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Two notes on τέλος and related words in the Oresteia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Simon Goldhill
Simon Goldhill
Affiliation:
King's College, Cambridge
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Extract

τελεσϕόρος in these lines is translated by LSJ as ‘one having the management or ordering’ and this sense of ‘being in command’, ‘having authority’ from the use of τέλος as ‘authority’, ‘magistracy’ (LSJ I 3 and 4) is followed by Sidgwick, Tucker, Verrall, Lloyd-Jones and others going back to the scholiast who glosses the term ἀρχηγός, διοικητής. τελεσϕόρος here, however, picks up in particular two significant earlier uses of the word in this play, at two moments, such as this, of high tension (212, Orestes’ first announcement of himself to Electra; 541, Orestes’ first statement of his predictive dream-analysis and plan of revenge) and it goes beyond, as I shall argue, the reductive reading of the scholia, lexica, commentators, and translators.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 104 , November 1984 , pp. 169 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1984

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References

1 Holwerda, D., ‘ΤΕΛΟΣ’, Mnemos. xvi (1963) 345 ff.Google Scholar, and Bayfield, M., ‘Some derivatives of τέλος’, CR xv (1901) 445 ffGoogle Scholar. adopt the same reading. Fischer, U. in a more useful work, Der Telosgedanke in den Dramen des Aischylos (Hildesheim 1965)Google Scholar notes here a limited ambiguity in Orestes' language. He writes (generally) ‘es ist ein Charakteristikum der aischyleischen Dramaturgie dass anscheinend eindeutige Sinngehalte an Stellen, wo etwas verdecht oder aufgedecht werden soil, plötzlich durch eine neu sich ergebende dramatische Konstellation oder durch Beifügung eines Begriffs, deren Anglinger die Verbindung zu anderen Textstellen nahelegt, in ihrer scheinbar einseitigen Bedeutung verwandelt und ins Doppelsinnige vertieft werden’ (15 f). It will be clear by the end of this piece in what ways my writing goes beyond Fischer's approach.

2 LSJ suggest a play of active and passive senses, which are not, however, to be simply separated; as one might think from, say, Jebb's translation of Arist. Rhel. iii 3.1.Google Scholar, where two uses of τελεσϕόρος from Alcidamas are translated respectively ‘doom-fraught’ and ‘end-fulfilling’. Such an ambiguity seems irrepressible—and significant—in an expression such as the highly dramatic exclamation of Eteocles at Sept. 655, ὤμοι πατρὸς δὴ νῦν ἀραὶ τελεσφόροι. For the fulfilment of the curse will bring precisely his doom. In the Septem, τέλος (and related words) occur almost as regularly and in as wide a range of senses as in the Oresteia. Sec the indices of Verrall's and Tucker's editions, Fischer (n. 1) 120–1, 124, and Hiltbrunner, O., Wiederholungs- und Motivtechnik bei Aischylos (Bern 1950) 10, 26, 35.Google Scholar

3 Zeitlin, F., ‘The motif of the corrupted sacrifice in Aeschylus' Oresteia’, TAPA xcvi (1965) 463 ffGoogle Scholar. has drawn out some of the significance of this.

4 Vidal-Naquet, P., ‘The Black Hunter and the Origins of the Athenian Ephebeia’ PCPS xcxiv (1968) 49 ffGoogle Scholar; also, with Vernant, J.-P., Mythe et Tragedie en Grèce ancienne (Paris 1972) 135 ff.Google Scholar; F. Zeitlin, ‘The Dynamics of Misogyny in the Oresteia’, Arethusa xi (1978) 149 ff.Google Scholar; Tierney, M., ‘The Mysteries and the Oresteia’, JHS lvii (1937) 11 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thomson, G., ‘Mystical Allusions in the Oresteia’, JHS lv (1935) 20 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Wheelwright, P., The Burning Fountain (Bloomington 1954)Google Scholar.

5 See Neitzel, H., ‘ΦΕΡΕΙ ΦΕΡΟΝΤ': ein aischyleisches Orakel’, Hermes cvii (1979) 133 ff.Google Scholar

6 These words are echoed by Athene in the Eumenides of the different but related task of the jurors: 743 ὅσοις δικαστῶν τοῦτ᾿ ἐπέσταλται τέλος.

7 The interpenetration of the divine and human worlds forms around τέλος as the term of communication, exchange (sacrifice, injunction, vow), as, for example, Cassandra says of herself μάντις μ’ Ἀπόλλων τῷδ᾿ ἐπέστησεν τέλει (Ag. 1220). This colours the chorus'gnom̅e: τί γὰρ βροτοῖς ἄνευ ⊿ιὸς τελεῖται;(Ag. 1487). Theology and teleology are ever linked.

8 On the importance of the palace door, see Taplin, O.. The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977) 342 ff.Google Scholar

9 Macleod, C. W., ‘Politics and the Oresteia’, JHS cii (1982) 124 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Lebeck, A., The Oresteia (Washington 1971) 68 ff.Google Scholar

11 Lebeck quotes here Ag. 1455 ff., 1503 f.

12 The senses of ‘woman’ and ‘wife’ are not easily separated in γυνή.

13 Lebeck (n. 10) 86 ff. and also Stanford, W., Ambiguity in Greek Literature (Oxford 1939) 157 ff.Google Scholar note the extremely frequent occurrence of τελ- words in the Oresteia: Stanford writes ‘the whole play is full of references to differently conceived τέλη, all of which are eventually reconciled in Aeschylus’ final solution of the tragic situation' (157). He doesn't hint at how—or why—or even what this reconciliation could be. Cf. below p. 172.

14 See Clay, D., ’Aeschylus’ Trigeron Mythos', Hermes xcvii (1969) 1 ff. for further examples of the third as last—or as false intimation of the last, as in Ag. 1283.Google Scholar

15 Zeitlin (n. 3) passim.

16 For example, the ainos of the lion-cub ἐν βιότου πρπτελείοις, Ag. 720. See Knox, B., ‘The Lion in the House’, CPh ixlvii (1952) 17 ff.Google Scholar; Lebeck (n. 10) 119 ff.

17 See Peradotto, J., ‘Cledonomancy in the Oresteia’, AJP xc (1969) 1 ffGoogle Scholar.

18 Cf. e.g. Ag. 1083, 1277; Cho. 567, 1050, 1062; Eum. 480, 894. …

19 Kahn, L., Hermès passe, ou les ambiguïtés de la communication (Paris 1978) 145Google Scholar. Cf. also Kahn, , ‘Ulysse ou la ruse et la mort’, Critique cccxciii (1980) 126 ff.Google Scholar

20 Hartman, G., Saving the Text: Literature/Derrida/Philosophy (Baltimore 1981) 111Google Scholar.

21 Lebeck (n. 10) 3.

22 Barthes, R., S/Z, trans. Miller, R. (London 1975) 92 fGoogle Scholar.

23 Lebeck (n. 10) 3.

24 Lynn-George, M., review of Griffin, J., Homer on Life and Death, JHS cii (1982) 245.Google Scholar

25 Silk, M. S., Interaction in Poetic Imagery (Cambridge 1974) 197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Fraenkel prints this emendation in his text. Fraenkel also agrees with Wecklein that τελοῦντος/τελοῦντας is probably a future tense. The suggestion that there may be an ambiguity in the chorus' language as to whether the murder is at present being put into action or will in the future be put into action, may be thought to be significant with regard, say, to the chorus' later hesitations, when they are faced with further signs, Ag. 1346–71.

27 Fraenkel compares 1241 where he follows Blass in deleting γ' from γ᾿ ἀληθόμαντιν. ‘All too true a prophet’ would find an echo in the ἄγαν γ' knowledge. As I attempt to show in this article, there is considerable point to ἄγαν γ' in 1254. Does this bear on 1241 also?