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The Reason for the Danaids' Flight

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. K. MacKinnon
J. K. MacKinnon
Affiliation:
Polytechnic of North London
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Extract

The central question of Aeschylus' Supplices has usually been taken to be the reason for the flight of the Danaids. The most exhaustive guide to the many theories, of varying plausibility, which have been developed to account for this flight is provided by A. F. Garvie's book on the Supplices. For present purposes, therefore, it is unnecessary to examine any but the two most acceptable theories in detail. Nevertheless, a brief summary, prior to this examination, of two other, initially attractive, views might be helpful to students of this problem, the first simply because it is so attractive to so many eminent scholars, the second because, while it fails to provide an acceptable solution, it suggests a useful approach to the problem.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , May 1978 , pp. 74 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1978

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References

1 I am greatly indebted to Mr. A. F. Garvic of Glasgow University for reading the first draft of this article, thereafter providing a wealth of bibliographical information and, frequently, offering suggestions which corroborated and, occasionally, ran counter to my own opinions.

2 Garvie, A. F., Aeschylus' Supplices: Play and Trilogy (Cambridge University Press, 1969).Google Scholar

3 It has been espoused, in one form or another, by the following: von Wilamowitz Moellendorff, U., Aiscbylos. Interpretationen (Berlin, 1914), p.15Google Scholar; Vürtheim, J., Aiscbylos' Schutzflehende (Amsterdam, 1928), p.4Google Scholar; Lucas, D. W., The Greek Tragic Poets (Cohen and West, London, 1950), pp.82Google ScholarMazon, P., Eschyle (Paris, 1958), p.7Google Scholar; Winnington-Ingram, R. P., ‘The Danaid Trilogy of Aeschylus’, JHS 81 (1961), 141–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; et al.

4 The complexities of interpretation at this early point in the play are more fully discussed on p.76.

5 In the most recent investigation of this problem–Ireland, S., ‘The Problem of Motivation in the Supplices of Aeschylus’, RM 117 (1974), 14–29–attention is usefully drawn to the fact that the chorus has two functions here, as chorus and protagonist, so that the general remarks of the Danaids qua chorus are to be set in the specific context which they provide qua protagonist.Google Scholar

6 Couch, H. N., ‘The loathing of the Danaids’ (abstract of paper), TAPA 63 (1932), liv–lv.Google Scholar

7 Méautis, G., Eschyle et la trilogie (Paris, 1936), pp.62–3. Garvie agrees with Méautis's notion, drawing attention to 234 ff. and commenting that the Danaids must presumably be as dark-skinned and foreign-looking as their cousins (155) and that, when the Danaids stress their Argive descent, they apparently forget that this too applies equally to their cousins. (Private communication.)Google Scholar

8 Thomson, G. D., Aeschylus and Athens, a study in the social origins of drama (London, 1941), pp.298–309.Google Scholar

9 Macurdy, G. H., ‘Had the Danaid Trilogy a social problem?’, CPh 39 (1944), 95–100Google Scholar. See further Harrison, A. R. W., The Law of Athens (Oxford, 1968), pp.9–12, 132–8.Google Scholar

10 Garvie, in a private communication, points out an additional objection, that, although one expects the article not with the predicate but with the object, Thomson has to take as object and as predicate.

11 Thomson, G. D., ‘The Supplices of Aeschylus’ Eirene 9 (1971), 25–30.Google Scholar

12 Whittle, E. W., ‘Textual Notes on Aeschylus’ Classica et Mediaevalid 29 (1972), 1–15.Google Scholar

13 Jebb takes in the O.C. as

14 And see Sideras, A., Aeschylus Homericus (Göttingen, 1971), for parallels in language between Homer and Aeschylus.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Denniston, J. D., The Greek Particles2 (Oxford, 1954), p.380.Google Scholar

16 Denniston, J. D., op. cit., p.311.Google Scholar

17 Garvie makes the point that a less clearly enunciated link in thought between 338 and 339 is possible; the Danaids, suspecting an attempt to find an excuse to refuse their appeal in the King's question about voice 339 less as an answer to 338 than to the King's implied attitude, the translation being, with taken as masculine, ‘It is easy to get rid of people when they are in trouble.’ (See Garvie, A. F., op. cit., p.220.)Google Scholar

18 The Danaids do, certainly, attribute lust to them (758, 820). MacDoweil, D. M., ‘Hybris in Athens’ Greece & Rome 23 (1976), 14–31, concludes that ‘hybris in the Supp. refers primarily to excessive male desire for women’ (p.17). What is primary to the Danaids' thinking may be secondary, however, to the sons of Aegyptus.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 At 30, 81, 104, 426, 487, 528, 817, 845, 880 ff.

20 For bird imagery in the Supplices, see Chapter I of Dumortier, Jean, Les Images dans la poésie d'Eschyle (Paris, 1935).Google Scholar

21 Johansen, H. Friis, Aeschylus: The Suppliants, Vol. i (Copenhagen, 1970), 59.Google Scholar

22 See esp. van der Graaf, V., ‘Les suivantes dans le choeur final des Suppliantes d'Eschyle’ Mnemosyne (Ser. 3) 10 (1942), 281–5Google Scholar; Lloyd-Jones, H., ‘The Supplices of Aeschylus: The New Date and Old Problems’ AC 33 (1964), 356–74Google Scholar; Johansen, H. Friis, ‘Progymnasmata’ Classica et Mediaevalia 27 (1966), 61Google Scholar ff.; Garvie, A. F., op. cit., 194–5Google Scholar; Whittle, E. W., CR N.S. 20 (1970), 296–9.Google Scholar

23 For a thorough appreciation of the frequency and value of ambiguity in poetry, see Stanford, W. B., Ambiguity in Greek Literature (New York and London, 1942)Google Scholar, and, for information on ambiguity in Aeschylus, Lebeck, A., The Oresteia. A Study in Language and Structure (The Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington D.C., 1971).Google Scholar