The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Beyond: From Ritual to Drama 0521836824, 9780521836821

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T h e O r i g i n s o f T h e at e r i n A n c i e nt G re e c e a n d B e y o n d

The Origins of Theatre in Ancient Greece and Beyond examines the evidence for the prehistory and origin of drama. The belief that drama developed from religious ritual has been commonplace since the time of Aristotle. There is little agreement, however, on just how this happened. Recently, scholars have even challenged the historical connection between drama and ritual. Discussion of the problem is hampered by the fact that the basic collections of evidence are more than fifty years out of date and have been drawn from fields too numerous for any single scholar to master. This volume is the most thorough examination of the origins of Greek drama to date. It brings together seventeen essays by leading scholars in a variety of fields, including classical archaeology, iconography, cultural history, theatre history, philosophy, and religion. Although primarily focused on ancient Greece, the volume includes comparative studies of ritual drama from ancient Egypt, Japan, and medieval Europe. The relationship of drama to ritual is one of the most controversial, complex, and multifaceted questions of modern times. Eric Csapo is Professor of Classics at the University of Sydney. He is an expert on the history of the ancient theatre and coauthor of The Context of Ancient Drama. His most recent book is Theories of Mythology. Margaret C. Miller is Arthur and Renee George Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Sydney. She specializes in Greek iconography and cultural history. Her book, Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC: A Study in Cultural Receptivity, won the Prix Ghirshman of the Acad´emie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 2001.

Frontispiece. Four komasts on a Late Corinthian kotyle, c. 550 bc, unattributed. Auckland War Memorial Museum and Art Gallery 47266.

The Origins of T h e at e r i n A n c i e nt G re e c e a n d B e y o n d From Ritual to Drama

EDITED BY

Eric Csapo University of Sydney

M a r g a re t C . M i l l e r University of Sydney

…

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERS ITY PRE SS

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, S˜ao Paulo Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521836821
c Cambridge University Press 2007 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2007 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data The origins of theater in ancient Greece and beyond : from ritual to drama / edited by Eric Csapo, Margaret C. Miller. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13: 978-0-521-83682-1 (hardback) isbn-10: 0-521-83682-4 (hardback) 1. Classical drama – History and criticism – Theory, etc. 2. Theater – History – To 500. 3. Theater – Greece. 4. Rites and ceremonies – Greece. 5. Civilization, Ancient. I. Csapo, Eric. II. Miller, Margaret Christina. III. Title. pa3203.o57 2007 882.009 – dc22 2006022401 isbn 978-0-521-83682-1 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

For Joe and Maria shaw

C o nt e nt s

List of Illustrations List of Contributors Abbreviations and Conventions Editors’ Preface 1

General Introduction

page ix xiii xv xvii 1

Eric Csapo and Margaret C. Miller PART I: KOMASTS AND PREDRAMATIC RITUAL

2

Introduction

41

Thomas H. Carpenter

3

The Corpus of Komast Vases: From Identity to Exegesis

48

Tyler Jo Smith

4

Komasts, Mythic Imaginary, and Ritual

77

Cornelia Isler-Ker´enyi

5

Let’s Hear it for the Fat Man: Padded Dancers and the Prehistory of Drama

96

J. Richard Green

6

Discussion

108

Thomas H. Carpenter PART II: EMERGENCE OF DRAMA

7

Introduction and Discussion

121

Gregory Nagy

vii

Contents

8 From Hymn to Tragedy: Aristotle’s Genealogy of Poetic Kinds

126

David Depew

9 Myths of Ritual in Athenian Vase-Paintings of Silens

150

Guy Hedreen

10 From Ritual to Narrative

196

Matthias Steinhart

11 “And Now All the World Shall Dance!” (Eur. BACCH. 114): Dionysus’ Choroi between Drama and Ritual

221

Barbara Kowalzig PART III: COMPARING OTHER CULTURES

12 Introduction

255

Kimberley C. Patton

13 Ritual Drama in Ancient Egypt

259

Ronald J. Leprohon

14 Ritual and Performance, Dance and Drama in Ancient Japan

293

G¨unter Zobel

15 Representation in European Devotional Rituals: The Question of the Origin of Medieval Drama in Medieval Liturgy

329

Nils Holger Petersen

16 Discussion

361

Kimberley C. Patton PART IV: FROM RITUAL TO DRAMA

17 From Ritual to Drama: A Concluding Statement

379

Richard Seaford

Bibliography General Index Index of Collections

viii

403 433 438

L I S T O F I L L U S T R AT I O N S

Frontispiece: Auckland 47266. Late Corinthian kotyle, unattributed. page ii A Auckland 47266. Late Corinthian kotyle, unattributed. xxi 1 Paris, Louvre E 876. Attic BF dinos, Painter of Louvre E 876. 15 2 New York, MMA 24.97.104. Apulian RF calyx krater, Tarporley Painter. 43 3 London, British Museum, 1867.8–5.860 (B 42). Middle–late Corinthian column krater, Ophelandros Painter. 44 4 Ancient Greek historical epochs and selected ceramic typologies, by Ben Zaporozan. 45 5 Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1947.237. Early Corinthian aryballos, Falstaff Painter. 50 6 Athens, BSA A314. Late Corinthian amphoriskos, unattributed. 50 7 London, British Museum 1884.8–4.9 (B 41). Late Corinthian amphoriskos, Tydeus Painter. 51 8 Berlin V.I. 4856. Middle Corinthian pyxis, unattributed. 52 9 Berlin V.I. 4856. Middle Corinthian pyxis, unattributed. 52 10 Athens, NM 536. Middle Corinthian phiale, Patras Painter. 53 11 Paris, Louvre E 742. Attic BF komast cup, KY Painter. 55 12 Paris, Louvre E 742. Attic BF komast cup, KY Painter. 55 13 Athens, BSA A349. Boeotian BF kantharos frr., Boeotian Dancers Group, imitator of Attic KX Painter. 57 14 Athens, BSA A349. Boeotian BF kantharos frr., Boeotian Dancers Group, imitator of Attic KX Painter. 57 15 Thebes R86.274. Boeotian BF kantharos, not a member of the Boeotian Dancers Group. 58 16 Thebes R86.274. Boeotian BF kantharos, not a member of the Boeotian Dancers Group. 59 ix

List of Illustrations

17 Munich 6010. Boeotian BF kantharos, Painter of Berlin F 1727. 18 Munich 6010. Boeotian BF kantharos, Painter of Berlin F 1727. 19 Bochum, Antikenmuseum Ruhr-Universit¨at S1022. Laconian BF cup, Allard Pierson Painter. 20 Paris, Louvre E 662. Laconian BF dinos, Rider Painter. 21 Athens, BSA. Chian chalice from Tocra, unattributed. 22 Paris, Louvre Cp 10227. Caeretan BF hydria, Eagle Painter. 23 Paris, Louvre Cp 10227. Caeretan BF hydria, Eagle Painter. 24 Berlin F 1727. Boeotian BF tripod-kothon, Painter of Berlin F 1727. 25 Berlin F 1727. Boeotian BF tripod-kothon, Painter of Berlin F 1727. 26 Berlin F 1727. Boeotian BF tripod-kothon, Painter of Berlin F 1727. 27 London, British Museum 1965.09–30.704. East Greek BF plate from Naukratis, unattributed. 28 Berlin V.I. 4509. Late Corinthian aryballos, unattributed. 29 Berlin V.I. 4509. Late Corinthian aryballos, unattributed. 30 G¨ottingen, Univ. Hu 533g. Boeotian Corinthianising BF alabastron, unattributed. 31 Leipzig, Antikenmuseum der Universit¨at T 326. Boeotian kantharos frr., unattributed. 32 Leipzig, Antikenmuseum der Universit¨at T 326. Boeotian kantharos frr., unattributed. 33 Z¨urich, Arch¨aologische Sammlung der Universit¨at Inv. 3505. Early Corinthian aryballos, Warrior Group. 34 Z¨urich, Arch¨aologische Sammlung der Universit¨at L 1134 (loan). Attic BF komast cup, unattributed. 35 Berlin F 1690. Attic BF amphora, Amasis Painter. 36 New York, MMA 62.11.11. Attic BF aryballos, Amasis Painter. 37 Basel K¨a 420. Attic BF amphora, Amasis Painter. 38 Formerly Athens, Kerameikos 25. Attic BF lekythos, Amasis Painter. 39 New York, MMA 1989.281.69. Attic RF psykter, Oltos. 40 Florence 3897. Attic BF lip-cup, unattributed. 41 Florence 3897. Attic BF lip-cup, unattributed. 42 Aristotle’s Genealogy of Poetic Genres, A Schematic Diagram. 43 Naples, MN 81673. Attic RF volute krater, Side A, Pronomos Painter. 44 Naples, MN 81673. Attic RF volute krater, Side A, Pronomos Painter. Drawing by E. Malyon. 45 Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 86.AE.190.6. Attic RF amphora fragment, Eucharides Painter. 46 Boston, MFA 03.788. Attic RF kalpis, Leningrad Painter. 47 Compi`egne 1068. Attic RF psykter, Kleophrades Painter. x

60 61 62 63 64 65 65 66 67 67 68 69 69 70 71 71 85 86 87 88 89 91 103 110 111 131 152 152 153 154 155

List of Illustrations

48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

Athens, NM 1281a. Attic BF skyphos, Theseus Painter. New York, MMA 26.49. Attic BF aryballos, Nearchos. Rome, Villa Giulia 453. Attic BF neck amphora, Tyrrhenian Group. Berlin F 1697. Attic BF amphora, Side A, Painter of Berlin 1686. Berlin F 1697. Attic BF amphora, Side B, Painter of Berlin 1686. Berlin 1966.1. Attic BF amphora, Group of Compi`egne 988. New York, MMA 25.78.66. Attic RF bell krater, Polion. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 86.AE.84. Attic BF amphora, Leagros Group. Basel Market (Cahn) 1980. Attic BF lekythos, unattributed. Basel Market (Cahn) 1980. Attic BF lekythos, unattributed. Munich 1490. Attic BF amphora, Related to the Medea Group. Boston, MFA 69.1052. Attic BF cup, Oakeshott Painter. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum 48 (GR 27.1864). Attic BF amphora, Side A, Manner of Lysippides Painter. Boston, MFA 76.40. Attic BF amphora, Side A, Dayton Painter. Naples, MN 81673. Attic RF volute krater, Side B, Pronomos Painter. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum 48 (GR 27.1864). Attic BF amphora, Side B, Manner of Lysippides Painter. New York, MMA SL 1990.1.107. Attic BF neck amphora, Side A, related to the Medea Group. New York, MMA SL 1990.1.107. Attic BF neck amphora, Side B, related to the Medea Group. Cortona. Attic BF lebes fragments, Near or by KX Painter. Cortona. Attic BF lebes fragments, Near or by KX Painter. Athens, NM 664. Middle Corinthian amphoriskos, unattributed. Athens, NM 664. Middle Corinthian amphoriskos, unattributed. Athens, NM 664. Middle Corinthian amphoriskos, unattributed. Athens, NM 664. Middle Corinthian amphoriskos, unattributed. Athens, NM 664. Middle Corinthian amphoriskos, unattributed. Paris, Louvre CA 3004. Middle Corinthian kotyle, Side A, Samos Painter. Paris, Louvre CA 3004. Middle Corinthian kotyle, Side A, Samos Painter. Paris, Louvre CA 3004. Middle Corinthian kotyle, Side B, Samos Painter. Paris, Louvre CA 3004, Middle Corinthian kotyle, Side B, Samos Painter. Corinth C-62-449. Early–Middle Corinthian kotyle, Side B, unattributed.

157 158 159 160 161 164 165 169 170 170 171 172 173 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 200 201 201 201 201 202 203 204 205 206 xi

List of Illustrations

78 Corinth C-62-449. Early–Middle Corinthian kotyle, handle zone, unattributed. 79 Corinth C-62-449. Early–Middle Corinthian kotyle, Side A, unattributed. 80 Paris, Louvre S 1104. Early Corinthian alabastron, related to the La Trobe Painter. 81 Paris, Louvre S 1104. Early Corinthian alabastron, related to the La Trobe Painter. 82 Paris, Louvre S 1104. Early Corinthian alabastron, related to the La Trobe Painter. 83 Paris, Louvre S 1104. Early Corinthian alabastron, related to the La Trobe Painter. 84 Paris, Louvre E 632. Middle Corinthian krater, Side A, Ophelandros Painter. 85 Paris, Louvre E 632. Middle Corinthian krater, Side B, Ophelandros Painter. 86 Thebes (Egypt). Temple of Luxor relief, detail of crowd at Opet Festival. Drawing by B. Ibronyi. 87 Dendera. Temple of Hathor relief, detail of a procession of priests. Drawing by B. Ibronyi. 88 Hieraconpolis. Ceramic mask. Drawing by B. Ibronyi. 89 Ramesseum. Dramatic Papyrus, detail with Scene 26, Horus fighting Seth. Drawing by B. Ibronyi. 90 Shabako Stone. Detail with dramatic text. Drawing by B. Ibronyi. 91 Temple of Edfu. Plan. Drawing by B. Ibronyi. 92 Temple of Edfu. Detail of the Triumph of Horus relief. Drawing by B. Ibronyi. 93 Yamabushi-Kagura stage building in front of a Shint¯o shrine. 94 H¯oin-Kagura stage in front of a Shint¯o shrine. 95 A scene of Dengaku-N¯o. 96 Okina mask of Sarugaku. 97 Sambas¯o mask of Sarugaku. 98 Dengaku musicians in rice paddy. 99 Dengaku dance. 100 Yudate-Kagura within a Shint¯o shrine. 101 The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Douce 222, f. 18r. Troper from Novalesa. Palm Sunday Mass to Easter Day. 102 The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Douce 222, f. 18v. Troper from Novalesa, Easter Mass. xii

207 207 208 209 210 211 214 215 261 269 271 275 279 282 283 296 297 311 312 313 316 317 319 342 343

L i s t o f C o nt r i b u t o r s

Thomas H. Carpenter is the Charles J. Ping Professor of Humanities and Professor of Classics at Ohio University. His most recent book is Dionysian Imagery in Fifth Century Athens (1996). Eric Csapo is Professor of Classics at the University of Sydney. He is author of Theories of Mythology (2005). David Depew is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. He is coauthor, with Marjorie Grene, of Philosophy of Biology: An Episodic History (2004). J. Richard Green is Emeritus Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Sydney. His publications include Theatre in Ancient Greek Society (1994). Guy Hedreen, Professor of Art, Williams College, is the author of Capturing Troy: The Narrative Functions of Landscape in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Art (2001). Cornelia Isler-Ker´enyi, researcher at the Arch¨aologisches Institut of the University of Z¨urich, is the author of Civilizing Violence: Satyrs on 6th Century Greek Vases (2004). Barbara Kowalzig is currently at the Centre Louis Gernet (CNRS/EHESS), Paris. She is author of Singing for the Gods: Aetiological Myth, Ritual and Locality in Late Archaic Greece (forthcoming Oxford University Press). Ronald J. Leprohon is Professor of Egyptology at the University of Toronto. He has published two volumes of the Corpus Antiquitatum Aegyptiacarum for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (1985, 1991).

xiii

List of Contributors

Margaret C. Miller, Arthur and Renee George Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Sydney, published Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century bc: A Study in Cultural Receptivity (1997). Gregory Nagy is the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. He is the author of The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (1979, 1999). Kimberley C. Patton is Professor in the Comparative and Historical Study of Religion at Harvard Divinity School. She is the author of Religion of the Gods: Ritual, Reflexivity, and Paradox (2006). Nils Holger Petersen is Associate Professor of Church History at the University of Copenhagen. He has published numerous articles on medieval liturgy and drama and coedited Signs of Change: Transformations of Christian Traditions and Their Representation in the Arts, 1000–2000 (2004). Richard Seaford is Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Exeter. His most recent book is Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy (2004). Tyler Jo Smith is Assistant Professor of Art, University of Virginia. Among her articles is “Dancing Spaces and Dining Places: Archaic Komasts at the Symposion,” Periplous: Papers on Classical Art and Archaeology Presented to Sir John Boardman (2000). Matthias Steinhart, Privatdozent at the Arch¨aologisches Institut at Freiburg, is the author of Die Kunst der Nachahmung: Darstellungen mimetischer Vorf¨uhrungen in der griechischen Bildkunst archaischer und klassischer Zeit (2004). G¨unter Zobel, Professor of German Language and Literature at Waseda University, T¯oky¯o, is the author of No¯ Theater: Szene und Dramaturgie, volks- und v¨olkerkundliche Hintergrunde (1989).

xiv

A b b re v i at i o n s a n d C o n v e nt i o n s

ABBREVIATIONS

Journals and basic reference works are abbreviated according to the lists found in the American Journal of Archaeology 104 (2000): 10–24. Ancient authors and works and modern collections of literary fragments are abbreviated according to the lists found in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., by S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth (Oxford 1996) xxix–liv. The exceptions are as follows: ARV Beazley Add 2 Para PCG PhV 2 RVA TrGF

J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (Oxford 1963). T. H. Carpenter, Beazley Addenda: Additional References to ABV, ARV 2 and Paralipomena, 2nd ed. (Oxford 1989). J. D. Beazley, Paralipomena (Oxford 1971). R. Kassel and C. Austin, Poetae Comici Graeci, currently 8 vols. (Berlin /New York 1983–). A. D. Trendall, Phlyax Vases, 2nd ed. (BICS Suppl. 19, London 1967). A. D. Trendall and A. Cambitoglou, Red-Figure Vases of Apulia, 2 vols. (Oxford 1978–82). Tragicorum graecorum fragmenta, 5 vols. (G¨ottingen 1971–2004). The volume and author numbers are only given for minor tragedians in Volume 1 (i.e., not Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides). Thus, a reference to Iophon’s Bacchae should look like this: 1 TrGF 22 F 2. But “Soph. TrGF F 35.”

We have regularized the referencing to papyrus collection, by using P + abbreviation for the collection name, without spaces or periods, thus POxy, PMich, etc. Apart from the regularized use of spacing and punctuation, the abbreviations are as they xv

Abbreviations and Conventions

would appear in the Oxford Classical Dictionary. References to Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae are by author and date. Plays by Aristophanes (Ar.) and the one work of Plato (Pl.), that is, Laws, capable of being rendered with a monosyllabic English title are cited by the English title. Plato’s Republic is abbreviated Pl. Rep. References to scholiasts are indicated by S. The acronyms “BF” and “RF” refer respectively to black-figured and red-figured ceramics. DATES

We have refrained from pedantic inclusion of “bc” and “ad” in contexts in which the choice is blatantly obvious. As a general rule, all dates will be bc (bibliographic references, of course, excluded) unless otherwise specified in all but two chapters of Part III (Chapters 14 and 15 by Zobel and Petersen), the last part of the editors’ Introduction and the first part of Isler-Ker´enyi’s contribution (Chapter 4), which deal mainly with postantiquity. INTERNAL REFERENCES

Contributions in the volume are cited by the name of the author in capital letters. TRANSLITERATION

We are inconsistent in our rendering of Greek words, but methodically so. Greek proper names well enough known to have a separate entry in the Oxford Classical Dictionary appear as they do in that work (usually in a Latinate form). Other Greek words and proper names follow the currently dominant standard convention for transliteration. We employ “ch” for c (but kc is rendered kkh); “x” for x; “ph” for f; “y” for u not in diphthong; “ai” for ai; “oi” for oi. In general we have attempted to avoid misleading equations by preferring transliterated forms (without italics) to close English derivatives for common Greek institutions. Thus: “choros” (not “chorus”), “symposion” (not “symposium”), “gymnasion” (not “gymnasium”). A compromise was reached on singular “phallus” and plural “phalloi” as consistent with an odd but increasingly standard inconsistency among Hellenists.

xvi

E d i t o r s ’ P re f a c e

The Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS) Colloquia provide a unique opportunity for extended and undisturbed scholarly dialogue. In the past, the Colloquia have provided a venue for scholars to trade ideas on big topics for which the requisite expertise is housed in a number of subdisciplines of classical studies and dialogue is most needed (to say nothing for the moment of those other disciplines within the humanities and social sciences which are relevant to our question). The continuing process of specialization has particularly discouraged the study of the origins of drama in Greece. At a minimum, it requires a range of competence that bridges ancient history, classical philology, and the ever-more-estranged field of classical archaeology. It is fair to say that such competence is now beyond the reach of all but the best and broadest of contemporary scholars. One has to search back over fifty years to find a general book-length treatment in English on the origins of Greek drama, T. B. L. Webster’s second edition of Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy. But despite Webster’s invasive additions, the scope, attitudes, and intentions of that book remain those of Pickard-Cambridge’s first edition of eighty years ago. Needless to say, the book is sadly dated, and scholarship has come a long way since. We did our best to take advantage of the center’s unique opportunity for dialogue. The core of the present volume is an extended six-day discussion that took place at the CHS in August 2000 and brought together twenty experts from such diverse disciplines as not only classical archaeology, iconography, cultural history, and philosophy, but also Egyptology, Japanology, mediaeval studies, and comparative religion. In the years since then, we have recruited a number of new participants, for that meeting was only the beginning of our dialogue. The plan was to produce second drafts of papers in light of the discussion at the CHS, and final drafts after circulation and a further set of criticisms and suggestion by discussants, editors, and other participants. We are most grateful to our contributors who endured this long and laborious exercise in dialogicity without complaint. We are still more grateful xvii

Editors’ Preface

to our discussants who continued the dialogue by producing introductions and commentaries for papers they had already read and commented on many times over. We are most particularly grateful to Richard Seaford who, despite our many missed deadlines, was able to compose with insight and expedition the concluding statement that so skilfully brings together the various strands of our collective investigation. Most of all we are grateful to our participants for the learning, intelligence, insight, wit, vivacity, good humour, and open-mindedness that allowed us to prolong our appetite for dialogue beyond the usual measure and provided us with the inspiration and energy to convert a set of conference papers into an unusually coherent collaborative work. The science, charm, and effort our participants put into mutual education and persuasion paid off – our files contain proof of a broad, general convergence of opinion, in many instances from the widely scattered positions initially marked out at the conference. But the reader should not expect to find unanimity and consistency throughout this volume. This was, as we say, a dialogue, not a conspiracy. Nor should the reader be surprised that we have made no attempt to conceal disagreement, as if to keep up appearances in public. The dialogue continues. The reader is not only invited but will eventually be forced to participate and take sides. This was an ambitious project that we would never have undertaken without the aid of the Center for Hellenic Studies, and we thank the Senior Fellows and the past and present directors, Deborah Boedeker, Kurt Raaflaub, and Greg Nagy. We are particularly grateful to Greg for financial assistance, for continuous encouragement, and for active involvement in our colloquium, even from the first day, which was also the first morning of his residence in Washington and might have yielded more immediate gratification had it been spent unpacking boxes. Generous financial aid was also offered by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and from Richard Waterhouse, Head of the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry of the University of Sydney. In addition to the participants whose papers appear in this volume, we thank Mary Depew, Uta Kron, Franc¸ois Lissarrague, Dunbar Ogden, and Stuart Picken for their lively and brilliant contribution to a most memorable and pleasurable event. Oliver Taplin, Pat Easterling, and Jeff Rusten aided in the preparation of the conference but were, for various reasons, unable to attend. William Slater not only contributed his habitual wisdom, wit, and good cheer but acted as co-organizer of the conference. We might have regretted not following his warning about the hazards and burdens of editing multiauthored academic books were it not for the extraordinary spirit of cooperation we enjoyed from our fellow participants and the additional support and generous labours of many colleagues and students. We would like to give special thanks to Richard Green, Nils Holger Petersen, and xviii

Editors’ Preface

G¨unter Zobel for stepping in at a late stage to fill gaps in our coverage of the question. Alexandra Johnston, Dennis Kennedy, and J. T. Rimer all gave us advice on tracking experts in nonclassical fields. We are especially grateful to David Waterhouse for a great many hours answering our questions about Japanese culture and drama. Beatrice Rehl of Cambridge University Press has won our undying gratitude for wise advice, invaluable assistance, and extraordinary patience. Thanks to Mary Markou for her expert help with illustrations and Ben Zaporozan for FIGURES 4 and 42. Last and most of all we are indebted to our former and current students for editorial assistance during the final stages of the manuscript; they were always reliable and ready despite illness, inclement weather, holidays, early mornings, late nights, and the teaming chaos of our final departure from the Northern and Western Hemispheres. Our utmost thanks to Catherine Johnson, Kathryn Mattison, Fiona McMurran, Martina Meyer, Sebastiana Nervegna, Ben Zaporozan, and (on the other side of the world) Annika Korsgaard.

xix

A. Four komasts on a Late Corinthian kotyle, c. 550 bc, unattributed. Auckland War Memorial Museum and Art Gallery 47266.

E r i c C s a p o a n d M a r g a re t C . M i l l e r

1

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1. MAKING COMPARISONS A HISTORY OF HELLENOCENTRICIT Y

It has long and universally been assumed that drama developed “out of ritual.” Yet only a broad comparative study could offer proof of a necessary link. The evidence for the origin of drama in Greece has been collected and studied for more than a century. This is in sharp contrast to the dearth of comparative material from other cultures. Anthropology is much more interested in the theoretical and synchronic relations between ritual and theatre than in any genetic or historical relationship. Cultural historians in other fields have also neglected the question of the origin of drama, with the striking exception of historians of the mediaeval liturgy, who are themselves divided on the question of whether liturgical drama developed organically or imitated classical models. By default Hellenists dominate the field. This is somewhat paradoxical because it was comparative anthropology, particularly the work by James Frazer, which inspired the first full-blooded articulation of the ritual theory of drama by the so-called Cambridge Ritualists. But the Cambridge Ritualists were all professional Hellenists and drew primarily on Greek evidence. Moreover, they inherited from early comparative anthropology a Eurocentrism and progressivism, pronounced even for western Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.1 The Cambridge Ritualists classified all the foreign ethnographic material as comparative evidence for ritual, not drama, with the result that whereas ritual was universal, drama appeared a uniquely Greek achievement. Did the result of this early experiment in comparative anthropology simply rig out another of the cultural “contests,” so loved by the Victorian and Edwardian anthropologist, that only the West (i.e., Greece) had won – indeed, could win, because the definition of “drama” was itself Helleno- and Eurocentric? 1

The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Beyond

The few works that touch on the history of drama outside of Greece and mediaeval Europe do not suffice to answer this question.2 There are numerous works, some directly inspired by Cambridge Ritualism, investigating cultures in which something like drama might be said to have developed “organically”: ancient Egypt, Etruria, Roman Italy, India, China, Japan.3 But (1) in some cases (Rome, mediaeval Europe), it is certain that any supposed “organic” development was overtaken by the (re)discovery of ancient Greek drama, whereas in the other cases (India, China and, through them, indirectly, Japan), it is still often claimed that the seed spread from Greece; (2) more important, the “drama” found in these and other cultures (unless or until overtly Hellenized) still seems remote from drama “as we know it” (which again raises concerns about the Hellenocentricity of our definition of drama). Greece still maintains a privileged position in universal theories of the origin of drama. It is not yet possible to say whether this position is justified.

COMPARATIVE ANTHROPOLOGY

It could be argued that it is precisely the comparative element that was responsible for the Cambridge School’s huge success with its contemporary reading public (not to mention literary, intellectual, and theatrical circles) and its cool reception among Hellenists. The immediate popularity of comparative anthropology with the Victorian and Edwardian public had much to do with the implicit question of the superiority of Western civilization. In general, it offered both the assurance of Western superiority and the scandal of exposing the savage roots of its most hallowed institutions. Jane Harrison described the invention of drama as the cultural “quantum leap” that led Europe from savagery to civilization. Yet at the same time she and her colleagues characterized drama as very close to the ritual “savagery” from which it emerged. Still worse, both Nietzsche and the Cambridge Ritualists wrote as if primitive ritual still inhered in drama as an essence. For this reason, Gilbert Murray was equally comfortable detecting the ritual patterns behind the plays of Shakespeare as those of Aeschylus.4 For the same reason, Cambridge Ritualism inspired avantgarde directors from Artaud to Schechner to revive moribund bourgeois theatre by stripping drama to its ritual core. The public enjoyed, no doubt differentially, both aspects of this exercise. The scholarly reaction to Cambridge Ritualism also had an ideological dimension, if usually a different one. For many early critics, the Cambridge Ritualists were not progressivist or Eurocentric enough. Hellenists especially felt that the Ritualists had narrowed the gap between ritual and drama on one hand, and Greece and common savagery on the other. The Greek miracle was tarnished not only by the claim that it originated in ritual, which was primitive and common, but by the Ritualist’s compulsive parades of cross-cultural comparanda, which seemed 2

General Introduction

to underscore the savagery behind those rituals. Above all it seemed to bring the noble splendour of tragedy down to the level of ritual, and ritual had connotations of crudity, vulgarity, and social compulsion that Cambridge Ritualism did little to dispel. For Pickard-Cambridge, the suggestion that drama developed from ritual was simply indecorous (“it is extraordinarily difficult to suppose that the noble seriousness of tragedy can have grown so rapidly, or even at all, out of ribald satyric drama”).5 For Else, it threatened to undermine faith in the creativity of individual genius (how could “the inner constitution of an art” be explained by “Dionysiac cult, mimetic dances, projection of the group-psyche, Oriental and Indian parallels, etc., etc.?”).6 For Friedrich, it threatened to reduce tragedy from the expression of (liberal) democratic freedom to a mode of infra-human collective conditioning (“To interpret drama in terms of ritual is almost like explaining human nature in terms of the ape”).7 But above all, cultural comparisons seemed to tarnish the Hellenist’s pride in the unique splendour of the Greek miracle itself. Despite dedicating a work to the refutation of the Cambridge Ritualists, PickardCambridge simply refused to discuss the activities of “peoples far removed from the Greek.”8 As late as 1966, in arguing for the origin of tragedy in sacrificial ritual, Walter Burkert felt it necessary to reassure his reader that “This will do no damage to the originality of the Greeks. Indeed the uniqueness of their achievement emerges most clearly when we compare what in other civilizations sprang from similar roots: ceremonial hunting and warfare, human sacrifice, gladiators, bullfights.”9

NEW RITUALISM

It would not be worth anticipating our discussion of the history of scholarship (see the section “A Concise History of the Question” in this chapter) were it not for the fact that in our relativistic, multicultural, postcolonial world, the dominant sentiment among both anthropologists and Hellenists is now the opposite, namely, that the gaps between ritual and drama posited by the Cambridge Ritualists were not narrow enough.10 For about fifteen years now, Greek studies have witnessed an unprecedented resurgence in interest in the relation between ritual and drama. Unlike “Old (Cambridge-style) Ritualism,” this “New Ritualism” (as Friedrich calls it) has, until recently, shown an exclusive interest in synchronic relations between Greek drama and ritual, not diachronic or historic.11 But the strong reassertion of the ritual character, contents, and function of Greek drama also implies that Greek drama now looks much less like drama as we know it. This has implications for the broader exercise of cross-cultural comparison, opening the door to a less overtly Hellenocentric and Eurocentric approach to the comparative study of the question of drama’s origins.12 3

The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Beyond

DRAMA AND RITUAL DRAMA

There have been many attempts to establish firm criteria for distinguishing ritual and drama. Among those most commonly cited are the following differentiae:13 1. ritual is religious, drama secular; 2. in ritual all are participants, in drama there is a sharp division between actors and audience;14 3. ritual has a fixed text, drama a variable text; 4. ritual is efficacious, drama is entertaining; 5. in addition to the previous points, various contextual factors have often been cited. These include typical props or instruments as well as the broadest categories of social environment. It has, for example, been argued that drama performs in complex state-level societies the function of ritual in smaller traditional communities, or that drama is an expression of a freer and more egalitarian society, whereas ritual suggests hierarchy and compulsion.15 Every one of these distinctive features lends itself to counterexample and deconstruction, although as a set they do help describe common popular and scientific criteria for the nonetheless useful exercise of marking differences. There is, however, no longer any question of “quantum leaps” from ritual to drama. The categories of ritual and drama are not so much divided as joined by a continuum, and, indeed, anthropology has generated a third term that marks the very expansive middle range of this continuum, namely, “ritual–drama.” It is hard to conceive of ritual without some element of drama or drama without some element of ritual. The hypothesized continuum would then range from an unusually dull Calvinist prayer meeting to Miss Saigon. It is interesting that all the comparative studies from Part III of this volume (sample studies of the question of the origins of drama in Egypt by LEPROHON, Japan by ZOBEL, and mediaeval Europe by PETERSEN) seem to place their traditions fairly close to the middle ground of ritual–drama, whether on the ritual side of ritual–drama (Egypt), the dramatic side of ritual–drama (Japan), or somewhere in between (mediaeval Europe). To assert a strong conceptual link between ritual and drama is, of course, very different from establishing a historical link. For Jane Harrison, it was understood that the leap from ritual to drama was also a leap from barbarism to civilization. Today’s less teleologically inclined Hellenists would seem to place Greek drama closer to ritual–drama, leaving the invention of “drama as we know it” to the Renaissance or later. It can be argued that the strongly ritual character of Greek drama has long been obscured by successive appropriations of the Greek dramatic genres as models and genotypes, exercises designed to obfuscate their differences. Yet despite centuries of 4

General Introduction

assimilation, Greek drama can still be rediscovered to be something fascinatingly other than drama as we know it. Greek drama may be said to differ from the standard form of Western drama as generally practiced since the Renaissance on several, if not all, of the listed differentiae which are supposed to distinguish drama from ritual. the religious–secular distinction. The line between religious and secular is notoriously hard to draw in any premodern culture. It is especially hard in the case of Greek drama. Drama was originally (and for most of antiquity normally) performed at religious festivals. In Athens (which took the chief role in shaping drama), tragedy, comedy, and satyrplay were performed exclusively in honour of Dionysus and in theatres attached to sanctuaries of Dionysus. In Athens, drama is described in official texts as a “choros for Dionysus” and was performed, after prayers and sacrifice, in the presence of (the icon of ) the god. Greek tragedy and satyrplay (although not comedy) are also religious insofar as they are based on myth – indeed they became the primary vehicle for the dissemination of myth in the Greek world.16 Although the myths were not usually Dionysiac myths, some scholars have seen a Dionysiac essence in their focus on family violence and destructive madness.17 Tragedy was also particularly important in the perpetuation of local hero cult.18 the participating–spectating distinction. There are significant ways in which the production of drama at Athens (where we are best informed) was much more participatory than drama “as we know it.” Most important was the citizen choros. All dramatic choroi at the Athenian Dionysia were by law composed of citizen volunteers, and the law was enforced by the strictest of penalties until the abolition of the choregia in 317.19 At the Lenaia, this law was relaxed to include metics (hereditary free residents without citizen rights). The large fifteen- to twenty-fourmember dramatic choroi were thus ordinary members of the community. Moreover, the total annual requirement for choreuts at Attic festivals was sufficiently high to suggest the participation of most citizen males in a choral (if not strictly dramatic) performance at some time in their life, a factor that created a bond of community and empathy between audience and the majority of performers. A conservative estimate would put the annual demand for choreuts for dithyramb and drama in Attica at just under 5,000, or something between 10 and 20 percent of the average male nonslave population for the Classical period.20 A number of recent studies have focussed on the choral function as both a ritual element within drama and as a symbolic extension of the audience within the drama.21 This is a considerable refinement of the notion, as old as Schlegel, that the choros acted as an ideal mediator between the fictional world of the actors and the real world of the audience. In Old 5

The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Beyond

Comedy, the audience, as body politic, is still more directly involved in the action, through its social and political themes, through its (fictional) inclusion of (actual) members of the audience as dramatis personae or as named objects of ridicule, through direct address of the audience, especially in the parabasis, and through the final invitation to all spectators to join in the victory komos. Particularly influential has been Albert Henrichs’ study of the dramatic choros’ vacillation between its identity as performers and as characters in a drama, which he describes as overlaying an emotional reaction to the event onstage with “a ritual posture which functions as a link between the cultic reality of the City Dionysia and the imaginary religious world of the tragedies.”22 Many recent scholars thus conceive of the audience as participating in the drama both metonymically and metaphorically through choral dance: in either case the participation is described in ritual terms. Recent scholarship has also stressed the ritual function of the choros. Anton Bierl, for example, considers the ritual role of the comic choros primary.23 Both tragedy and comedy include hymns or prayers in which the barrier between drama and ritual can be described as “permeable” or “dissolved.”24 It can indeed be said that “there is hardly any choral lyric that is entirely without [ritual] associations.”25 John Winkler, notoriously, attempted to make participation in dramatic choroi an actual ephebic initiation rite.26 the fixed text–variable text distinction. This is a much disputed distinction (see PETERSEN; PATTON). Ancient drama is far from employing a fixed text. But compared with modern drama, there is an unmistakable relative fixity in the structure, especially the choral structures, of ancient drama, and a relative fixity in its reliance on a restricted group of myths. As PATTON points out (Chapter 16) in Greece, as well as in the ritual dramas of Egypt, Japan, or mediaeval Europe, “one constant emerges . . . the mythical content.” In this company, however, the (albeit failed) experiments in historical and fictional tragedy, the free mythic innovation, the pastiche of satyrplay, and the unrestricted plots of comedy all make Greek drama stand out as a good deal more like “drama as we know it.” the efficacious–entertaining distinction. This distinction, however tenuous, is for many still critical (e.g., Schechner’s performance theory; ZOBEL’s discussion of the Japanese performance traditions). Entertainment and efficacy are present in any performance, yet the predominance of one over the other is supposed to help determine whether the performance is theatre or ritual. KOWALZIG and DEPEW both regard “efficacy” as an important ritual element in Greek tragedy. It is remarkable that no fifth- or fourth-century source describes the ergon of either tragedy or comedy as aesthetic: “the relevant concepts,” notes DEPEW, “did not emerge at least until a self-consciously aesthetic culture arose in Alexandria . . . and 6

General Introduction

quite possibly did not arise fully until the later eighteenth century.” In Aristotle the pleasure of drama is described either in ritual terms, notoriously as katharsis (apparently both tragedy and comedy), or it is a cognitive pleasure linked to moral and political education.27 If there is anything to the New Ritualism, then Greek drama should not be regarded as utterly different in species from the ritual forms found in other traditional cultures; yet most would agree, we think, that Greek drama represents a “limit case” among these cultures, something much more like “drama as we know it” than any of its congeners, and not necessarily just because it served as a model for modern Western drama. But if modern Western drama is alone in being virtually distinct from ritual, than the question of drama’s origins must be framed very differently. It is our contention, at least, that the question is obfuscated by a false Hellenocentricity, and it is partly to combat this Hellenocentricity that the entire third section of this volume is devoted to examining the experience of other cultures in developing modes of performance that resemble drama, that many have taken to be drama, and that by many criteria are drama. The essays by LEPROHON, ZOBEL, and PETERSEN do not by themselves answer the question whether the link between ritual and drama is universal or necessary. But they do all seem to support the existence of close historical links between ritual and drama’s historical dependence on a ritual matrix, even if they caution against any narrow set of universal conditions behind the mutation of ritual into dramatic forms. Many more studies of this sort are necessary before the general question of the origins of drama can be separated from the particular question of the origins of Greek drama.

2. THE ORIGINS OF DRAMA IN GREECE

It is one thing to say that drama performs a ritual function, includes rituals, or adapts ritual forms and quite another to prove that drama has a ritual origin. Skeptics are quick to say that the historical link between drama and ritual has never been proven. And certainly, as we have seen, there can at present be nothing like proof of a general transcultural link between drama and ritual. But in the case of Greece one can take issue with extreme critics like Rozik, who, in his recent attempt to refute the ritual theory of drama, repeatedly characterizes the evidence for Greece as scarce and the arguments as already refuted.28 In Rozik’s case it is unclear what form strict proof could take. Like many critics, he regards the question as purely theoretical and shows little interest in concrete evidence.29 Without denying the importance of theoretical considerations, we are concerned in this book with primary evidence. There is no place here for such etiolated, psychologistic, and hardwired concepts of “theatre,” as Rozik’s “elementary 7

The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Beyond

functions of the human brain.” Rozik’s diffuse concept of “theatre” may well “have emerged any time and anywhere,” but the historical genres commonly classified as dramatic did not.30 This section of the Introduction, therefore, offers a general overview of the variety of evidence that is treated and debated in the contributions of Parts I and II of this volume. ARISTOTLE

Rozik begins his refutation of ritual theory with a self-contradiction:31 The thesis that theatre was generated by ritual is relatively new in the history of theatre theory. Until the end of the nineteenth century scholars almost unquestioningly subscribed to Aristotle’s dictum that tragedy originated in dithyramb and comedy in phallic songs; but he did not link either to ritual. Certainly Aristotle would not have felt the need to explain that dithyramb and phallic song are ritual performances. It is not that Rozik takes dithyramb to be a form of cabaret; he cites Pickard-Cambridge for the proposition that by the time of Arion dithyramb was a secular and “pure literary composition.”32 Even if this were possible, one has to wonder at Rozik’s conception of phallic song. Rozik goes beyond Pickard-Cambridge in making this claim, but it is based in large part on a confusion which really does originate with Pickard-Cambridge, namely, the claim that “the name kyklios khoros [“circular chorus”] . . . always means dithyramb.”33 Scholarship has only recently begun to recover from this error. That the ancients distinguished between circular choroi and dithyrambs can be seen from the fact that in the official language of inscriptions choral performances in the theatre are virtually never referred to as “dithyrambs.”34 The term “dithyramb” properly refers in Classical Greek usage to a cultic song with Dionysiac content. Dithyrambs, properly speaking, were processional and cultic performances. Circular choroi, by contrast, were locally stationary and theatrical performances. Although “circular choroi” were originally thought to be theatrical forms of dithyramb and might be called “dithyrambs” in popular speech, from the fifth century onward circular choroi absorbed the influence of a variety of lyric forms, and, as theatrical entertainments abstracted from their cultic and Dionysian contexts, might also be performed in non-Dionysian festivals and treat non-Dionysian myths. KOWALZIG demonstrates the powerfully Dionysian character of Pindar’s “dithyrambs,” whereas the non-Dionysiac character of Bacchylides’ (probably much later) circular choroi has, on the other hand, nothing to tell us about the character of actual cultic dithyramb in his day. In any case Aristotle’s reference to exarchontes (“those who lead off”) of the dithyramb and phallic procession place it beyond doubt that Aristotle has not theatrical “circular choroi” in mind but cultic processional hymns.35 8

General Introduction

Both dithyramb and phallic song belonged to Dionysiac cult. That Aristotle regarded Dionysiac cult as the source for drama is also clear from his characterization of the primordial ritual from which tragedy developed as “a satyrplay-like performance” and as a “composition for satyrs and more in the nature of a dance performance” (Poet. 1449a 20, 23). Satyrs in Aristotle’s day, as long before, were inextricably linked with Dionysus. There can be no doubt, then, despite Rozik, that Aristotle believed tragedy and comedy to have developed from ritual and cultic forms: dithyramb was a hymn sung when leading an animal to sacrifice; phallika are processions involving the singing of hymns which celebrate the advent of the god Dionysus in the form of a phallus – processions which also end in sacrifice. The only question is whether Aristotle knew what he was talking about. Is Aristotle’s prehistory of tragedy “only a hypothesis and need not be treated as a sacred revelation,”36 or must “any serious account of the emergence [of drama] . . . start from what Aristotle reports in his Poetics” (SEAFORD)?37 Aristotle claims that, unlike comedy, “the transformations of tragedy and their authors are not forgotten” (Poet. 1449a 36–7). Possibly Aristotle published more fully on these unforgotten facts elsewhere, because there are two fragments attributed to him which deal with early drama: Themistius disputes Aristotle’s claims “that the choros first hymned the gods as they entered and that Thespis invented the prologue and speeches”; Proclus quotes Aristotle as saying that Arion “first introduced the circular choros.”38 In the latter case, at least, it appears that Aristotle is drawing on sources that are all but lost to us. Not only Hellanicus (early fifth century bc) but also Solon (early sixth century bc) wrote about Arion’s innovative choral performances – Hellanicus, from Lesbos like Arion, apparently drawing on local tradition, and Solon, a contemporary of Arion, conceivably from autopsy.39 Despite this, there is a widespread suspicion that Aristotle can have had no greater information about the early history of drama than we do and that his historical claim was simply spun out of his own preconceptions and methodological habits. Else’s complaint that “nobody has investigated the rationale of the hypothesis within the context of Aristotle’s own thinking” remains valid, despite Else.40 DEPEW, therefore, addresses this question and, after a very thorough analysis, shows that Aristotle did indeed run his data through a methodological mill, largely developed in the course of his biological research. But, remarkably, DEPEW does not feel the data were invented or much distorted by the process – he feels that if anything Aristotle is inclined to exaggerate the distance between tragedy and its ritual origins. SEAFORD, indeed, argues that the derivation of tragedy out of nonserious (satyrplay-like) beginnings actually goes against the grain of Aristotle’s schematic distinction between tragedy and comedy and is not likely to have been concocted to suit his argument. 9

The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Beyond

It is conventional to point out that Aristotle knew many more tragedies than we do. He certainly had access to more early written sources and to oral traditions, whether or not they were accurate. More important, in our view, is the fact that he had immediate experience of the continuing rituals from which he derives tragedy and comedy. These rituals survived, in their processional pretheatrical forms, right down to Aristotle’s own day.41 Even if his connection between drama, dithyramb, and phallic rites was merely intuitive, it was based on a far greater body of experience and unarticulated comparative data than we can ever hope to recover. One might compare the situation in Japan where the observation of close parallels between N¯o and Kagura performances and the archaic rituals which still survive alongside them has proven valuable for the reconstruction of the history of those dramatic forms (ZOBEL). PRE-ARISTOTELIAN TEXTUAL FRAGMENTS

This is, of course, not to imply that Aristotle’s intuitions were necessarily correct, only that a highly intelligent and well-informed witness of drama and certain forms of Dionysiac ritual in the fourth century had no difficulty in discerning their resemblances. Aristotle’s authority on this matter in antiquity was unfortunately so great that little of the information found in later authors is likely to be independent of his theories. For example, the reference to Arion in the elegies of Solon (fr. 30a W) is reported by John the Deacon as follows: “Arion of Methymna first introduced the drama of tragedy as Solon indicated in his poem entitled Elegies.” It is not at all clear what Solon actually wrote, but he certainly did not use the phrase “drama of tragedy.” Our fifth- and fourth-century sources all identify Arion as an innovator in the dithyramb or “circular choros.”42 In late antique and Byzantine authors, however, he is called a tragedian, or is said to have invented the “tragic mode” or “introduced satyrs speaking verses,” all probably confusions generated by scholars interpreting their sources with the aid, or for the benefit, of Aristotelian theory.43 Most experts accept John the Deacon’s testimony that Solon mentioned Arion in relation to musical innovations.44 Our earliest sources also connect Arion with Corinth, the tyrant Periander (625–585) and dancing dolphins. Moreover Corinth is named by Pindar (464), who is probably thinking of Arion, as the place where “the charms of Dionysus, with the ox-driving dithyramb, first came to light” (Ol. 13.17–18). We know almost nothing about the character of dithyramb before the innovations of Lasos, but surprisingly we know enough to falsify the claims of Aristotle and Solon, supposing that they are correctly reported as claiming that Arion first introduced the dithyramb.45 A fragment of Archilochus makes it clear that Arion cannot have invented the dithyramb. Sometime around 640 Archilochus (fr. 120 W) 10

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

sang:• For I knowhow to lead off che~autiful dichyrambsong of chelord Dionysus, my mind blasted by wine... This confirms Aristotle's daim that the stock from which tragedy grewwas •late to become scrious" (~t. 1449a 10--1). Although it ha sometimes been supposed that Aristotlls claim that tragedy developed from dithyramb contradicts the later claim that it grew from a humorous "satyrplay-like performance,"this testimonyshows that dithyramb might beperformed by drunkards and confirms the notion that thc:scgenres, very different in the fifth century, bcginnings.■ 46 Indeed HEDREEN argues sprang from rdativcly 111undiffercnriatcd that the fragments of verse cited by the (much later) Mncsicpcs inscription were from just such dithyrambs, for the inscriptions speak of Archilochus training a choros for Dionysus in Paros.+7 What is especiallyinterestingis that the cited verses contain much c,cplicitlysexual language including n:fcrenceto erect penises and ..the scmvcr,. a., a possible epithet of Dionysw.,.s What is most remarkable is the inscription'sinclusionof these fragmentsof Archllochusinto an aetiologyfor phallic processionson Paros."'At this point in history,it would appear. the dithyramb was also not very far from phallic song. Aristotle'sgeneralscheme, at least. isconfirmed by the little independent information we receivefrom ancient texts. Even the error in point of detail concerning Arion may beonly apparent. Herodotus also tells us that Arion was the first to ..compose, name~and teach [to a choro.s]a dithyramb, and it may be that Herodotus means to distinguish this from simply singing a dithyramb in An:hilochus' improvisatory manner (that Archilochm improvised is claimed by later testimony and implied by his bout about his [presumablymental] dexterity even when drunk).'° Moreover,Arion issaid by Aristotle(supposingProcluswascarefulin his paraphrase) to havefirstled -me circularchoros,"which, as we haveseen.does not mean precisely die same thing as dithyramb.siFor cultic dithyrambs were.like phallicsong, proces. sional entertainments. The fifth-century theatrical entertainments called 111 circular choroi" were not processional(except possibly for a short parodos and exodos). According to Pindar, it was Lasos (perhaps as late as ea. s10) who first departed from the processionalform. But Arion was clearlythought to have done something to anticipate the formal fifth-century theatrical entertainment, possibly developing a more coordinated form of entertainment at various viewing points along the processionalroute. It is for this reason that his father is said to be *Kyklcus" (= •circler") and that he is supposed to have learned the dithyramb from dolphins (Dionysiacbeaststhat notoriowly leap in circlesaround movingships).S2An ancient description of Arion's arrivalin the Peloponncschas him approach in his musician's costume riding on a dolphin with a pack of dolphins circling about him.'' This is clearlyintended to be an aetiologicalmyth for a form of dithyramb associatedwith Arion: it is particularly interesting to note that the cirrular dance is incorporated wichin a pr~ional movement. 11

II

THR Oaumu o,

THRATH

nr

ANCIENT

Ga11c1 AND BnoND

There isone further pair of pre-Aristoteliantexts that looms largein this discussion. An inscription knownas the Ftuti(/GIi' 1318).which, although fim inscribed 14 about 346,•reads like a transcript of an official record" going back to c. soo. From the ride in large lettcn the followingwordssurvive •there were first ltomoi for Dionysos, tragedies. .. " A likelysupplement would give •in the archonship of at such and so and so therewere first/amu,; for Dionysus, ttagedies then appeared such a date, then comedies,etc. Becausethe insaiption lists victories in circular choroi, tragedies,and comedies.many takeltomostomean •circularchoros.•11This interpretation is corroborated by another textual fragment, unfortunately undatable, but in any caseearlierthan 346 (whenit is cited): an Athenian lawproposedby one Euegoroslists,in the context of the Dionysia, the procession,the boy'schoros. comedy and tragedy(which corresponds to the order of events at the the /uJnuJS, Dionysia,where men's choroi followboys').'6 The use of the term ltomosfor circular cboroi isall the more remarkablebecause ltomosproperlyrefersto a procession,normally involvingmusic, drunkenness, and a mood of hilarity. S? The application of the term to circular choroi i1 certainly an archaism.perhaps lesssurprisingin officialdocuments, and seemsto harken back to their supposed origin in culric dithyramb. These fragments may give some insight into officialor receivednotions about the origin of circularchoroi in pre-Aristotelian Athens.Indeed,the term suggeststhe kinshipof dithyramb with the dramaticgenre of comedy, becausein Athensac least, ltomtJSwas also (correcdy) understood to be the root of the word ltomaidi4(===the •song of the ltomos. • comedy).,a lll

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ICONOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE The officiallistsrecorded by the &ti do not go back much before soo.Nor do the remains of any dramatic tem. Textualreferencesto dramatic productions before about sooarc open to seriousdoubt." The stratigraphicdate for the culicst lcvdling of the theatral area in the Theatre of Dionysus at Athens abo puts the theatre no earlier than the end of the sixthcentury.'° The theatres of Syracuseand Thorikos may be contemporary or slightly lacer,as is the record of dramatic produaion in Sicily:we have credible cesrlmonyto productions by Aeschylusprobably as early as 470 and no later than 456; comedy appc:anto have been produced still earlier 61 Severalscholarsare and before its introduction into the Athenian theatre in 486. drama and cirrularchoroi as essentiallyaeations of the now tempted to regardbom Athenian demoaacy (from po). Still more important than democratic ideology, in our view. was the construction of an ,nrhntr,, and dN11trtmin the Theatre of Dionysus at Athens. Annand D'Angour has given good arguments for regarding the end of the sixthcentury as a likelydate for the formalreconfigurationat Athens, by LasosofHermione, of the proreaional dithyramb to a locallystationarytbeauical form (a round dance confined to thetheme'sorchcstra).'2 The transformation of 11

GaNEL\L

INTaooucT10N

the proassional cultic dithyramb into me theatrical •circular cboros• at this date is suggestive.It is probable mat processionalchoroi, such as those of dithyramb and phallic 10ng, also had their•topping points at which the choroi might develop the rudiments of narrative through dance, dialogue, and mimetic action, but the condition for the smtained developmentof such dramatic fornu would seem to be the reronfigurationof essentiallyproceuional festivalenteruinmenu to a stationary performancewithin the confinesof a theatre. The textualevidencefor drama. dithyramb,phallicsong, or any satyrplay-or drama-like performance before the fifth century is slim, although not negligible. Iconography,however,offers us a far more abundant and an immediatelycontemporarysource for the prehistory of drama.We have thousands of represenwions, mainly on vasa, of choralrituals produced &om about 6)0 to the early fifth century. These can be dividedbydate, fabric,and iconographiccriteria into three main groups: .konwts,satyrs, and kom0&vases. KOMASTS

Some 2,000 vases(and occasionallyother artifacts)from all over the Grcc:kworld (-

Moreovcr, it htU to be pointed out that the costumes with padded buttocks are not merely laughable but obscene. The dancers call attention to their already prominent buttocks by slapping or poking their own buttocks or those of meir fellow dancers. This can be trivialized, as when SMITH compares it to the polka, but one docs not have to look too far to find komasts offering most un-polka-likc pokes, with overt homoerotic overtones, at the genitals or buttocb of their fellow dancers (e.g., FIGURE10). The komases interest in his neighbour's ..buttocks" (it iscostume, remember!) at times exten~ well beyond friendly pars, to fondling, and even to mimes of anal penetration. 67 Komastic dance is in fact sometimes figured in the form of mass sexual orgies on Corinthian, Anic, Bocorian, Laconian, and Etruscan fabrics (e.g., FIGURES7, 2.2-2.3).The orgies can include females. or more probably "'females,"who, like the male komasts, are either nude or scantily clad (a costume similarly intended to rransgress cultural nonns). 68 Soeven if only a small minority of vases illustrate dancers with enlarged, erect, or prominendy exposed phalloi, one might bejustified in thinking that so conspicuous a form of exhibitionnm, rather than being an uncharacteristic aberration which we should be inclined to excuse or overlook, is an extension, or a (perhaps imaginative) evocation, of the fundamentally obscene and uansgressive character of the dance. And, for the record - see for yourself! - these most conspicuously phallic gentlemen appear (pace Steinhart) not only on Corinthian, but on Attic, Bocotian, Laconian, and Etruscan pottery (e.g., FIGURES1, 10, 16, JO.J~ 6'-70 1 &f,).611 Two typesof komast dance are cle.arlydiscemable. Some groups dance in procession. others Sttm to dance in a fixedlocation indicated by a winejar or the presence of banqueters. Of the processional groups, some arc led 70 by a piper and some by a figure who is probably to be identified as the txard>os. In a few cases we are given enough contextual clues to see that komasts can have some connection with pr~ions and parricularly Dionysiac processions: a few depictions of the Dionysiac myth of the Return of Hcphaestu.s include komasts in the procession (FIGURES 1, 3, 61-72,); other vases link komasts with phallic processions (FIGURE41);and one vase connects the komasts with the proce.uion of Dionysus' ship-can (usually associated with the Anmeueria). 71 Of the nonprocessional scenes. most depict komasts dancing around a win~ jar, but a significant number show dancing komasts beside reclining banqueters. The occa.,ional collocation of banqueters and komasts has led several scholars to deduce that me banqueting scenes locate the komasts at the private and aristocratic symposion.71 Although komasts may well have appeared in Archaic private P aoc Es s I o NA L RITUAL.

16

GENERAL

INTRODUCTION

symposia,we have no independent evidence for chis. If komasts did attend privaie symposia,a casecan be made that this was the private appropriation of a public and culric form. The only possible (but by no means necessary)indication of an interior (and hence conceivablyprivate)spaceon the vasc-paintin~ is the presenceof formal dining couches (ltlinm),but special accommodation for sympotic activitiescan be identified ac Greek sanctuaries from an early dace.n Severalvasesconnect komasts with public festivalentertainments (in addition to the Dionysiac processionalscenesjust mentioned). Probablythe most important index of the public character of the dance is the presenceof komasts in or alon~ide sacrificialprocessions.On two Boeorian vessels,komasts participate in processions leading sacrificialanimals.74 A third vessel,a remarkable Boeorian cripod.kothon, appears to reproduce successivephases of a festival on each of its sides: possibly in chronological order (as suggested by the handle sceneswhere the gorgons chaK Pcrseus). we have a sacrificialprocession (FIGURE2.4), a procession of komasts (FIGURE~), and a banquet (FIGURE An Atticblack.figuredinos also puts komascsin dose collocation with a Dionysiac procession (Recurn of Hephaescus) including a satyr leading a sacrificialbull on the one side of Dionysus and a group of satyrs leading a sacrificialgoat on the other (FIGURE 1). 71 Kom~ts arc also associatedwith other sacred pr~ions which were doubtless sacrificial,although no animals are induded. On the omphalm of a Middle Corinthian phi.aledancn a solemn processionof women, with crowns in their hair and wreathes in their hands, while kom~ts dance obscenelyin the larger friezesurrounding them (FIGURE 10). A Middle Corinthian pyxisjuxtaposesto a group of dancing komasts a solemn pro.. cessionof men clad in a long chiton and himation on one side (FIGURE9) and an equally solemn procession of women on the other (FIGURE8). Such processions are clearly marked as sacrificialon a number of Corinthian vases (although wichout koma.us).76 On Laconian wares, too, we find juxtaposition or interspersion of komastswith solemn processions.n Of parricular interest in this regardis a Bocotian skyphos that ~ociates a processionof singing men approaching banqueters, on one side, with riocow komascson the other, on the lower band there are processions and achleccs,giving the impression of a •unified cheme." in chiscasewithout doubt a public festival(Smith and Ure think of the Pambocotia).71 The anifacu which attach komasts to banqueting scenes are probably to be connected to the sacrificialmeals of public sacrifices.not private symposia. Of six or seven mainly fragmencaryLaconian cups juxcaposingbanqueters and komasts (in rwo, bom in che same ..scenen).19 at least one indicates a (public) sanctuary setting. as it showsdiners lying on the ground (a common index of sanctuary meals) beside an altar (a sure index of a sanctuary setting).10 Banqueters and komasts appear in succe~ion on an halo.Etruscan cerracon:afrieze that almosc certainly decorated a sanccuaryat Acquarossa.11 Unfonunacely,no clues co the location of che

•>·

17

THE

ORIGINS

Of THMTEll

IN ANCIENT

GREECE

AND

BEYOND

banquet are offered by me Corinchian and Altic vesselsmac juxtapose kom.asrsand banqueters {on opposite sides of the cup or together in one scene).81 It has, hOWC"Vcr, been reasonably suggested that the banqueters represent Dionysus and other gods (and one might add that the banqueters in these scenes, unlike the kom~ts, give every indication of relative sobriety).11 These banquet scenes may, then, represent a differenc phase of me same festival entertainment as the processional scenes, and the kom:astswho appear in both need not be relegated to different cultural spheres and functions. We would propose that komasts form pan of a variety of sacrificialprocessions~ well~ the postsacrificialcntcnainmcnts (possiblyincluding postprandial processions home from the sanctuary). The phases of entenainment resemble those of the archaic Athenian Dionysia, as reconsuucced by Christiane Sourvinou-lnwood, which consisted of a sacrificial procession interrupted by a reception (xmismo~ for Dionysus in the llprtl, in which Dionysus' image was dined, along with the other Olympian gods (and the citizens), and entenained by choroi.84 She identifies thn banquet and che related procession with the ltomosmentioned in the Fastiand Law of Euegoros {p. 12, above). The fragments of Archilochus indicate that the dithyramb involved drunkcnnes.,, while related traditions indicate that it ~ obscene, processional, and connected co the rites of Dionysus. Archilochus, like Arion, wascontemporary with the earliestphaseof produaion oflcoman vaseswhich similarly stressdrunkenness and obscenity, constitute a festivalcntcnainment. and. like the dithyramb, might indudc an n:archos. Arion isalsoassociatedwith dolphins, and dolphins appear alongside komasts on Corinthian vases (e.g., FIGURFS 7779) - in one case.. a komast 1w the tail of a dolphin. 11f Dolphins are also closely associatedwim a procession of singing men holding drinking horns and moving to pipe music, almost certainly a dithyramb, on a mid-sixth-century Attic kratcr.116lr is surely relevant, u STEINHARTargues, that, on one of the few inscribed kom~t vases,a komast is identified as KOMIOS = ("man of the komos,. or •komm•like"), becawe.. as we have seen, the dichyramb might be referred co as a "komos." All of mi, leads us to think that if dancing komurs do not actually perform a dimyramb, they perform something very like a dithyramb. sharing many of its functions and features. Moreover, the combination of processionaland stationary dances we find on komast vases would seem to fit the repon that Arion was the first to begin to convert an essentiallyprocessional form into a loally stationary (and, in the rime of Lasos, eventually circular) danc.centertainment. CONNECTIONS

WITH

DITHYRAMB.

Aristotle ~sociated che "saryrplay•like"'per· formance from which tragedy evolvedwith "little ploa/ myths." STEINHART offers a close study of the connection of Corinthian konwts with narrative scenes. Ritual CONNECTIONS

18

WITH

NARRATIVE.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

dances and processions, particularly those char involve aberranr behaviour, normally aunct aetiologicalmyths. As SEAFORD points out. Archaic Greece (like other myth-making cultures) used ritual to licenseand myth to legitimizesocially transgressiveor aberrant ritual behaviour.The names given on a Corinthian vessel (FIGURFS 7S and 7'), studied by GREEN and SrEINHART, Bendy, Playful, Pl~ing, Komios, and so on describe the mythical personalitiesthat the komasrs must adopt to perform the dance thar these names characterize.Like drama, therefore, inversion (carnival) rituals imply a change of identity and a strong form of role-playing. Mythic prototypesare evident for two of the processionalforms associatedwith komasts.Komasts,as we haveseen, are included in scenesdepicting the myth of the Return ofHephacstus, not only in Corinthian but alsoin Attic and possiblyBoeotian art. 87 Hcdrcen hu rcccndygivena cleardemonstration that the painter'srenderingof the myth of the Return of Hephaestusis informed by ritual practiceassociatedwith epiphanic Dionysiacprocessions.111The converseis alsotrue, namely,that epiphanic Dionysiacprocessionswere shaped by the myth of Hephaestus. Komastvasesfrom Corinth (about thirty), Attica, Bocotia, and possibly East Greece make no other recognisableallusionto the myth ofHephaestus than to show kom~ts dancing with crooked feet, like those of Hephaestus in the Return scenes (see FIGURE'8). 8" This supposes, of course, with Amyx, that "the allusion to Hephaiscos' lamen~ is obviously intended,n or, rather, implicitly accessedto legitimate the inchuion within Dionysiacprocessionsor feuts of performerswho cntcnaincd by pretending to dance on crooked legs.90 In much the same way Hephacsrushobbling about the dining hall is said, at the close of the /uad's first book, to have assuagedthe fury of the quarrellingOlympians and brought laughter to their f~t Komascsare alsoconnecred in Attic, Boeotian,and EastGreek art with phallic proccssions.91 Two of these involvekomasts riding a phallus pole (the Attic vase is FIGURE41). Not only have we myths "legitimizing.. the ithyphalliccostume and the carryingof the phallus but specificmyths legitimizingthe komast who rides the pole in phallic parades.' 2 Yer iris only a small, if significanrsrep, to move &om !&becoming" a figure in myth, by performing his divindy licensed role, to performing the roles of characters that are remote or unconnected with this legitimizingfunction. Of the "little mythslstorie.1"which SfEJNHART sees komasts performing on Corinthian pot• tery,only the Return of Hephaesrusand the dolphin scenesseem dosely artached co legilimi7.ingmyths.93 The other scenes described by Sleinhart seem divorced from the function of providing sacred licence; rather, they arc directed purely toward entenainment (and in this respect they are more purely ..drama" than eiritualdrama"). An important (non.Corinthian) supplement to STEJNHART's colloc• rion ofl&lictlemyths/stories"performed by lcomasucould be providedby a seriesof

THI Oa1c1Ns

o, THHATBR ,,. ANCIENT

GREECEAND BnoND

Laconianand Attic vases,discwsed by Fau.stoferri,Pipili, and Green, which link, by collocation, komasts with the Capture ofSilcnus.94 In Green's words, these sc.cncs appear to give evidenceof a •pcrtonnancc in Sparta along the general lines of what we have with Corinthian paddeddancers, and including figureswho seem to be protosatyn.~ Dionysus'connection with komasa hasbc:cn disputed. Corinthian komastshave long been associatedwith a major femaledeity, either Hera, at whosesanctuarya relativelylargenumberofkomast va.,cs we~ found, or Anemis.96 At Spana, Pipilihas argueda closeconnection between komasts and Anemis (and/or Apollo).97 Komast vasesas wellas a sizeablenumber of leadvotive komast figurineswere found at the sanctuary of ArtemisOrthia (as we~ masks). 98 Despite a feminine appcannc:c (• r«iblidl'), or rather beausc of it, an incommensurablylargekithara player surrounded by tiny komasu has been identified a., Dionysusby Stibbe. as Apollobyothers,although the femaleappearancewould suit Artemis as well 99 Greek sources attest the existenceof obscene and phallic dances for Artemisand Apollo, as wdl as Dion)"SU5 at Spana.100 It is noteWorthythat at Syracuse,a colony of Corinth, the first theatrewas built in a sanctuary of Apollo, as was the theatre of Cyrene, a colony of the Spartan foundation of Thera. From late-fo1.irth•centuryCyreoe comes evidence of an old.fashioned dithyramb, per· formed with o:archoJ, for (apparently)Artemisand/ or Apollo.101 It hasbeenargued for the PcloponncsianDorians, who celebrated neither Anthestcria nor Dionysia. that Dionysus was a minor deity and that Artemis (or other femaledeities) played a greater role in the development of drama.101 On the other hand, thereis much recentscholarshipto vindicatethe importance of Dionysiu in the Peloponnese.101 Although choral dance and obscenitymight suit the cula of Ancmis, Hera. or Demeter, the connection betweenwine and Dionysus is very old and fundamental.1o.t Although CARPENTER (cf. GREEN) points out that leu than a quaner of all Corinthian scenesshowevidence of wine drinking, the wine drinking is foundon preciselythose largervesselswhich provide the most abundant contemaal and circumstantial detail Moreover,komasmarerepeatedly associatedwith Dionysiacthemesboth in Pcloponnc:sianand in Attic arc the Rerum of Hephaesnu in both Corinthian and Attic art - which SMITH acceptsas "the clearestlink between komasmand Dionysus" (cf. GREEN; SEAFORD);dolphins in Corinthian. Eumcan, and Attic an;•as and the Caprureof Silenus in Lacoruan and Attic ar1. 106 The last of these addsfurther corroboration to anodtcr important link between komasrsand Dionysus,namely,the closelinkbetweenkomastsand satyrs(akasilens) in a large number offabria. Komam and satyrs not only sharecbaracterutia such u the love of wine and choral dance, obscene activities, proruberant phalloi, and CONNl!.CTIONS

20

WITH

DIONYSUS.

GENERAL

INTRODUCTION

sexualdalliancewith one anocheror wichnude or scanlilyclad women, but komasts and satyrs also appear together, dancing in the same space or in close association on a number of vase-paintings.We find komasts and saryrs together or in dose association in Corinthian (FIGURES 28 and 29), Boeotian (FIGURFS 18, 30), L.aconian,Attic (FIGURES•• 40 and 41), and Tlwian fabrics.10i By conmuc with Corinchian and Laconian,Attic komasts have a "self-evidenc• connection to Dionysus (CARPENTER).108 At the CHS Colloquium, Fran~ois Lissarragucargued that the connection of Attic komasts to wine sufficed to show their Dionysiac nature (unlike Corinthian, Attic komasts appear consistently on sympoticvessels).Bueseveralfunher argumentscan be marshalledfor the Dionysiac nature of Attic komasts:the faa chat they appear in the above-mentionedDionysiac processions(Return of Hcphacstus, phallic processions)and the fact that they can be depicted alongside Dionysus himsdf (ISLER-KERENYI).109 Especiallyimportant for this question is the close connection between komasts and satyrs, as the connections of satyrs with Dionysus are obvious from their earliest appearance in Attic iconography. SATYRS

The nocion that konwu are a type of satyr (silen) cannot be sustained. Satyrs first appear in Greek iconographyin about 58o,and become, in Attic an, extremely popular from about 560, when komast vasesbegin to wane. They overlapfor roughly half a century, however,and because komasts and satyrs often appear on the same ~e~ vase-paincm clearlythought them distinct. One cannot argue, therefore, chat satyrssimply replacekomasu; nor can it be maintained, as Greifenhagensupposed, chat komasu and satyrs differ only as live performers difTerfrom meir mythical archetypes.110 But satyrs and koma.ns are in some sense functionally equivalent (CARPENTER.ISLER-KERENYI;GREEN; SEAFORD). Komasts and satyrs share characteristic activities. which, at le.ascin Anica, link chem directly co the imaginaryworld of Dionysw, and through it co Dionysiac ritual. Satyrshaveaprivilcgedconnectionwithmusicand dance. Although satyrs, unlike komasts, do noc alwaysplay music or dance, they arc, as HEDREEN shows, archetypical musicians and choral dancers. Moreover, they arc, like the komasts,closelylinked to cpiphanic Dionysiacprocessions:among them the Return ofHcphacstus (e.g., FIGURE1), the phallic procession(e.g., FIG,. URE 40), and the sacrificialprocessionof Dionysus•"'ship.. (e.g., FIGURE 48). 111 Their manntt of dance is ohcn similar, if •as a rule, distinguishable• (SMITH), and, a noted earlier,they sometimes dance together with komats. CHORAL

WINE.

MUSIC AND DANCE.

Satyrs,like komasu, have a consuming interest in wine. 21

THE

ORIGINS

Of THMTER

IN ANCIENT

GREECE

AND BEYOND

Satyrsare much more regularlyphallic (i.e., megaphallicor ithyphallic) than komasts, but they share the same homoerotic and heterosexualactivities. Moreover,the generally nude or scantily clad women who dance, and sometimes copulate, with koma.nsarc indistinguishablefrom the nymphs who dance and/or copulatewith satyrs.Ifsatyrsare more consistendyphallicand obscenethan komasts, it may be becawe they generallyrepresent a later stage in the development of idea, about Dionysus. Satyrs hold a privilegedplace in disaissions of the origins of drama, not only becauseof Aristotle'sreferencesto "'satyrplay-likcperformances,.from which tragedy evolved,or proto-tragedy's"moR satyrplay-likeand dance-likepoeoytbut because of the formal ind usion of satyrplay ~ a dramatic genre in the Athenian Dionysia probably from the inception of the festival.HEDREEN examineschanges in the depiction of satyrs in Attic an which appear to rcffcctthe incr~cd formalization of satyr performancesin Athens, most notably growing tendencies from about 560 to show satyrs dancing with orchestrated movements;a tendency from about s20s10 to show saryn engaged in nonuaditional activities,but activitiescharaaerisric of satyrplay;and a tendency from about 500--490 to show satyrs wearing theatrical C05tume,accompanied by human pipers. or displaying the choreography of satyrplay. OBSCENITY.

KOMOS VASES

GREEN, STEINHART, and HEDREEN each discuss a small group of some twenty ~cs. which we would prefer to call "komos vucs," to distinguish them from ..komasts,.. although GREEN refersto them as "'protocomic...m The vases,all Aerie,range in date from s6o to 480. They show weU-orcheruatedand elaborately ~tumed groups of men. Apart from the faa that the cboroi are sometimes costumed in ways that remind us of the tides of Classial comedies,as, for example,the "'Knights"on FIGUREJI, there is nothing especiallycomic about them. They do not wear the comic padding. the phalloi, or the ~ks normallyworn by later comic choreuts aswell as actors (cf. FIGUREs). Normally,theydance in processionto the music of a piper. although occasionallythey are shown dancing around the piper (as in Cl~sical ..circular choroi,.). For these and other reasons Csapo and Rusten associatethe vaseswith the (prc-Lasian)dithyramb (c£ HEDREEN; STEINHART; SFAFORD).11l The presence of the tx11rrho1 figure on one of the komos vases. as well as on the reverse of the "'BerlinKnightsn (FIGUREss), adds some corroborarion thar this is a dithyrambic or dithyramboid procession (HEDREEN calls 114 him a "'choregos"). Most significant perhaps is the fact that fully a third of this corpus shows men riding dolphins. possibly some reminiscence of the story of Arion (although the men are armed), but very likely linked to the mythical origin of the dithyramb in the dance of dolphins (as expressedin the myth of Arion).115 11

GaNEL\L

INTaooucT10N

A connection with dnma is, however,hinted ar by one of the Dr11rthos 6gure1just mentioned, who addrcsscta line of ostrichriders:he is costumed and clearlymuked u a satyr.116 The appearanceof the fint Attic komos vasesabout s6o is perhaps significant. At this time. Attic art experiencesan explosion of interest in Dionysian imagery in general,induding, in particular, an interat in Dionysiac procasions (scenes of the Return of Hcphacstus,a phallic proa:ssion, and as HEDREEN argues, a new interest in depicting satyn moving in procession or dancing with orchestrated movcments).117The costumes and movementsof the performerson the komos vases imply a levelof expenseand training not seen in earlierdepiaiom of Greek dancers. The iconographic evidencewould suggest, therefore, a significant tum of interest in about 56o fiom the relativelyuncoordinatedanria of komasts, to displaysof an entirelynew order of magni6ccncc. If some important cultural innovation sparkeda sudden surge of interest in Dionysus and his processions,surely the most likelycandidate is the cremon of the Great Dionysia. The fourthdecadeof the sixth century marksthe beginningof the rule of the tyrant Pisistratus in Athens. But he seems to have taken an intcrcst in cults and festivalsfrom the beginning, for the same yearssaw the transformation of the Panarhenaiainto an international festival andthe construction of the fint stone 118 temple to Athena on the Athenian aaopolis. SEAFORD discussesthe conuibution of tynnny in Greece to the prehistory of drama. PerianderofCorinth (STEINHART),Phacdonof Argos(KOWAIZIG), Oeisthcncs of Sicyon, and Pisistratus of Athens are all remembered for having contributed to the enlargementand formalizationofchoralentertainments.119Above all,the advent of tyranny is temporallyand causallylinkedwith the advent of money. (In Attica. noc coincidentally,the earliestcoinage alsoappeusby the middle of the sixthcentury.) Dommoney and ryranny are also causallylinked to the emergenceof state-levelsocictia in Greece.110 Money enabled a tyrant to acquire power on a scale never before seen in Greece, to expand his territory, and to integrate it under hls central control. But money could also be usedfor maintaining a grip on power.The tyrant nttded not only to displayhis power to warn off'rivalsbut to suggcndw his accumulation of powerwas to the ultimate benefit of the sure, primarilyby creating confusion between his power and the power of the state. Public festivalsbecame the primary locus for displaysof the tyrant•s munificence. Likethe Panatbenaia, the Great Dionysia served the goal of unifying a regionallydivided territory, fostered a sense of national identity, presented an image to the state of irs own cultural superiority,and all the whilemade that unity and pride seemutterlyconditional on the initiative, influence,and money of its autoaatic sponsor. Money proveda decisive&ctor in the processof abstracting fe.1tivalperformance from iu uaditional religious functions and red.itecting it towaid civic and secular 1J

THR

Oaumu

o,

THRATH

nr

ANCIENT

Ga11c1

AND BnoND

ends. Under the patronage of the ryranu mwic came to be integrated within the new money economyof sixth-centuryGrcccc.The new patrons changed the goals of music from devotion to displayas their intcn:st laymore in musics dfects on the speaaton than its effectson the god. But the money economychanged music still more fundamentallyand from the inside. Money not only allowsfor the creation of festivalentenainments on a scaleneverbeforeseen, it alsoallowsfor the creation of a dass of skilledlabourersdevoted to the a-cation of such entertainments. The voluntarism(such as Aristotleascribesto the performersof protocomcdy)gaveway to professionalism.Poets,likeArion and La..os, with internationalreputationswere hired,giventhe leisureto preparetextsand train cboroi,and encouragedto elaborate the performanceof songsand danas that formerlyhad been improvisatoryand ttaditional.111 The introductionof money into Greecethus contributed directlyand indirectlyto the long-termc:ommodifiationof performersaswdl as performances(a processthat wa. only acceleratedby the Athenian democracy,when theatre became big business). Eventually,the combined effectsof tyrannical patronage and the money economywere sufficientto conven ritual forms into secular,aestbeticiud, innovative.andnow greatlyvariableentertainments.A further consequenceof the speciali7.ationof music and dance was to convert the mass of the citizenry from activeparticipantsto passiveaudiences.The poet/choros trainen gained authority and prestige through specialization,with the result, at SEAFORD suggests,that the role of the a11rchosin performancewa. greatlyexpandedat the expenseof the choros, a proca:s which, on Aristotle'smore than plausible theory. ended in the creation of drama.

3. A CONCISE HISTORY OF THE QUESTION NIETZSCHE, FRAZER, AND THE CAMBRIDGE RITUALISTS This question maybe •time-honoured...to useSeebcrgjphwe, but it isnot timeless,

if that word implieschangeless.•u There havebeen many significantadvances,bodi in the volume or rangeof evidenceand in the refinementof method. Public and scholarlyintereu in the rdarionship beaveen ritual anddramahas also oscillated over the past century, to be once more on the rise. What beganas an experimental application of anthropologicalmethod to Greek religioushistory soon spread to other branchesof scholarship(literature.theatre, anthropology), and even exened and continues to exert a powerfulinftuenceon the living theatre. The debate has, in fact,never been livelier,or more polariud, than it is today. The controVcrsy beginsin a seriousway with FriedrichNicaschc's Gd,urt Jn Tragodiu1111 dnn GeistuJer Mwiltin 1872!1 ' In Nieasc:heshands1"ritual"emblematiud a Romanticreactionagainstnineteenth--cenrury ntiooalism and individualism; •origim• the wellspringof poeticcreativity;and "tragedy"the arcbel)'pal •oomplete"

GaNEL\L

INTaooucT10N

an form rebornin Wagnerianopera.Mos1importan1, Niemche describedthe birth of tragedyfromthe ritual n:pracntation of the •passion•of Dionysus,who was tom apan by the Tatam.Alltragedywas a variant of this Urfonn: •Promethcw, Oedipus and so on - arc merelymub of that originalhero, Dionysus... The mysticalmessage of the passionwa., that •dismemberment- the ttuly Dionysiacsuffering- was lik.ea separationinto air, water, earth and fire; and that individuation should be regarded as the source of all suffering andbe rejected.• Despite its enormous impact, the debatesparkedby Nict7.5chc s visionwa, at fint largelyconfinedto Germanyand cwsicalscholanhip. It was the "CambridgeRitualistJ•who fint placedthe question within a broad evolutionary &ameworkthat allowedthe idea, to spread widelyin the humanities, social sciences, and creative ans. The main inspiration for this divcnc group of scholars(not all from Cambridge) was Jane Harrison, who bada genius for amalgamating the most disparatecurrents in the intellectual environment of her day. In her panicular enunciation of the ritual theory of drama in Thnnis(1912),she combined, among others. FriedrichNieasche with the ultra.rationalisticand indi-vidualisticimperialanthropology of James Frazerand begotwhat has since been known as the •Cambridge School."'Harrison and Gilben Murray in particular presented Dionysus as one of many instantiations of Frazer'sdying god. He. like many of the principalheroesof Greek myth, was a variation on an original •year.. Spirit,• who symbolizedthe cyclicdeath and rebirth of the year,of vegetation,and of the tribe through the return to life of dead ancestorsworshipped as heroes.The Year-Spiritwas originally honoured in spring by the performance of a dithynmb which gave a mythical aetiology for a ritual whose recummt pattern induded an "f!}n (contest of 'lhe Yearagainst its enemyj, pd,os (•generallya ritual or sacrificial ~thn), a messenger, a dwmMor lamentation, '1Nlporisis (• In addition, as previously mentioned, the quem quaeritisof the Easter morning ritual in Soissonsbelongs to one of three processions co the "sepulcher."These processions seemto have formed some kind of unified structure in rhe Eastermorning celebration. Immediately after the first of the processions containing the quern quaeritis,the followingstatement is found: Note that today, in face,incense is carried co the sepulcher thrice in resemblance of the three Marys.64 This comment in the rubrics of the manuscript strengthens the claim chat the larger liturgical composition into which the traditional texts of a quem quaeritis were incorporated indeed formed a unity. This, of course, does nor necessarily preclude the view chat a ceremony, which in itself could have been thought of 34S

THE. ORIGINS

OF THEATER

IN ANCIENT

GREECE

AND BEYOND

as "dramatic," was incorporated into a larger compositional liturgical structure. However, the composition of the simple quem quaeritispart of the larger ceremony, as discussed earlier, shows chat ic would be difficult co uphold a clear distinction between what belonged co a "normal" or traditional liturgy and what belonged co a new particularly dramatic type of composition. To conclude this pare of my discussion: if anything should be called "dramatic" in such offices using what may be called representational techniques, then these parts are still composed of items char cannot as such be distinguished from che items chat belonged co any reasonable delimitation of what constituted normal musico-poerical items in the religious practices. This is not to say chat these traditional songs were nor used in new ways. In face, it seems clear chat new liturgical functions did come into being in the practices under discussion. Only, as so often, when new "genres" are being introduced, it is difficult to claim them as genres in their own right and difficult to find evidence of contemporary consciousness of what constituted the new approach in such practices. Thus, in rhe ceremony from Soissons, the procession during which the quem quaeritiscakes place is, from a traditional liturgical point of view, a procession to bring back the buried host to the main altar. It seems, in other words, to be a socalled elevation of the hose (elevatiohostiae)ceremony. Young commenced on the Soissons construction in the following way: After the announcement of the Resurrection, the Host is brought forth from the altar during the singing of Christusresurgens. In so far as this lase part of the ceremony represents the Resurrection itself, it follows very inappropriately che non esthie of the dialogue between the angels and the Marys.65 The manuscript, however, does not cell us chat the "lase pare of the ceremony" represents anything. It only cells us what happens: the clergy move in procession to the altar where the host has been buried. The deacons ask the priests what they seek. The priests "in the place of the Marys" (maybe "in a way analogous co the Marys") will answer that they seek the Crucified. But he is not there, they are told, he is resurrected. Then comes an announcement of the Resurrection by the priests, emphasized in some way through the words vocealtioriprobably indicating pitch rather than loudness (because the AlleluiaRemrrexitDominus[ ... ] brings with it rhe melodic highpoint of the song complex which surrounds rhe quem quaeritison rhe first syllable of Resurrexit[see che Music earlier this chapter]). And then they receive the hose and carry it back co the main altar during the Christusresurgens. Whar is happening seems not just to be an imitation of a biblical scene but an analogy, according ro which the priests (and thus che congregation) are given the

R!!PRESl!NTATION

IN EuaOPEAN

D£VOTIONAL

RITUALS

reason for the efficacyof the host. The ritual is not just representational,it is a ritual that points to its own meaning and foundation in the Resurrectionmyth. Christ lives for God, that is, eternally,thus providing the ultimate reasonfor the efficaciousnessof the host for all human kind. This is, indeed, what is said in the processionalhymn a little lacerin the ritual the samemorning, the Seditangelusand its verse Crucifocus in carne(and alsoemphasizedonce more in the repetitionof the Ch1·istus resurgens just beforethe Seditangelus)at the processionimmediatelybefore the beginning of the Easter Day Mass.66 The ritualseemsto be meaningfullyconstructed,indeed, if one does not interpret it through preconceivedliturgicalor "dramatic"units. The whole Eastermorning seems co be a matter of giving the fundamental prerequisitesabout why the Mass and che ritualscarriedout in the church are necessaryand provide salvation. The new functionof the linesof the priests,especiallyin the text complex-Alleluia RemrrexitDominushodieresurrexitleofortis christus filius dei deograciasdiciteeyais chat ic is not onlyan announcementof the Resurrectionbut at the same time has the function oflegitimatingthe actionsin the ritual that followafter it. In a waythis is similar to the function of a trope. The trope F (as indicated earlier) introduces che Resm,exiantiphon;cheB+ F complexin the Soissonscompositionintroducesa ritual action, the handing over of the host. In the firstplace,versesfrom Psalm138 (in the introit antiphon)are interpretedin the light of the EasterDay celebration;in the second case,the host seemsto be the focalpoint of the ritual and its importance is highlighted through the Resurrection.Thus, an interesting new whole arose:a ritual that commentson itself in new ways,and in ways which draws on mythical history a_sa meansfor justifyingthe ricualactions. One mayevenwonderwhether this could be reflectedin the musicalrealization of the songs. The relationshipbetween words and music - in general - is not a topic chat has been much discussedin "liturgicaldrama" scholarship. Nor do I know of contemporarycomments on such a relationshipas regardsthese particular practices.67 I do not want to state anything with certaintyhere. But it seemsworth noticing that, althoughthe most common versionof the sentence non esthie[ ... ] is characterizedby a rising fifth followedby a (minor}chird,68 in preservedFrench "quem quaeritisceremonies," one findsa (major}secondin the placeof the third (see the music c, this chaper)in the (melodicallyunique) Soissonsversion.It is precisely this that makes it possibleto let the seeminglytraditional melody for the alleluia resurrexitDominus[ ... ] form the melodic peak (seethe music d, this chaper}of the quem quaeritispart of the Easter morning ceremonial.This may possiblybe read as an emphasisof the main point of this practice in the context (as outlined earlier).69 It is, of course, impossibleto know whether a melodic featurelike chis could carrysucha meaningfor contemporarylisteners.Also,we do not havemelodic

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information about the songs that come after the mentioned lines. Thus, the impact or the importance of this little detail is difficult to assess.

5. FROM RITUAL TO DRAMA? Although ir is problematic ro claim that drama was born in the liturgy in the tenth century, some concept of "drama" seems to have been formulated in connection wich at leasesome of the larger representational texts during the following centuries. The ten plays of the twelfth-century FleuryPlaybookgive one example of this, bur it would also be difficult to ignore a pronounced interest in developing the characterization of, for instance, the (young) prophet Daniel and King Darius in the Danielisludus.Indeed, from the words (and - co some extent - from the music) of this particular twelfth- or thirteenth-century text, it seems possible to consider it an example of a dramatic interest in a more modern sense. This. however, in no way contradicts the existence of a close relationship between this Old Testament play and the hitherto discussed traditions of mythic Easter represencacions.7° I have proposed chat we recognise the characteristics of a new genre - which might be termed the "liturgical drama" - in the seemingly conscious playfulness with which pares of biblical narratives are unfolded in combination with celebrational elements in, for instance, the Danielisludusfrom the Cathedral of Beauvais (based on the well-known stories about the interpretation of the writing on the wall under King Belshazzar and about how Daniel was miraculously saved from the lions· den under King Darius, both from the Book of Daniel, mainly in chapters five and six).71 I argue that in this play (and other more or lesssimilarlyconstructed ones), the interaction of narratives in historical rime (basic co the narrative or represenrational elements) with contrasting celebracional elements in ritually detached time becomes the object of a playful attitude. The celebrational mode, which is markedly present in both the Danielisludusand other long fudi from the High Middle Ages, serves to combine different parts in the narrative mode. One should not look for consistent psychological constructions or larger dramatic forms as in lacer dramas but rather for shorter stretches of playful renderings of biblical (or legendary) narratives chat are then combined through celebracional elements. The forms of these medieval plays have sometimes been judged according to criteria chat make them appear as poorly constructed - na'ive - "dramas." 72 Dramas of this type should in my view rather be seen as mosaics composed of (short) representational rituals that form neither a traditional ritual (because of the concentration on a narrative complex) nor constitute rhe overall dramatic construct we would expect in a later drama. 73 They may be seen as analogous co medieval visual representations in series, such

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as we find againand again in wallpaintings:scenesthat may connect thematically but do not tell one long story.They give a number of shorter interrelatedstories to which, throughthe functionalaspectsof the representationsin a devotionalor liturgical use,can be attributed some kind of unity. An exampleof this type of dramaticconstructin the twelfi:hcentury is the so-74 In this long versionof a "quem called visitatiosepulchri from the FleuryPlaybook. texts of the High Middle quaeritisceremony,"as in severalother visitatiosepulchri Ages, more biblicalscenesare evoked,much new literaryand musicalmaterialis added to what wasfound in the early practice,and certain lines are recomposed, both in termsof the wordsand of the music.71 The main new scenesfound in these plays are traditionallydesignatedche "race"to the sepulcher(of the two disciples, Peter and John,John20.3-10) and the Mary Magdalenescenewith Christ disguised as a gard"ner(John20.n-18). I willnot analysethisplaybut point to a particularfeaturethat I believeillustrates the quescionof "dramaticform." Mary Magdaleneis one of the three Maryswho come to chesepulcherEastermorning.At "theend," as it were,of the firstepisodecorrespondingcothe one found in cheSoissonsversionquoted above- the women (after che angelicannouncementof the Resurrection)turn to the people singing: "we came mourningto the tomb of the Lord;we have seenan angelof God sitting and sayingthat he has risen from death."76 Immediatelyafi:er,Mary Magdaleneis apparentlylefi:alone,lamentingher lost Lord.This leadsinto the episodeof the race between PeterandJohn. This episodeends with Peter'sconclusivestatementabout the Resurrection.Then MaryMagdalenecomesto the sepulcherlamenting(again}, and che scenewith the gardenerfollows in which she recognizesthe resurrected Lord. This leadsinto praisesby all chewomen(whoare strangelypresentagainafter having left MaryMagdalenealoneac the end of the firstepisode).Finally,the play concludes: Christ enters triumphantly vested,and praisesand announcementsof the Resurrectionaresungwith words(but seeminglyoriginalmelodies)chatcosome extent are basedon the traditionsalso met with at the conclusionof the Soissons ceremony discussedearlier.As a dramatic constructthe wholeceremonymayseem na'ive and primitive.Why do the two other Maryscome back suddenly,why does it take Mary Magdaleneso long to understandwhat has happened,when the other Marys (and as it seemsalso Mary Magdalenewho is not singledout at all at chat point) apparentlyhaveacceptedthe initial angelicstatement? Instead of raisingsuch - probablyanachronistic- questions,I would point to the previouslymentionedidea of short episodes,not dramaticallyconnected.From this perspective,we are not supposedto look out for Mary Magdalene'sdifficulties in understanding.We are, on the other hand, to be remindedof differentbiblical scenes that form individualunits of their own.These scenes- which obviouslyare

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connected as various episodes relating sorrows before and joys after the announcement of the Resurrection - are tied together not through a dramatic unifying concept but through the celebrational elements that occur between them. Even a completely different type of devotional "drama" or representation, Hildegard von Bingen's famous Ordo Virtutum,which is not based on a biblical or on a known legendary narrative, may be understood from a more or less similar (loose) model and can thus be integrated into a historical narrative constructed along these lines.77 The Latin devotional representational practices were supplemented by vernacular traditions already before the twelfth century. The previously mentioned Danielis ludussupplements the basic Latin composition with lines in the vernacular to give special effects. Bur this is not the earliest example of the vernacular. The Spomus, probably written in the eleventh century, also combines the Latin and the vernacular (from southwestern France).78 Also the very oldest play, which has been preserved from a tradition of passion plays seemingly begun in the twelfth century, incorporates the vernacular Italian for a Marian lament at the Cross. (Unfortunately the manuscript has only been preserved in a fragmentary state, leaving the piece unfinished after a few lines of this larnem).79 Laments in the vernacular are typical for the Latin passion play (and planctusMariae)traditions. 80 However, plays composed entirely in the vernacular are also known since the twelfth century; among these the most well known is probably the Norman-French Adam, combining in one play the biblical stories of the Fall, of Cain and Abel, and a prophet play (i.e., "prophetic," more or less biblical statements as apologies for Christianity, a tradition also encountered in Latin plays).81 The fully vernacular dramas were mosdy spoken (although to some extent songs from the Latin liturgy were inserted). In passion plays, saints' plays, and other vernacular traditions, religious instruction, popular piety, and entertainment seem to be involved (simultaneously) to such an extent that it would be impossible co separate these elements sharply from each other. There is a long-standing tradition of studying rhe English so-called mystery cycles (covering the overall biblical story in a number of consecutive short plays mainly performed on the streets by the guilds) as late medieval cultural practices chat were (as in many other places all over Europe) seemingly furthered by the cult of the Eucharist (after 1215) and rhe institution of a special day for this celebration, the CorpusChristi day, which during the first part of the fourteenth century became universally celebrated by the Latin church. What seemingly evolved as a wider consequence of this religious practice was a theatrical practice on the borderline between professional and devotional theatre. A proclamation text from 1531-2,to be read (as a kind of advertisement) for the Chester cycle by the town clerk, describes the plays to be performed with the following words: "not only for the Augmentacion and incres of the holy and Catholick faith ... and to exorc the myndes of the common 350

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people ... but also for the commenwelth and prosperitie of this Citie." This may be seen as one path leading from the medieval religious theatre to an (early) modern rheacre. 82 In Italy, in the wake of the popular movements leading to and connected to the rise of the mendicant orders in the thirteenth cenrury, the religious devotional ceremonies, especially of so-called laudesiconfraternities, led to a vernacular religious theatre, sometimes as sung dramas (connected to the !attdasinging), at other rimes mostly spoken, the so-called sacrerappresentatione. Recent research has led to the recognition of hitherto unknown connections between the devotional music and theatre activities of a particular Florentine youth confraternity, the Compagnia dell'arcangelo Raffaello, and the rise of the opera in Florence, connected to the Medici court and furthered through theoretical discussions in Florentine academies toward the end of the sixteenth cenrury.83 It seems that, all in all, it cannot be denied that a certain development from ritual co drama has occurred. On the other hand, it should also be remembered chat although such new off-shoots of dramaticity were encountered in European hisrory, traditional Latin quernquaeritispractices continued to a high degree. In sixceenchcentury Venice, transformations of these practices even occurred that seem to have had nothing to do with a change from ritual to drama but were ritual transformations in the light of politico-religious mychs.84

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Despite the existence of some few Byzantine texts of "liturgical drama," the schol1estern traditions. There arship on liturgical drama has been strongly focused on 'JC are very few Byzantine texts of"such a kind," and che ones chat scholars have recognized as "liturgical dramas" are generally speaking of a late dace. The main exception to chis is a large dramatic text, a cenco drawn from (mostly) Euripides' tragedies, especially the Bacchae,ascribed co one of the great Cappadocian Fathers, Gregory of Nazianzw (c. 325-90). The drama is preserved in a single manuscript from the thirteenth century, which makes dating the drama difficult. The literary style and the proportions of this work in any case makes it obvious that it has had no direct influence on representational devotional traditions in the medieval Latin church as we know them. On the other hand, if the attribution to Gregory is correct, it might be interesting (in the light of this drama) co reconsider other - and much less studied - dramatic texts in the West, the religious dramas in a classical Latin style (possibly also influenced by Greek traditions) by the tench-century canoness Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, texts obviously far away from the representations in the church practices considered here.85

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Some scholars, however, have discussed the possibility of a religious, liturgical theatre in Byzantium. Scholars have generally tended co use Young's idea of impersonation or similar (nineteenth-century) traditional theatrical ideals as their criteria for dramaticicy. In this way, only relatively late texts have been strictly relevanr, so that the general claim is that "liturgical drama" is only known in the Eastern church from the eleventh century.86 George La Piana has pointed to earlier devotional traditions (especially the socalled dramatic homilies) going back at least to the fifth century as dramatic in some sense. In the words of Sandra Scicca, they have a "potentiality for performance." 87 La Piana, however, also concluded that there "is such a profound difference between the spirit and the form of the Byzantine cheater and chat of the western religious cheater" that it is impossible to make any claims about the one deriving from the other. 88 In view of rhe critical attitude laid out earlier in this article toward the use of the word "liturgical drama" in relation co the tenth-century representational practices in the Latin medieval church, and indeed of using the concept of "drama" altogether in this connection, it seems reasonable to reflect for a moment on the Byzantine situation. For La Piana, one main reason for the absence of what he thought of as direct sources for a religious theatre was the iconoclastic controversy in Byzantium during most of the eighth and almost half of the ninth centuries, which in his view would have put an end to "dramatizations of sacred history."89 Even without assuming the existence of such dramatizations, La Pianaseems justified in suggesting char the influence of the iconoclasts would certainly have been directed against any representational devices. The iconodules, as is well known, won the controversy, and enough - in any case - exists ro point to a substantial tradition of representational devotional texts that might seem a reasonable background to draw on when trying to come to terms with the representational techniques at work in the tenth century. I have briefly mentioned processions of the medieval Latin church (and their background in Eastern devotional activities) as a possible context for the tenth-century devotional practices.90 It seems possible to imagine a general influence in terms of interests in representational techniques, the more so as one central figure in the establishment of the new Carolingian (so-called) Roman liturgy (including the song), Bishop Amalar, was also sent on a mission to Byzantium, by Charlemagne. The Swedish theologian gemiAnders Ekenberg has pointed out that the Mass exposition Missaeexpositionis nus codex(written early in the ninth century and usually attributed to Amalar) was in some of its allegorical interpretations directly influenced by parts of the Ecclesi-

asticalHistoryand MysticalContemplationwritten almost one hundred years earlier in Constantinople, generally attributed to the Patriarch Germanos I (died 733). Even though the Missaeexpositionis geminuscodexis, oflate, no longer attributed to Amalar, this does not preclude some way of transmission inro the Carolingian world,

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91 The allegorical possibly even throughAmalar'sstay in Constantinople(813-14). interpretations of the Mass and the Office by Amalar,especiallyas found in his Liber officialis, wereseen by Hardison (in his ChristianRiteand ChristianDrama in the MiddleAges)as a significantbackgroundto his earliermentioned"dramatic" understanding of the "liturgy"from the ninth century onward. Germanos, as well as the famoustheologianJohn of Damascus(dead before 754), scood on the side of the iconodulesin the iconoclasticconflictin the early eighth century;t~ both areascribeda numberof so-calledkanons,poeticparaphrases ofbiblical texts.91 John of Damascus,of course,is especiallyknownforhisdefenseof the icons basedon his incarnationaltheology.93 Germanos'ideason representation during the Massbecomeexplicitin his discussionof che readingof the Gospel:

The Gospelis the coming of God, when He was seen by us: He is no longer speakingco us as through a cloud and indistinctly,as He did co Moses throughthunder and lightningand trumpets,bya voice,bydarkness and fire on the mountains.Nor does He appear through dreamsas co the prophets, but He appearedvisiblyas a true man. He was seen by us as a gentle and peacefulking who descendedquietly like rain upon the fleece, and we havebeheldHis gloryasof the only-begottenSon,full of graceand truth. ThroughHim, the God and Fatherspoketo us faceto face,and not 4 through riddles.9 John of Damascusin his first sermon against the iconoclasts( 011HolyImages), wrote: Of old, Godtheincorporealand uncircumscribedwasneverdepicted.Now, however,when God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversingwith men, I make an imageof the God whom I see.I do not worshipmatter,I worship the God of matter,who becamematter for my sake,and deignedto inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation.I venerate it, though not as God. How couldGod be born out oflifelessthings?And if God'sbody is God by union, it is immutable.The nature of God remainsthe sameas before,the fleshcreatedin time is quickenedby a logicaland reasoningsoul.I honorall matter besides,and venerateit. Through it, filled,as it were,with a divine power and grace,my salvationhas come to me. Was not the thrice happy and thrice blessedwood of the Crossmatter?What of the lifegivingrock, the Holy Sepulcher,the sourceof our resurrection:wasit not matter?ls not the most holybook of the Gospelsmatter? Is not the blessedcablematter which givesus the Breadof Life?Eicherdo awaywith the venerationand worship due to all these things, or submit co chetradition of the Church in the worshipof images,honoring God and His friends,and following 353

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in rhis the grace of the Holy Spirir. Do nor despise matter, for it is not despicable. Nothing is despicable which God has made.95 This argumentation is valid as a general defense of representation as it is of images alone. Finally, I point to just one example of a so-called kontakionby Romanos the Melodist who wrote in the sixth century. His kontakia(hymns of a certain form with a refrain)96 have been described as highly representational. The one I quote from, the kontakionon the Lament of the Motherof God,forms a dialogue between Mary and Christ (on the Cross), which in its representational dialogical form is as much a representational experiment as are the medieval Latin representational devotional practices spoken about in this chapter. They may have been performed in quire different ways (and we know nothing about the music at Romanos' time). Avoiding the terms "drama" and "liturgy," we may simply point to the face that representational experimentations of a poetico-musical kind were developed (in individual and rather different ways) in both Byzantine and Western Latin religious practices. We know nothing abour direct influences, bur we do know enough about contacts - possibilities for influence - to make it reasonable to read these developments together in a meaningful way - developments about which much is unknown but where individual phenomena, when seen in a long perspective, may find sensible places in constructions of a historical narrative. The individual phenomenon should be taken for what it is in irs own contexts and no more, bur it is one additional purpose of my discussion here to argue char rhe phenomena taken up here - ranging from rhe sixth co the early seventeenth centuries - may be seen as elements of a history of European representational devotional practices but also to point out how another history through the lacer centuries becomes discernable as a separate, although related narrative, even though it does not totally overtake the first narrative. This latter narrative is the early history of European drama. I end with the following short example from the previouslymentioned kontakion by Romanos, the earliest devotional representation presented in this article: Come, lee us all praise him who was crucified for us, For Mary looked upon him on the Tree and said, "Though you endure the Cross, yet you are My Son and my God." "I did not expect, my child, to see you in this plight. I never believed chat lawless men would so rave And unjustly screech out their hands against you, For their infants are srill shouting co you, 'Blessed is he.' 354

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Evennow the road still filledwith palms Revealsto all the acclamationsof chelawlessfor you. And now for whosesake has somethingworse been done? I wish to know,alas, how my light is being quenched; How is he being nailed to a Cross, My Son and my God?97

NOTES 1.

2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

7.

8.

From the vaseliterature,I refer especiallyto recent accounts: Wickham 1987, seeespecially1-8, and 11-54,See alsoWickham 1991,esp. 1-4, with a shore discussionof earlier approaches.Both Axton 1974and Tydeman1978took issuewith the problem of the survivalof relevantdramatic or ritual elementsfrom earlier times. This is also done in a more particular context in Dunn 1989. A more traditionalview lies behind Muir 1995,esp. 1-9. The presently most up-co-daceedition of sources for these practices is Lipphardt 1975-90, although a number of sourceshave been discoveredsince irs publication. The dates and provenances given in Lipphardt'swork have been queried in some cases. Becauseno comprehensive list of correctionsexistit is difficult 10 make statisticalstatements on the basisof published mare• rial at this point. Taking Lipphardr's information as an approximation, one arrivesat rwenry manuscripts seeminglywritten or reflectingpracticesin the tenth century. Of these,eighteen (or even nineteen)wouldbe of monastic origin. For the eleventh century, the correspondingfigures are fifty-threeand thirty-four. See Lipphardt 1975-90, vol. 6, 493. Before Lipphardr's monurnenral edition, Young1933was the standard referencework. It still is in certain respects,because it covers a much broader field than Lipphardt, who only edited Easter ceremonies,whereas Young dealtwith the medievalLatin religioustheatre more generally.The two workscannot be compared becauseYoung'salso givesa descriptiveaccoum of the history and developmencof rhe religiousLatindrama of rhe medievalchurch. See further n. 10, rhis chapter. See, for instance,Wellesz1961,85-94, and also Petersen20036. This is particularlyrrue of Chambers 1903, buc the view also expresseddirecdy in Young 1933, vol. 1: 110-11. Hardison 1965. Hardison 1965, especially35, 39-41, and 84. This represents rhe very basic idea of the book. "Essay II," 35-79, is titled "The Mass as Sacred Drama," and che two followingessays,"The Lenten Agon: From Septuagesimaro Good Friday" (80-138) and '"ChrismsVictor.From Holy Saturday ro LowSunday"(139-77) giveinterpretations of the mentioned segmentsof rhe church year in accordancewith an Aristoreleanunderstanding of drama which Hardison usesas his basis (in opposition to Young'snotion of impersonation,seen, 10, this chapter). Seealso82-7, where Hardison discussesthe essentialideasbehind his construction. Among the scholarsafter Hardison'sbook, C. Clifford Flaniganand Johann Drumbl should be especiallyemphasized(secfurther discussionin this chapter, esp. nn. 15,41, and 45), as should also the fact charmusicologistsentered rhe scene in a much more important way than before, notably Susan Rankin, whose work reflects many of the new concepts developedby Flanigan and Drumbl, respectively(seealso Rankin 1990and Hiley 1993).For the situarionin the twelfth cenrury in which one can discern a new concept of drama in relation to some devotional Larin representations,see Flanigan1985,esp. 2-5 and 14, For Young'suse of the expression"authentic Easter play,"seeYoung1933,vol. 1: 231. On rhc difficultiesin the modern scholarship of "liturgical drama," see Flanigan 1991 and Hughes 1991. Flanigan'spaper is an especiallyilluminating discussion of the vJ.srlydifferenr approaches and disciplinarybackgroundsof scholarship in this field. The volumewhere these

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10.

11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. c9. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

z5. 26. 27.

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articles appeared. Simon 1991, contains chapters on dramatic disciplines belonging to various (main) languages ofWescern Europe and also contains a very useful bibliography (up to its rime) arranged accordingly. See further Pecersen2004, which reports new individual ways scholars have gone in the lase ten years. See also Kobialka 1999. This volume, to which I return later, also contains a fragmented, methodologically oriented and densely formulated history of scholarship in the inuoducrion (1-33 and 229-33, including especially nn. 72-7). This can easily be observed from the editions by Young and Lipphardt. Nore, however, that such judgements ultimately depend on rhe way the short ceremonies are delimited from their liturgical context. The following discussion aims co question such delimitations. The "classical" accounts and editions, Young c933and Lipphardt 1975--90are the main examples of this opposition. Young 1933,vol. 1: 79-238 (esp. 84-5), discusses what he called "dramatic elements in the liturgy." Young concluded with a fundamental distinction between liturgy and drama, the larrer characterized through the use of what Young termed "impersonation" as opposed to the Mass or other "liturgical observances" (IIo-11). In Lipphardr's work, rhe same accicude is mainly brought our indirectly (but is clearly reflected in the title of the volumes). The editions consist of excerpts mainly from medieval manuscripts for che lvbss and Office; the criteria for the delimitation of these excerpts seem to be based on a distinction becween liturgy and drama (see later discussion in this chapter of an example from Soissons).;.iso in the various (and very useful) tables for the structures of "such" ceremonies, the idea ofliturgy as opposed to drama comes co che fore. See in particular Lipphardt 1975-90, vol. 9: 945, the "Syscemacisches Verzeichnis nach Gatrungen," where the first section is devoted to "Spicbt:ene (niche in der Licurgie vorgeformce) Texce." Here the simplest q11emquaeritisdialogues are 5ysrcmacized. Both rhis particular and other schemes for the classification of cexcsrely on the assumption chat there is a preformed licurgy that can be considered a rounded object to which - and in which che "dramas" have been added. The assumptions of Young were fundamentally criticized in Hardison 1965. In two papers, Petersen 2003a and 2003b, I have discussed these issues in the contexts of specific examples. See n. 83. A recent discussion is Caldwell 2001. Heffernan and Matter 2001, 1-3. Palazzo 2000; see especially the (historical) discussion of the word "licurgy," 12-3. Notably, Flanigan 1990 and Flanigan 1996 (edited posthumously). Flanigan, Ashley, and Sheingorn 2001, 695, n. 1. Flanigan, Ashley, and Sheingorn 2001, 698. Flanigan, Ashley, and Sheingorn 2001, 699. For a criticism of che use of che term "paralirurgical," see Flanigan 1996, 15-16. Flanigan, Ashley, and Sheingorn 2001, 699-714. Kallfelz 1973,37-44. In the following I refer tO this edirion of che Vita. Vogel 1986, 230-47, esp. 230, 237-9. The pontifical is critically edited: Vogel and Elze 1963-72. VitasanctiOudalrici69-77. Vita umcti Oudalrici72-3(this ceremony is briefly referred to again -as quoted later- on 74-5). here, but according to Geidner "Chapter" would seem co be the natural translation of congregatio 1980, col. 12u, the canons of the escablishmenc coincide with the chapter of che Cathedral at che time of bishop Udalrich. Jn the context caritaswould seem co refer co a formal wine toast. Vita sancti Oudalrici74-7. The translation given is mine (as throughout this chapter when nothing else is noted). The editor and German translator of che cext translates "modi" t0 "Singspicle" and - slightly more ambiguously- "symphoniaci" co "Spielleuce," VitasanctiOudalrici,76-7. It seems more appropriate to think in terms of songs more like the ones now referred co as the Cambridge Songs,sequence-like songs not belonging cowhat has nomrallybeen considered cobe the liturgy. Cf. Srevens 1986, 114-19 (esp. II8-19).

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28. Concerningthe traditionalpost-Tridentineattitude to such liturgicaltexts,seeMartimort 1965, 134,and compareCattin 1987,109and 116,and Perkins1999,1010.For examplesofche usesof the term "para-liturgical," see for instanceSticca1980,279, Stevens1986,80 and Martimore1963-5, 9. The word "extra-liturgical"in a similar meaning (concerningtropes)is found in Young1933, vol. 1:182. 19. Pactisis and procoviaare names for wines, see Lexiconlatinitatismediinevi,644 and 737. 30. Dominicaposta/baswould seem to refer to the Sunday afier the sabbatoinfra11/biJ, see Vogel and Elze1963-72,vol. 2: n7. 31. Vogeland Elze1963-72,vol. 2: II7. 32. Paris, BibliothequeNationale,ms. lac.8898,f. 97r+v. 33. Young 1933,vol. 1: 304-5, 624-5; Lipphardt 1975-90,vol. 1: 204-6 (no. 167)with comments in vol. 6: 379 and vol. 7: II9-20. A transcription is found in Rankin 1989,vol. 2, 30-1 with comments in vol. 1, 31.See also Flanigan1996,20-2, who givesa rranslacionof the verbaltext and somecomments. 34. Petersen1998b,456-60. 35. In the manuscriptthe folios havebeen bound togethererroneously,so that the text from f. 97V conrinueson f. 99r and v. Only thereafter does it go on to f. 98r and v. (Thus similarlyin all scholarlydiscussions).See Rankin 1989,vol. 2, 31.Cf. the accountsmentioned earlier,n. 33. 36. Tit,, translationisan adapted (andslightlyextended)versionof the Englishtext givenin Flanigan 1996, 21-2. I thank Dr. Eyolf 0screm, Copenhagen, for checking my transcriptionsand for preparingthe musicfilesfor this article. 37. The full text in translation is: "Christ rising from the dead now dies no more, for death has no more power over him. Becausehe lives,he lives for God. Alleluia.Alleluia." In che ms. the Christi/Iresurgens is only given in a textual incipit with a melodicincipit in unhcighcencd neumes, however- with che exceptionof one minor detail - in complete accordancewith the notation of the samesong written our on four lineson f. 98v-1oor.I have included the melodic incipit from f. 97v (nor transcribedby Susan Rankin) based on the versionon 98v.-1oor. 38. This refersto the so-calledmorning star, a candelabrummentioned before the descriptionof Matins, on f. 96r, seealso Flanigan1996, 20. 39. See Campbelland Davidson 1985,containing a facsimileedition of the ten plays from the socalled playbook(mostly dated to the twelfth century). Flanigan1985,14-15,pointed out that the compilerof the Fleury Playbookseems to have had a basic ideaof a dramatic genre. 40. Petersen2003a,cf.alsoPetersen2000.The Regularis Concordia hasbeeneditedseveraltimes;here I refer to the classicaledition (with an Englishtranslation):Symons1953.The "quemquamtiJ ceremony"is found at Matins, Easier Day, see 49-50. This normativetext is quoted in many accountsof earlymedievaldrama, for instance,in Flanigan1996,12-13,and (togetherwith other relevantquotationsfrom the samerule) in Kobialka1999,77-9. 41. See Flanigan1973-4;Flanigan1974;and Flanigan1996.Cf. the ideaof the "liturgicaldrama" as clerical"speechacts" as expressedin Drumbl 1997.Compare alsowith the idea of the "liturgical drama" as a kind of experimentationwith representationthat especiallybelongedto the period before the Council of 1215in Kobialka1999,esp. vii-viii and 197-218. 42. Sec Maraval1982,esp.273-5,concerningthe PalmSundar processionand 281-91for the description of the processionand veneration at the vi11cntcisin Jerusalemon Good Friday.For a discussionof the possibleconnection betweenrepresentationalceremoniesand processions,sec Petersen1999and Petersen2000. 43. See n. 45 and the detailed discussionat nn. 55-9. 44. On FIGURE 101 the large initial Q (for the quem quamti.c)should especiallybe noted. This initial showsa fish and vines with II branches (5 + 6) plus one which is being swallowedup by the fish (maybeassociatingto Christ and his disciplesincludingJudas). Maybe this can be read as a comment about the difficult transition from Holy Weekto EasterWeek, a transition otherwisenot stronglyto be felt in the manuscript:a troper only givingliturgicalsongswhich were tropcd,in this case nothing between PalmSunday and EasterSunday.

357

THE

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OF THEATER

IN ANCIENT

GREECE

AND BEYOND

45. Drumbl 1981,12.9-38.seealsoDrumbl 1997,54-6, using checeremonyas found in the rhirteenchcenrury Consuerudines Floriacenses,see also Lipphardt 1975-90,vol. 1: 59 (no. 49). Drumbl's more specifictheories havegenerallybeen rejected;see, for instance,Petersen2004. Concerning rhe mentioned collection of items as a possiblehypothesisfor an "original"quernquaeritis,see also Rankin 1985,192. 46. See h-ersen1987,179. Her conclusion seemsvalid even today. 47. See especiallyche many volumes of the Corpus Troporum project(Universityof Stockholm). 48. Hesberr 1963-79, vol. 4: CAO 6565,cf. 1he editions in vols. 1-2. This respond is placed as number 3 of che responds for Matins in ten our of the twelveedicedmanuscriptsand is a pare of Matins (or Nocturns) for Easter morning in eleven of these manuscripts. In che RomanGermanic Pontifical, lessons and responsoriesfor Matins are mentioned in passing but nor specified. The dum tramissetis listed among che responsoriesfound in connection with the Easter representationalceremoniesin Lipphardt 1975-90,vol. 9: 927 (concerningthe so-called elevation of the host), and 9: 1063-4 (concerningthe visitntiosepuldm),as R 24. 49. Chapter 11, v. 8, giving an outline of Vigilson Sunday.SeeFry 1981,206-7. 50. Vogeland Elze1963-72,vol. 2: 112. 51. Unfortunately Hesberc1963-79,vol. 4, does nor givean entry for the hymn Tedemn.Othenvise, hymns are listed here with their placementsin the twelvechosensources,(507-20). Similarly, although the Tedeum must be viewedas closelyassociatedwith a number of d1cso-called quem Lipphardt 1975-90,vol.9: 1030-4,hasno entry either for this hymn among quaeritisceremonies, the hymns listed there in this connection. 52. Hesbert 1963-79,vol. 3: 96, listing a number of placementsfor this antiphon during paschal time, mainly,however,on Easter Day,see also vol. 1: 180,182,185;and vol. 2: 331. 53. For an incroducrion to this ceremony,see, for instance,Young1933,vol. 1: 112-6. 54. Lipphardt 1975-90,vol. 9: 903-4, 1001-2(A 39). 55. Lipphardt 1975-90,vol. 9: 945. 56. Lipphardt 1975-90,vol. 9: 1081-3,as T 20a, T 21a.T 22a,and T 243 (in variouscombinations of tropes for later parts of the introit antiphon). Concerning the quoted expressionby Young and his trope hypothesis, see Young 1933,vol. 1: 231,79-81, 149-51.Strangely,this is also how quaeritisfrom ms. lac. 8898 the Lipphardt edition understands this song in relation to the q11em (sec under T 2oa-c, 1081)which clearlyis not in a trope position. 57. Bjorkvall,Iversen,and Jonsson 1982,218-19,u4. On p. 15of the imroducrionby the editors, it is made clear that the classificationof the quem quneritisdialogueirselfand of its neighbouring songs is a delicate matter. The ceremonyfrom ms. lac. 8898is not found among these editions. This seemsnatural becausethe manuscriptis not a rroper,and as the textssurrounding the quem quaeritisdialogue are not at all in trope positions. In Rankin 1985,181-92,the B+F complex res11"exit Domimeshodieremmxit leofartis Chrismsfilius is divided up differently,as Allel11i.a Dei and Deogratiasdiciteeia- just as in Drumbl 1981,115,and as it is reHectedin the earliermentioned ceremonyfrom Fleury (seen. 45, this chapter,and the incipitsin Lipphardt 1975-90, vol. 1: 59 (no. 49), and (similarly,as it seems) in van Deusen 1980, vol. 2: 234. Cadences at "filius dei" respectively"eia" in the versionsused make this a reasonablejudgement but not an inevitableone. See also Rankin 1985,188(fig.4). 58. Weiss 1970,2.42.Cf. Bjorkvall,Iversen,and Jonsson 1982,114. 59. The two melodiesof the hodiem11mxitleoJortis[..• )from ms.lac.1118and 8898,respectively.For references,see nn. 58and 35{and 33),this chapter. The notation in ms. lac.m8 is in aquiranian diasthemaric neumes (cf. Bjorkvall,Iversen,and Jonsson 1982,38). 60. Cf. Petersen2001, 619. 61. Seen. 56. 62. See n. 28. 63. "Parmi Jesnouvellescreationslicurgiques,les tropes represencentle genre musical et poerique le mieux inregreala mcsse,si etroirement meme que trope et texrelirurgiquede base forment une symbiose" Oonsson 1975,11-12).

REPRESENTATION

IN EUROPEAN

DEVOTIONAL

RITUALS

64- NOTANDUM VERO QUOD AD SJMILITUDINEM TRIUM MARIARUM INCENSUM HODIEAD SEPULCHRUM TER DEFERTUR (... ],ms. lar. 8898, f. 99r, cf.Lipphardt 197590, vol. 1: 105. 65. Young 1933,vol. 1: 305. 66. Ms. lac. 8898, f. 98v-10or+v. Concerning the Sedita11gel11s, see Petersen 2001, 62l. 67. On the other hand, many comments were written during the Middle Ages about whar could be called the "meaning" of chc liturgical chant. For early sources, see Ekenberg 1987. For an early-twelfch-cenmry statement (by the German Benedictine monk Rupert of Deurz) on a song closely related to the q11em q11aeritispraccices, che seditangelus,d.irecclycommenting on how the melody fits the message of rhe words, see Petersen 1001, 622-3. 68. Sec the comparative scheme in Rankin 1989, vol. 2: 14 (T1: 08) where sixteen melodies from the edited French sources of the Non esthie. .• are listed synoptically: out of these, eight melodies give rhe fifth followed by the third for the three opening words, one only a fourth plus the rhird, and six have only the fifch (but then preceded by a major second) for the same words. The Soissons version (with a fifth followed by a major second but with no preceding second) is unique among the French sources in this respect also (see n. 69). The "normal" non est hie. .. opening is also how Rankin interpreted the adiastematic early French trope sources, Rankin 1989,vol. i: 10 (T1: 04). 69. Rankin notes that the rhyming of rhe two first sentences in rhe quernquaeriti.sdialogue represents a unique musical edition of these melodics. See Rankin 1989, vol. 1: 31. Thus, the cantor (or whoever modified rhc songs for their use in Soissons) does nor seem to have been beyond the capacicy to shape melodies in his own way according to whatever criteria would have mattered ro him. 70. See Fassler 1992 and Petersen 2003b. Nore also rhe difference in using the term /udus (and also representatio), as opposed to ordo.See Wickham 1987, 36, 40, 43, 47, and 49. The single manuscript source for Da11ielis ludusis dated ro the thirteenth century, but some scholars believe chat the play was written in mid-twelfch century, see, for instance, Dronke 1994, 119. 71. Petersen 2003b. 72. Cf. n. 65, and see Petersen 20036, for a reference ro such a discussion in connection with the

Danielisludus. 73. Concerning rime represemarions in "drama" or in "liturgy," see also Berger 1976, 217-22 and 243. For another example of a twelfrh-century "drama" using such techniques, see rhe discussion of rhe rime representation in the Getronis filim (a Sr. Nicholas plar from rhc FlmryPlaybook)in Petersen 1998a,696-7. 74. The FleuryPlaybookis a pare of the Orleans, Bibliotheque Municipale ms. 201 (176-243). A facsimile of this is found in Campbell and Davidson 1985, as an appendix (pls. 8-74) with a brief imroduction to rhe manuscript (161-4). The visitatio(220-5) appears on pls. 51-6. This particular play has been edited numerous rimes in performance editions (for instance Smoldon 1964). Here I refer ro Rankin 1989,vol. 2: 69-77, wirh a discussion in vol. 1: 108-23. The verbal rext is also edited in Lipphardt 1975-90, vol. 5: 1490-7 (with comments in vol. 6: 355, and vol. 8: 703-9. le is also found in Bevington 1975,39-49, who also gives an English translation. 75. Sec Rankin 1990, 328-37, for further general information. Concerning rhe particular traditions found in the Fleury Playbook text, see rhe discussion in Rankin 1989, vol. 1. 76. "Ad monumencum Domini ... ," see Bevington 1975,41, from which I cite the translation. 77. Petetsen forthcoming. 78. See Dronke 1994, 3 and 9; the play is edited (and translated) 14-23. 79. See Sticca 1970, 62 and 78. (The Moncecassino passion play is re-edired in Scicca'sbook, 66-78). 80. The so-called Cam1i11a B11ra11a passion play, for example, exhibits rhe same feature with long laments in German; see Dronke 1994, 185-237. 81. Muir 1995,29-30. 82. Mills 1992, xii. See further Rubin 1991and (concerning che use of music in rhe cycles) Rasrall 1996. See also Staines 1991.

359

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GREECE

AND BEYOND

83. Eisenbichler 1998; Petersen2002; 0strem and Petersen2004; 0screm and Petersen2005. Concerning the dramatic laudatraditions and confraternities,seealso Sticca1991. 84. See Petersen 1995 and Rankin 1997. 85. See Tuilier 1969, 34--8. Tuilier argues against a general scepticismconcerning the attribution to Gregory (including La Piana 1936). He bases his argument partly on the textual history of Euripides' dramas compared with the excerptsused in the drama. Seealso Sticca 1974, 26-41,

86.

87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96.

97.

basing his argument (again in favorof the amibucion to Gregory)on theologicalinterpretations. Finally,seeWilson 1998, 2--9, on Hrotsvit'sbiographyincludingher instructionin the liberal arcs and in Greek.Concerning Wilson's reference(8) to a passagefrom Liudprandof Cremona co the effect that 1hercshould have been "an embryonic church drama in temh cencuryByzantium," see Baud-Bevy1938, 330, where such a reading of Liudprand is convincinglyrejected. See also Velimirovic1962, 352. Velimirovic1962, especially351 (concerningthe use ofYoung'sterminology),353 (about Byzantium) and 363-5 (about Russia). Cf. also Scicca1974, 20-3, and nocehis use of the Youngian 1erms"true rhearer" and "actors impersonatingthe characters"(20). Sricca 1974, 20. See La Piana 1936, 175-83. La Piana 1936, 183. La Piana 1936, 179. Seen. 42. Ekenberg 1987, 22-4. See Steck 2000 for a recent revaluationof rhe mentioned attribution. Wellesz1961, 206-26, esp. 225-6. On 1heka11on,see 199-228. See Meyendorff 1983, 44-53. Meyendorff 1984, 80-1 (Greek texr and English translation). The English translation here is from Barry 1960, 311-12.;Greek cexcin MichaelisLequien no dare. Wellesz1961, 179-97. Lash 1995, 143-4. Greek text {and French cranslacion)in Grosdidierde Matons 1965, 160-2. The first lines are usually understood as a prelude co che whole poem ending in the refrain that is repeated after each stan2a.

Int"play wichin a play," as exemplified by the Japanese myth of the scandalizing, ,~ithdrawal, and reemergence of the sun goddess Arnaterasu-omikami from her cave, ritually enacted and intertwined with the "seasonal dramas" of Shinto temples, most famously perhaps at lse. The question of audience here is highly complexified:Arnaterasu herself, and the watching gods, are the original "audience" to the ribald, skin-flipping dance of the goddess Arne-no Uzume on her overturned washtub - so strangely reminiscent of the ribald dance of Baubo, ritually enacted at Eleusinian Mysteries, and with the watching same serious purpose - to entertain a goddess of fertility (Demeter) whose despair threatens rhe viability of the world. It is the cathartic laughter of the Sun goddess in response that resolves the cosmic anxiety produced by her self-hiddenness and restores the cosmos to its right sunlit condition. But the representation of the Arnaterasu story at Shinto shrines makes the watching human beings the "audience," and identifiesthem with the watchinggodswithinthe narrative actionof the religiousdrama.The "play" of Arne-no Uzume becomes the "play" of the entire performed story; the Japanese audience is mirrored to itself by the reactions of che gods as audience within the play, as the narrative of the myth (now both play and ritual) resolves the apocalyptic of its plot.

4. PARTICIPANTS LEPROHON

AND

SPECTATORS

refers to the probability chat the participants in the "ritual dramas"

of Egypt were members of the priestly cast, and we may speculate that these were esoteric "plays," performed by the gods' staff However, in the case of the great processional events and festivals, including the staged combats to prevent Osiris

D1scuss10N from enteringhistomb, theyhad to haveincludedthe public, who thus, like the jeering crowd at the Rhetoibridge in the Eleusinianprocession,oscillatedbetween the roles of participantsand spectators.We find parallelsto the caseof ArchaicAthens: if Aristotleis correct,in the caseof tragedy,the male exarchonbegan to improvise, through mimesisand dialogue,representingthe god (Dionysus},departing from the code of "ritual"towardthe genre of cheater,thus moving the participantsin the dithyrambic chorostowardthe role of spectators.YetBarbaraKOWALZIGchartsa move in the oppositedirection,wherebythe tragicchoroi "exploitthe fundamental strategy of Dionysiacritual, integratingthe participantsin a ritual that mergesthe ritual presentof the polis with the mythical past of the play. This means that the audience,just likethe performingchoros, can alsobecome more or lessDionysiac" (KOWALZIG,p. 236). Aithough ecclesialpersonae "stage" (or, fur more accurately,"offer") divine lirurgits, medievalChristian congregationscan in no way be said to be "audiences." Becamt:of the theologicalframeworkof the performance,congregationsare best described as witnesses- and becausethey comprisethe realizedBody of Christ in the form of His Church,as evenmore: they incorporatethe verymatrixin which the sacred Eucharisticaction is effectedor the particular solemn feast-daycelebrated. Who watchedJapaneseritual dramasand plays?A variablerangeof populations,it would seem,entirelydependenton the genre of the play and its sponsorship.

5. "ORIGINS"

AND TERMS

We haveobservedthat a new comparativisminterestsitselfin relationshipsbetween categories,in their interstices,and inevitablyin the validityof the categoriesthemselves.Althoughset with the same historical challenge- to demonstratethe relationship of "ritual" to "drama" in a particular culture and to speculateon the chronologicaldevelopmentof the latter from the former, as well as the catalyzing factors - the three precedingstudies define and treat these terms differentlyfrom one another,and differentlyfromthe studiesin PartsI and II, whichtreat the highly scrutinizedcaseof ancient Greece.This differencein turn quicklyexposesthe special particularityof the historicalculture in question and highlightsthe degreeof interrelationshipbetweenthese two performativegenres. LEPROHON'sexaminationof ancient Egyptianfestivaltexts and other evidence reveals,in his view,the virtual absenceof elementsthat are incontrovertibly aspects of "purecheater,"charis, "a scripted performanceplayedin fronrof an audience for the purposeof entertainment." There are in ancient Egyptianno words for "cheater"or "play";"author,""playwright,"and "actor"are absent.There are no suitable areasor buildingswherea play could have been performed.There are no

THE

ORIGINS

OF THE.ATER

IN ANCIENT

GREECE

AND BEYOND

audiences, because the players were priests, and thus che religious dramas would have taken place in temples, "mostly inaccessible to the general populations." Using these dements

to

define theatricality as a whole, LEPROHON nevertheless finds

evidence for role-playing (in reenactments of foundational myths during religious festivals), including mock-batcles and the assumption of divine roles, in some cases in costume, wearing names directly etched on che body, or wearing theriomorphic masks of which there are extant examples. Clearly oral scripts exist (as in the case of the Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus), dialogue (as in the Shabako Stone), staging directions ("[Conflict between Horus and Sech/Stick-fighting]"), and perhaps even a mulrileveled stage of sorts (che Triumph ofHorus, from the reign of Pcolemy IX). Interestingly, however, LEPROHON finds Egyptian mythic enactments failing to exploit their potential for dramatic elements such as character, dialogue, or plot: for example, in the Khoiak festival at Dendera, Osiris' role "is entirely p;j.ssivebecause he never responds to any of che hymns chanted before him ... this hindered the Egyptians from going beyond the mere telling of the story to a mor-: fully realized drama" (p. 272). Similarly, though, he calls "tedious" the repeated harpooning of the chaos-hippopotamus followed by the crowning of Homs and cl1e dismemberment and distribution of the hippo cake (Seth), which was clearly the scripted re-presentation of the divine basis for the royal mandate: "there is no dialogue in che form of exchanges between performer and no character development" (p. 284). LEPROHON's challenge, a direct answer to the question of whether and when "drama grew out of ritual" in a given society invariably of course raises the specter of a kind of Darwinian evolution. It is not a "problem" for Japanese cheater, in that, as ZOBEL presents the evidence, shamanistic, ascetic, Buddhist, and other religious sensibilities exacted so powerful an influence - and they were in turn influenced by "secular" arts such as mime, music, dance, and fertility/harvest celebration - that the attempt to distinguish "ritual" from ''cheater" in chis long history would be like trying to separate an egg from a baked cake. Even "satire" lives at the heart of the ancient sacred "play within a play" of Amaterasu-Omikami and Arne-no Uzume, much as it thrived in the satyr-dances that may have engendered fully developed Artie comedy. Developmentalist views still unconsciously inform certain contemporary models, whereby drama is seen as the evolved, cerebral, and secular apex of a process that began with rimal's far more limited range of expression, limited because of its predictability and valuation of repetitiveness, its religious arena of thought, and its lack of capacity for self-conscious confrontation of existential questions. We have already mentioned the stereotypical characterization of ritual as treating (and recycling, through mimesis) cosmic concerns (versus the social psychological, or ethical dilemmas raised and confronted by drama); the idea is chat ritual always moves coward rheophany whereas drama rends to be more interested in human 370

D1scussION

tensions and dialectics.The fact that mych- narrativesof the interactionsbetween physical and metaphysicaldomains- was the chronic subjectof both, as discussed earlier, alreadypresentsa cogentchallengeco this criticaldualism. To the list of simplisticand potentially distorting assumptionsabout the two categories of ritual and drama, we might add the idea chat ritual somehowmust be collectiveexperience,whichsuppressesthe expressionof individualdilemmasin favor of the group'sscripted movement "through" a perfocmativecontainer chat is the sequenceof ritualstates,whereasdrama isfreeto explore,and in facthingesupon, the interaction of the individualwith both externaland internalexigencies.Finally, and perhaps most crucially,ritual, particularlysacrificialritual, as the "ancestor"of drama, is still chronicallyconstrued as intelleccuallymore primitive than drama, becauseit comprisesand presentsfixed,"rigid"theologicaland performativepatterns whereby,to cakeonlyone mytheme(the one developedby Frazerand the Cambridge Ritualisesas the hidden "centerpiece"of tragedy),the god is slainand resurrectedin the course of the drama. The recurrent nature of ritual (wherebyits predictability is a condition of its efficacy)is what provokesthe frequent charge against it of "emptiness." It is one step from the notion of "slavish"or "mindless"repetition, whereas drama is characterizedby "freedom"of everykind: artistic,conceptual,and of course performative.To offeran example,in the words of Rainer Friedrich: Like any institutionalized,formalized,and regularlyrecurringactivity,ritual is bound to exhaust its vitality; what motivatesits performance,and especiallyits regularobservance,tends in time to becomeobscurero those who perform it, with the ultimate result chat its raison d'etre ceasesto be understood.11 How ritual "morphed"into dramapresentsa terrificchallengecothe "e\olutionary" theorist, as one can observein the anxietyof classicistssuch as Friedrich:"tragoidia, understood as the 'song performedat the goat sacrifice,'is stillfar removedfrom the high art form to which it gavechename. le containsa number of dramaticelements, bur in a very rudimentary form. Therefore it is hard co see how ic could havebeen 12 In a similarvein, Walter Burkert writes:"The the direct antecedent of cragedy." transformation [of tragoidia] to a high leveloflicerature, the adaptation of heroic 13 myth, remains of coursea unique achievemenc." Ritual and dramasharemuch in common char,in icsrush to provethe evolution of the latter from the former,such a simplisticviewdistorts.Allof thesestereotypical ideas about ritual, drama, and their relationshipcan and should be problemacized. Rather than "evolving"from ritual, the higher form from the lower, our three comparative casesshow that drama shareswith ritual a number of crucialattributes, which may in turn lead to the alternative view that these are different - even if historically differentiated- expressionsof mimeticperformance, which continue to 371

THE

ORIGINS

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IN ANCIENT

GREECE

AND BEYOND

imply Nagy's ideas of reenactment and imitation, even well into the more acute phases of "secularization." First is of the notion of visual spectacle: both ritual and drama are intended to be seen, watched, witnessed, and in this way the ritual congregation or dramatic audience, whatever their degree of participation in the action that is re-presented before them, are never passive spectators. Both ritual and drama are intended to move the audience in some emotive direction and/or toward the iteration and internalization of some important collectively held truth; to express a socio-religious breach or imbalance and, through their acrion, "restore the divine-human relationship," as DEPEW writes of both dithyrambic hymn (ritual) and full-blown Euripidean tragedy (drama). This could not be done in private; even the elite Egyptian priesthood was a contained "public" of sorts: Osiris' or Horus' public, their sacerdotal organizations. In his analysis of the time-honored tradition of the mock "kidnapping of the bride" during the ancient Greek wedding procession, as, for e:;::mple, in the second-century BC cases reported by Polemo on Samos, John Win!:\'r has rightly drawn our attention to the highly externalized, visual, and self-dramatizing nature of ancient Mediterranean culture, and, we might add, of many ancient culcures, including the ones considered in this section. What was collectively valued could be, and in fact had ro be, collectively performed and thus affirmed.'4 Second, both ritual and drama subordinate the randomness of historical time: they suppress the usually quotidian, distracting, and disjunctive nature of daily existence: tragedy does this by playing out and steering into the grand tensions of myth, set in the past (destiny, family curse, choice, jealousy, mistaken identity, incestuous attraction, betrayal, or honor) and their unbearable resolutions; comedy, by interpretively selecting our, from the rush of collective social life,certain contemporary issues for lionization and burlesque. Additionally, as Meuli and Burkert might argue, both ritual and drama controlanxieties (such as the horror of killing, in sacrifice) by choreographing these in miniature representation, circumscribed in space and time. That the outcome of the action is "known" or "expected" in ritual and theoretically "unknown" in drama scarcelyoffers a useful distinction, especially in the cases of ancient Greece or Japan, where the myths or stories that were the raw material for dramatic playswere inscribed in the deep cultural core of the watching audience. Their enactment on stage hence could almost be said to be ritual in nature. The secular or "ordinary" identities of both liturgist/ritualist and actor are secondary to and even obliterated by the logic of the script they enact. As Roy Rappaport notes, the performer of the ritual subordinates himself to the "order that the ritual encodes simply by performing it ... the reflexiveact of subordination ... establishes that to which there is subordination. To exist, a liturgical order must be performed.

372

DISCUSSION

Liturgical orders, the orders encoded in ritual, are substantiated- provided substance, or realized - made into resonly in instances of their performance. "15 But one may easily make the same argument for dramatic performances. Randomness, idenciry, and personal concerns are subordinated co the teleological progression of both ritual and drama; both are the expression of a purposive "higher narrative," even if the meaning of that narrative is to undermine meaning itself, as in the plays of Samuel Beckett. Thirdly, both ritual and drama are intensely reflexive phenomena. Selfconsciousness, such as for example Albert Henrichs has observed in Sophoclean tragic choruses ("Why should I dance?") is by no means the exclusive province of drama. Ritual continually comments on itself, its players, and their interrelationships and realms. The Orthodox Christian liturgy offers the Eucharistic gifts co God on behalf of the congregation with the prayer: "Ta Sa ek ton Son Si prosferomen" ("We offer to You these gifts, which are Your own)." As Rappaport further o bservcs, "The relationship of performer co performance is extraordinarily intimate, or even inextricable. By participating in a ritual, the performer becomes pare of an order that is utterly dependent for its very existence on instances, such as his, of its performance." 16 But one may surely make the same claim for dramaticworks, no matter how enshrined they have become in the literary canons of their respective cultures: if ic is not performed, a play is a literary artifact, a skeleton of a living and lived entity, capable of being studied but nevertheless half-dead. In PETERSEN's view, the terms "ritual" and "drama," or even "religious/ritual drama" virtually collapse under the weight of Christian ecclesial texts throughout Eastern and Western Church histories, texts that have, as Sandro Sricca said, "a potentiality for performance." PETERSEN advocates avoidance of the terms "drama" or "liturgy [ritual]" altogether, advocating instead the adoption of the idea of poecico-musical "representational devotional practices."'- Starting as early as the "Kontakion on the Mocher of God" by the sixth-century Cretan composer Romanos, in which Mary cries out to the crucified Jesus, "I did nor expect, my child, to see you in this plight.I I never believed chat lawless men would so rave / and unjustly stretch out their hands against you/ For their infants are still shouting to you, 'Blessed is he,"' and ranging co che seventeenth century, these constitute a history unto themselves. However, such practices continue in the context of Christian liturgy, paralleling the development of religious cheater in the English mystery cycles and Italian vernacular religious thearer and, ultimately, the birtl1 of secular dramaticity. PETERSEN thus seeks to demonstrate "how another history through the later centuries becomes discernable as a separate, although related, narrative even though it does not totally overtake the first narrative. This latter narrative is the early history of European drama" (p. 354).

373

THE

ORIGINS

01' THEATER

IN ANCIENT

GREECE

AND

BEYOND

In this reframing, PETERSEN resonates with the thought of Victor Turner, 18 for whom religious ritual and cheater (which Turner views as a kind of hypertrophy of ritual, as Morgan and Brask put ic, in complex societies or "civilizations") are both performative, structurally analogous functions that allow societies to resolve particular social dramas by making them widely intelligible through enactment, especially at moments of crisis. While Turner clearly believes that drama is "in some manner a developmental product of social processes acting on ritual at certain times and in certain places ... the diachronic nature of that developmental process is not made clear to the reader: under what kinds of social, political, historical, and perhaps other circumstances would cheater emerge as the preferable option in 'social drama' resolution?"' 9 These three essays, each in their own way, attempt ro answer that question, even in negation: in the historical cases in question, what we might call "cheater" did not in face emerge from ritual, or else did not emerge and differentiate itself in the way chat developmemalist theory would predict.

NOTES 1. See Fienup-Rirordan 1996. 1.. Career 1987; Career 1988. 3. Green 1995, 16, discussing Ghiron-Biscagne 1994. 4. See Nagy 1996, 56. 5. Although, as ZOBEL notes of this development, "The lure of entertainment has superseded a simple ceremony of worshipping the gods (shinji),"che face char che framework of kamihito kokan ("exchange between gods and men") remains as che central context for the rapidly developing performative arts is significant. 6. See Levenson 1986, 43-4, esp. on Ps.11: The Lord - His chsone is in heaven; His eyes behold (yerezu).His gaze searches mankind. The Lord seeks out che righteous man ... For the Lord is righteous; He loves righteous deeds; The upright shall behold (yerezu)His face. 7. JG II' (nd ed.) rnoG.11.-11..See Cole 19936, 27 and n. 8; the epigraphical evidence for che procession is found in Pickard-Cambridge 1968, 60, n. 4, although the earliest is 12?f6 BC. 8. Pickard-Cambridge 1968, Go. An excavated /i-agmenc of che fifth-century BC prohedriareads IEPE (probably, lepe[os],"of the priest"), presumably marking the place of the predecessor of rhe same sear. 9. See Cole 19936, 27 and n. 48; Bruneau 1970, pl. IV 4-6; Marcade 1969, 184-90 and 200-2, pl. XXJJJ. 10. Cole 1993b, 31,and nn. 48-9. n. Friedrich 1983,181. 11.. Friedrich 1983, 172. 13. Burkert 1966, 115. 14. Winkler 1991.

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15. Rappaport1980,187. 16. Rappaport1980,187. 17. PETERSEN,p. 354"wemaysimplypoint to the factthat representationalexpc:rimencacions of a poetico-musical kind weredeveloped(in individualand ratherdifferentways)in bothByzantine and WesternLatinreligiouspractices." 18. Turner1982. 19. Morganand Brask1988,181-2.

PART

FROM RITUAL DRAMA

TO

IV

RICHARD

SEAFORD

FROM

RITUAL

A CONCLUDING

1.

ARISTOTLE

17 TO

DRAMA

STATEMENT

AND THE PADDED DANCERS

The ending of che previous contribution contains the question, "Under what kinds of social, political, historical, and perhaps other circumstances would theatre emerge as the preferable option in 'social drama' resolution?" To this question, I indicate an answer by introducing a historical dimension chat makes sense of the material presented in Pares I and II as well as indicating the distinctiveness of the Greek emergence of theatre in relation to the material presented in Part III. The interest of the Cambridge School in the origins of Greek drama in ritual has on the whole been replaced by elucidation of the way in which the representation or evocation of ritual works in the extant plays. And much good work has been done in the last twenty years on the relationship of drama to the polis. Yet we srill barely understand the politicalfactors in the complex emergence of theatre. Here l confine myself to indicating a political perspective on the material presented in this volume, moving through the (seemingly implausible) transition from the kind of performance exemplified by the padded dancers to mature tragedy. Any serious account of the emergence must start from whac Aristotle reports in his Poeticsabout the genesis of drama. Understanding Aristocle's philosophical preconceptions is perfectly consistent with recognising the historical value of this report (DEPEW). Indeed, Aristotle tells us that the stages in the development of tragedy, and those responsible for initiating each of chem, have - in contrast co the genesis of comedy - not been forgotten.' This means that we know much more about the genesis of tragedy than of comedy, and so I concencrace on tragedy in this chapter. Bur first, a word on comedy. Aristotle states char it came into being gradually from the leaders of chephal!ika(phallic songs) chat are still celebrated in many cities.

379

THF.

ORIGINS

OF THEATER

IN ANCIENT

GREECE

AND BEYOND

There is no reason to identify as phallikathe performances of the "padded dancers" in vase-painting discussed in the first section of this volume. Further, alchough the costume of the "padded dancers" bears a superficial resemblance to the (much later) costume of Attic comedy, GREEN argues cogently against any connection. As for Attic tragedy, here, too, GREEN maintains that "it is difficult to posit any direct connection whatsoever" with the padded dancers. Bue here, we must add, there is an interesting consistency between the vase-paintings of the padded dancers and Aristotle's relatively derailed account of the genesis of tragedy. Aristotle states chat tragedy came into being gradually from the leaders (exarchontes) of the dithyramb. He also characterises in various ways the performance from which tragedy developed: it was improvisatory, like satyrplay, with slight plots and ludicrous diction, more choral (before Aeschylus it had only one actor) and its poetry satyric and more suitable for dancing than is mature tragedy, which acquired solemnity ar a lace stage. This account is internally entirely consistent: indeed, each of these characteristics could well have belonged to the early dithyramb. Moreover, they each belonged, or could well have belonged, to the performances implied by the vase-paintings of "padded dancers." There are, .first, connections between these performances and the dithyramb.The dithyramb was a choral hymn to Dionysus that seems once to have been processional. Eric Csapo (followed here by STEINHART; HEDREEN; and NAGY) has clearly demonstrated that the dancing of dithyrambs by men dressed as dolphins inspired (directly or indirectly) a wide variety of poetry, visual arr, and myth, notably at Athens and at Corinth including not only the association of the padded dancers with dolphins in two Corinthian vase-paintings (one of them reproduced here as FIGURES 77-79) but also the myth of Arion being carried to land by a dolphin. 2 Occasionally the padded dancers seem associated with festivals, notably the sacrificial procession (SMITH). GREEN supposes that their performances were important in the community and occurred on a regular basis within a framework that "had its roots in what we might loosely call regularised culric activity, probably (at least at Athens and Corinth) a Dionysus festival." Herodotus reports (1.23) that at Corinth under the rule of Periander (i.e., in the time of the padded dancers), Arion was the .firstto compose, name, and instruct (i.e., train a choros in) a dithyramb. Arion did not invent rhe dithyramb, and Herodotus' report probably reflects the novelty of replacing a traditional improvisatory performance with the rehearsed performance of a song composed byArion. This may have also involved transformation of the performance from processional to stationary. Second, Aristotle specifies the "satyrplay-like" (satyrikon).The padded dancers are given to wine drinking, vigorous dancing, boisterousness, and obscenity, all of which characterise the choros of satyrs (who might equally be called "silens") in satyric drama. There are examples of padded dancers depicted along with satyrs, 380

FROM RITUAL TO DRAMA

albeit "very few" (SMITH).Although accordingto GREEN "somesoreof continuity between padded dancers and satyrplay seems undeniable," we should not call the padded dancers satyrs or even proto-sacyrs.However,although satyrs parcicipared in Dionysiacprocessionsand wereverylikelyto have sung rhe (processional) dirhyramb, Aristotle did not necessarilyhave in mind a performanceby satyrs.If he did, then it was probablythe kind of sixth-centuryAtheniansaryricmasquerade described by HEDREEN. But the performancesof the padded dancersare certainly "sacyrplay-like." Third, Aristotle reports the "improvisatory"beginning of tragedy. SMITH describes the routinesof the padded dancersas "impromptu."StrictlogicmakesAristotle's rern1rk apply to the dithyramb, whichmay wellhave becomelessimpromptu when transformed by Arion.3 Earlier, in the seventh century it was "led off" (exarchein)by Archilochuswith his mind "thunderstruckwith wine" (fr. 120) and, as late as the fifth, is still called by Aeschylus(fr. 355)meixoboan,"mingled with shouts." Fourth, as for Aristotle's "small plots" (NAGY), this volume (especially STEINHART; HEDREEN; GREEN) isrichin documentationof the simpiemyths with which the padded dancers are associated.And it (fifth) ii1the ena