The Lost Sophocles

208 Pages·1984·6.074 MB·English

by  Dana Ferrin Sutton

T ....-.......
LOST
SOPHOCLES
I •
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Sutton, Dana Ferrin.
The lost Sophocles.
Bibliography: p.
1. Sophocles-Criticism and interpretation.
2. Sophocles-Authorship.. J. Lost literature-Greece.
l. Title.
PA4417.S% 1984 882'.01 84--11952
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ..................................•.... vii
The Pla.ys:
Aahaeon l loge ••••••••••.•••••.•••.••••••••. 3
Aazeis . 3
A.egeus •................................... . . . 5
Aja: Loarus •• • 7
Aeahmalotides ................................ . • 10
1
Aethiopes •................................. • • • 10
Alameon. .11
A leadae •••••••••••••••••••••• . ••••• 13
[Al tes]. 15
Al e:z:·andez•e. ................................... 16
Amph i try on •••••.• .• •.• ••.• .•• .• •.• ..• .•.. • .•• .•. ••. • .•• .••. . . . .. . . . . . • • 17
[Andromaahe]. .. .. .. .19
Andromeda •••• .20
Antenoztidae ••••••••••••.••••••••••••••..••• . 21
First Athamas. .23
Second Athamas. .25
At reus or Nyaenaeae •........................ • 26
[Baaohae] ••••••••••••• • •••• , ............. •· • 27
Camiaoi •.................................... .• 28
t ... 29
[ CPS B B ] ••• , .... ' •• ' •••••••••••••••
ill •••• ill ••• ,
Chztyses ••• • 29
ill •••••••••••• , ................... .
Clytaemnestzta •••••••••••• • 31
ill •• ill ••••••••••••••
Col ahide s •••••••••• , ....................... . • 32
Czteusa .... ......................................... 33
[Cyanus]. • ••••••• 35
Danae ... .. ••••••• •· ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 35
Dolopes ........... . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • .. • • • 3 6
Epigonoi ••••••••• ................................. 37
Erigona •• ...... , . •· , ... , , ............................. , . 42
Eriphyle. . . . .. • • . • . . • . . . . . • • • • • • • • , ......... , .. 4 4
Eumelus •• ..45
Euztyalus. . .. . . .. . . . . . • . .. .. .... .. . . . .. . . • . . . .. . • . .. • . . 46
Euztyp1(Z.us• • • ................................... , ....4 6
Eurysaaes •••• .. .................................. 4 9
Helenes Apaatesis •• • .......... •· ................. 56
[Helenes Haztpage] • • • • .. • • • • • • • • • • .. • • • • • • • • .. • ..5 7
Hermione •.............. .............................. 5 7
Hipponous • • • • • • • • • • .. • • • •. . • • .. • • .. .. • • • • • • • • • .. .. ..6 l
Hydztophoroi .. ................................................... 62
Ibeztes • • . ..6 2
Iobates ............ .. .. ................................. 6 3
Ion ••••• • . .. • . . .. .. .. .. . .. . .. .. . . . ., ....................... 6 3
Iphioles .... .. . .................. . 64
iii
Iphigeneia •••••• •••••••••••••••••••••••••• 65
II.
Laoaenae • ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 66
II •••••••
Laoooon • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 68
Larisaeoi ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 69
Lemniae • ••••••••••••••••••••• 70
II •• II •• II II II • II • II • II
Nanteis or 72
Me ZeageP • ••••••••••••••••••• 73
II • II • II ••••••• II •••
Memnon • •••••••• 75
II •••••••••• II •• II 11 •••••••••••••
Ninos • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 75
Mousae • ••••••••••••••••••• 78
11 • II 11 • , • 11 ••••••••• , 11
My soi • •••••••••••• 78
II •••••• II ••••• , II •• II ••••••••
Nauplius Catap, Zeon • • 80
Nauplius Pyracaeus.11 ••• • • • • • 82
Nausicaa or Plyntraiae. 84
Niobe • ••••• , ••••••• , ••••••••••• 85
II ., •••••••••••••
Niptra ••• 88
II II •• II •••••• II ••••••••• II II ••• 11 ••••••••
Odysseus Aoanthoplese. 90
II ••• II •• II •• II ••••••••••••
94
Ody B s eus Maenomenus ••••••••
II II II II •••• II ••••••••
Oea Ze s ( ? J •••••• 94
II ••••••••••••••• 11 11 •• 11 ,, ••• II II •
95,
Oenomaus • ••••••••••••••
Palamedes ••••••••••••••••••• 97
II ••••••••••••• 10,0
PeZeus ••••••
II II •• II. 11 II •••••••••• ,, •••••••••••• II
102
Phaeaoe s • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••
II •••••••
Phaedra • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• . . . . . 102
. . . . . . . 10,4
Phitoote s ho sn Traoiai • •••••••
t and Seoond Phinsus •••••••• 104
108
Phoeni:c •••••••••••••
II II •••••• II,, ••••••••••••••
108
Phri:cus • •• , ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
109
Ph'l'yges11 •••••••••••••••
II ••••••••••••••••••••
Phthio s. • • • 110
111
Poimene s.
11, •••••••••••••• II ••••• 11, •••••••••••••
113
ly:cena • ••••••••••••••••••••• , ••
115
P'l'iam ••••••••••••
116
Pl'OO'l'i B • •••••••••••••
II • ' ••••••••••••••••••••
Rhisotomoi .. • .•• .••. •• .••. ••. ••. •• ••.•.• • .••. •• ••.•• ••••.••. . . .. . . .. 117
. . . . . . . . . . . . 118
~
120
Scythae • •••••••••••••••••••••••••• ,• •••••••••
124
Sinon • •••• , ••••••••••••••••••••••••••
II •••••••
125
[Sisyphus] • ••••••••••••
II •••••••••••••••• II •••
126
Tantalus ••••••• ,• ••••••• , ••••••
II •••••••••••••
The Te tephsia • •••••• 126
II ••••• , •••••••••••••••••
127
Te!'sus •••••••••••••••••
II •••••••••••••••••••• 132
Teuoe'?' ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
139
Thamy z,as • •••••••
II ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 141
[ seus] ••••••••.••••••..••..•
,11, ••••••••••
First and oond Thyestes ••••••••••••••••••• 141
143
Thyestes Sioy • • • • • • • •
145
Traiptotemus11••····••·•••······•··•·•· •••
148
Traoi Zus • ••••••••••••••• , •••••••••••••••••••••
150
Tympanistae • ••••••••••• , ••••••
II •••••••• II ••••• 151
Tyndaraeus • ••••••
II •••••••••••• II ••••••••••••••
Pil'Bt and Seoond Tyl'o • •••••••••••••••••••••• 152
Xoanephoroi •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••.••• 156
Appendix I: Fragments of Uncertain Location ••••• 157
Appendix II: To,wards a Chronology of Sopho-
clean Dram.a. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 175
Appendix III: Pacuvius' Chryse.s ••••••••••.•••••• 185
V

INTRODUCTION
Sophocles is reputed to have written one hundred
and t.wenty - three plays, of which seven are extant.
Whenever one reads studies., of ten written by highly
qualified experts who are also intelligent and sen
sitive readers, that purport to explore the nature of
Sophoclean drama, this fact must be kept in mind. For
one cannot shake off the suspicion that it is danger
ous to base broad. generalizations about the nature of
the playwright's art on such a small sampling of his
work. To be sure, the preservation of the seven trag
edies we possess is by no means coincidental, and one
might well doubt whether many of the lost plays at
tained the towering stature of, say, the three Theban
plays. Nevertheless we may suspect that, if another
selection of plays had been preserved, the generaliz
ations we tend to make about Sophocles would perforce
be rather different.
Faced with this difficulty, the classical scholar
has at least a partial corrective at his disposal:
the preserved fragments and other evidence pertinent
to Sophocles' lost plays have been collected, so that
he may test his in.sights into Sophocles' surviving
plays against what can be ascertained about the lost
body of work. Unfortunately the non - specialist has
no such recourse. Modern stud.ies of the lost works
of Aeschylus and Euripides exist, [l] but no simi.lar
book - length survey exists for Sophocles. Clearly., a
serious gap exists on the bookshelf, and the appear
ance of Stefan Radt's new and deeply informative col
lection of Sophocles' fragments is a powerful stimulus
for filling this void.
Since I am writing more for the general reader
than the specialist, I do not intend to guide the read
er through the thicket of scholarship and speculative
reconstructio•n that has grown up around these plays.
Rather, I propose to go through the preserved frag
ments of each lost Sophoclean play, together with any
other available evidence (the nature O·f such evidence
will presently be explained) in order to set forth
what can reasonably be ascertained abo,ut its contents.
Secon.dary scholarship will be cited when it appears
genuinely useful, but my primary aim is to allow the
reader to co,nf ront the evidence himself in transla.tion.
Then too, for the reader to be able to understand the
vii.
purport of such evidence, it is necessary, when poss
ible, to establish the mythological subject dramatized
in each play. I also presume that the reader is inter
ested about such information as the date and circum
stances of a play'' s production. At all times I shall
endeavor to answer what I assume to be the dominant
question in the reader's mind: what transpired in this
play?
During Sophocles' lifetime playwrights were ex
pected to compete with tetra.logies consisting of three
tragedies followed by a farcical satyr play. Thus
twenty - five percent of a tragedian's output would
under normal circumstances be satyric. Since I have
elsewhere given an account of Sophocles' satyr plays(2],
I feel safe in ignori.ng them here. Hence the following
plays will not be discussed in the present study:
Aohilleos Eztastae ("The Lovezes of AohiZles"), Admetus.,
AmphiaPaus, Amyous, Cedalion, CPisis ("The Contest"),
Daedalus., Dionysisous ("The Little Dionysus")., Ez,i.s
( "Stztife ")., [3] Epitaena11ii ( ''The Satyrs on Nt. Taen
arum" whi.ch I now strongly suspect to be the same play
as the HePaoles Satyrious),[4] Helenes Gamos ("The
NaPPiage of Belen")., HePaoleisous ( ''The Little Bera
oles n), Bybris, Iambe, Iohneutae ("The Tztaokezts"),
Inaohus,[S] Kophoi (probably to be translated as "The
Obtuse").,. Nomus., Pandozta OP Sphyreokopoi ( "Pandoz-a OP
the Hammer - Wielders"), Salmoneus, Syndeipnon ("The
Banquet"), and the play about Oen.eus or Schoeneus rep
resented. by Pap. Ozy. 8.1083 fr. l, which is in all
probability Sophoclean.
The evidence with which we must deal may be div
ided into two categories, primary and secondary. The
primary evidence consists of fragments of lost plays
either quoted by ancient writers or found in papyri,
together with ancient testimony about the contents of
plays, the circumstances of their production, etc.
Secondary evi.dence consists of litera.ry or monumental
material that appears to reflect the con.tents of lost
plays. Such evidence must be deemed secondary because,
while it may contain valuable information, i.t is re
flected through the creative intelligence of a second
artist and so may be modified or distorted. Thus,
there exist a number of more or less contemporary
vase paintings that at least arguably illustrate
scenes from Sophoclean drama. But artists felt free
to adapt and modify, and it would be foolhardy to
treat vase illustrations as photographically accu.rate
representations of dramatic scenes.
In precisely the same way, Sophocles' plays often
served as the basis for Roman tragedi.es by such poets
viii.
as Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, and fragments of a
number of such plays exist. But Roman playwrights
were scarcely mere translators, and the possibility
always exists that a Roman poet may have "contamin
ated• his play by adding material from other tragedies,
or by making various other alterations. This principle
may be illustrated, for example, from the plays of En
nius. Some of his plays were verbatim translations of
Greek originals: thus at de Fini.bus 1.2.4 Cicero cites
Ennius' Medea as a faithful translation of its Eurip
idean model. However, the same poet's Eumenides con
tained material that translates nothing in the text of
its Aeschylean exemplar, and although Ennius' Iphi
geneia is based on Euripides' Iphigeneia at Aul.is he
has introduced various changes, even giving the chorus
of the play a different identity. Thus, while we must
certainly pay attention to the Roman material, it must
be kept firmly in mind that such evidence can never be
put on a par with the actual Greek remains.
Often it is useful to spell out the myth dramatiz
ed in a given play. But Greek mythology belo,nged
first and foremost to the Protean sphere of oral folk
tradition, and so many a Greek myth can be shown to,
have circulated in a multiplicity of forms. By refer
ence to extant tragedy (compare, fo.r instan.ce, the
treatment of the Electra myth by the three tragedians)
we can see that playwrights were free to pick and
choose between variant versions of a myth, alter n.ar
rative details, invent characters, and -- perhaps most
important -- decide where to pick up the tale and where
to make an ending. Often two or more tragedians would
dramatize the same tale, and when a playwright wrote a
play on a subject previously dramatized he would doubt
less feel a st.rong compulsion to introduce alterations
in order to achieve novelty. Hence in reading Greek
tragedy one could make no greater mistake than to think
that a playwright was prisoner to the traditional myth
ological material he was handling. In consequence,
when a myth is related here, it is usually given in its
best - known form in order to convey to the reader a
general idea of the ground covered in a play. In such
cases there is no intention to insinuate that Sophocles
necessarily followed the particulars of the myth in its
quoted form. The alternative, giving a full account of
the possible variants he may have followed, would be
tedious and would still ignore the possibility that the
poet could ha.ve introduced unique or unattested alter
ations.
The reader might care to know a bit about dramatic
fragments. Many ancient writers quote words, lines, or
ix.
passages of lost plays. Naturally they make their
quotations for their own purposes, which are manifold.
Many fragments are preserved by grammarians, lexico
graphers, and hunters after sententious passages
("gnomes"). The great majority of such fragments were
selected by writers entirely uninterested in the plays
from which they were quoting. Thus it is relatively
uncommon for any facts to be preserved about the drama
tic contexts in which they were spoken, the identity of
the speaker, or similar information of vital importance
to us. But at least by inadvertence ancient authorit
ies often pres.erve evidence of genuine interest.
Fragments. preserved by the ancients have been sup
plemented by papyrological material discovered in arch
aeological investigation of such Egyptian. sites as oxy
rhynchus, Tebtunis, and Hibeh. Such papyri tend to be
more or lesa mutilated, and by a quirk of fate the
richest Sophoclean papyrological evidence pertains to
the satyr plays rather than the tragedies. Bu.t at
their best papyri are especially instructive because
they do not j1ust preserve the sort of evidence found
in the book fragments.
The fragments are sometimes supplemented by testi
monia in which ancient writers discuss various aspects
of lost plays in their own words.
It has been estimated that approximately ninety
percent. of ancient literature has disappeared, and so
classical scholarship perforce takes a keen interest in
lost literature. The first step in such study the
systematic collection of fragments and testimonia.
Since new fragments are occasionally identified, and
since papyri are sometimes published, new fragment -
compendia must period.ically be compiled. In the case
of Sophocles, the fragments. began to be gathered in
the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
In 1856 August Nauck published the first edition of
his TPagiooPum GPaeoorum Pragmenta (second edition,
1889). (6] In 1917 A. c. Pearson brought out hi.a The
Fragments of Sophocles in three volumes, with an en
ormously detailed commentary. Pearson's work is one
of the abiding achievements of twentieth century
scholarship, and one might have thought that at most
an occasional supplementary publication, such as Rich
ard Carden's 1974 book on Sophoclean papyri, would
be required to bring Pearson up to d.ate. But in 1977
Radt brought forth an entirely new edition that is
a monument of industry and learning that contains well
over eleven hundred fragments.
In the same way, the secondary evidence has also
been compiled. Editions exist of the fragments of the
x.