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Family ties: significant patronymics in Euripides' Andromache

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Susanna Phillippo
Susanna Phillippo
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews
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Extract

Critical discussion of Andromache has almost invariably focused on the question of unity. As everyone who has ever read a critical account of the play knows, the action falls into three parts: the plot against Andromache by Hermione and her father, foiled by Peleus; Hermione's subsequent panicky flight with Orestes; and Neoptolemos' murder at Orestes' instigation. The play appears not to possess ‘unity of action’ in the strict Aristotelian sense: there is, for instance, no tight causal connection between the plot against Andromache and Orestes' plot against Neoptolemos. Troubled by this, critics have made a variety of attempts to find unity of another sort: unity of ‘theme’. Each has asked, ‘What is Andromache about?’, taking the question in an absolute sense; and has assumed that one must search for a single answer.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , December 1995 , pp. 355 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1995

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References

1 See Stevens, P. T. (ed., comm.), Euripides: Andromache (Oxford, 1971), pp. 5–15Google Scholar. Stevens refers, among others, to Erbse, H. (‘Euripides' Andromache’, Hermes 94 [1966], 276–97)Google Scholar, who regards the character of Andromache as the unifying idea of the play, and Kitto, H. D. F. (Greek Tragedy, 3rd edition, London, 1961), pp. 228–34Google Scholar, who views the play as centred round anti-Sparta propaganda. Stevens himself agrees with Aldrich, K. M. (The ‘Andromache’ of Euripides, University of Nebraska Studies, N.S. 25, 1961)Google Scholarthat the ‘real theme’ of the play is the Trojan War (p. 13).

2 Cp. Kovacs, D., The ‘Andromache’ of Euripides: an interpretation (Chicago, 1980)Google Scholar, who describes as a central task: ‘the correct identification of the whole to which the parts contribute, what the play is really “about”’ (p. 1), and refers to ‘the duty of accounting for everything in [Eurῐpides'] plays on a single hypothesis’ (p. 4).

3 It has been ably argued by Malcolm Heath that it is as erroneous to search in Andromache for this sort of overall unifying theme as it is to demand of the play a strict unity of action as this is usually understood (The Poetics of Greek Tragedy [London, 1987], pp. 93–5, 98–9, 102–3Google Scholar). In Unity in Greek Poetics (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar, Heath develops and refines this viewpoint: he argues that Greek literature as a whole is based rather on a ‘centrifugal’ aesthetic, admitting and frequently encouraging diversity of material in the fulfilment of the aims of a particular genre, than on the ‘centripetal’ aesthetic that modern thinking has often tended to expect. Other recent critics have also, in different ways, drawn attention to overall patterns in particular classical texts in terms of the diversity these can compass, rather than assuming that works of classical literature are or should be absolutely focused on a single coherent idea (be it theme, character or story). Cf, for example, Hunter, R. in the introduction to his translation of the Argonautica (Oxford, 1991), pp. xxviii–xxixGoogle Scholar; Hutchinson, G., ‘Propertius and the Unity of the Book’, JRS 74 (1984), 99–106, esp. pp. 105–6Google Scholar. It is not my purpose here to engage with this larger issue; provided that one is neither straining the text in the search for unifying ideas nor judging a text on the presence or absence of these, I think it legitimate to look at such overall patterns as do seem to be present. Even within a ‘centrifugal aesthetic’, there is no reason why an author should not have chosen to create links between his diverse elements by the use of common thematic ideas (Heath's, argument, in fact, allows for this—op. cit., p. 155)Google Scholar.

4 Or, occasionally, παῖς (or variant) + adjective formed from parent's name—cp. Andromache 1169–70.

5 This is not to deny that there is a distinction between referring to characters as ‘son or daughtrer of X’ and as ‘wife of X’. Among other considerations, it is at least possible that the ‘wife’ component in ‘wife of X’ has its own, general and social, significance, denning a woman in relation to her menfolk. Cp. Megara, , ‘wife of Heracles’ at Herakles 68, 140, 704Google Scholar; Evadne, , ‘wife of Capaneus’ at Supplices 1039Google Scholar, Phaedra, , ‘wife of Theseus’ at Hippolytos 777Google Scholar. But individual considerations may, none the less, be seen as colouring this usage. In a case such as Megara's there is more individual point to a title drawing attention to the marriage-bond than simply an indication that this is a married dependent woman. Megara's peril stems from her being, in particular, Herakles' wife; note that Amphitryon, likewise, is referred to as ‘father of Herakles’ twice in the early stage of the play (140, 447). It may also, for instance, be significant that while Clytemnestra is fairly frequently referred to as ‘daughter of Tyndareus’ (or of Leda), nowhere in extant Euripides is she referred to or addressed as ‘wife of Agamemnon’—in Iphigeneia at Aulis, this omission may be especially pointed, e.g. in the first address of the old man at 856, or in Achilles' greeting at his second entrance, 1344.

6 Neoptolemos: patronymic: 21, 25, 125, 268, 881–2, 971, 993–4, 1069, 1119, 1149–50, 1163, 1169–70, 1239; name: 14. Orestres: patronymic: 884, 892, 1034, 1061, 1090, 1115; name: 885, 1109, 1242. Andromache: ‘patronymic’: 4, 656, 908, 960; name: 5, 806, 1243. Hermione: patronymic: 145, 486–7, 897, 1049; name: 29, 86, 114, 122, 519, 804, 889, 1192.

7 Stevens, , ad. v. 14 (op. cit., p. 90)Google Scholar.

8 Kovacs, , op. cit. (n. 2), p. 13Google Scholar .

9 Cp. also 1348–9: AΓAΜNΣN: οὐ θανντι κα προσεμβνα σε χρ;/ΟΔYΣΣΕYΣ: μ χαῖρ', Ἀτρεδη, κρδεσιν τοῖς μ καλοῖς.

10 Webster, T. B. L. (ed.), Sophocles: Philoctetes (Cambridge, 1970), p. 66Google Scholar.

11 The name may be scanned as five syllables: Nōπτŏλμŏς, or as four with synizesis in the first: ōπτŏλεμŏς; the last syllable may be either long or short depending on what follows and on the case in which the name is employed. In Homer's, two uses of the name (Iliad 19.327Google Scholar, Odyssey 11.506), it is scanned as five syllables; in the five occurrences of the name in tragedy, it is scanned as five syllables only once (Orestes 1655).

12 See Ceadel, E. B., Resolved Feet in the trimeters of Euripides and the Chronology of the Lost plays, CQ 35 (1941), 66–89, esp. pp. 68–9Google Scholar; Goodwin, W. N., A Greek Grammar (London, 1894), pp. 357–8Google Scholar.

13 Or παῑς 'ẮχῑλλѼς; the two terms can occur in either order, and in Andromache do so in roughly equal proportions. Sometimes, too, the ending of Ἀχιλλως is scanned as one long syllable, again by synizesis: And. 25 and 1069.

14 Occurrence of title ‘son of Achilles’: Philoctetes: 4, 50, 57, 240–41,260, 364, 542, 582,940, 1066, 1220–21, 1237, 1298, 1433; Hecuba: 24, 224, 523, 528; Troades: 273, 575, 659, 1124.

15 It may be instructive to note, by contrast, that in the one-off reference to Neoptolemos at the end of Orestes, where the fact of his parentage has little relevance to the play, it is the name which is used.

It is also interesting to compare and contrast Seneca's approach in alluding to Pyrrhus/Neoptolemos' ‘significant parentage’ in his Troades, where Pyrrhus' rôle as Achilles' son is again important. Seneca most commonly refers to Pyrrhus by name (Pyrrhus, the usual Roman name for Neoptolemos, is of course metrically far more tractable). On two occasions, however (46, 976), he does choose to introduce a variant. In both cases use of the title ‘son of Achilles’ could have been dramatically effective: the first occurs in Hecuba's account of the murder of Priam, the second in Helen's announcement to Andromache of whose captive she is to be. Seneca, however, chooses to use a variant which draws attention to Pyrrhus' parentage more indirectly: ‘Aeacidae’ (46) refers to the family descent of both Achilles and his son; ‘Scyrius iuvenis’ (976) is a reminder of the circumstances of Pyrrhus' engendering. This ‘indirect’ allusion contrasts with the closely parallel passages in Euripides, where the patronymic is used: Polydorus' words at Hecuba 23–4:

αὐτς τε βωμῷ πρς θεοδμτῳ πτνει

σφαγε Ἀχιλλως παιδς κ μιαιφνου

cp. vidi execrandum regiae caedis nefas

ipsasque ad ars maius admissum scelus

Aeacidae <ab> armis, cum ferox [‥]

alto nefandum vulneri ferrum abdidit; (Seneca, , Troades 44–8)Google Scholar;

Talthybius' words to Hecuba at Troades 273:

κα τνδ' [Ἀνδρομχην] Ἀχιλλως ἔλαβε παῖς ξαρετον

cp. Te sorte prima Scyrius iuvenis tulit (Seneca, , Troades 976)Google Scholar.

16 There is a distinction between the usages of Philoctetes and Andromache in that the potentially more conventional second person use of the patronymic is considerably more common in the Sophoclean play. Ten of Neoptolemos' patronymics occur in this context of ‘address’, eight of these as the ‘first address’ of a speech or rejoinder. Six of Philoctetes' patronymics occur as an address, all but one of them as a ‘first address’. To some extent, however, this difference may be due to the more continuous presence of these two characters on stage; one may note that all but one of the patronymics used for Odysseus, whose stage presence is less continuous than with the other two characters, occur in the third person. It is worth remarking, nonetheless, that whereas we might expect patronymic reference in Andromache to be less common than in Philoctetes, as there is not so great a scope for its formal use in address, this is not the case.

17 οἱ' ἔργ' παῖς μ' ἔδρασεν οὑξ Ἀχιλλως.

18 ὦ σπρμ' Ἀχιλλως, οὐδ σο φωνς / γενσομαι προσφθεγκτς, λλ' οτως ᾰπει; (1066–7).

19 There is, however, an interesting possibility that there was some degree of mythological confusion between Philoctetes and his father. In the version of the legend given in Sophocles' play, Philoctetes received Heracles' bow as recompense for his service in lighting the latter's funeral pyre. There was, though, apparently an alternative version, given in Apollodorus 2.7.7, in which it was Poias who rendered Heracles this service, and subsequently handed the bow down to his son. There seems at present to be no way of determining from what sources Apollodorus takes this variant legend and how early it is. There is a fragment of a 5th-century vase which shows ‘Heracles on the pyre and a man running off with the bow who is presumably [my italics] Philoctetes’ (Webster, , op. cit. [n. 10], p. 5)Google Scholar; but as the name of this figure does not seem to have been preserved it could equally well be Poias. If both versions were known to Sophocles and his audience, such a confusion of rôles implies a close identification of father with son, in both friendship and service to Heracles, which could lend added point to the title ‘son of Poias’.

As for Odysseus, since there are references in the play to his being the offspring of Sisyphus (417, 1311), the title ‘son of Laertes’ may well obliquely refer to Odysseus' doubtful paternity. The Sisyphus variant involved a relationship between Anticleia and Sisyphus, resulting in the birth of Odysseus, prior to the former's marriage to Laertes—a story glanced at in 417 of Sophocles' play. Cp. Stanford, W. B., The Ulysses Theme (Oxford, 1963), pp. 103, 261Google Scholarand, for a view of Odysseus' ancestry through Laertes, as simply ‘undistinguished’, p. 12Google Scholar. Compare also the five patronymics used for Odysseus in Sophocles' Ajax (another play in which ideas of descent are important): son of Sisyphus once (190), son of Laertes four times (1, 101, 380, 1393), including an occurrence in the very first line of the play as we are introduced to Odysseus scouting around in a characteristic, non-traditionally-heroic image of stealth.

20 There are powerful references to Philoctetes' desire to rejoin his father (e.g. at 492–9, 1210–12); and at the end there is confirmation that this will happen (1430).

21 E.g. Kovacs, D., op. cit. (n. 2), p. 75Google Scholar. See also the analysis of the play's terminology of philia by Craik, E. M., in Craik, (ed.), Marriage and Property (Aberdeen, 1984), pp. 24–6Google Scholar.

22 Compare also 316–18, 517–19.

23 ὡς θώπευτν γ σε/ γλώσσης φσω τς μς κα παῖδα σν (459–60), ὃς κλαοντ σε/ κα τν ν οἴκοις σν καταστσει κρην (634–5), εἰ μ φθερῇ τσδ' ὡς τχιστ' π στγης/ κα παῖς ἄτεκνος (708–9).

24 The comparison in Andromache's rebuke of 229–31 appears to rely on a double-edged use of φιλανδρᾳ excessive love of one man, wifely jealousy; excessive love of men, promiscuousness.

25 887–8: δοκεῖ μοι ξυγγενος μαθεῖν πρι γυναικς 921: λλ' ἄντομα σε Δα καλοσ' μγνιον.

26 E.g. the Tρωικν πδημα of 1139, referring to a legend about Achilles' leap on first landing at Troy (see Stevens, ad loc).

27 Stevens, , op. cit. (n. 1), p. 14Google Scholar.

28 See earlier remarks (p. 356, above) about the classification of this title alongside the other patronymics.

29 E.g. 168–9, 247, 652–6ff.

30 Pyrrhus: five times (146, 150, 310, 630, 662); Andromaque: four times (108, 662, 860, 1320); Oreste twice (178, 274); Hermione: three times (245, 342, 1320); total: fourteen patronymics.

31 E.g. Pyrrhus', ironic: ‘Qui croirait, en effet, qu'une telle entreprise / Du fils d'Agamemnon mérītât l'entremise?’ (177–8)Google Scholar.