompson classification AT 318 ‘The faithless wife’) included in the play, of which the altered incriminating letter is one.

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Figure 22.5   ‘Ten years later, Belisarius naked with his daughter in the desert’ (from Vassilaros’ Notebooks).

Figure 22.6   ‘Karaghiozis kills the wife of Belisarius, Antonina’ (from Vassilaros’ Notebooks).

a reward to the traitor, while the latter is ready to kiss Belisarius’ feet out of gratitude. From Adamantios, Belisarius learns that the emperor has been looking for him in order to reinstate his lost honour; as soon as Belisarius hears this, he dies. The emperor appears there and then in order to deliver the eulogy of the glorious dead general. He takes

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belisarius in the shadow theatre 399 Maria with him, so that she lives in Theodora’s court (and eventually he marries her off to a promising officer). Needless to say, in the last scene of the play, none other than Karaghiozis himself kills Antonina, who begs him for forgiveness, claiming that it was Satan who made her do it. The final words of the play are a pun on ‘το πεπρωμένον φυγείν αδύνατον’ (‘it is impossible to escape one’s fate’), which in the shadow theatre lingo is transformed into ‘το πετρωμένο φαγείν αδύνατον’ (‘it is impossible to eat something petrified’). At the end of the scenario, Vassilaros reveals who assisted him in the composition of the play: he mentions three people, one of whom was a high school professor of philology, without disclosing any details on their sources, and then he notes ‘I wrote this play to read it, I hyper like it . . . I became famous thanks to it.’ It seems that, like Cavafy in his poem ‘Painted’, he created characters to keep him company, in his retirement years.17 If, while you were reading the brief outline of the plot, you kept wondering how a puppeteer got to know Belisarius’ story, we can perhaps provide a speculative answer, even though Vassilaros himself did not fully disclose his sources. In its outlines the story is well known, but the puppeteer was also inventive in his use of the material. Although Vassilaros has stated that his philologist friend, Ioannis Bobotinos, supplied him with a prose summary of the semi-fictional story, there is no doubt that the puppeteer made a very selective use of the events in this summary.18 The blinding of Belisarius is part of his legend and was developed by writers and playwrights from the seventeenth century onwards;19 the action of the play, however, is impossible to situate within the life of the real Belisarius. The one real aspect of his life which caught the attention of fiction writers has to do with 17

He finished the picture yesterday noon. Now he looks at it detail by detail. He’s painted him wearing an unbuttoned gray jacket, no vest, tieless, with a rose-colored shirt, open, allowing a glimpse of his beautiful chest and neck. The right side of his forehead is almost covered by his hair, his lovely hair (done in the style he’s recently adopted). He’s managed to capture perfectly the sensual note he wanted when he did the eyes, when he did the lips . . . That mouth of his, those lips so ready to satisfy a special kind of erotic pleasure. (Cavafy 1992) 18 As noted twice in Notebook 8, in the version entitled Justinian the Emperor; see also Hadjipantazis 1994: 121–2. 19 Chotzakoglou 2013: 594.

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his stupendous success on the battlefield, on all fronts of the empire, which under Justinian, and thanks to Belisarius and Narses’ military prowess, stretched from Mesopotamia to Gibraltar; it is this competence which made Justinian uneasy about Belisarius, who was eventually disgraced. On a personal level, Belisarius was allegedly fond of his wife, Antonina, who was already slandered in her lifetime. So why did Vassilaros love this story so much and why did he consider it one of his top artistic achievements? One can think of several possible answers to this question. The Notebooks of Vassilaros provide proof that, as a puppeteer, he had passed from the collective oral composition of the commonly used repertory to the more personal half-oral, half-written composition of plays.20 Given the large number of historical-heroic plays in the Notebooks, it is evident that Vassilaros found a refuge in history and historical situations which were far from the petty, menial struggles of his everyday reality; most probably this had a similar effect on his audience.21 More specifically, given the focus of this chapter, by reading the extensive summaries in dialogical form of the two Belisarius versions, one becomes aware of the total identification of Vassilaros with several characters in the play and particularly with Velissarios, as the name is pronounced in Greek (an identification that might also have been strengthened by the similarity between the two names). The identification is more apparent in the details of the plot and more particularly in the vilification of Antonina, Belisarius’ wife, who, before being murdered by Karaghiozis, is presented as an immoral and ruthless adulteress, responsible for her husband’s demise. In personal notes, written either before or after the plays, Vassilaros complains a lot about his wife, who oppressed him and did not obey him as much as he would have liked. It is very difficult to know whether Vassilaros’ marriage was unhappy because of his misogyny or whether his misogyny was a side effect of it, but there is no doubt that throughout his oeuvre, his presentation of wives (as opposed to innocent virgins) is very negative, and his identification with oppressed or wronged husbands in the Notebooks strikes the reader’s eye. All of this can be sensed in a nutshell in the reaction of Kimon to Antonina’s adulterous advances: he tells her ‘I spit on you, courtesan!’ (Πτούσου εταίρα!) 20 See Papageorgiou 2015a, where she suggests that Vassilaros was better in dramatic situations than in comic ones; Stavrakopoulou 2015, on his crossing from oral to written composition. See also Papageorgiou 2015b, which touches upon the adaptations of popular melodramas and novels for the Greek shadow theatre by Vassilaros. 21 On the impact of the audience on the oral composition of the plays see Myrsiades 1980; Kiourtsakis 1983.

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The puppeteers’ personal lives have never been examined by shadow theatre scholars as an element that may have had an impact on the composition of their plays, despite the stress that has been put on the uniqueness of each orally composed performance. Nonetheless, the abundance of material in the Notebooks proves beyond any doubt that Vassilaros’ life weighed on his dramatic compositions, almost as much as it weighed on Ibsen’s compositions. So, to go back to Belisarius: what did Byzantium offer to Vassilaros? As a sworn royalist, he was fascinated by the dramatic impact that a Christian emperor and his equally Christian general could have on his repertory, so Justinian and Belisarius became the vehicles of his fame. Hence, many decades after the inclusion of Byzantium in the national unconscious by Paparrigopoulos, its splendour reached a popular traditional art, thanks to the work of an exceptional artist. As for the laughter within the drama, it is clear from Karaghiozis’ interaction with Antonina that his subversive humour acts as a shield to her immorality. We have plenty of other examples where humorous lines are interwoven with critical moments in the glorious path of Belisarius. Furthermore, Karaghiozis’ everlasting obsession with food, independently of the gravity of the situation he faces, provides a solid ‘rope’ from which Karaghiozis is hanging in this ‘cliffhanger’ type of drama. At a critical moment, during an exchange between the general and Karaghiozis, Belisarius observes: ‘but I notice, Karaghiozi, that you are holding four meatballs in your hands, I see your pockets full and oil dripping from them.’22 Last, from the pictures in the Notebooks (a small fraction of which is reproduced here), it is evident that humour is what gives the story its edge; humour is conveyed mostly by Karaghiozis, but also through the vividness of the drawings, the audacity of the colours, the particularity of the settings and costumes. Belisarius in the shadow theatre already confirms attested aspects of this form of entertainment, like the carnivalesque and subversive role of Karaghiozis, when he interacts with members of the ruling class in all eras.23 Moreover, we find abundant evidence that the puppeteer brings his hero close to his audience by making him observe common rituals of everyday life (like the afternoon siesta), following a pattern of familiarisation suggested by Alexiou in her study of the Sacrifice of Abraham.24 However, in addition to the above it opens several other possibilities of study, related to plot and character construction and 22 Μα βλέπω Καραγκιόζη, ότι κρατάς στα χέρια σου τέσσαρους κεφτέδες, τις τσέπες σου τις βλέπω φουσκωμένες, και τρέχουν τα λάδια κάτω. 23 Kiourtsakis 1985. 24 Alexiou 2006.

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to the impact of the personal artistic choices within a traditional performative art form. I would like to close with an image from the play. It is only in shadow theatre battlefields that one can stand on a mountain top and see the following landscapes as they are described by Belisarius to Karaghiozis: Do you see these two rivers, which like siblings go down the plain and look like shiny snakes. It is the Tigris and the Euphrates, and of course these are the limits of our endless empire which were crossed by the Persians, who are endangering Constantinople! Do you see on our right, Karaghiozi, these beautiful mountains, which are above this plain, which overlooks the Mediterranean sea!! This is Palestine and Jerusalem, the city of our lord Jesus Christ – and his Holy Cross of Golgotha!’25 Quite a view, and well before Google Earth! It is this fertile plain of the Karaghiozis heterotopia (in Foucault’s sense) that, apart from its entertaining value, is still a rich soil for anyone willing to mine it for insights into the psyche of the community and within it the artist that imagined it.

25 Βλέπεις τους δύο ποταμούς οι οποίοι σαν αδέρφια κατεβαίνουν κάτω στην πεδιάδα και φαίνουντε σαν Γυαλιστερά φείδια. Είναι ο Τίγρης και ο Ευφράτης ποταμός, τα φυσικά όρια της απεράντου αυτοκρατορίας μας! τα οποία επέρασαν οι Πέρσαι και απειλούν την Κων/πολιν. Βλέπεις δεξιά μας Καραγκιόζη αυτά τα ωραία βουνά πούναι από πάνω – απ’αυτή τη πεδιάδα, που βλέπει στη Μεσόγειο θάλασσα!! Αυτή είναι η Παλαιστίνη και τα Ιεροσόλυμα η πόλις του κυρίου ημών Ιησού Χριστού – και ο τίμιος Σταυρός του Γολγοθά!

23 AFTERWORD Roderick Beaton

The violence of either grief or joy Their own enactures with themselves destroy; Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.   Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, scene 2, 202–5 Laughter and tears can be dangerous things – especially when juxtaposed, as they are throughout this book, and also in the lines that serve as the epigraph to this brief epilogue. Shakespeare’s lines have a bearing on the range of ambiguity explored in the foregoing chapters: they are spoken by the Player King in the play-within-a-play that (perhaps) proves the guilt of Hamlet’s uncle. They are doubly part of a performance; the whole episode is a send-up in which not only Hamlet and the fictional audience but also the real audience in the theatre are encouraged to be complicit: Shakespeare parodies the clichés and conventions that were the inheritance of the late sixteenth century from the Renaissance and its Graeco-Roman hinterland. Within that parodied context, the cliché can still be dangerous. The purpose of the character played by the Player King is to seduce the character played by the Player Queen, as a prelude to the murder of her husband. The speech continues: This world is not for aye, nor ’tis strange That even our loves should with our fortunes change . . . The lines about grief and joy turn out to have been part of a rhetorical (and hardly logical) argument that even the most intense feelings are subject to change and perhaps were never sincere in the first place: Our wills and fates do so contrary run That our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. (217–19)

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As the editors of this book set out clearly near the start of their Introduction, neither laughter nor weeping is an emotion in itself. Tears or laughter may constitute either the spontaneous, physiological manifestation of that emotion, or its performance, or ‘the enactment of elaborate social processes’ (see p. 5) – or indeed all three together. In a multiplicity of ways, the authors of the foregoing chapters have teased out the consequences of these ambiguities as they can be observed in action at different time periods, in different media and different genres, picked out from the longue durée of the Greek language (though, as the editors quite rightly are at pains to point out, the range of evidence presented and discussed goes far beyond the testimony of written texts). The initial premise of the book is a challenging one. The authors are confronting phenomena that are universal among humans, and more or less confined to our species (see pp. 3–4). But as the rapidly developing field of scholarship on the history of emotions has already begun to demonstrate, the meaning and even perhaps the emotional content underlying these universal phenomena are often, and to varying extents, historically determined. How far can this be demonstrated in the Greek case? Is it possible to speak of a distinctively ‘Greek’ history of the emotions? Does it make sense to try to trace such a history from remote antiquity to the fifteen million or so native speakers of Greek in Greece, in Cyprus and around the world today? If so, what would such a history look like? These questions point simultaneously in two rather different directions. One of these is towards the growing historical and cultural understanding of the ways in which emotions are experienced and expressed in different cultures and at diffferent times. In that context, what is specifically ‘Greek’ about the manifestations discussed in this book? The other points to the long-vexed question of the ‘continuity’ of Greek culture itself. In this second context, does weeping or laughing mean the same sorts of things in the eighth century bce, Hellenistic Alexandria, Christianising Antioch in the fifth century ce, Constantinople, Kiev or Crete during the succeeding millennium? How might any of the above be illuminated by or contrasted with practice among Greek-speakers today? The book’s two editors themselves exemplify, respectively, each of these two directions and sets of related questions: Douglas Cairns playing a leading role in the developing exploration of the history of emotions, as it can be applied to the ancient world; Margaret Alexiou as the acknowledged champion, since the 1970s, of a new and nuanced approach to the question of Greek ‘continuity’ that moves away from the national myth as established by Spyridon Zambelios

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afterword 405 and Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos in the middle of the nineteenth century, and the essentialist anthropology of such as Nikolaos Politis and J. C. Lawson, to embrace the theoretical paradigms of the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. These linked perspectives are in evidence throughout this book. If individual chapters or the book as a whole do not quite provide definitive answers to the questions extrapolated in the previous paragraph, that is hardly surprising. But there are still broader conclusions that can be drawn. One, I suggest, is that the two sets of questions are in fact inseparable. You can’t determine what might be specifically ‘Greek’, out of the whole universal history of laughters and tears, without also tackling the question of what ‘Greek’ might mean at different historical periods and in different cultural contexts – and vice versa. I take just one example. The verb that corresponds most closely to the English ‘I laugh’ has remained morphologically constant since the time of Homer. Ancient and (written) Byzantine γελάω becomes the vernacular and now-standard Modern Greek γελώ. The modern forms differ from the ancient only in the ways that the verbal paradigms have systematically changed over the centuries. We can unproblematically speak of the ‘same word’, in the way that George Seferis did when accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963: When I read in Homer the simple words φάος ήελίοιο – today I would say φῶς τοῦ ήλίου, the sunlight – . . . it is a note . . . whose harmonics reach quite far; it feels very different from anything a translation can give.1 It is on grounds such as these that we customarily refer to ‘Ancient Greek’ and ‘Modern Greek’ as (varieties of) the same language, and not as distinct languages, as we do when we speak of Latin in relation to any of the languages that make up the Romance group today. But the verb meaning ‘I laugh’ presents problems that Seferis didn’t have to contend with in the examples he chose in Stockholm. In its common intransitive form it does indeed correspond to the English ‘laugh’ (which unlike the Greek has no transitive form): already in Homer Andromache ‘laughs through her tears’ and Odysseus is moved ‘to laugh gently’ (Od. 14.465); Modern Greek translations of Homer need only substitute the modern grammatical form to preserve the meaning. Consistent from ancient to modern, too, is the morphological/syntactic feature that the verb can also be used transitively. But in this case the meaning is significantly different.   1 Seferis 1992: 167.

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In ancient and Byzantine texts, γελάω used transitively means ‘to laugh at, to mock, to deride’. As the examples cited in the first two chapters showed, this is the word for the often nasty behaviour of gods towards mortals, or of humans to those they perceive to be inferior. And this in turn may reveal something distinctive about ancient and Byzantine cultural attitudes, in that the language did not differentiate between joyous laughter and contemptuous abuse. In Modern Greek, the same word, used transitively, means not ‘I mock’, but ‘I deceive’, ‘I cheat (someone)’. No doubt the one usage has evolved into the other – they are not so semantically distant as to be unrelated. But no less important than the shift is the cultural attitude that emerges as embedded in the modern language: is there not an implication that the joy that provokes laughter (intransitive) may be particularly derived from the successful practice of deception, from having pulled the wool over someone’s eyes and got away with it? On the other hand, ‘laughing’ in this sense is almost invariably, in Modern Greek, something that is done to the speaker. The verb is usually used by the victim, who in so doing recognises the fact that she or he has been duped, thereby shifting responsibility on to the bad faith of others. The exception is the idiomatic usage θα σε γελάσω (literally: ‘I will deceive you’), which is more or less equivalent to ‘believe it or not’, meaning that the speaker cannot vouch for the truth of what is being said. Correspondingly (and I suspect more recently), the passive form, γελιέμαι, has come to be used in the sense of ‘I am deceived/am in error’.2 I have dwelt at some length on this single example because it illustrates a phenomenon that emerges again and again throughout the chapters of this book, as well as from other recent examinations of aspects of Greek ‘continuity’. What we learn from it is neither an affirmation nor a denial of the traditional understanding. It is not a binary opposition: either continuity or change/discontinuity. Rather what emerges as in some sense continuous is the process itself of change. This is one of the most powerful lessons that a book such as this can teach those who try to re-evaluate the diachrony of Greek identity, or what is sometimes (often misleadingly) termed ‘Greekness’. Of the foregoing chapters, some dwell primarily on ‘tears’, others on ‘laughter’. But what comes over most compellingly, I would suggest, is   2 For definitions and indicative examples, see e.g. Babiniotis 1998, ad loc. If some or all of these modern usages were already in place during the Byzantine or early modern periods, we can expect to find out from the ­forthcoming Grammar of Mediaeval Greek, edited by David Holton and Geoffrey Horrocks, to be published by Cambridge University Press.

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afterword 407 the juxtaposition of the two, whether this takes place within the same chapter, or across different chapters. I remember a comment from the concluding session of the conference from which this book derives, to the effect that ‘the tears were more interesting than the laughter’. But again, it need not be a binary opposition. Both ancient pagans and medieval Christians had a composite word that embraced that very juxtaposition – and interestingly, although the semantic field looks similar, the contexts do not, and perhaps this is why the words themselves, although part of the same language system, are quite unrelated: κλαυσίγελως (klausigelōs) in Ancient Greek, χαρμολύπη (charmolupē) in Byzantine. Sometimes, though, it is the opposition between the two that comes out the more strongly. We are reminded that Jesus, in the Bible and in liturgical texts, is known to weep (compare the English colloquial expression, indicating frustration: ‘Jesus wept!’), but never to laugh. Since many of the chapters focus on the transition from pagan antiquity to the Christian Middle Ages, the interaction between religion and the expression of emotion emerges as a major theme. The gods of the ancient pantheon laugh at humans; the Christian God does not. A Byzantine emperor can laugh at the confusion of a western emissary who finds himself confronted by the wonders of the Constantinopolitan court; it sounds like the old laughter of the Olympians. Christians, particularly during the time of transition in late antiquity, often seem to fear the expression of all emotion – ­laughter especially, thus confirming the stereotype of ‘killjoy’ Christianity. But from closer inspection a subtler process emerges. This is about exercising control over emotion, or at least over its public display. In this way emotion is brought inside the church, into the controlling embrace of a religion that determines to reach further than any before it into the emotional recesses of its adherents. Even so – as Alexander Lingas, sadly absent from the volume, demonstrated with brilliant effect at the conference – monks too could enjoy a joke. Given the huge chronological range open to them, the editors have opted to place the spotlight on what they term ‘key stages’, that is, the two periods of transition ‘from late antiquity to Byzantium, and from Byzantium to the Renaissance’ (p. 7). Implicitly, this suggests an initial acceptance of Paparrigopoulos’ tripartite division of Greek history into ancient, Byzantine and modern, the better to question it. Late antique studies, of course, have burgeoned during the last thirty years or so. A category unknown to Paparrigopoulos, ‘late antiquity’ may nowadays be said to be synonymous with the long transition from paganism to Christianity that is also probed by many of the contributors to this volume – from Constantine’s re-foundation of Byzantium as Constantinople in 330 to the aftermath of the Arab ­conquests in

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the seventh century. The second transition, from Byzantium to the Renaissance (and/or to ‘modern Greece’), is also known in Greek as the ‘post-Byzantine period’ and spans at least as many centuries. Many of these chapters therefore test the ‘glue’ that holds the tripartite construction of diachronic ‘Hellenism’ together. At least as presented here, each of these periods of radical change emerges as just that: the irreparable ruptures once claimed by Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer as proof that a diachronic history of Hellenism does not exist are nowhere in evidence. Cultural history is much subtler than the racially based history of the early nineteenth century. At the same time, individual contributors have not been afraid to range even more widely, so that the volume’s coverage begins with Homer and ends with performances of the Karaghiozis shadow-­ puppet theatre in the twentieth century. It would not have been practical, as the editors point out, ‘to cover the whole of the Greek-speaking world from antiquity to the present day in a single volume’ (p. 7). So I would like to end with some speculative thoughts about where the methodological insights and approaches highlighted in this book might have gone, or might go in a future sequel, if coverage were to be extended more fully into the modern period. First of all, if one looks at Greek traditional culture as it has been recorded in written texts, material artefacts and descriptions of performance attested from the late eighteenth century down to the present, there is an overwhelming preponderance of ‘tears’ over ‘laughter’. As Alexiou herself has demonstrated in her classic study, the ‘ritual lament’ has been embedded in Greek culture right through recorded history, and never more so than during the twentieth century. Laments for the fall of cities, mentioned in the Introduction, are a major part of that ‘unwritten history’ of the Greek people that used to be called folklore.3 Traditional Greek poetry, at the time of the revolution of 1821, had no rhetorical structures for celebrating a victory. So when the Ottoman stronghold of Tripolitsa fell to the Greek insurgents in October 1821, the Greek oral singer had to have recourse to the traditional lament in order to find public expression for his feelings. Just as Aeschylus had done in the oldest extant Greek tragedy, the Persians of 472 bce, although in a very different cultural and historical context, the modern oral singer reflects on the victory of his side by depicting the plight of the defeated enemy, Kiamil-bey.4 If anybody laughed  3 For the terms ‘folkloric’ and ‘traditional’, see the Introduction. The idea that traditional (‘folk’) songs constitute the unwritten history of the nation was first articulated by Spyridon Zambelios (Zambelios 1852: 5) and repeated by Nikolaos Politis (Politis 1914: 5).   4 Petropoulos 1958–9: i. 168, cited and discussed in Beaton 1980: 100–1.

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afterword 409 during the Greek revolution of the 1820s it was probably for rather horrible reasons. From the revolution of the 1820s to the financial and social crisis that erupted in Greece in 2010, the history of ‘modern’ Greece has not given much cause for joyous laughter, either. This is not to say that Greeks do not have a sense of humour or do not laugh – of course they do. But the nature of that sense of humour, and the triggers for that laughter, I think have not been studied in the way that the equivalent phenomena in ancient Greece, and now, thanks to this book, during the Byzantine millennium, have been. In literature, comic masterpieces can be counted on the fingers of one  hand. Emmanuel Roidis’ scurrilous and learned take on the legend  of Pope John VIII, who may have been a woman in disguise,  Pope Joan (1866), is as much a send-up of the contemporary Greek vogue for romantic historical novels, and indeed of the ­conventions of literary Romanticism itself, as a satire on the medieval  (and contemporary Greek) church. Almost a century would pass before The Third Wedding by Kostas Tachtsis slipped into print, almost unnoticed, in 1962, to be recognised at home as well as abroad only when the translation into English by Leslie Finer was published by Penguin in 1967. Of all modern Greek writers, Tachtsis is perhaps the only one who fully exploits the juxtaposition and superimposition of tears and laughter that are explored so richly in this book. The Third Wedding is a historical novel of the author’s own family. With a joyful disregard for chronology the narrator, Nina, runs through the gamut of every crisis of Greek history from the start of the First Balkan War in October 1912 to the defeat of the Greek communists in the civil war in September 1949. The chief character is called Hecuba, and she has children. The reader has been warned. Hecuba’s life is a series of tragedies, but she herself remains a comic character. Nina ends up loving her so much that as the novel ends she is about to embark on her ‘third wedding’ – marrying the dullest of Hecuba’s children. The reader loves her too. I know of nothing else like it in modern Greek literature. Laughter, or at least humour, of other kinds peeps through from time to time. The stories of G. M. Vizyinos from the 1880s exploit the ironies that arise from incompatible subjectivities, in a startlingly (post)modern way.5 But if irony is inherently a comic device (rather   5 First published in Greek between 1883 and 1895, all six of Vizyinos’ stories are included in Vizyenos 1988. See more recently Georgios Vizyenos, Moskov Selim and Thracian Tales, both translated by P. Mackridge (Vizyenos 2014a; 2014b).

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doubtful in view of its role in ancient tragedy), it would be difficult to characterise any of Vizyinos’ stories as comic. The predicament of the first-person narrator, particularly in the earliest of the stories to be written, ‘Between Piraeus and Naples’, may be held up for knowing ridicule by the reader. But overall, it is sadness that predominates. There is little to laugh about in these stories. The subtlest modern Greek sense of humour probably belongs to that subtlest of modern Greek writers, C. P. Cavafy. The multiplyrefracting ironies of Cavafy’s short poems extend further Vizyinos’ playful experiments with subjectivity. Cavafy’s poems are lighter in tone. But the characters in these poems are not given to laughter themselves. And if we, as readers, are moved to smile indulgently or archly at their artfully exposed foibles and self-contradictions, it is hard to find a moment in Cavafy’s poems when we actually laugh. For modern Greek laughter one has to look elsewhere. There is, of course, Karaghiozis, as Anna Stavrakopoulou reminds us forcefully in the only chapter of the book that deals primarily with a modern Greek theme. In wider culture there is a productive line that runs from the seemingly evergreen Athenian ‘revue’ of the late nineteenth century, through the neo-realist cinema of the 1950s and 1960s (dominated by the prolific Finos Films that brought Irene Pappa, Aliki Vouyouklaki, Melina Mercouri and many others to fame) to the often surprising multimedia responses to the crisis of today. No one who enjoys any of these can deny to the Greeks of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries their sense of humour. And it may be that in all these instances, and not just in the last, it is a sense of humour honed by the presence – or the threat – of suffering: the kind of humour that Shakespeare’s elegantly effete courtier Berowne, in Love’s Labour’s Lost, thought inconceivable but at the end of the play determines to master: To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be; it is impossible . . . well, befall what will befall, I’ll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital. (Act 5, scene 2, 847–8, 862–3) So the co-existence of tears and laughters in modern Greek culture is still present, even if the balance between them may be different from what it was in earlier periods. The modern language lacks a word of its own, equivalent to ancient klausigelōs and Byzantine charmolupē. Both appear in Babiniotis’ dictionary of 1998, but as evident revivals – words available to a modern speaker with some awareness of an earlier cultural context that generated them. In the absence of a single

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afterword 411 lexical item, the ‘last word’ of this volume must also be the first, the modern proverb that opens the Introduction: Οὔτε γάμος δίχως κλάματα, οὔτε κηδεία δίχως γέλια No wedding without tears, no funeral without laughter.

APPENDIX: CHYROGLES, OR THE GIRL WITH TWO HUSBANDS (translated by M. Alexiou)

Once upon a time there lived a man and wife, very much in love, and they had a little daughter they loved better than their own two eyes. The child (παιδί) grew. Time came to send her to school. Schoolteacher, soon as she went inside their home – they asked her in all the time because of the child – took a fancy to her dad, such a good husband as she saw he was. She made eyes at him, but his own were just for his wife, and she got nowhere. Teacher decided to get rid of wife so as to get hold of the husband. She fondled and kissed the child, feeding her must-pies and saying ‘If only you were my child, I’d give you everything you wanted, never say no, never tell you off!’ This, that, whatever. She got the child to listen to every word she said. One day teacher says, ‘Ask your mum to give you walnuts from the marble chest. Soon as she bends over, let the lid clamp down on her, so your dad can marry me, then you’ll be my child, just see how well we’ll get on!’ Child, just seven years old, goes to her mother, starts on at her, ‘Mum, I want nuts fresh from marble chest!’ Mother replies, ‘Take these off the shelf, they’re just as good. Who’ll lift the lid, I can’t do it on my own!’ Child grabs the chance, ‘Give me nuts from marble chest – I’ll hold the lid!’ Mother opens, bends down to get walnuts. Child drops lid, it chops off mother’s head, kills her! She goes and tells her teacher, full of glee (όλο χαρά). Father wept for his wife, now left alone with child. Not long after, teacher told child to ask her dad to marry her, but he wouldn’t listen. Child kept nagging him. One day he got angry, takes a pair of slippers, hangs them off a nail, and tells child, ‘When these slippers rot and fall from that nail, only then shall I take her as wife!’ Child goes to teacher upset, tells her. Teacher says, ‘Know what? Every morning, take slippers down, pee on them, they’ll rot and fall off!’

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Time passed. Child peed and peed. Slippers rotted, fell off nail. Child says to father, ‘Dad, slippers have rotted, now you can marry my teacher.’ Father saw child’s obstinacy, he says, ‘OK, since you’re so fond of her, I’ll marry her. But don’t you ever dare complain, or say she’s not good. She’ll be my wife now and I won’t stand rows in my household.’ ‘No,’ says child, ‘I’ll say nothing, just marry her and see.’ Father marries teacher. First year, all went well. Later, when stepmother bore her own child, ugly and evil. She got jealous of the firstborn and started to torment her. The poor child wept and wept, but how could she speak to her father, she daren’t say a word. Her stepmother sent her out to wash her new babyclothes (σπάργανα), and to log forest branches. She sent her out with a single crust of dry bread, to work from morning to evening. Child grew up, and began to understand the wrong she had done (το κρίμα της). She went to Kondylo every Saturday, lit a candle for her mother, gave incense, then she would sit, weep and beat herself. With all her tears and cries one evening she hears the tomb heave and groan. A voice speaks out, ‘Eh, my child, don’t you know you will be punished for the wrong you’ve done? Not a word – be patient, perhaps God will forgive you, as I already have forgiven you. If there is anything on your mind, come here and tell me, and you shall have my blessing.’ Child leaves, goes home to face stepmother’s shouts and beatings, ‘Where have you been, wretch, to get home at such an hour?’ The girl (κορίτσι) not a word! One day at dawn stepmother wakes her up gives her a basket of clothes and a dry crust of bread, and sends her out to Anavalissa, to do the washing. Girl set off, kept washing till sun went down. How could she finish so many clothes! At sunset she sits and eats her bit of crust. Up comes an old man, ‘Give me, too, my child, a piece of bread,’ he says, ‘I’m hungry and I’ve no bread.’ The girl takes bread moist out of her mouth, gives it to the old man. He says, ‘Give me water, I’m thirsty.’ She goes to Anavalissa, washes out her little jar really well, fills it with cold water, the old man drinks. He says, ‘Won’t you de-louse me?’ ‘Of course, grandpa’, she replies. The old man puts his head on her lap, she de-louses him, and combs right through his hair. He gets up to go, saying, ‘Thank you. I give you my blessing, my golden girl (χρυσό μου κορίτσι). Whatever you touch, may it turn to gold!’ The old man goes off. In a while child says ‘l’ll braid up my hair, get the clothes, and go!’ She touches her hair, and it turns to gold! She puts on an old skirt from the wash. Clothes and hair turned to gold right on her body as she went back to the village. Whoever sees her wonders at her beauty.

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appendix: chyrogles 415 Stepmother watches, ready to burst from evil. She asks her, where did she find all that gold. She tells her how she came across an old man, and he blessed her. Stepmother sends out her own daughter next day, the old man goes there, asks for food, bread, water, but she won’t give him anything, she turns him away. He curses her so horns would sprout from her body! Soon as she got back to the village covered with horns, kids followed and started laughing at her (την αναγελούσαν). Stepmother didn’t know what to do with her stepdaughter, who caused this. She beats the life out of her. The girl went back to Kondylo, and told her mother, saying she will kill herself, she can’t stand this life any more. Her dead mother speaks from the tomb, ‘Have patience, much time will pass before you can pay for the wrong you did!’ In a short while the queen of the region, who has no children, prays to God, saying, ‘Let me have a child, even if it’s a snake (φίδι).’ She gives birth – it’s a snake. How will they rear it? Who will give suck to it? The queen took one look and took fright. They sent out the town crier, to say whoever can give suck to the prince should report to the king and tell him. Stepmother hears this, goes straight to the king, and says, ‘I’ve got just the girl for you but she doesn’t want to go, you’ll have to take her by force, so she can give suck.’ They go to her house, take the firstborn, bring her to the palace. She  wept, saying she won’t go. They threaten to kill her. She says, ‘OK, I’ll suckle the thing, but just let me go and take leave of my mother.’ She goes to Kondylo, to her mother’s tomb; she wept, she beat herself, she told her all her torments. The dead woman says, ‘Tell the king to give you two golden breasts with a hole in the middle, pour milk into it, so Snake can suck milk without biting you with killer poison!’ She told king, they made the golden breasts, she put them over her own, the snake-child suckled, and became big and fat as a man. He treated her as his mother, followed her everywhere, came to love her! Years passed, Snake grew and grew, time came for him to marry. What woman would take him? Stepmother goes to the king, and she says to him, ‘She who suckled him is worthy to take him as husband.’ King summons girl, he says to her, ‘We’ll marry you to Ophis’ that’s what they called the prince (learned word for snake). Girl sets out once more for her mother’s tomb, and tells her, ‘Now there’s no escape, Snake will eat me, I’ll meet my end’, and she wept. Her mother speaks to her from the tomb, ‘If you do what I say, nothing bad will happen. Ask them to build an oven at your threshold, and bring you seven loads of wood. After the wedding, on that

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evening when you and Snake enter the closed bedchamber, light the oven seven times, and each time you light it throw in a fresh load of fuel. Wear seven shirts, and each time the oven is lit, you cast off one, and tell him, “Snakey, take off one layer, and throw it in the oven to be burned.” With the last layer Snake will be revealed as a man and then give him man’s clothes and you will take him in as your husband!’ Everything took place as her mother told. Wedding took place, she and Snake were shut up for the night in their chamber. She changed clothes, she took off a shirt from Snake, threw it into the oven, it was burned. In the end there was Snake, a fine young man, fresh as cold water! Next morning, when they went to open up, they expected Snake would have eaten her, so they opened the door very gently. They find the prince. Rejoicings! They couldn’t believe it, they thought it must have been some boyfriend of hers she had sneaked inside and together they had killed Snakey. But then they noticed that Snake looked like the queen, so they knew it really was the prince. All rejoicings, a second wedding took place, renewed vows, and a truly blessed life they lived. Time came for the prince to go to war. He left his wife, four months pregnant. He went away, he fought, and he was near to coming home. Stepmother had no peace. She writes a letter, as if from the queen, saying that his wife was shameful, she pities him, but what’s to be done, it’s his own fault for being away. Snake reads the letter, gets wild. He writes to his mother at once, get rid of the girl and send her off, soon as they get this letter, so he can come back home and find her gone. The king and queen, who loved her, didn’t know what to do now their son had written all this. The king writes to ask him why cast her out? Stepmother steals letter, writes another with heaps of new accusations. Prince writes back, they are to cast her out at once, he doesn’t want to find her back home. She was in bed, about to give birth. When she got up, they tell her Snake has written you must go. She takes her child, puts on old clothes, gets up and leaves. She walks on and on, and as evening fell to night near a deserted church, she goes in to light a candle, nowhere else to go. There she feels a shadow (σκιά) come near, and hears a voice, WHOOSH . . . ‘What are you doing, and how did you come here?’ She was afraid. Shadow tells her, ‘Don’t be afraid, I am human too (άνθρωπος είμαι και γώ).’ She sat down, told her story. She wept (έκλαιγε). Shadow said, ‘Don’t weep, don’t be afraid. You see over there a long way off in that town that great palace all clothed in black? Go knock at that door,

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appendix: chyrogles 417 say – On your Chyrogles’ soul, open up, I have nowhere to go. They will open up and you will stay there, I will come to you every night to lie with you, because I have fallen in love with you. Just take care never to tell them, if they ask, where you heard my name or ever saw me.’ The girl leaves, goes down, gets to the palace in the night, sees the palace steeped and clothed in black, darkened, and on the balcony sits a woman weeping, and she was the queen. ‘At such an hour,’ she says, ‘we don’t open the door to anyone.’ The girl then says, ‘For the sake of Chyrogles’ soul, open up for me, for there’s nowhere to stay for me and my child!’ The queen hears from her balcony, she calls for the doors to be opened, they give her a place on the threshold, and she lies down. Next day, queen summons her (Chyrogles’ mother that is), and asked where she heard the name of her child? Girl – not a word. Queen thought, she must be his wife, and the child his. She gave orders, had a fine chamber prepared for girl and child, sent up lovely dishes. Every evening Chyrogles would go there, become a man (γινόταν άνθρωπος), and lie with her. Every day the queen went out onto the threshold, caressed the child, kept weeping, and asked the girl where she had heard of her hapless son, bewitched as he was by an evil woman who had stolen his body and left it just a shade to wander the whole world, no rest at all. In the end, one day the girl says, ‘Stop weeping, and I’ll let you see him. He comes every evening here to lie with me. Come quietly one evening, and you’ll see him.’ Mother goes, takes a good look at him, and says, ‘What shall we do to keep him here and not escape?’ ‘That’s impossible’, says the girl. ‘He comes at dawn before sunrise, leaves, then he’s gone.’ Queen gives orders for a carpet (χαλί), the sky with stars, has it hung over the window. Chyrogles wakes up, and asks the girl, ‘How is it the day breaks so late today!’ He lies down again, sleep takes him. Sun comes out, it’s day and now he’s awake, ‘Why is day so late to dawn?’ He gets up, goes to window, sees the hanging, draws it back, it’s almost midday! He goes inside. ‘Ah, he tells her, what have you done to me? That’s it, I’m gone, what will become of me?’ In goes his mother, falls into his arms, doors and windows are opened, in streak light and sun, spells are broken. Chyrogles remains in his kingdom with his people, his mother and his wife, they lived like little turtle doves. Let’s leave the girl to live as queen in the palace with her child and her new husband, and see what happened to Snake. When he got back from war, his mother and father started on at him, what was all that nasty stuff he’d written? What did those letters mean? Why had he

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told them to turn out his wife and child, such a good wife as she was too! He was shocked, and asked them, ‘Wasn’t it you that wrote me all those bad things about her?’ King and queen say, ‘No, we didn’t!’ He shows them the letters, and they say, ‘These are not ours!’ They start enquiries, investigations, and discover the girl’s stepmother had written them. They arrest her and she is hanged. They send out an army, town criers all over the kingdom to seek wife and child, but nowhere is she to be found. Snake nearly died of grief. In a while an army officer comes from next kingdom, saying ‘The prince’s wife is now the wife of King Chyrogles, I saw her inside the palace one day.’ Snake goes off, taking an army with him, to get his wife back. When they got near the frontier, Chyrogles came out with his army to defend his realm. Two armies met on a plain, near a fountain. Chyrogles sends messengers to ask Snake what he wants and why has he set foot on my soil? Snake says, ‘I want my wife and child back!’ Chyrogles said, ‘She’s my wife now, she saved me from evil spells and made me man again when I was nothing but a shadow!’ Snake says, ‘No, she’s mine, didn’t she save me too from death and witchcraft? And didn’t she bear my child!’ They were ready to fight. Up comes a wise old man, saying ‘Instead of you and your armies fighting and killing each other, wouldn’t it be better to call the queen here and let her say for herself which of the two she wants, and let her choose her own fate?’ They agreed. Chyrogles sends word to the palace, queen appears, they tell her to choose by asking whichever of the two she loved best to bring her some water to drink from the fountain. The other one will understand, and go away. Then the queen stood between them, and she looked at Snake. She had nursed him with her own milk. She had made him a man, he was her first husband. She had loved him so much, yet he fed her poison (την πότισε φαρμάκι) and turned her out of the palace. She looked at Chyrogles, whose love for her had made him man again. He had brought her from street to palace and made her his queen! She didn’t know what to do, her eyes streamed a fountain (τα μάτια της τρέχανε βρύση). They wanted her answer, a decision, but her heart grew faint, she sat down by the edge, and she sang like this: Lord Snake I love, Chyrogles I desire! Chyrogles, bring water, and let me expire! Before Chyrogles could bring water, she fell to the ground and her soul departed. Kafantaris 142. From Skyros: Niki Perdika, Athens 1943

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appendix: chyrogles 419 This tale from Skyros is the latest of four versions recorded from the Greek-speaking world (others from Thrace, Dodekanese, Asia Minor). In each, the end is different (girl follows Snake, who takes child; chooses Snake; just dies). But in none is she permitted to go with Chyrogles, as is her declared preference here. The reason for her death is not explicit, but has to do with fateful contact with the ‘other’ world (as in the well-known ballad Του Νεκρού Αδερφού ‘The Dead Brother’). She killed her own mother by a wilful act, therefore she must redeem Snake (a mediating creature between worlds of living and dead) and ‘Chyrogles’ (the name of a Turkic outlaw c. sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, otherwise unrelated to our tale), who in the Thracian version is to be punished by eternal damnation by Nereids for serial rape until he can find a living soul to ransom his.The theme of Christian redemption is strong, mediated by the power of tears to penetrate boundaries beyond our world. Apart from the generic terms ‘Ophis’ (Snake) and ‘Chyrogles’, none of the characters is named. The protagonist is designated first as ‘child’, then – as she matures and becomes aware of the wrong she has done – ‘girl’, and finally, ‘queen’. This feature is common to many Greek tales and songs. We cannot record here the version so skilfully performed by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones on 7 November 2013, accompanied with voice and violin by Lucy Macrae. I offer here a bald translation, trying to keep the spoken voice, in the hope that it may inspire others to reinerpret and recreate this extraordinary tale, wrung from despair yet somehow triumphant, as illustrated by Katerina Samara on our cover.

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INDEX LOCURUM

Acropolitis, George Chroniki Syngraphi 59: 128

Anaxilas The Chick fr. 22.22–8 K.–A.: 101

Actes d’Iviron I, 188–9 (no.15) 10–13, 28–35, 39–46: 367–8

Antiphanes Sappho fr. 194 K.–A.: 96–7

On Adam (anon.): 212 Aelian Varia Historia 9.15: 109 Aelius Aristides 48.28: 33 Aeneas Romance (anon.) 8141–388: 355 Aeschylus Agamemnon 650–1: 12 Eumenides 560: 51 Septem 814–17: 29 825–8: 29–30 Alexander of Aphrodisias Commentary on Aristotle’s Topica I 1.1: 157 (Pseudo-?)Alexander of Aphrodisias, Problemata 1.31: 6n.29 1.136: 162 Alliterative Morte Arthure (anon.) 3977–80: 315 Amorous Story of Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe (anon.) 1673–92: 364–5 2044–55: 365 Anastasios of Sinai Questions and Answers Q.101: 192–3

Anthologia Palatina 4.3.47–112 (Agathias): 81 4.3.116 (Agathias): 81 4.3.124–5 (Agathias): 81 4.3.128–33 (Agathias): 81 5.111 (Antiphilos): 83 5.144 (Meleager): 83 5.147 (Meleager): 83 5.178 (Meleager): 83 5.230 (Paul Silentarios): 78 5.234 (Paul Silentarios): 78 5.236 (Paul Silentarios): 77 5.246 (Paul Silentarios): 77 5.267 (Agathias): 82 5.281 (Paul Silentarios): 84 5.292 (Agathias): 86 5.302 (Agathias): 82 6.80 (Agathias): 80–1 7.572 (Agathias): 84 9.166–8 (Palladas): 84 9.528 (Palladas): 85 9.642–3 (Agathias): 82 10.64 (Agathias): 83 10.68 (Agathias): 82 10.87 (Palladas): 83 10.124–5: 76 10.556 (Palladas): 84 11.60 (Palladas): 83 11.186 (Nikarchos = Nicarchus): 84 11.187 (Leonidas): 84 11.237 (Demodokos): 84 11.379 (Agathias): 86 11.384 (Palladas): 85 11.395 (Nicarchus = Nikarchos): 94–5 12.205 (Strato): 83 12.218 (Strato): 83 14.29: 98n.34 14.55: 98–9

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index locurum 473 Anthologia Planudea 16.89 (Gallus): 77 16.131 (Antipater): 77 16.132 (Theodoridas): 77–8 16.282 (Palladas): 83 Apa Arsenios (Patrologia Graeca 65) 105C–108A: 316 Aphthonios of Antioch Progymnasmata 11: 333 Apophthegmata patrum 3.34: 128n12 3.56: 137–8 20.15.49–52: 138 Aquinas, Thomas Summa Theologica Question 168: 223 Arethas of Caesarea De Saltatione 45: 235 Opera 17: 152–3 69: 154 Scholion 165 79–117: 155–9 Aristophanes Clouds 1078: 52 Wasps 20–3: 87 fr. 545 K.–A.: 101 Aristotle Ethica Nicomachea 1108a23–6: 160 1161b: 325 1176b27–1177a4: 52, 223 Part. An. 673a8: 4 Rhetorica 1046b: 64n.38 1406b5–7: 150 1412a26–1412b34: 147 1419b3–7: 153 Arrian Epicteti Dissertationes 1.11.39: 117 Augustine Confessions 6.8: 227–8 Balsamon, Theodore (Rhalles and Potles 1952–9, ii) 545–6: 245n6, 285–6 (PG) 138.180: 234n13

Barsanuphius et Joannes Quaestiones et responsiones ad coenobitas Ep. 458: 238 Basil of Caesarea Hom. 13 in baptisma 31.424–44: 144 Regulae fusius tractatae 17.1: 142 Basil of Seleucia On Lazarus 3: 203 6: 203 9–10: 203 Basilakes, Nikephoros Progymnasmata 39.59–62: 128 Catullus 62.36–7: 33 66.16: 33 Chanson de Roland (anon.) 164.2215–21: 314 Choniates, Michael Ep.79.105: 347 Ep.100.192–208: 344 Monody for his brother Kyr. Nicetas Choniates 352.17–18: 346 354–5: 345 354.8–11: 345 354.25–6: 346 355.9–10: 345 355.14: 345 355.20–6: 345–6 356.8–9: 345 357.10–15: 345 358.19–359.6: 128n.12 359.5–6: 339 360–4: 346 Orationes 14.55: 141 Schedos 360.12–17: 142 Choniates, Nicetas Ep.39.5: 141 Historia 6.65–84: 328 222.60–4: 133–4 256.45–257.71: 128n13 295.14–16: 135n39 295.55–6: 126n2 348.77–86: 341 524.22–4: 141 576–82: 338 590.24–7: 135 591–2: 338–9 647–55: 338 Monody on Ioannes Belissariotes 148.15–17: 341 148.21–3: 341

­474

index locurum

Choniates, Nicetas (cont.) 148.32–3: 342 149.11: 341 149.26–8: 342 150.1–15: 342 159.16–24: 342 160.14–16: 342 161.23–5: 142 164.17–19: 342 165–6: 343 166.1–5: 343 166.25–31: 343 Chortatsis, Georgios Erofili Prol. 82–6: 377 Prol. 109–10: 377 III.1–4: 376–7, 387 III.215–18: 388–9 Panoria Prol. 83–6: 383, 387 Prol. 88–90: 383, 387 I.123–5: 384 II.528–9: 384 III.193–6: 385 IV.131–8: 385–6 IV.281–4: 386 IV.297–8: 386 V.415–18: 386 Chorikios of Gaza In defence of the mimes (Or. 32) 102: 219 110: 225 113: 219 Christopher of Mytilene Poem 44 1–80: 322–3 Poem 75: 322, 328 Poems 75–9: 322 Christos Paschon (anon.) 998–1007: 331–2 Chrysostom, John Against those who live with virgins (Dumortier 1955) 3.10: 162 Instructions to catechumens 3/5.8–13: 186 ad Populum Antiochenum (PG) 49.15–222: 168 49.33: 178 49.82: 176–7 49.137: 167 49.137–8: 169 49.155: 176, 178–9 49.158–9: 175–6, 222 49.159: 222 49.173: 167, 179–80 49.184: 180–2 49.184–5: 179 49.185: 182–3 49.186–7: 183, 184–5

49.210: 182 49.210–11: 177 49.213: 182 Adversus ebriosos (PG) 50.440: 222 Ascetam facetiis uti non debere (PG) 48.1055: 222, 227 De Lazaro (PG) 48.980: 222 De virginitate (Grillet and Musurillo 1966) 73.27: 162 In ep. ad Coloss. (PG) 62.389: 222 In ep. ad Cor. (PG) 61.64: 222 In ep. ad Eph. (PG) 62: 221 62.103: 222 62.118: 222 , 227, 229–30 62.119: 222, 228–9 62.119–20: 176, 224 62.120: 222, 230 In ep. ad Hebraeos (PG) 62.122: 222, 227 63.122: 161–2 In Ioannem (PG) 225, 227, 269 In Matthaeum (PG) 57.69: 185 58.767: 222 Cicero De Oratore 2.275–6: 118–19 Letters to Atticus 10.16.5: 226 Clearchus of Soli fr. 86 (Wehrli): 87 Clement of Alexandria Paidagogus 2.46: 184 Consolatory fable (anon.) (Cupane 1995) 89–92: 370 Continuatus, Theophanes 6.39: 134 Dead Brother (anon.) 31–5: 388 Demosthenes 23.206: 108n22 Diphilus fr. 49 K.–A.: 103 Eirenikos, Nicholas Quatrains on the betrothal of John Doukas and Anna 1–8: 371–2 28–35: 372–3

­

index locurum 475 Epicharmus Sphinx fr. 147 K.–A.: 100–1 Epicurus Sententiae Vaticanae 41: 52 Eubulus Sphingocarion fr. 106.1–9 K.–A.: 95–6 Eugenianos, Nicetas Drosilla and Charikles 1.77–158: 301 1.234–6: 301 1.267–73: 301–2 2.26–7: 302 2.36–9: 302 2.48–9: 302–3 2.57–385: 354–5 2.108: 303 2.111: 303 2.360: 307n38 3.5–7: 307 3.135–236: 303 4.138–9: 373 4.168–9: 303 4.179–81: 303 4.335: 303 5.51–60: 303 6.382–643: 310–11 6.610: 311 7.274–95: 303–4, 310 7.310–15: 303–4, 310 8.311–14: 304 8.317–20: 304 9.164–7: 304 Eugenikos, John (Milovanović 1986) 72: 99 77: 100 195: 93–4, 96, 97 Euripides Bacchae 1021: 51 Herakles 613: 34 742–6: 34 Eustathios of Thessaloniki Ad Iliadem ref to IV 547.5 in van der Valk, no line ref.: 142 1.247: 164 19.362: 163–4 Ad Odysseam 10.552: 112 20.302: 163 De Simulatione (PG 136) 376: 236, 239n38 Oratio 7 In patr. Mich. 123.37–51: 142

Ferdowsi, Abolqasem Shahnameh (Davis 2006) p.179: 313 p.407: 313 Firmicius Maternus De errore profanarum religionum 22: 32 Florios and Platziaflore (anon.) London Redaction 1380–1: 370 Vienna redaction: 374 Funerary gold leaf 26 (Graf and Iles Johnston 2007): 32 (Pseudo-?) Geometres, John Paradisus 60: 131–2 Glykas, Michael Biblos Chronike 548.12–549.4: 140 Gregory of Corinth Commentary on Hermogenes’ Περῖ δεινότητος 24: 148–9 Gregory of Nazianzus Orationes 27.9.3: 154 36: 154 Gregory of Nyssa Life of Macrina 33: 200 Gurgani, Fakhruddin Vis and Ramin 32: 355 Hegisippus fr. 1.11–16 K.–A.: 10, 33–4 Heliodorus Aithiopika 6.8.3–9.1: 353–4 Pseudo-Heraclitus Homeric Problems 70.1: 64 Pseudo-Hermogenes Περῖ μεθόδου δεινότητος 34: 147 Herodotus 1.29–30: 59–60 7.45: 35 Hesiod Opera et Dies 59: 51

­476

index locurum

Hierocles and Philagrios the grammaticus? Philogelos 1: 112 3: 111 6: 111 9: 117 12: 114 14: 113–14 19: 114 21: 112 22: 114 26: 114 27: 111 29: 115 41: 112 55: 115 54: 115 60: 114 62: 106 72: 116 78: 119 91: 112 93: 114 98: 116 128–39: 111 127: 114 131: 114 148: 118 156: 112 170: 110 187: 111 193: 118, 119 201: 111 204: 111 219–26: 106n.15 223: 106–7 246–9: 110 261: 106n.15 264: 120 Hippocratic Corpus On Regimen 4.89: 219n2 Hippolytus Refutatio omnium haeresium 1.13.4: 52 Historia monachorum in Aegypto (anon.) I.33–4: 138n53 Homer Iliad 1.595–9: 42–3 3.226: 68 5.127–8: 67–8 6.138: 50 6.146–8: 69 6.389: 29 6.405: 28 6.441–65: 28, 29 6.484: 9, 28, 405 6.491–3: 29 6.498–500: 29 13.772–3: 342

21.387–90: 39–40 21.406–9: 41–2 21.412: 42 21.415: 42 21.491: 40 21.506–10: 40–1 22.8–13: 51 23.8–29: 33 Odyssey 4.805: 50 5.122: 50 8.306–7: 44–5 8.324: 45 8.325–7: 43–4 8.329: 45 8.333–42: 48 8.341: 45 8.343–4: 45 14.465: 405 16.214–18: 31 19.471–2: 31 20:345–9: 35 Homeric Hymns To Aphrodite 531: 51 To Demeter 204: 32 Ignatios the Deacon Poem 1: 328 Imberios and Margarona (anon.) Naples Redaction 760–3: 370 Vienna redaction: 374 Jacob of Sarug (vel Serug/Serugh) On Cain and Abel: 203–4 On Elisha VI: 204 On Jephthah’s daughter: 204 On the judgment of Solomon: 204 On the memory of the departed: 200 On the partaking: 200 On the spectacles of the theatre: 206n31, 219–20 John of Damascus Expositio fidei 64.1–10: 127, 128–9, 132 Sacraparallela κ4 (Migne 1857–66) 96.col.76A: 136–7 John X Kamateros On the harm done to us by the Latins 84.10–12: 351 84.22–85.8: 352 90.10–20: 352 93.7–9: 352 95.10–14: 352 John the Rhetor Comm. in Hermogenis librum περὶ ἰδεῶν 389.12: 142 Kataskepenos, Nicholas Life of Cyril Phileotes 42.2: 133

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index locurum 477 42.8–13: 316 42.9–11: 133 Katrares, John Monody for Monodists 52.55–7: 340 56.96–9: 340 58.122–4: 339–40 Kekaumenos Consilia et narrationes (Strategikon): 233–4, 317 Klimakos, John Scala paradisi (PG 88) 776A: 316 804C: 141 Komnene, Anna Alexiad 2.1.4: 324–5 2.4.9: 367 7.7.2: 328 Kornaros, Vitzentsos (Vincenzo Cornaro) Abraham’s Sacrifice 1097–8: 379 1117–22: 379–80 Erotokritos V.755–60: 381 V.1001–10: 380 V.1103–6: 381 Lactantius Epitome Institutionum Divinarum 18.7: 32 Lament of Mary, the niece of Abraham of Qidun (anon.) 213 Latin Anthology Epigram 487a (Riese): 225, 230 Leo the Wise Instructions on Spiritual Government 3.13: 132 Leontius of Neapolis Vita Symeonis Sali 77.26: 138n54 Libanius Orationes 19–23: 168 19.26: 171 20.4: 171 20.20: 172 20.22: 172 22: 170–1 22.7–8: 169–70 22.10: 170 22.12: 170 22.20–1: 172–3 22.20–2: 171 22.22: 166–7, 168, 173

22.28: 173 22.36–9: 173–4 22.37: 174 The Life of St Irene, Abbess of Chrysobalanton (anon.) 44.18–21: 234 Longus Daphnis and Chloe Proem 3: 294, 306 2.7.7: 291–2 Lucian Charon 4: 67 6–7: 67–8 8: 68 9–13: 68 14: 68 16–17: 68 19: 69 Dance 83: 235 Dialogi Deorum 1.1–3: 46–7 3.2: 47 21.1–2: 45–6 How to write history 51: 61 Icaromenippus 4: 71 11–19: 53 11: 65, 66n42 13: 65–6 15: 66 16: 66–7 17: 71 20–1: 62–3 24: 53 Nigrinus 1–12: 71 13: 70 16: 70 24: 70 18: 70–2 20: 70–1 29: 70 Verae Historiae 1.1–2: 56, 58, 59, 64 1.3: 58 1.4: 56–7 1.5: 59–60 1.22: 58 1.25–6: 57–8, 63–4 2.31: 61 Vita Auct. 13: 52 Magistros, Leo Poem 1: 328 Makrembolites, Eumathios Ainigmata 1.2: 88–9

­478

index locurum

Makrembolites, Eumathios (cont.) Hysmine and Hysminias 1.12.3–4: 297–8 1.14.4: 298 3.4.1–3: 298 3.4.5: 298 3.7.4: 299 4.1.3: 299 4.2.1–2: 299 4.22.1: 309–10 4.23.2: 307 5.6.4: 298 5.18.1–2: 300 7.15.2: 300 7.16.2: 300 8.12: 305–6, 307 8.14.1: 306 9.5.2: 300 9.16.2: 298 9.22.1: 309 11.23.1–2: 306 Manasses, Constantine Aristandros and Kallithea fr. 111: 309 101: 141 168.1–3: 135n.39 Carmen Morale 838–44: 140 Or. fun. in Theodoram 145–7: 143 Marcianus Graecus 512 Riddle (anon.): 92 Marcianus Graecus 524 Dialogue poem (anon.): 24 Epitaph B140 (82/84) (anon.): 323–4 Mark the Monk On Those Who Think they are Justified by Works 83: 316 Pseudo-Maximus the Confessor Florilegium 57.1: 137 Megalomytes, Basil 6: 89–90 24: 90–1 39: 97 21: 102–3 Meles, Isidore (epitaph, Salaville 1928) 3–22: 323 34–8: 323 Menander Rhetor 2.16: 327 16.434–7: 173n28

Mesarites, Nicholas Epitaphios for the most blessed and holy of monks John Mesarites 25.1–2: 349 33–4: 348 39.4–12: 348 41.18–28: 348–9 42.6–8: 349 43–4.2: 349 45.31–2: 350 46–7: 350 48.14–16: 350 62.19–32: 351 Nemesius of Emesa On the nature of man 1.10: 159 Neophytos the Recluse Pentekontakephalon 19: 133n25 23.1: 368–9 New Testament Acts 26:24: 117 1 Corinthians 10:31: 186 2 Corinthians 7:10: 180–1 Ephesians 5:3–4: 107, 177, 221, 223–4 4:29: 177 John 11:32–6: 129–30 19:2–5: 249 Luke 6:25: 137 23:35–8: 249 Mark 15:16–20: 249 Matthew 5:3–10: 182 5:4: 132 10:19: 197 13:42: 177 13:50: 177 27:27–30: 249 Odo of Deuil De profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem (Berry 1948) Book 4, pp.66–7: 240n49 P. Heidelberg 190: 110 P. Oxy. LXI 4502.30–7 (= Nicarchus): 102 P. Oxy. 413: 226 P. Oxy. 5189: 120 The Paterikon of the Kieven Caves Monastery (Heppell 1989) p.77: 247–9 Pausanias 7.21.12: 63

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index locurum 479 Petrarch Canzoniere 134.1–4: 389 Photios Ep.1: 160 Pisida, George Bellum Avaricum 141–4: 134 154–7: 134 Plato Phaedo 59a: 32 Republic 3.3883–9a: 36 10.596d4–34: 63 Theaetetus 174a4–b6: 63 Plautus Persa 53–61: 109 390–6: 109 Stichus 400–1: 108–9 454–5: 109 Plutarch Cicero 5.2: 117 De Facie 920a: 62 Moralia 177a2: 118 178f–79a: 120 466e: 52 509a: 118 943c: 33 Table-talk 7.8 (712e): 224–5 fr. 178: 32 Porphyry Isagoge 4.12.17–22: 155 305F (Smith): 64 372F (Smith): 64 382F (Smith): 64 Procopius of Caesarea Secret History (Anekdota) 8.24: 317 9.20–3: 225 Prodromos, Theodoros Amarantos 306: 234n13 Bion Prasis 132: 239 Epigram in Test. Vet. 36a: 135, 141 Lament on Stephanos Skylitzes 124–46: 139n60

Ptochodromica 1.15–19: 237n25 Rhodanthe and Dosikles Dedicatory poem 17–24: 293 1.144–7: 293–4 1.149–50: 307 1.156–7: 294 1.158–426: 294 1.165: 294 1.212–69: 294 1.277–310: 294 1.510–15: 294–5 2.339–40: 298 2.423–34: 308–9 2.44: 295n.12 2.165–8: 295n.12 2.339–40: 295, 308 2.347–8: 295, 296n.15 3.21–3: 296 3.33: 296 4.122–417: 295n.13 4.224–5: 308 4.232–3: 308 7.170–83: 309 8.168–70: 296 8.210–16: 296 8.262–3: 296 8.368–9: 296 8.371: 296 9.468: 296n.14 Proverbs (anon.) Kerkyra proverb: 12 Pontos proverb: 1, 33, 411 Psellos, Michael Chronographia 3.24.7–11: 139 6.49.3: 139n.46 6.6.16: 139 Collection of diverse and necessary things Opusculum 55.734–9: 162 Encomium for his Mother 877–80: 340–1 Epitaph. in patr. Io. Xiphil. 12.33–4: 143 Eulogy for Michael Keroularios 29–32: 160–1 Orationes minores 37.274–9: 125–6 (Riddles cited from Boissonade 1831) 1–3: 88 8: 102–3 La Queste del Saint Graal (anon.) (Pauphilet 1923) p.4: 314 Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 6.3.5: 110 8.3.67–70: 193–4

­480

index locurum

Rakendytes, Joseph Synopsis de arte rhetorica 8: 150–1

Skylitzes, John Synopsis Historiarum (Thurn 1983) p.109–10: 246

Riddles (anon.) Louse riddle: 87–8, 88n.3, 102n.46 Riddle 28 Milanović: 99–100

Song for the fall of Tripolitsa (anon.) (Petropoulos 1958) p.68, No. 27: 408

Romanos the Melodist 19.6.4–5: 17 41.10.1–3: 17 Abraham and Isaac: 208 On the harlot: 213–14 On Joseph I: 208 On the lament of the mother of God: 213 On the massacre of the innocents: 209–10 On the Passion 20: 17 On Peter’s Denial: 210–11 On the raising of Lazarus I and II: 207

Sophocles Elektra 122–3: 30 165–6: 30 283: 30 1246–50: 31 1309–15: 30, 32 fr. 910 (Radt): 6n.29

Rufus, John Plerophoriai 164: 316

Strategius (Strategos, Antiochus Monachus) Capture of Jerusalem 1–5: 187–8 1.7: 189 1.13–16: 192 5.26: 189 5.32: 190 7.6–8: 190 7.11–17: 190–1 8.19–21: 191 16.3: 196 17.1–22: 196 18.19–39: 196–7 22.1–33: 197 23.6–9: 195–6

Sappho fr. 130 (Voigt): 309 Septuagint Daniel 3: 99, 197 6: 197 Ecclesiastes 7.204: 178–9 Ezekiel 18:23: 197 33:11: 197 Isaiah 22:4: 180–1 Jeremiah 9:17: 177 Psalms 67: 17 150:304: 248, 258 2 Samuel 1:26: 328 Shakespeare, William Hamlet, 3.2.202–5, 217–19: 403 Love’s Labour’s Lost, 5. 2.847–8, 862–3: 410 The Shepherdess (anon.) 1–12: 378–9 257–60: 377–8 301–4: 378 441–4: 378 453: 378 Siceliotes, John Commentary on Hermogenes’ περὶ ἰδεῶν 48: 153–4 Simonides 646 PMG: 52

Strabo 13.3.6: 110

Suetonius De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus 21: 110 Syncellus, Elias Poems 1–2: 328 (Pseudo-?) Syncellus, Michael Vita Cosmae Melodi et Joannis Damascenii 18: 130 23–4: 130 Tale of Achilles (anon.) 905–23: 365–6 Tale of Livistros and Rodamne (anon.) alpha redaction c.1240–60 177–8: 373 204–627: 373 1565–86: 365 1716–39: 358 1742–65: 358–9 1862–78: 365 3261–2: 369–70 3928–59: 361–3 4085–118: 360–1 Vatican redaction c.1480: 374

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index locurum 481 Tatius, Achilles Leukippe and Kleitophon 1.2: 293 1.17.2: 373 3.15: 308 3.20–1: 308 5.15–16: 354 Theocritus Idyll 1.95–6: 51 (Pseudo-) Theocritus Idyll 19: 274 Theodore II Laskaris Epistulae 5.8: 142 49: 373 80.30: 142 Satyra in paedagogum 555–7: 142 Theophylact of Ochrid Commentary on the Gospel of St John: 327 Epistulae G53: 327 G90: 321 G93: 321 G110–13: 321–3 G121–3: 322 G133: 321 Poems Poem 14: 334–6 14.1–2: 313, 318 14.7: 332 14.9–10: 333 14.9–12: 318 14.13–14: 313 14.23–6: 318 14.27–8: 318, 332 14.43–8: 318–19 14.57–110: 319 14.111–12: 313, 319, 333 Poem 15: 337 15.1–4: 320 15.14–17: 320 15.20–6: 320–1 Thucydides 6.30.2: 35 7.77: 345 Tornikes, Euthymios 76.6–8: 346 76.11–12: 347 79–80: 347 80.28–30: 347

Tzetzes, John Theogony 775, 777, 779, 781: 368–9 Verses on Comedy 76–81: 149 Vassilaros (Vassilis Andrikopoulos), Notebooks 5 Constantine the Great and King Nebuchadnezzar of Jerusalem: 391–2 8 Justinian the Emperor: 393–9 Velleius Paterculus 1.13.4: 120 Vita Aesopi (anon.) 47–8: 118 Vita Andreae Sali (anon.) 4131–8: 144–5 4368–72: 144 Vita A Athanasii Athonitae (anon.) 84.18–20: 143 Vita Auxentii (anon.) 19–21: 134, 135n.42 Vita Martiniani (anon.) 6: 128n.13 Vita brev. Theodori Syceotae (anon.) 168.5–8: 144 William of Tyre Chronicon i.945: 240–1 Xenophon Hellenica 7.1.32: 27 7.2.9: 10, 31–2 Zoilus FGrHist 71 F18: 36 Zonaras, John (PG 137) 693: 234, 238 693–6: 236 (Rhalles and Potles 1852–9) ii.425–6: 269 iii.414: 234n13, 240

INDEX RERUM

Abdera, 107, 111, 114 Abraham, 201, 204, 207–8 Achilles, 327 Achilleus (form of entertainment), 239–40 acrobats, 232, 233, 239, 246, 257 Aeschylus, Persians, 408 Agathias Scholasticus, 75, 79–81, 84–5 ainigmata, 11–12, 57, 69, 87; see also riddles Alexander the Great and the Accursed Snake (Karaghiozis play), 393 Alexiou, M., 314, 320, 338, 340, 404, 408 allegory, 64–5, 67, 258, 274, 281, 357 Althoff, G., 317 Alypius, 227–8 Ammonios, 155, 156 Anacreontea, 355 Andrea (Courage/Manliness), 278, 281, 284–5, 286 Andrikopoulos, Vassilios see Vassilaros Andromache, 205 Andronikos I Komnenos (emperor), 128n13, 341, 348 angels, 127 animals, 3, 4, 14, 151, 154–5, 158, 261, 270–1, 274, 278 Anna Komnene, Alexiad, 326 Antioch-on-Orontes, 15, 166–86 apathy (apatheia), 127, 128, 143, 145, 183 Aphrodite, 268–9, 270, 274, 275, 276–7, 287, 383, 386 Archelaos of Macedon, 118 Ares, 269–70, 275, 277, 287 Aristophanes, 47–8, 101, 239 Ark of the Covenant (painting), 253–6 Arthur (king), 314 Athanassios Diakos (Karaghiozis play), 391 Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 88, 100, 103, 108 Attic comedy, 87, 92–4, 95–7, 103 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 18–19, 37–8, 53 Belisarius (general), 399–400 Belissariotes, John and Michael, 340, 341, 343, 345 Bergson, Henri, 37, 225 Burkert, W., 44, 50

catharsis of emotions see laughter: catharsis; tears: catharsis Cavafy, Constantine, 399, 410 Cephalas, Constantine, 95, 103 Charlemagne (Charles I), 314 charmolupē, 132, 141–2, 291, 309n46, 315, 407, 410; see also klausigelōs; laughter-tears commixed Choniates, Michael, 339, 340, 344, 346, 347 Choniates, Nicetas, 338, 340, 344, 346 churches St George (Staro Nagoričino, Macedonia), 250–1 St Nicholas (Curtea de Argeş, Romania), 251–6 St Sophia (Kiev), 243–5, 256–62 Cicero, 107, 110, 117, 121 Cinthio, Giambattista Giraldi, 382 city lament see lament, city clown see fool, comic Codex Laurentianus Conventi Soppressi 627, 373 comic business see humour, physical comic targets and topics bad-temper, 118–19 bodily features, 42, 84, 110n28 Christianity and religion, 85, 90–1, 99–100, 102, 225, 391, 392 death and dying, 86, 90–1, 99, 114, 115, 391 food, 10, 82, 106, 112, 114, 115, 391, 394, 396, 399, 401 foreigners, geographical groups, 84, 107, 110–11, 112, 114, 225 medicine, doctors, illness, 106, 111, 112, 391 occupations, professions, 106, 108, 111–12, 115, 225 parasites, 108–9 politics, 391 scatological, 93–5, 97–9 scholastikos, 112–18 sex, sexual desire, sexuality, 82, 83, 84, 101–2, 103, 113, 225, 226, 263–86, 394 stupidity, 84, 110, 114, 115 women, 84, 110, 399–401 compassion, 130, 135, 173–4, 182–3, 185, 192, 197, 210, 306, 308, 315, 317, 327 consolation, Christian, 182, 196–7, 199–216, 327; see also katanuxis (contrition)

­

index rerum 483 consolation, erotic, 293–5, 301–3, 305–6 Constantine V (emperor), 245 Constantine IX (emperor), 246 Constantinople court, entertainment, 19, 234–5, 239–41, 243, 244, 246, 257–8 fall of (1204 ce), 338–52 Great Palace mosaic, 270n29, 272, 281 hippodrome, 245–6, 257, 261 iconoclasm, 245 contempt see laughter: contempt contrition see katanuxis (contrition) Council in Trullo, 19, 233, 239, 285 crying see tears Ctesias, 59, 61 Cumae, 107, 110, 112 Daphne, 80, 318 Darmstadt casket, 266n12 David (king), 258, 328 Deianeira, 353, 355 Demeter, 32 Democritus of Abdera, 52, 111 Devil (Lucifer, Satan), 127, 128n13, 133, 134, 139, 143, 215, 316 diachusis, 18, 162–5, 222, 227, 238; see also laughter: catharsis Dido, 353 Digenes Akritis, 367 Dionysia (actress), 226 Douglas, M., 226 ekphrasis, 20, 66–7, 203, 280 Eleusinian Mysteries, 27, 32–4 Ellebichus, 170, 172–5 Elytis, O., Axion Esti, 17 emotional management, Christian, 175–86, 199–216, 247–53; see also pathē enargeia, 203 Enchanted Tree, The (Karaghiozis play), 393 Ennius, 118–19 Ephrem Graecus, 202, 206 Ephrem the Syrian, 202, 215n64 epigrams, 11, 75–86, 94–5, 103, 135, 225, 303 Eros, 83, 270–1, 272–4, 281, 282, 285–6, 307, 308, 310, 311, 365–6, 383, 386 Erotokritos, 374, 375–6, 387 ēthopoiia, 202, 353 Euripides, 226, 326, 342, 382 Europa, 271 eusplanchnia, 130, 135; see also compassion Eustathios of Thessaloniki, 164–5, 369 eutrapelia, 18, 118, 137, 160–1, 220–4, 226, 228–30 Eve, 203–4, 206, 210 Fall, of humankind, 128, 129 Fallmerayer, J. P., 408 Finos Films, 410 ‘folk’ song/tale elements, 356, 358, 360, 361–2, 372, 376, 388, 397n16 fool, comic, 13, 223–4, 233n3, 393–4; see also zouglos Freud, S., 37, 225

Ganymede, 272 gelō, 14, 405–6 gelōtopoioi, 219, 224, 228, 232 gender, in lament, 16, 200, 313–14, 326–7, 332–3, 340–1 George of Nicomedia, 331 God apathy, 127–8 tears as gift from, 133, 186, 316 goos, 318, 313, 322 Greek novel (ancient), 291–2, 293–4, 353–4, 373 Gregory of Nazianzos, 199, 332 Gregory of Nyssa, 199, 200, 324 grief analysis through lament, 187–98, 338–52 Christian management, 199–216 models for male grief, 312–33 griphoi, 87; see also riddles Grotto, Luigi, 379 Guarini, Giambattista, 382, 387 Haldon, J., 264, 265–6 Halliwell, S., 148, 223 Haroun-ibn-Yahyah, 317 Heliodorus, 293 Heraclitus, ‘weeping’, 52 Herakles, 34 Herodotus, parody of, 56–7, 58–61, 68 Hesiod, 343 heterotopias, comic, 55, 59–60, 62–3, 65–9, 70–2, 402 Hierocles, 104, 105 Hippolytus Hall mosaic (Madaba), 272–4 Hodja Nasreddin, 117 Holobolos, Manuel, 89 Homer, 84, 87, 163–5, 226, 240, 327, 353 parody/pastiche, 60n20, 66–9 humour, physical, 19, 224, 225, 226, 234, 240, 241, 303, 391 humour, verbal, 15, 17, 19n53, 76, 108n22, 110, 118–20, 147–51, 152, 226–7, 234, 399; see also eutrapelia; jokes; riddles humour, visual, 263, 264, 265, 271–4 hymns, 15, 206–14 Iaroslav the ‘Wise’ (prince of Rus’), 243, 258, 261–2 incongruity, comic, 147–51, 264, 265, 268–75 inversion, comic, 20, 60–1, 265, 268–75 irony, 45, 53, 54, 154, 163, 409–10 Italian Renaissance, influence on Crete, 376, 388–9 Jacob (biblical), 135, 204 Jephthah, 204, 209 Jerusalem, fall of (614 ce), 15, 187–98, 392, 402 Jesus Christ agelast, 38, 107, 183n62 tears, 127–8, 129–30, 185, 203, 407 see also Mocking of Christ Johnson, Samuel, 112, 114 joke books/collections, 108–10; see also Philogelos jokes, 13, 110–21 Jonah, 90–1, 102–3

­484

index rerum

Joseph of Arimathea, 329, 333 Justinian (emperor), 225, 317, 400 Karaghiozis see shadow theatre Kassia the nun, 76 katanuxis (contrition), 132–4, 137, 138, 141–2, 144–5, 178–86, 194–8, 210–11, 214, 248–9, 316 Kazhdan, A. P., 140–50, 151 klausigelōs, 32, 141–2, 407; see also charmolupē; laughter-tears commixed Koimesis, 329 Komnenian novel see romance novelspalai15, 207–11 Kroustoulas, Ioannes, 125–6 lament, city, 7, 187–98, 338–52 Biblical/Near Eastern lamentation models, 189–90, 191, 193–5 interpretation of suffering, 192, 194, 340, 341, 343, 344–6 urbs capta emotive techniques, 190, 192, 193–4 lament, erotic folk imagery, 356, 358, 360, 361–2, 372, 378, 384 literary precedents, 353–5 rhetorical aspects, 353–5, 359–61, 363, 384, 385–6 lament, liturgical, 199–216 gestures, 205, 211, 212, 213, 215–16 use of biblical tragedy, 201–11 Laughable stories of Bar Hebraeus, 116 laughter ambiguity, 39–45, 84, 139, 297, 376 bonding identification, 4, 42, 78–9, 85–6, 220, 227–8, 230 catharsis/release, 27, 81–3, 88–9, 139, 215, 263, 266 Christian defence, 18, 139, 153–4, 159, 223 Christian incompatibility, 136–8, 221–2, 238 contempt, 42, 44, 46–7, 52, 55, 68, 78, 111, 139–40, 145, 170, 183, 225, 237, 275, 286, 306, 406 didaxis, 88, 91, 102–3, 152–4, 161, 263–6, 268–9, 277, 279–80, 284–7 erotic sign, 78, 83, 295, 297–8, 303, 308–9, 310 existential, 39, 51–3, 140 gods’, 40–50 human characteristic, 4, 151, 154–7, 159, 162 moral corruption, 137–8, 224–5, 237–8 physiology, 158, 162, 219 social disorder, 138, 226, 235, 238–9 subversion, 219–31, 235–6, 238–9, 243–4, 256, 261, 264–5, 268–75, 276, 401 see also diachusis laughter-tears commixed, 9–10, 27–35, 140–2, 291, 296, 299, 304, 376, 384, 403; see also charmolupē; klausigelōs Lazarus, 129–30, 203, 207 Leopardi, G., 37 Leutharis (king), 86 Longus, 294, 301, 306

Machon, Chreiai, 109n26 MacNeice, Louis, 118 Malakes, Euthymios, 346–7, 348 Mani, 314 Manuel I (emperor), 128n13, 133–4, 240–1, 328 Marc Antony, 226 Maron (form of entertainment), 239 Marx, Karl, 47 Medea, 355 Melissus, 110 Mesarites, John, 347, 348 metres erotic song, 357, 361 lament, 202, 206, 317, 320, 321, 328–9 Michael III (emperor), 232n3, 246 mime, 18–19, 219–30, 232 mimesis, 220, 229–31, 235–6 mimra, 202 mockery see comic targets; laughter: contempt; mime Mocking of Christ (paintings), 249–53 moirologia, 314, 361, 362, 364, 365 monks, 20, 85, 132–3, 137–8, 184, 189–90, 247–9, 316, 407 mōrologia, 137, 160, 223–4 Moses, 102–3 mourners (professional) 200, 339–40 mourning cult, 132–2 musical performance liturgy, 201, 206–7, 215 in Mocking of Christ, 249–51 secular merriment, 19, 240, 241, 243, 244–5, 247, 257–8, 260–1 Myrivilis, Stratis, 13 Narsai of Nisibis, 202 Nicaean court, 308, 343, 356, 367, 371–4 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 37 Niobe, 77–8, 205, 318, 332–3, 340, 341 Noah, 182 Oktoechos (form of entertainment), 239–40 Ovid, 353, 354, 355 Palaiologan romance see romances, verse Palladas, 76–7, 80, 84–5 Pamphile of Epidauros, 326 Pandimos, Antonios, 382 pantomine, 215, 220, 235, 241 Paparrigopoulos, Constantine, 392, 405, 407 parahymnography, 17–18 paraklausithyron, 353, 355 parasites (comic), 108–9 parody, 8, 308 in art, 266n12, 267, 272 of classical literature, 56–70, 226 of religion, 47, 226 parody (wordplay), 147–8 Pastor Fido, Il (anon. Cretan drama), 382 pathē, 127–8, 137, 327 penthos, 132, 222, 322 pepaideumenos, 55, 68, 117 Petrarch, 388, 389

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index rerum 485 Phaedra, 353, 355 Philagrios (grammatikos), 105 Philip of Macedon, 105, 108, 120 Philistion, 105 Philogelos, authorship and dating, 104–8 Phronesis (Prudence), 278, 281, 284–5, 286 Phyllis, 353 Planudes, Maximos, 76, 95 Plautus, 108–9, 376, 381–2 pothos, 291, 365 Powell, Enoch, 118 Prodromos, Theodore, 10, 13, 19, 20, 23, 135, 139n60, 237, 239, 305, 367 progymnasmata, 205, 332–3 prosopopoiia, 202, 332 proverbs, 1, 12, 152, 371, 411 Psellos, Michael, 332, 353, 354 riddles, 11–12, 57, 87–103 use of Attic comedy, 92, 95–7, 103 use of Bible, 90–1, 99–100, 102 Ritsos, Yannis, 17 Roidis, Emmanuel, 409 Roman Comedy, 108–9, 376, 381–2 romance novels (Komnenian), 15, 19, 20–1, 264, 278, 280, 281, 291–311, 354–5, 371 romances, verse, 22, 353–74, 380 narrative and rhetorical structure, 356–7 vernacular literary idiom, 367–70 Romanos III (emperor), 139 Romanos the melodist, 16–17, 207–11, 331 Rus’, 243, 246–9 St Arsenios, 316 St Demetrios, 241–2 St Feodosii, 247–9 St John the Evangelist, 329–32 St Peter, 16, 210–11 San Marco censer, 264, 277–86 Sarah (wife of Abraham), 204, 379 satire, 47, 52, 54–72, 163, 308, 409 scholastikos, 112–18 Second Sophistic, 54 Seferis, George, 405 Seneca, 355, 376 sensory (multi-) stimuli, 201, 203, 205, 212, 213, 215, 244, 248, 258 Seremetakis, N., 314 sex, sexual desire see comic targets and topics; laughter: erotic sign; smiles: erotic sign; tears: erotic desire Sgouras, Leo, 344 shadow theatre (puppet), 7, 13, 22, 390–402 history, use of, 390–2, 396, 400–1 humour, 391–2, 394, 396–7, 399, 401 Sidon, 107, 110–11 slapstick see humour, physical smiles, 142–5, 162, 170 erotic sign, 295, 297–8, 303, 308–9, 310–11 of Gods, 32, 39, 43, 51 tranquillity, 136n45, 143–5 Socrates, 33, 57n11 Song of Songs, 353 Sophocles, 353, 355, 397 Sphinx riddle, 100–2

Spooner, Dr, 112, 115 spoudaiolgeloion, 52, 153 Stoicism, 162, 181n55, 183n64, 184 Sudabeh (queen of Persia), 314 sumpatheia, 130, 135; see also compassion Sviatoslav I of Kiev, 247–9 Tachtsis, Kostas, Third Wedding, 409 Tantalus, 77–8, 333 Tasso, Torquato, Aminta, 382 tears bonding identification, 172–3, 177–8, 183, 197, 294 catharsis/release, 27, 30, 174, 201–16, 294, 305, 306, 339 emotional ambiguity, 27, 28–31, 125, 130, 133–4, 376, 381 emotivity, 126, 129, 133, 135, 207, 291, 295, 305, 306–7, 377 erotic desire, 28, 83, 306, 307, 308, 378, 384 ethical index, 173, 174–5, 178–9, 183–4 feigned emotion and performance, 33, 128, 316, 317 hierarchical index, 28, 78, 83, 171–2, 174 human condition, 3, 129, 315 persuasion, supplication, 28, 83, 129, 134, 135, 168–9, 171–2, 299–300, 306–7, 315, 323–4, 384–5, 386 physiological effects, 130, 316 see also compassion; contrition; gender; God; grief; Jesus Christ; lament; laughter-tears commixed Terence, 376 Thales of Miletus, 115 theatre, 18, 69–70, 170, 236 emotional catharsis, 215 eutrapelia, 223–4, 228–30 social bonding, identity, 220, 227–8 see also Council in Trullo; mime; shadow theatre Theocritus, 301, 355, 365n42 Theodora (empress), 139, 225 Theodora Kontostephanaina, 143 Theodorakis, Mikis, 17 Theodore II Laskaris (emperor), 142, 367, 373 Theodosius I, 166–8, 169 thrēnoi, 313, 314, 324, 325, 329, 330, 353 Timarion (anon.), 21, 241–2 Tractatus Coislinianus (anon.), 241 tragicomedy (drama), 382–9 Tzetzes, John, 106, 237 urbs capta see lament, city Varnalis, Kostas, 17 Vassilaros (Vassilios Andrikopoulos), 391, 399–401 verbal humour see humour, verbal Veroli Casket, 264, 266–77 violence, comic see humour, physical Virgin’s lament, 211, 213, 330–1 Vitalis (actor), 225 Vizyinos, G. M., 18n50, 409–10

­486 weeping see lament; tears wit see eutrapelia; humour, verbal Woodhouse, C. M., 375–6 wordplay see humour, verbal

index rerum Zacharias, 196–8 Zambelios, Spyridon, 404 Zeus, 271–2 zouglos (juggler), 13, 19, 233; see also fool, comic