People and gods. From Pericles to Euripides. The third classic of Athenian tragedy
The last of the classics of ancient Greek tragedy, misunderstood by contemporaries, and by his work and personality provoked attacks by comedians, the author of more than 90 tragedies, during his lifetime he won playwright competitions only three or four times and once posthumously. However, his fame and influence on subsequent literature is much greater than that of Aeschylus and Sophocles. This happens with those geniuses who in their art go ahead of their contemporaries, feeling or understanding that the ideals of today are already illuminated by the golden shadows of the sunset. This happens with those geniuses who see a person too deeply, and we mortals do not really like to look into ourselves, moreover, we do not want someone to look into us.
Once I heard or read a long poem, clearly written by our contemporary, in which just such a philistine attitude towards Euripides was ridiculed. Unfortunately, I can’t remember either the poem itself or the name of the author, but two lines uttered by one of the Athenians stuck in my memory, lines that, in my opinion, are worth quoting here, since they speak for themselves:
...no offense: Euripides
far from Sophocles! ..
Euripides, having gone far ahead of his age, nevertheless, was distinguished by precisely such acuity of vision, for which he was subjected to merciless ridicule. He showed a person not as he should be (according to Sophocles), but as he really is. Before Euripides, no one did this, except perhaps philosophers. But philosophers explain life only to those chosen ones who want and can hear them. Art is open to everyone, and everyone judges it as best they can.
The little anecdote below seems to capture all of these thoughts:
"Somehow knowing in advance the contents new play Euripides, the Athenians demanded that the author throw out a whole piece from the written, which, allegedly, they could not like. Before the performance began, Euripides himself appeared on the stage. He said to the silent waiting audience: - I write plays in order to teach you, and not to learn from you! (Antique anecdote, p. 141.)
There are many such anecdotes in the "Biography of Euripides" preserved from antiquity. We will not retell them. The real, not the anecdotal Euripides was born around 484 BC. in a rich and noble family, he was a closed man, prone to contemplation and reflection, communicated with the philosophers Protagoras, Anaxagoras and Socrates, who put him above other playwrights. Euripides was not a warrior like Aeschylus, was not a politician like Sophocles, but he knew no less about real life. It is not for nothing that all literary critics unanimously speak of realism in his work. In fact, when talking about mythological heroes, Euripides spoke about the people of his day, changing, when it was necessary for him, even the myth itself; speaking of the Trojan War, he showed the realities of the contemporary Peloponnesian civil war, hating tyranny and glorifying democracy, he did not forget to emphasize the shortcomings of the latter.
All 17 tragedies surviving from Euripides, one satyr drama and many extensive fragments belong to the period between 438 and 406 BC. BC, i.e. to the time when Sophocles, the elder of Euripides by twelve years, was also most active. Sophocles was the great exponent of the ideals of the Periclean age, Euripides went further. Of course, in a constant creative dispute, Sophocles won much more often. What can I say, it is difficult to find more diverse contemporary playwrights! Lived at the same time, worked at the same time, died at the same time. But the fates both during life and after death are different. And in some ways, however, they are the same. In immortality, of course. And also - in the second birth in Russian.
At the beginning of the twentieth century. two wonderful people lived and worked in St. Petersburg. Both of them were teachers, scientists, poets, both passionately loved and knew ancient culture and ancient languages. The name of one of them is Innokenty Fedorovich Annensky, the other is Thaddeus Frantsevich Zelinsky. Annensky translated almost all of Euripides, and when he died suddenly, Zelinsky edited these translations and published them. And Zelinsky, in addition to many books and articles about antiquity, created an exemplary translation of almost the entire Sophocles.
We will not be able to tell here about all the works of Euripides, let's say about the best, but before that we will quote a brief and authoritative description of the work of the great playwright, given by his unconditional connoisseur, F.F. Zelinsky.
“Euripides, even in his youth and with full participation, experienced that sophistic movement that failed to shake the already established worldview of Sophocles. His tragedy is a living echo of this movement; to the scale of integral characters completed by his predecessor, he added broken, indecisive characters, languishing under oppression of insoluble problems and his own alienation from God.He loved to portray morality in the fight against passion, especially sinful love; his contemporaries were struck by the criminal and yet immaculate images of his Phaedra, in love with her stepson ("Hippolytus"), Macareus, in love with his native sister ("Eol", not preserved). They so convincingly defended their innocence ("sophistry of passion"); no hand was raised against them - and, meanwhile, morality demanded their condemnation. He especially liked to depict the onslaught of passion on female soul, be it love, like Phaedra, or jealousy, like Medea." (F.F. Zelinsky. History of ancient culture. S. 173 - 174.)
Let's start with the satyr drama Cyclops, perhaps the only fully preserved example of this genre, despite the fact that Euripides himself did not consider himself a master of the satyr drama. Cyclops grew out of the IX song of the Odyssey. Of course, you remember what the ancient Greek hero experienced in the monster's cave and how he managed to free himself. Here, against the backdrop of well-known events, a verbal duel takes place, in which Cyclops embarks on sophistical verbiage about the relativity of moral norms, justifying his egoism. He tells Odysseus:
For the wise, my boy, God is one -
Wealth. Yes! and other embellishments,
Words are empty, nonsense. what to my father
The sea rocks are dedicated to me
This has nothing to do with:
I don't understand what my father has to do with it.
And as for the lightning of Zeus, for now
I did not think that we are weaker than Zeus,
And I won't count. Let's explain.
While Kronid sends us rain,
I'm here in the rock, under the roof, and, calf
Roasted, and sometimes game,
I eat at dinner; and then
Relax, an amphora of milk
Fill your stomach - and what is it
Will rise, I tell you, thunder
Under the peplos, which would fit even Zeus.
And if the snow from Thrace sends
He is with Boreas, we are under the animal skin
Yes, by the fire - and the cold does not care.
Well, the earth itself feeds
My herds are fat. Notice
That I do not treat gods with meat,
And himself. The womb is our god
And the main god at the same time. There is food
And what to drink there for today,
Nothing bothers - here comes Zeus
You, if you are wise. And the people
Who invented the law
To decorate our lives - to hell with them!
The attitude towards the gods is indicative already here, in the comic thing of Euripides. Especially in tragedies, for example, in "Hercules", the plot of which is as follows. Hercules, returning after performing his exploits, finds his family humiliated by the tyrant Face who seized power. Lik generally wants to deal not only with his earthly father Amphitrion, his wife Merope and two children, but also to destroy the entire tribe of the hero. Amphitrion vainly appeals to the heavenly father of Hercules for help, and only the appearance of the latter restores justice. The face is killed, and, it would seem, nothing threatens the hero's family anymore, but then the hater of Hercules Hera, who is still jealous of his mother, intervenes in the events. She sends madness on the hero, in the attack of which he kills his wife and children, who had just been saved, imagining that he is settling scores with his pursuer Eurystheus. Having come to his senses, Hercules is ready to settle scores with his own life, and only Theseus, who arrived in time, persuades him to live, explaining that Hera is to blame for everything.
Here we can already see sharp differences with Sophocles, whose heroes seek justification for themselves in divine intervention. Euripides, Hercules comes to the conclusion that suicide is unworthy of a real hero, no, he must endure the blows of fate.
Alas, Fesey *, me in my sadness
Now the game of the mind is not fun ...
In addition, I ... did not believe and do not believe
For God to eat the forbidden fruit
So that God has bonds in his hands,
And God alone commanded others.
No, the deity is self-sufficient:
All this nonsense daring singers.
Enough ... I will not hide the fact that I doubt
Now I'm engulfed, not exactly a coward
Suicide ... Yes, who can't
To resist misfortune, he and arrows,
Probably afraid of the enemy...
I must live...
(This is one of the transcriptions of the name Theseus (Theseus).
The tragedy "Electra" and "Orestes" break even deeper with the mythological tradition. In the first, Euripides completely rethinks the legality of the murder of the criminal mother Clytemnestra, in the second, the tragedy of the mother-killer Orestes is shown, who is tormented by the aimlessness of the crime he committed and, accused of it by the people of Argos, is forced to commit new crimes in search of salvation.
Euripides, as we remember, lived during the Peloponnesian War, so many of his plays are both anti-war and anti-Spartan spirit. Such are "Andromache" and especially "Prayers", in which the protagonist, the legendary king and builder of Athens, Theseus, praises Athenian democracy, while simultaneously criticizing military adventures and the greed of the rich that gives rise to it.
The fate of a woman ancient world worried Euripides, perhaps most of all. This topic is devoted to his tragedy "Alcestis", "Helen", "Hecuba", "Trojan women", "Hippolytus" (better known in tradition as "Phaedra" by the name main character plays), "Medea", "Iphigenia in Tauris".
It makes sense to briefly retell "Helen" and "Iphigenia ...", since both of them develop an entertaining intrigue and the so-called "recognition scene" laid down in the dramaturgy by Sophocles, and which was most useful not only for the subsequent comedy, but also for the novel, especially Greek, in which, with kaleidoscopic speed, "parting and chance meetings of lovers, the claims of barbarian kings and queens for their beauty, escape and pursuit, shipwrecks and captivity" will replace each other (Story world literature. T. 1. S. 368.) .
Once the poet Stesichorus told his version of the famous mythological cycle, according to which he built his tragedy "Helen" by Euripides. Paris took to Troy not the beauty herself, but her ghost, while the gods transferred the real Helen to Egypt, where she had to wait for the end of the war and a meeting with Menelaus. According to Euripides, Helen's quiet life did not last long. After the death of the old pharaoh, the young king falls in love with her and forces her into marriage. Elena's honor and virtue are at stake. It is then that Menelaus appears on the scene, embracing the ghost conquered from Paris. He considers the real Elena a double and does not show any interest in her. Then the gods dissolve the ghost in the air. The spouses, fleeing from the pharaoh, flee on his own ship to Sparta, for which Menelaus pretends to be a simple sailor, and for the funeral of himself, he asks the pharaoh for a ship. Thus, the gods intervene in the action of the play only at the outset of it, and all other adventures fall on the lot of the heroes themselves.
"Iphigenia in Tauris" tells how, persecuted by the Erinyes, Orestes, well known to us, along with Pylades, wanders into the barbarian Taurida (Where do you think it is?), and there all Hellenes are sacrificed to Artemis.
The main priestess of the goddess turns out to be another heroine well known to us, sacrificed by her father before the Trojan campaign to Artemis, and she also transferred to the country of the Taurians, the daughter of Agamemnon, Iphigenia.
At first, the brother and sister do not recognize each other, then a quivering scene of recognition follows, after which Iphigenia, having deceived the local king, saves her brother and returns to Hellas with him.
Subsequently, Euripides continued the theme of Iphigenia, creating the play "Iphigenia in Aulis". It takes us back in time to that dramatic episode when Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter to Artemis before the Trojan campaign. The image of Iphigenia, a courageous girl, almost voluntarily sacrificing herself in the name of the victory of civilization over barbarism, subsequently inspired more than one playwright to create his own works. Among them are the Roman Ennius, the Italian Ruchchelai, the Frenchman Racine, the Germans Goethe and Schiller.
Our conversation came to the story of Medea and Hippolyta.
In general, the image of a suffering person is the most characteristic feature of Euripides' work. Unlike, for example, from Aeschylus, he does not see an explanation for the suffering of an individual person in the rational divine will ruling the world, because, the playwright believes, forces are inherent in man himself that can plunge him into the abyss of suffering.
Such a person is Medea, the heroine of the tragedy staged in 431 BC. The daughter of the Colchis king, the sorceress Medea, having fallen in love with Jason, who arrived in Colchis on the way for the golden fleece, provided him with once invaluable help, teaching him to overcome all obstacles and get the coveted fleece. As a sacrifice to Jason, she brought her homeland, maiden honor, good name. All the harder now, at the beginning of the play and a few years after the marriage, Medea is experiencing the betrayal of Jason, who is going to leave her with her two sons in order to marry the Corinthian princess. In addition, Jason's future father-in-law orders Medea to leave his country with her children. The offended and abandoned woman plots a terrible plan: not only to destroy her rival, but also to kill her own children. So she can take revenge on her cheating husband. Suffering, rage, torment of a deceived woman are expressed in amazing monologues, fragments of which we will now read.
...On me...
Unexpected disaster struck.
Crushed I them and die
I would like - breathing flour to me!
All that I had merged into one,
And that was my husband; and I found out
That this man is the last of men.
Yes, among all who breathe and who think,
We women are not more unhappy. For husbands
We pay, and not cheap. And buy -
So he is your master, not a slave;
And the first second grief is greater.
And most importantly - you take it at random:
Is he vicious or honest, how do you know?
In the meantime, go away - you're a shame,
And you can't remove your spouse.
And now to the wife, entering the new world,
Where customs and laws are alien to her,
One has to guess with what
The bed is divided by creation. And enviable
The lot of the wife, if the husband dutifully
He carries his yoke. Otherwise
After all, the husband, when the hearth is cold to him,
On the side, the heart is filled with love.
They have friends and peers, and we
You have to look in the eyes with shame.
But they say that we are after our husbands
Like behind a wall, and they, they say, need spears.
What a lie! Three times under the shield
Would rather stand than at least once
Give birth ... I'm talking about all the wives ...
But are you and I one? You
And there is a city, and a house, and the joy of life ...
You are sad - a friend comforts you.
And I'm alone in the world between strangers,
And banished and abandoned. grew up
Among the barbarians, I am far away; not at home here
No mother, no brother, no one...
At least one soul to moor to it
Rook for the storm...
... We are shy
And kind of one fight or iron
The wife is scared. But if marriage bonds
Touched by resentment, bloodthirsty
You will not find hearts on earth.
After a conversation with the Corinthian king Creon, in which he gives her a reprieve from exile for one day, Medea delivers another monologue.
Oh yeah! It's dark in the sky... But on this
It's not over! Don't think yet
And it will be bad for young happy people,
And grief is enough for their matchmaker ... Is it
You thought this poison was sweet
Did he drink freely? Everything is weighed in advance ...
Not a word from these lips, he hands
A single movement without calculation
I would not have received it, believe me ... O blind man! ..
Hold the decision in your hands - and leave
We have a whole day ... Enough for the eyes,
To father, and daughter, and husband with her
We turned into corpses... hated...
There are many ways ... What
I'll choose, I don't know myself yet:
Hall to set fire to brides or copper
I must drive them sharp into the liver,
Having reached their bed? .. There is one
Confused by the possibility. On the way to
To their bedroom or on business I
I can be captured by the villains
To get mocked ... No, it's better
Do not change the path of direct us,
And, fortunately, he has been tested - poison on stage ...
Yes, it's decided...
Well, I killed them... And then what?
Where is the city and friend who is the door
It will open for us and, sheltering, for us
Guarantee? There is no such thing ... Patience
Arm yourself for now. If the walls
Protection will open before me,
On the secret path of murder silently
I'll enter right away. But if we have one
Misfortune hopeless to share
Stay, I take the sword openly
And I boldly go to kill them,
Even though death itself looked in the eyes.
mistress whom I revere
Especially my accomplice
Native hearth guardian, I swear
Hecate, that the torments of Medea
No one will please his soul!
The feast will seem bitter to them, but to the matchmaker
His wine and tears of my torment...
Get to work, Medea! All art
You call for help; every step
You have to think to the smallest detail!
And one more, after the hysterical scenes with her husband, a terrible monologue.
Oh Zeus! Oh the truth of Zeus, the light of the sun!
We will adorn ourselves with victory, friends,
Victory. I know at last
Where should I swim. And the harbor before us
Desired opened. It costs us
Throw a rope there, and the Pallas
We will receive a glorious city. And now
Find out my decision ... Here
Slave to us will require Jason
On behalf of Medea. He will find
Here is an affectionate welcome and make sure
That I agree to everything and that I'm nice
We are the verdict of Creon. Only about children
I will pray to him that they
left in Corinth. Not then
I want this so that between enemies
Leave them. But I have to kill the princess
They will help by cunning, through them
I will send gifts to her: marvelous peplos
And a golden diadem. That
Charming as soon as she wears
Headdress, will die in agony; who would go to her
Then neither touched - too; poison
I will drink my gifts, wife.
Enough words about this ... But, groaning,
I will now convey what evil
Then he looks into the eyes of Medea ... I
Should kill the kids. And they won't throw up
We have nobody. Yasonov herself with a root
I'll rip out the house. And there - let the yoke
Exiles, the brand of a child killer,
Irreligion is a disgrace - all insults.
I know that I will not make the enemy laugh,
And then - all die! .. Is it in life
What would I regret? Fatherland?
parental shelter? After all, the corner
The corner where to bury my misfortunes,
I don't have it in the world!
Neither weak nor pitiful, probably
The mouths of men will not call me,
They will not call you patient; temper
Another me: I am doubly angry,
And I pay double love for love.
All the children of glory in the world are like that!
The first half of Medea's terrible plan is carried out without much difficulty. The second - the murder of her own children - causes her severe torment. Medea changes her mind four times until a messenger arrives announcing the death of the princess and her father. Medea asks him to tell him everything in detail, and this is what he hears.
Herald
When yours, Medea, both sons
And their father Jason went to the princess
In the bedchamber, joy ran
With all our hearts - suffered for you
We, faithful slaves ... And here are the stories
Come on, the quarrel is over for you.
Who kisses the hands of children, who
Their hair kisses golden;
In joy, I go to the women's quarters
Then he entered, admiring the children ...
There is a lady who now
You, Medea, replaced, children
I must not have seen yours at first:
She just smiled at Jason,
But immediately with a veil to his eyes
And closes the tender cheeks;
The arrival of children embarrassed her, and her husband
She says: "Oh, you will not be evil
With my loved ones, leave your anger
And look at them; same
We have friends, don't we? The gifts
Having accepted from them, you will ask your father
Release them from exile; I
I want that." The princess, seeing
In the hands of children, a dress, without distant words
She promised everything to her husband. And barely
Jason led the children away, she is embroidered
Has already thrown peplos and a wave
Pressing a golden hair with a diadem,
Set before a shining mirror
They became; reflection of beauty
The radiant princess smiled,
And, getting up from the chair, then she walked
Around the room and, with white feet
Stepping gracefully, admired
With his marvelous dress, and more than once,
Standing on tiptoe, up to the very heels
She let her eyes run.
But the lovely sight has changed
A terrible picture. And we see -
Paint ran off her cheeks...
The princess staggered, trembled
She has knees, and barely
I reached the chair so as not to fall ...
Here is an old slave, is Pan's wrath
She dreamed of another god, -
Well, shout! .. But ... Horror! .. Here between the lips
The princess's lump broke through the foam,
The eyes are bulging, but on the cheeks
There was no blood. There's an old woman
And I forgot to lament, but, jumping up,
She sobbed with a groan. In a moment of a slave
One to the father, the other to the husband with the message
About disaster - and immediately the whole chamber
And filled with a clatter and a cry...
The athlete would have time to reach on the run
Meta and, having rounded, return to the place,
While this statue is alive,
Blind, dumb, came to life;
She came back to life with a groan
Painful. And two ailments at once
They took up arms against the poor princess:
The crown on her hair is golden
Was engulfed in flames by the greedy, the dress,
Your children's gift, her body
White tormented, unfortunate ... I see: from a place
Suddenly broke and, horror! all on fire
And she tries to shake off the movement
A crown from the hair, but it seemed to have grown;
All attempts are in vain - the flame is more dense
Grows and shines. Finally she
Overpowered by torment, fell ...
Father and he would not have recognized the princess:
Neither her eyes nor her beautiful features
It was impossible to distinguish, only blood
From her hair rolled and boiled,
Interfering with the flame - so on the bark
Resin flows... And the meat from the bones,
Drunk with invisible poison,
Lagging behind, broke through the skin. Horror
He seized us, and we did not dare
Touch the dead. We are a menace
The fates listened in silence. Nothing
Father did not know when he entered, and immediately
I saw a corpse. Sobbing, he fell
On the dead, and hugged and kissed
His child, and says: "O daughter
Unhappy! Which of the gods is shameful
I wanted your death, and why
He orphaned the old grave,
Taking his father's flower? With you
Let me be killed together!" He finished
And wants to get up, but the body, like ivy,
With which the laurel is entangled, grows
To her light clothes, and the fight
Then a terrible thing began: he wants
Get up on your knees and a dead man
He is drawn to him. Effort only
They tear off shreds of meat from the old man ...
Attempts are getting weaker, the king goes out
And gives up the spirit, no longer powerful
Resist pain. There lie
The old man and daughter, side by side, took them
Both death ... Tears how not to shed? ..
What can I say about you? Herself
You will know all the horror of daring...
Yes, our life is but a shadow; not the first time
I am convinced of this. Not afraid
Add ya more that who believes
Or sage yourself or deep
Penetrated into the secret of life, deserved
The name of the insane. Happy mortal
Can't be. When it floats to it
Wealth - he is a lucky man, but only ...
A crowd of angry Corinthians rush to Medea's house to deal with her and her children. And Medea decides:
... I am now
I'll kill the kids and get out of here
Otherwise, the other will do the same,
Hostile hand. Yes, draw them
Now to die. So let mother
She will do it herself. you heart,
Arm yourself! Why delay me? Only a coward
Standing before inevitable horror,
Hesitating in thought. You hand
Unfortunate, take up the knife! .. Medea,
Here's the barrier where you start
Sad run now! Oh don't come on
Break yourself with memories full of
Anguish and bliss; because today you
Do not mother them, no, but tomorrow the heart is crying
You will saturate. you kill them
And you love. Oh, how unhappy I am, wives!
In the finale, before Jason returning in anger and despair, Medea appears already in, as it were, in a different existence: on an air chariot, holding on her knees the corpses of the children she killed.
Of course, everything here is completely different from Sophocles: his heroes, having once chosen their path, do not hesitate to follow it, unconditionally right in the eyes of the author and viewer, and most importantly, in their own eyes. Medea repeatedly passes from rage to pleas, from indignation to imaginary humility. It is these torments of the soul, conveyed in heartbreaking monologues, that form the basis of Euripides' tragedy.
Just as new is the image of Jason, that famous Greek ancestor-hero and pioneer, here presented in the guise of a selfish careerist and sophist, who can justify his own immorality in any way.
From this one can understand why Medea was a failure in antiquity: these too human images were too unusual for strict antiquity, which did not like to go beyond its own traditions and did not allow it so easy to overthrow its own ideals. mythological heroes. Sophocles was much more reasonable. Having almost completely composed the myth of Iphigenia himself, he, however, presented his heroes exactly as the Athenian public expected to see them, i.e. "the way they should be."
Revenge for the failure of "Medea", a play that later became a symbol of the tragic theater, Euripides took a few years later. The Athenians liked the tragedy "Hippolytus". Let's remember it and think why?
The Greek myth of Hippolyta reflects a motif widespread in the ancient Mediterranean and best known from the biblical legend of the chastity of Joseph, (History of World Literature. Vol. 1, p. 365.)- says V.N. Yarkho, and we remember the wife of the Egyptian nobleman Potiphar and her claims to a handsome and intelligent Jewish youth.
The same motif underlies Euripides' tragedy Hippolytus. The son of the Athenian king-hero Theseus Hippolytus, a pure young man, deeply honors the eternal virgin Artemis and despises the gifts and omnipotence of her complete opposite - Aphrodite. Offended by such neglect, the goddess kindles a criminal passion for Hippolytus in the heart of his stepmother Phaedra, who, however, at first tries to fight the feeling that gripped her, but in vain:
Unhappy! What am I? What did I do?
Where is the mind? Where is my shame? Alas for me! Damn!
An evil demon struck me .... I'm beside myself
She was... raging... Alas for me! Alas!...
I'm ashamed of crazy speeches ...
... You can't hold back your tears... they're running.
And cheeks burn with shame ... to return
To consciousness hurts so much that it seems better
If only I could die without waking up.
.....................................................................................
...when love
I felt in my heart, began to think,
How can I bear it with dignity,
And I started by hiding
Its as deep as possible. Little use
For us in speeches. Let sometimes the language
Help us to reason with others
But there is no wound more painful than from him.
I thought later that the ardor was insane
I will overcome with virtue... And now
When neither mystery nor struggle to victory
They did not bring me, there was death.
And this is the best way. No, don't
I object. For the glory we want
Witnesses ... For grief - only secrets ...
I knew everything - the disease ... its shame ...
And I knew the price of a woman's heart ...
Let there be few curses for that
From all the earth that is with another
For the first time I deceived my husband, and
The infection was supposed to come from the top.
After all, if evil is a toy of nobles, is it
In the crowd it will not become a deity?
Curse also to you, whose modest speeches,
But whose under the roof of the night of black insolence
Criminal embrace... How are they
They decide, oh foam goddess
Born, then look into your eyes
Deceived husbands? No matter how scared they are
That the very darkness will give them away, that the wall
Will she speak, listening to kisses?
I would die from one thought
That I could dishonor my husband
Or children...
Phaedra's feelings, however, are growing: she dreams either of hunting in the reserved groves, or of resting by a cool stream, where she could be close to Hippolytus. The insinuating intervention of the old nanny forces Phaedra to reveal her secret to her, and the nanny, having bound Hippolyte with a vow of silence, sends him an invitation to a meeting with her stepmother, which causes the young man's stormy indignation.
Hippolyte
You, bright rays!.. And you, the earth!..
And it was said?.. Oh horror!..
Nurse
(dropping to his knees).
At your feet, I beg for mercy.
Hippolyte
Which? Because you think you're right.
Nurse
I'm afraid of publicity. Get it, publicity.
Hippolyte
Beautiful rumor will not offend.
........................................................
Oh Zeus! Why did you create women?
And it's evil with its false brilliance
Did you place it under the shining sky?
... The mistress masters intrigues,
And the nanny spreads them around the world ...
... Father
Sacred she dared the bed
To me, the son, to offer. Yes after the words
Such - go to the source and ears
Wash with sacred moisture... I am pious,
And now it saves you, wives,
Believe me, I would have opened all your
Things to the father, whenever, like a child,
I did not take an oath to bind my mouth ...
For the disgraced Phaedra, there is now only one way out - death, but her feeling, her feeling, is looking for a way out. He is also alone - revenge.
...I
I still have a way to save
Good name for offspring. Yes he
And for me in my misfortune it is better...
... I was bitter
Love lot, wife, but suffering
Crowned, me and another death
In my melt. There is one who is out of torment
My humility will learn a lesson
So that he does not dare my grief in the future
Nourish the arrogant purity.
Returning from a campaign, Theseus finds Phaedra hanged at home, and in her hand is a message in which she accuses her stepson of encroaching on her honor.
In an explanation with his father, Hippolyte, bound by an oath, cannot reveal to him the whole truth and only insists on his innocence. Theseus is indignant at the treachery of his son. He sentences him to exile and calls upon him the curse of the gods, which leads to a tragic outcome. About him, as usual in ancient Greek tragedies, the messenger tells:
Near the shore where the waves roll
And splashing sea, horses
We cleaned and cried - learned
We are from the people that Hippolyta, the king,
In exile you send from here,
And he can no longer live here. Came
And he himself follows. With our tears
He also connects his tears ... Finally, interrupting
His weeping, he tells us: "Moaning is in vain,
The words of the father must be obeyed.
Live, slaves, harness more quickly ... "
And the case caught fire: to order
He did not have time - the horses are already ready.
Here he deftly jumped on the front
And from the rim he quickly grabbed the reins,
But he restrained the mares and, to heaven
Lifting up his hands, he began to pray:
"O Zeus, with the stigma of the villain of life at all
I do not need. But give me sometime
Will I stay alive, or won't I,
So that my father understands how bad he is
Dealt with me...
... But that's when we drove out into the field
Desert from which the hills
Down to the Gulf of Saron,
Some kind of underground rumble, like thunder,
Heard from there distant,
Instilling fear, and mares instantly
Cautioned, stretching out their necks,
And we looked around fearfully...
And now they opened their eyes where the shore
The rocky surf is whitened,
Huge wave. She was heaving
Mountain directly wondrous, gradually
Covering the coast of Skiron from us,
And distant Isthmus, and even Epidaurus
She closed the rocks from her eyes. Here
She was also puffed up and, sparkling,
Moved up and rushed to the shore,
To the four of Hippolyte. in front of her
She threw it on land with foam
And the silence of a monstrous sight
Bull, and immediately with a wild roar all
The earth was filled all around, and the mountains,
Wall reflecting a sheer voice,
They thundered even more terribly. Kind of the same
His was such that with difficulty his eyes
They managed to get him out. And immediately
Crazy fear seizes the mares...
... Steel, biting their teeth, suffered ...
And neither the charioteer's hand, nor the drawbar,
And neither the yoke of their mad leaps
They couldn't stop. an attempt
He made the last one on the sand
Coastal to send them. Suddenly at the very
The monster appeared to the chariot,
And the quadruple shied away in confusion
Back to the rocks. The race has begun
Crazy. Where are the horses going?
There and the bull - he no longer roared,
He just kept getting closer and closer...
Finally, the sheer wall...
The chariot is pressed. Wheel
Cracks - and shattered ... and overturned
The prince with the chariot. Here
Everything is mixed up: wheels, spokes fly,
The wreckage of the axis, and the charioteer is he,
Unfortunate, fell in tight bonds
Your reins - about the stones with your head
He fought, and from the body remained
On the tips of the stones, pieces are alive ...
... I don't know how -
He knocked down the fetters, but we are barely alive
They found him in the field...
...Although I, of course,
In your royal halls there is only a slave,
But I would never believe
About your son to a bad word,
Let it be, how many wives there are in the world,
Though everyone hanged themselves and the letters are higher,
Than Ida, they left me a mountain,
I'll still say that he was innocent.
At the end of the play, Artemis appears and reveals to Theseus the innocence of his son.
Anticipating the bewilderment of all interested parties, why did she not contribute to his salvation earlier, Artemis answers:
Let us now listen to what V.N. Euripides says about the top plays. Yarkho.
"The tragedy of Hippolytus, like Medea, is typical in many respects for the work of Euripides. First of all, the playwright acts here as a wonderful master of the psychological development of the image: Phaedra's love languor, fits of passion, despair and consciousness of shame that seizes her; the rough straightforwardness of the nanny, who knows how to ferret out the secret of his restless mistress; purity and integrity inner world Hippolyta - all this is depicted with deep insight into the secrets of the human soul.
Euripides' attitude towards the gods is also indicative: Aphrodite acts from such petty motives as vanity and offended pride, and Artemis, whose faithful admirer was Hippolytus, gives him to the mercy of Aphrodite's base feelings. The gods, by whose will people endure such suffering without any fault, are unworthy of being called gods - this idea, repeatedly expressed in various tragedies of Euripides, reflects his religious doubts and skepticism.
Having gone beyond the limits of heroic normativity, which determined the nature of the work of his predecessors, Euripides opened up new artistic possibilities in the depiction of personality for the literature of post-Renaissance Europe. For the New Age, which is characterized by a much more complex level of social and interpersonal relations than it was in the ancient Greek policies, the Euripides tragedy turned out to be especially valuable due to its interest in a person involved in a conflicting struggle of passions and in the face of moral requirements that have lost their time for him. and forever given uniqueness.
(History of World Literature. Vol. 1. S. 365, 370.)
In conclusion of the conversation about tragedy and tragedians, let us recall once again (and add something again) everything that we have learned.
So, the "father of tragedy" is Aeschylus, the creator of images of titanic heroes, monumental and pathetic style. He introduced a second actor into the theater, expanded the dialogue, increased the number of actors, i.e. brought dramatic conflict and dynamism to ancient Greek tragedy. Before him, tragedy was essentially a lyrical-epic cantata of a round dance theater. Aeschylus significantly reduced the choir part and reduced the number of its participants from 50 to 12 people. He also introduced a spectacular costume and masks into the theater, which numbered up to 27 types. Aeschylus also invented a number of stage devices, and composed dances, in a word, he really created such a theater that Greece did not know before and which, in general, has survived to this day. It is only necessary not to forget the fundamentally different role played by the theater in Ancient Greece and in our time. There he was a truly sacred action.
The characters of Greek tragedy are not conditionally mythological figures characteristic of the new European theater and opera, but, as it were, "resurrected" and revealed to the viewer characters of "sacred history" - heroes revered by the Greeks, gods and demigods, acting out events, in the reality of which the Greeks of the classical era they had to sacredly believe ... "Fiction", on which all the fiction of modern times is based, is not characteristic of Greek tragedy. There is only an element of conjecture, interpretation necessary for a spectacular, plot-dramatic transposition of mythological (ie, "sacred" for them) events known to all Greeks.
And since the ancient Greek tragedy is a cult action, then, of course, its texts are in no way intended for reading with the eyes like many modern dramatic works. Accordingly, as we read it today, we need to keep this in mind. But, as we have seen, Euripides already changed the theater in many ways. Comedy will do even more in this direction, about which a little lower.
Finishing summing up the results of acquaintance with the work of Aeschylus, let's say that he also owns the merit of creating goodie necessary for any culture at all times, since, as a rule, it performs an educational, patriotic, uniting function for citizens. Such a positive hero in Aeschylus is, of course, Prometheus. But even in "The Persians", a play where there is not a single Greek among the characters, Aeschylus knows how to bring out a positive hero. Here it is Darius, the father of Xerxes, who recklessly violated the divine world order and went to war against the Greeks. More precisely, not Darius, but the shadow of Darius (a good enemy is a dead enemy). And this was also the first time: a dead hero appeared on the stage. And this, too, will be continued later: Shakespeare will bring the ghost of Hamlet's father onto the stage.
The next classic of ancient Greek tragedy, Sophocles, abandoned the trilogical principle, and each of his tragedy became an independent whole work. "Antigone" and Oedipus Rex "made his name immortal. These images, full of vitality and the realities of antiquity, became the favorite roles of all the tragedians of the world theater. The confrontation between Antigone and Creon, two truths, personifies the very essence of tragedy. Sophocles further reduced the role of the choir, creating for he, however, remarkably poetic parties, introduced a third actor and the so-called "vicissitudes", i.e. deviation of the action from the main line, which creates the illusion of a successful resolution of the conflict and delays the catastrophic denouement. an intriguing surprise into a theatrical performance.
Finally, Euripides is the creator of the theater of an already living person, with his personal passions and clashes of characters. The theater of Euripides is a theater of intrigue, contrast, a complex and often confusing plot of a work. The choir no longer helps, but hinders him, because the role of the choir in the tragedies of Euripides, of course, is reduced almost to a minimum.
"The work of Euripides marks the end of the old heroic tragedy ... Euripides indicated two directions in which serious Greek drama subsequently developed. On the one hand, this is the path of pathetic drama, strong, sometimes even pathological passions, and on the other hand, an approach to everyday drama. Euripides achieves a decrease in heroic figures not only by interpreting characters, but also by theatrical means: kings appear on the stage in the form of beggars in rags (()), maimed heroes, decrepit old men, squealing children. "I give everyone my word," says Euripides in Aristophanes' comedies "The Frogs" - to women, and servants, and girls, and gentlemen, even old women. "The lovers of the old tragedy reproached him and, not without reason, argued that the tragedy of Euripides ceases to be a "teacher" of the civil virtues of the policy.
In the ancient understanding, tragedy was inextricably linked with mythological plots and figures. In Euripides, the myth becomes already a shell, which is in sharp contradiction with the ideological and artistic orientation of the tragedy. This is all the more noticeable because Euripides, staging a mythological plot, at the same time criticizes it, reveals its immorality or senselessness. It often makes significant changes to the traditional myth and deviates far from its usual form.
The character of the tragic is also changing. In Aeschylus and Sophocles, tragedy was one way or another justification for the good forces that rule the world. Euripides no longer believes in the goodness of these forces. He shocks the viewer with an image of suffering that cannot be justified by any higher moral sense... Antique critics ... noted the predominance of tragedies with sad outcomes as a feature of Euripides. And when, at the end of his life, Euripides begins to get involved in dramas of intrigue with a happy ending, the tragic becomes a pure game of chance. Euripides' suffering is irrational, just as life itself is irrational.
This perception of the world is also reflected in the composition of the tragedies. In contrast to the clear dramatic composition of Sophocles, Euripides ... likes to depict the zigzags of fate, the intrusion of chance into the course of the drama.
(I.M. Tronsky. History of ancient literature. 4th ed. - M .: Higher school, 1983. P. 150 - 151.)
Amazing thing! In one century, the tragic theater of ancient Greece went almost the entire long way from becoming in the person of Aeschylus, secret and obvious changes on the path of creative searches and the creation of classical models in the person of Sophocles, and to a kind of decadence, such decisive and formal and substantive changes that, perhaps, , and mark the sunset, in the person of Euripides. Of course, we only know the best tragedians. In addition to them, there were many others in the Athenian theater - both before, during, and after this divine trinity - but with the death of Euripides, the time of high ancient Greek tragedy ended. The time has come for historical and philosophical prose. But even earlier, at the same time as the tragedies of Euripides, the Attic comedy reigned on the Athenian stage, the story of which we have now come close to.
I would like to end the conversation about Euripides and about ancient Greek tragedy in general with one of my own poems, which is called “The Time of Tragedy”.
Inflaming intoxicating fun,
directing the crowd to Parnassus,
in a goat's skin strewn with hops,
O theatre, your song is born.
These wild screams and squeals
in barrels of foamy wine
ships along the trade routes,
and salty blue spray
down the stems, like tears, flowed.
Whether God, whether the genius has created backstage -
indifferent time is silent.
But once in the hop Dionysius
Phaedra's voice called out: "Euripides! .."
And centuries later, out of the fog,
cutting the ether with passions,
on the platform of a hunchback and a tyrant
abandoned your new genius - Shakespeare.
Did God know that he would see Sunday
on the plebeian christian stage,
in the midst of half-decayed forests? ..
Oh theater, inescapable singing
grape god of Athens!
QUESTIONS:
1. How many tragedies did Euripides write, and how many of them have survived to this day?
2. With the names of which Russian poets, translators and scientists is the "Russian fate" of Euripides directly connected? People and gods. From Pericles to Euripides. "Father of Tragedy"
Literature of Ancient Greece. Essays on the history of foreign literature "
Of the 92 plays attributed to Euripides in antiquity, the names of 80 can be restored. Of these, 18 tragedies have come down to us, of which "Res" is believed to have been written by a later poet, and the satirical drama "Cyclops" is the only surviving example of this genre. The best ancient dramas by Euripides are lost to us; of the survivors, only Hippolyte was crowned. Among the surviving plays, the earliest is Alcesta, and the later ones include Iphigenia in Aulis and The Bacchae.
Preferred Development female roles in tragedy was an innovation of Euripides. Hecuba, Polyxena, Cassandra, Andromache, Macarius, Iphigenia, Helen, Electra, Medea, Phaedra, Creusa, Andromeda, Agave and many other heroines of the legends of Hellas are complete and vital types. The motifs of conjugal and maternal love, tender devotion, violent passion, female vindictiveness, combined with cunning, deceit and cruelty, occupy a very prominent place in Euripides' dramas. Euripides' women surpass his men in willpower and brightness of feelings. Also, the slaves in his plays are not soulless extras, but have characters, human features and show feelings like free citizens, making the audience empathize. Only a few of the surviving tragedies satisfy the requirement of completeness and unity of action. The strength of the author is primarily in psychologism and deep elaboration of individual scenes and monologues. In a diligent image mental states, usually tense to the extreme, is the main interest of the tragedies of Euripides.
Medea- a play by Euripides, staged on the Great Dionysia in 431 BC. According to the results of the competition of playwrights, Euripides then took the last, third place (the first award was won by Euphorion, the second by Sophocles). "Medea" was part of a tetralogy, which also included the tragedies "Philoctetes", "Dictis" and the satyr drama "The Reapers".
The story of Medea is part of the myth of the march of the Argonauts. When Jason entered into battle with the fire-breathing bulls and the dragon guarding the golden fleece, Medea, who fell in love with him, helped him tame the bulls and the dragon, and she herself decided to follow him to Greece. In order to detain her relatives who were pursuing the Argonauts, Medea, when sailing from Colchis, killed her brother, who had been captured by her, and scattered pieces of his body along the shore; while the shocked relatives collected the torn limbs of the young man, the Argonauts managed to set sail. Arriving in Iolk already as the wife of Jason, Medea persuaded the daughters of Pelias to perform a magical rite that was supposed to restore his youth, but insidiously deceived them, and the old king died a painful death, after which Jason and his wife and sons had to seek shelter in Corinth, where Jason decided to marry the daughter of the local king Creon. Medea, deciding to take revenge on her rival, sent her a poisoned outfit through her children and, when it became known about the death of the princess, fled from Corinth, leaving her sons under the protection of the temple of Hera. However, the Corinthians did not reckon with the inviolability of the temple and in anger killed the children, for which they subsequently had to make an atoning sacrifice every year.
Euripides modified the traditional legend, making Medea herself responsible for the death of the children.
"Hippolytus"- one of the tragedies of Euripides. It was written in 428 BC. e. The work is built on ancient story stepmother's love for her stepson.
The first edition of the tragedy caused a storm of public indignation and was declared immoral. One of the main characters - Phaedra - herself opens up to her stepson Hippolyte in love. The failure was also facilitated by the fact that at that time no attention was paid to the individual experiences of the individual.
Today we have the opportunity to get acquainted only with the second version of the tragedy, where Phaedra does not confess to Hippolytus, but takes her own life, knowingly leaving her husband a note slandering her stepson.
One of the innovations of Euripides is that the female image occupies an important place in the tragedy. And it is far from ideal.
It is also important that the gods of Euripides are endowed with human features. So, in this tragedy, Artemis and Aphrodite are two eccentric goddesses, the subject of which is Hippolytus.
The protagonist of the tragedy is ruined by his commitment to Artemis and complete disregard for Aphrodite. Thus, for the first time in history ancient theater Euripides raised the question of whether all the actions of the gods can be considered justified and just.
Iphigenia (aka Ifimeda, saved by Artemis) is the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra (according to Stesichorus and others, their adopted daughter and own daughter of Theseus and Helena). She was born in the year when Agamemnon promised Artemis the most beautiful gift of those born.
When the Greeks set off for Troy, they were already ready to set off from the Boeotian harbor of Aulis, Agamemnon (or Menelaus) offended Artemis by killing a doe dedicated to her while hunting. Artemis was angry with Agamemnon for this, and also for the fact that Atreine sacrificed a golden lamb to her. The goddess sent a calm and the fleet of the Greeks could not move. The soothsayer Kalhant declared that the goddess could only be appeased by sacrificing Iphigenia, the most beautiful of Agamemnon's daughters, as a sacrifice to her. Agamemnon, at the insistence of Menelaus and the troops, had to agree to this. Odysseus and Diomed went to Clytemnestra for Iphigenia, and Odysseus lied that she was being given as wife to Achilles. She was sacrificed by Kalhant.
When she arrived there and everything was ready for the sacrifice, Artemis took pity and at the very moment of the slaughter replaced Iphigenia with a goat, and she was kidnapped on a cloud and taken to Taurida, instead of her a calf was placed on the altar.
And he(΄Ίων) - the mythical ancestor of the ionyans.
An older tradition (in Hesiod) recognizes Ion as the son of Xuthus, one of the three sons of Hellenes. Expelled from Thessaly by the brothers, Xuthus, according to a later processing of the same legend, moved to Attica, where he married the daughter of Erechtheus Creusa and had sons Ion and Achaea from her. According to Euripides, Ion, the son of Apollo and Creusa, grew up in Delphi, according to the oracle of Apollo, Xuthus recognized him as a son. From him the Ionians.
To explain the legendary sojourn of the Ionians on the northern coast of the Peloponnesai historical name this coast - Achaia, a tradition was compiled that Xuthus was expelled from Attica by the sons of Erechtheus and moved with his sons to the mentioned land, formerly called Aegialea. Ion began to recruit an army against the Aegialeans. Then their king Selinunt (Selin) offered him his daughter Gelika as a wife, and adopted him himself. After the death of Selinunte, Ion built the city of Helika, and called the people Ions. Ion becomes king of Aegialea, whose inhabitants are called, after his name, Ionians. The descendants of Ion held power until they were expelled by the Achaeans.
Ion comes to the aid of the Athenians and, according to one version, becomes king. According to Herodotus, commander (stratarch). He was elected general by the Athenians in the war against the Eleusinians and expelled Disaul from there. Either he defeated the Eleusinian king in single combat, and was elected king by the Athenians. He defeated the Thracians, subject to Eumolpus. According to Pausanias, the war ended with a peace treaty, and Eumolpus himself remained in Eleusis.
In Athens, his sons Goplet, Geleont, Egikorei and Argad, eponyms of the ancient four Attic phyla, were born. Four phyla were produced from the four sons of Ion: Geleonts, Goplets, Argads, Egikors. Ion divided the people into 4 phyla and into 4 estates: farmers, artisans, clergy and guards. According to others, the phyla are not from the sons of Ion, but from a different way of life: warriors - Hoplites, artisans - Ergads, farmers - Geleonts, Egikorei - grazed and bred small livestock. These four phyla were abolished under Cleisthenes.
Grave in the Deme of Potama (Attica). Sanctuary in Sparta. According to the version, the leader of the Ionian colonization.
A special Attic tradition, processed by Euripides in his tragedy Ion, tries to make Ion not a foreigner, but a local hero, the son of Kreusyn, not from Xuthus, but from Apollo. It is believed that Xuthus was originally only a nickname for Apollo (fair-haired).
The protagonist of the tragedy of Sophocles "Ion" (fr.319-320 Radt) and the tragedy of Euripides "Ion". The protagonist of Leconte de Lisle's tragedy "Apollonides".
The three greatest tragedians of Greece - Aeschylus, Sophocles Euripides - consistently displayed in their tragedies the psycho-ideology of the landowning aristocracy and merchant capital at various stages of their development. The main motive of the tragedy of Aeschylus is the idea of omnipotence and the doom of the struggle with it. The social order was conceived as certain superhuman forces, established once and for all. Even the rebellious titans cannot shake him (the tragedy "Chained Prometheus").
These views expressed the protective tendencies of the ruling class - the aristocracy, whose ideology was determined by the consciousness of the need for unquestioning obedience to this social order. The tragedies of Sophocles depict the era of the victorious war between the Greeks and the Persians, which opened up great opportunities for commercial capital.
In this regard, the authority of the aristocracy in the country fluctuates, and this accordingly affects the works of Sophocles. At the center of his tragedies is the conflict between tribal tradition and state authority. Sophocles considered reconciliation possible social contradictions- a compromise between the trading elite and the aristocracy.
And, finally, Euripides - a supporter of the victory of the trading stratum over the landowning aristocracy - already denies religion. His "Bellerophon" depicts a fighter who raised a rebellion against the gods because they patronize treacherous rulers from the aristocracy. "They (the gods) are not there (in heaven)," he says, "unless people want to madly believe the old tales." In the works of the atheistic Euripides, the actors in the drama are exclusively people. If he introduces the gods, then only in those cases when it is necessary to resolve some complex intrigue. His dramatic action is motivated by the real properties of the human psyche. The majestic, but sincerely simplified heroes of Aeschylus and Sophocles are replaced in the works of the younger tragedian, if more prosaic, then complicated characters. Sophocles spoke of Euripides as follows: “I portrayed people as they should be; Euripides depicts them as they really are.
By the time of the Greco-Persian wars, it had become customary to stage three tragedies (trilogy) on the feast of Dionysius, developing one plot, and one satyr drama, repeating the plot of tragedies in a cheerful, mocking tone, with pantomime dances. Sophocles had already departed from this trilogical principle. True, at drama competitions he also performed with three tragedies, but each of them had its own plot. The tragedy of Sophocles is recognized as the canonical form of Greek tragedy. He introduces peripety for the first time. He slows down the swiftness of action that characterizes the tragedy of his predecessor Aeschylus.
The action in Sophocles, as it were, is growing, approaching a catastrophe, followed by a denouement. This was facilitated by the introduction of a third actor. The tragedy of Sophocles is structured like this: it begins with an introduction (prologue), followed by the exit of the choir with a song (parod), then episodies (episodes), which are interrupted by songs of the choir (stasims), and the last part is the final stasim and the departure of the actors and the choir -exod. Choral songs divided the tragedy in this way into parts, which in modern drama are called acts. The number of parts varied even with the same author.
The choir (at the time of Aeschylus, 12 people, later 15) did not leave its place during the entire performance, as it constantly intervened in the action: it assisted the author in clarifying the meaning of the tragedy, revealed the emotional experiences of his heroes, and assessed their actions from the point of view of the prevailing morality. The presence of the choir, as well as the lack of scenery in the theater, made it impossible to move the action from one place to another. It must be added that the Greek theater lacked the ability to depict the change of day and night - the state of technology did not allow the use of lighting effects.
From here come the three unities of Greek tragedy: place, action and time (the action could only take place from sunrise to sunset), which were supposed to reinforce the illusion of the reality of the action. The unity of time and place to a large extent limited the development of dramatic elements characteristic of the evolution of the genus at the expense of the epic. A number of events necessary in the drama, the depiction of which would break unity, could only be reported to the viewer. The so-called "messengers" told about what was happening outside the stage.
Euripides introduces an intrigue into the tragedy, which, however, he resolves artificially, mostly with the help of a special technique - deus ex machina. By this time more or less theatrical machinery had already developed. The role of the choir is gradually reduced to the musical accompaniment of the performance.
Greek tragedy was greatly influenced by the Homeric epic. The tragedians borrowed a lot of stories from him. The characters often used expressions borrowed from the Iliad. For the dialogues and songs of the choir, playwrights (they are also melurgists, because the same person wrote the poems and music - the author of the tragedy) used the trimeter iamb as a form close to living speech (about the differences in dialects in separate parts tragedy, see ancient Greek).
In Hellenistic times, tragedy follows the tradition of Euripides. The traditions of ancient Greek tragedy are picked up by the playwrights of Ancient Rome.
Works in the tradition of ancient Greek tragedy were created in Greece until the late Roman and Byzantine times (the surviving tragedies of Apollinaris of Laodicea, the Byzantine compilation tragedy "The Suffering Christ").
Ancient Greek comedy was born on the same festivities of Dionysus as tragedy, only in a different setting. If tragedy in its infancy is a ritual service, then comedy is a product of amusements that began when the liturgical part of the Dionysia, gloomy and serious, ended. In ancient Greece, they staged then marches (komos, hence the name itself may have comedy) with rampant songs and dances, put on fantastic costumes, entered into disputes, fights, threw witticisms, jokes, often obscene, which, according to the ancient Greeks, was encouraged by Dionysus (about the connection of these primitive erotic actions with animistic ones - Comedy and Ritual Songs). During these amusements, the main elements of the comic genre arose: the Doric everyday scene (mime) and the Attic accusatory choral song.
The youth of Attica formed two choirs, which entered into a song duel with each other. The choir improvised their songs. Over time, professional actors began to take an active part in these amusements, who introduced their permanent masks and tricks into them. Poets processed mythical subjects for them, refracting them satirically. The first comedian poet-philosopher Epicharm is a representative of the so-called Doric comedy, which developed from mime.
His gods played buffoonish roles. This coincided with the era of the beginning of the democratic movement, which shook the foundations of the ancient Greek religion. Attic comedy synthesized elements of mime and accusatory choral song. In the years of the Periclacomediographers, already in their comedies, they depicted the social struggle, directing their satirical arrows against individual political figures.
Comedies, which at that time were staged on the theater stage, dealt with topical political issues. Often there were cases when the archons forbade the staging of certain comedies because of their disrespectful attitude towards certain rulers and the caricature display of certain aspects of state life.
Of the three famous representatives of Attic political comedy - Cratinus, Eupolida and Aristophanes - the last was the largest. In his comedies, he waged a fierce struggle with the democracy that was in power during the Peloponnesian War. Aristophanes was a supporter of peace at all costs, since the war had a detrimental effect on the landowning aristocracy, whose ideology he expressed. This also determined the reactionary nature of his philosophical and moral views. So he portrayed Socrates in a caricature, did not spare his contemporary Euripides, the spokesman for democratic sentiments. He often parodies it. Most of his comedies were vicious satires on representatives of democracy, including Cleon and Pericles. The role of Cleon in the comedy "Babylonians" was played by him himself, since the actors did not dare to do this, fearing the revenge of the ruler.
Among other poets of the ancient Attic comedy are Crates, who was at first an actor in Crates; Hermippus, who attacked Periklai Aspasia; Phrynichus, the unsuccessful rival of Aristophanes;
Comedy did not require special adaptations on stage. The number of actors did not exceed three, although each of them played more roles than in the tragedy. And the choir played a huge role in the comedy. The peculiarity of the latter was that the coryphaeus of the choir spoke on behalf of the author himself, outlining his main thoughts, which he carried out in the comedy. This speech of the luminary (from the author) was called "parabaza". The incriminating part that followed the performance of the choir - the central part of the comedy - was sprinkled with buffoonery, pantomime and dances (kordak), which, unlike the solemn dances of the tragedy, were erotic in nature.
The costumes of the comic choir were also different from the costumes of the tragedy choir. They were distinguished by their fantastic nature (depicted, for example, birds, wasps, clouds, etc.) and had an allegorical meaning. The masks of the actors were supposed to emphasize the funny and ugly in the hero being exposed (they were with bulging eyes, with a mouth to the ears, etc.). The figures of the actors were given a no less ugly look. Actors did not wear Koturnov. There was no need for this, since the images they portrayed were not idealized, were not majestic, etc. The actors, on the contrary, had to show their images in an exaggerated form, exposing everything vile in them.
At the beginning of the 4th century, during the period of the so-called Middle Attic comedy (its representatives are Antifan, Anaxandridi Alexis), this genre primarily satisfies the tastes of the wealthy stratum of society. Without touching on political issues, comedy becomes caricature-domestic. This was facilitated by the prohibition to bring political leaders on stage and generally touch upon issues of political struggle.
Depicting real life household comedy Menander refused to dance and sing. The theoretical foundation for ancient Greek drama is provided by Aristotle's Poetics. Even before him, there are separate scattered attempts to partially substantiate the theory of dramatic writing, but as a complete system it was given only by Aristotle. Sophocles wrote a treatise on the choir that has not come down to us, but, like his disputes with Euripides, he was more polemical in nature.
In Plato's "Republic" there are arguments about the drama, but mainly from the socio-political side. For his ideal republic, Plato considers both tragedy and comedy harmful. Tragedy gives a man in misfortune, a cause for regret, and this develops an unnecessary sensitivity in the spectator; comedy encourages that penchant for ridicule and light joking, which then becomes a social habit.
In agreement with Plato, Aristotle defines art as the imitation of nature. But Plato concludes from this that art is below reality, while Aristotle, on the contrary, ascribes to art a high purifying role. Dramatic poetry is an imitation of the action of people, and people can be portrayed either better in comparison with existing ones, or worse than them. Tragedy depicts the first, that is, the best, in comedy the second - the worst.
Tragedy is “imitation of an important and complete action, having a certain volume, with the help of speech, differently decorated in each of its parts, through action, and not a story, which, thanks to compassion and fear, purifies such affects” (“catharsis”). The main motive of Greek tragedy - fear of fate, fate - according to Aristotle, should result not just in fear of falling into the same position, but in moral purification from those feelings that can cause it. Thus, tragic catharsis is not fear of imminent real danger, but the aesthetic joy of moral relief, purification of passions, awareness of the possibility to rise above them.
"Decorated speech" Aristotle calls the poetic size, singing and musical accompaniment. For different parts of the tragedy, this "decoration" may be different. Aristotle lists six components of tragedy: idea, plot, characters, setting, verbal expression and musical accompaniment. Aristotle considers unity in diversity to be one of the basic principles of art: all parts of a work must form one organic and logical whole. Tragedy should produce one completed event, but in such a way that not a single moment of the action could be omitted or changed without violating the unity of the whole. Characters must satisfy four requirements: they must be noble, suitable for this person and his actions, believable and consistent. The denouement must follow sequentially from the development of the action.
The chapter of Aristotle's Poetics on comedy has not survived, so we don't know as much about comedy as we do about tragedy.
ARISTOPHANES (lat. Aristophanes, Greek Aristofanis) (c. 445 - c. 385 BC, Athens), ancient Greek comedian poet. The views of Aristophanes on the topical problems of the era met the interests of the peasantry of that time; he was distrustful of the radical demagogy that carried away the urban lower classes (“Horsemen”), and the individualistic philosophy of the sophists (“Clouds”), rightly seeing in both symptoms of the crisis of Athenian democracy. The comedies of Aristophanes reflected the current events of that time, speeches against military policy ("Lysistrata"), denigration of real personalities (Socrates - in "The Clouds"), fantastic situations ("Aharnians", "Birds"). In ancient times, Aristophanes was nicknamed the "father of comedy", out of the forty comedies he wrote, eleven whole plays and several dozen excerpts survived.
Aristophanes was born in Attica into a wealthy family. Philip, the father of Aristophanes, owned a piece of land on the island of Aegina, which gave contemporaries a reason to believe that Aristophanes was not of the Athenian family, although he was an Athenian citizen, he came from the Athenian deme Kidafin. He could not exhibit his first plays under his own name, as he was unknown and could not pay for the choir. Most of the comedies of Aristophanes were first presented during the years of the Peleponnesian War (431-404) and were distinguished by the political sharpness inherent in the school ancient comedy reflected the crisis of Athenian democracy.
Under a false name, the first comedy of Aristophanes "Feasting" (427) was also presented, judging by the surviving fragments - a satire on sophistic education and "fashionable" philosophy. In 426, at the Great Dionysia, he staged the comedy The Babylonians, dedicated to the relationship between the Athenians and their allies. For this play, Aristophanes was brought to trial by the leader of the Athenian demos, the bribe taker and demagogue Cleon, who was ridiculed in a comedy, for insulting the people and their representatives before the allies. The details of the trial are unknown, apparently, Aristophanes got off the charges quite easily.
The comedies of Aristophanes in the first years of his work (Aharnians, 425; Horsemen, 424; Wasps, 422; Peace, 421) reflect the views of the Attic peasantry, which suffered especially from the hostilities. The comedian's protest against the war is combined with criticism of the Athenian rulers. Largely thanks to Aristophanes, the ancient Greek word "demagogue", meaning "leader of the people", acquired a modern odious meaning.
The plays of Aristophanes are distinguished by boldness of fantasy, frivolous humor, ruthlessness of denunciations, and freedom of political criticism. The objects of his satire were contemporary Athenian society, fashionable philosophy and literature, as well as the aggressive policy of Athens, the hardships of the Peloponnesian War, which accounted for most of the life of Aristophanes. His hints and specific attacks, the nuances of characteristics, sometimes eluding us, were understandable to his contemporaries, found a lively response from them. The comedies of Aristophanes are always relevant and have an almost journalistic effect.
The theme of "war and peace" - the main one in the discussions of political parties in Athens at that time - is devoted to the plays of Aristophanes "Acharnians" (425; staged on behalf of the poet and actor Callistratus) and "Peace" (421). The plot of the comedy "Lysistratus" (411), staged after the catastrophic defeat of the Sicilian expedition in 413 for Athens, is exceptional in all world literature. The women of Hellas, seeking to end the war, under the leadership of the Athenian Lysistrata (Greek. Destroying the army) capture the Acropolis in Athens and take an oath until the end of the war to deny men love. The war of the Athenians with the Spartans, thus turned into a war of women and men, ends with an alliance and universal peace. The comedy is full of humor, farce, rude jokes, obscene but colorful scenes.
In his comedies, Aristophanes ridicules both upstarts, screamers and ignoramuses from the bottom, as well as aristocrats and "golden" youth. In almost every of his comedies, Aristophanes ridicules the leader of Athens, Cleon, whom in The Horsemen (424; the first comedy of Aristophanes under his own name) brings out a screamer and an ignoramus, a flattering and cunning slave of the elderly and stupid Demos (People).
The main characters of the comedy "Wasps" (422; set on behalf of Philonides) received names characterizing their relationship to Cleon: Philokleon (Cleon-lover) and Bdilekleon (Cleon-hater). The subject of ridicule is the passion of the Athenians for litigation and, specifically, the law on raising the pay of judges, promoted in the popular assembly by Cleon. The choir in "Wasps" are old judges who are looking for prey and are presented in the form of wasps with stings that pounce on the enemy of the courts, the "enemy of democracy" and the "supporter of tyranny" Bdilekleon.
Aristophanes sees the reasons for the vices of society in the war and representatives of the new philosophy (sophists) and literature (the comedies of Euripides), which shake the traditional foundations of society. In the form of a charlatan, a false sage and a mentor in vices in Clouds (423), he brings out Socrates. Clouds - a choir of 24 girls - a symbol of the ambiguity and vagueness of the language of the representatives of the new philosophy.
On the Great Dionysia of 411, Aristophanes staged "Women at the Feast of Thesmophoria", where he ridicules Euripides and his younger contemporary, the playwright Agathon. There are no political attacks in the comedy; in general, it is a parody of the tragedies of Euripides "Helen" and "Andromeda". The choir consists of women who have gathered to condemn Euripides, who denigrates them. The latter's friend, dressed in a woman's dress, must protect him, but the deceit is revealed, and the hero, fleeing at the altar, tries to find a way out and recalls the plot moves of Euripides' tragedies for this.
In 405, the comedy "The Frogs" was staged on Lenay, which not only received the first award, but was even presented twice, which happened extremely rarely. The theme of this comedy, written after the death in 406 of Sophocles and Euripides, is the fate of tragic poetry. The god of the theater, Dionysus, goes to the underworld to bring Euripides out of there, since tragic poets have died out on earth. However, after the competition between Euripides and Aeschylus, during which the playwrights explain the merits of their works and even weigh phrases, Dionysus takes Aeschylus to earth, whose heroes are noble, and whose tragedies bring up valor and lofty civic feelings. The comic effect of Dionysus' journey through Hades and the competition is further enhanced by the fact that the choir in the comedy is presented in the form of frogs.
The comedies of Aristophanes "Birds" (414), "Women in the National Assembly" (392), "Wealth" ("Plutus") (388) belong to the utopian genre. In "Birds", written in the form of a fairy tale, along with people, there are also birds (chorus), which between heaven and earth create their own kingdom, the city of Tuchekukuevsk; the reign of the gods is overthrown, the world is ruled by birds. In “Women in the National Assembly”, the Athenians, led by Praxagora (she resembles Lysistrata), begin to rule the state, which leads to prosperity, men are idle, life is full of feasts and pleasures. The plays "Wealth" and "Women in the Assembly" are very different from those written during the Peloponnesian War. The satire in them is softened, there are no attacks on individual political figures; the role of the choir was reduced, many parts were replaced by musical interludes. The last comedies of Aristophanes "Aeolosikon" and "Kokal" were presented after the death of the playwright by his son Arar.
The compositional structure of Aristophanes' comedies is notable for its constancy: the expositional prologue completes the performance of the choir, then the action develops in the alternation of speech parties (episodes) and choral ones, from which the parabasa stands out - the part of the choir, usually speaking on behalf of the author. A special place is occupied by the agon, where the positions of the disputing parties collide. Further episodes should either confirm the correctness of the winner in the dispute, or show the illusory nature of his views when applied to real life. In later comedies, Aristophanes departs from the traditional structure: the parabasa loses its independent meaning, the role of the choir in the development of the plot is greatly reduced. The work of Aristophanes was distinguished by a sense of personal responsibility for solving the political and moral problems of his time, as well as a vivid and expressive language. In world dramaturgy, he is considered the father of comedy.
Riders are not just horsemen: this was the name of the whole estate in Athens - those who had enough money to keep a war horse. These were wealthy people who had small estates outside the city, lived on their income and wanted Athens to be a peaceful, closed agricultural state. The poet Aristophanes wanted peace; that is why he made the riders the chorus of his comedy. They performed in two hemichoirs and, to make it funnier, rode on toy wooden horses. And in front of them, the actors played a buffoonish parody of Athenian political life. The owner of the state is the old People, decrepit, lazy and out of his mind, and he is courted and flattered by cunning politicians-demagogues: whoever is more obsequious is stronger. There are four of them on the stage: two are called by their real names, Nikias and Demosthenes, the third is called the Kozhevnik (his real name is Cleon), and the fourth is called the Sausage Man (Aristophanes invented this main character himself). It was a difficult time for peaceful agitation. Nicias and Demosthenes (not comedic, but real Athenian generals; do not confuse this Demosthenes with the famous orator of the same name who lived a hundred years later) had just surrounded a large Spartan army near the city of Pylos, but they could not defeat and capture him. They offered to use this to conclude a profitable peace. And their opponent Cleon (he really was a leather craftsman) demanded to finish off the enemy and continue the war until victory. Then the enemies of Cleon offered him to take command himself - in the hope that he, who had never fought, would be defeated and leave the stage. But a surprise happened: Cleon won a victory at Pylos, brought the Spartan captives to Athens, and after that there was no way out of him in politics at all: whoever tried to argue with Cleon and denounce him was immediately reminded: “And Pylos? and Pylos? - and had to shut up. And so Aristophanes took upon himself the unthinkable task: to make fun of this "Pylos", so that at any mention of this word the Athenians would remember not Cleon's victory, but Aristophanes' jokes and would not be proud, but would laugh. So, on the stage is the house of the owner of the People, and in front of the house two of his servant-servants, Nicias and Demosthenes, are sitting and grieving: they were with the owner in mercy, and now they have been wiped away by a new slave, a scoundrel tanner. The two of them made a nice porridge in Pylos, and he snatched it from under their noses and offered it to the People. He slurps, and the tanner throws everything tidbits . What to do? Let's look at the ancient predictions! War is a disturbing, superstitious time, people recalled (or invented) ancient dark prophecies and interpreted them in relation to current circumstances. While the tanner is sleeping, let's steal the most important prophecy from under his pillow! Stole; it says: “The worst is defeated only by the worst: there will be a rope-maker in Athens, and his cattle breeder will be worse, and his tanner will be worse, and his sausage-maker will be worse.” The tightrope politician and the cattle breeder politician have already been in power; now there is a tanner; I need to find a sausage maker. Here is a sausage maker with a meat tray. "Are you a scientist?" - "Only beaters." - "What did you study?" - "Steal and unlock." - "What do you live for?" - "And in front, and behind, and sausages." “Oh, our savior! Do you see these people in the theater? Do you want to rule over them all? Twirling the Council, yelling in the assembly, drinking and fornication at public expense? One foot on Asia, the other on Africa? - “Yes, I am of a low kind!” - "All the better!" - "Yes, I'm almost illiterate!" - "That's good!" - "And what to do?" - “The same as with sausages: knead more abruptly, add salt more strongly, sweeten more flatteringly, call out louder.” - "And who will help?" - "Riders!" On wooden horses, riders enter the stage, chasing Cleon the tanner. “Here is your enemy: surpass him with bragging, and the fatherland is yours!” A bragging contest ensues, interspersed with fights. "You are a tanner, you are a swindler, all your soles are rot!" - "But I swallowed the whole Pylos in one gulp!" - “But first he filled the womb with the entire Athenian treasury!” - “The sausage maker himself, the intestine himself, he himself stole the leftovers!” - “No matter how hard you try, no matter how you pout, I’ll still shout it out!” The choir comments, incites, remembers the good morals of the fathers and praises the citizens for the best intentions of the poet Aristophanes: there were good writers of comedies before, but one is old, the other is drunk, but this one is worth listening to. So it was supposed to be in all the old comedies. But this is a saying, the main thing is ahead. At the noise from the house, the old People staggeringly comes out: which of the rivals loves him more? “If I don’t love you, let them cut me into belts!” the tanner shouts. “And let them chop me into minced meat!” - shouts the sausage man. "I want your Athens to rule over all of Greece!" - “So that you, the People, suffer on campaigns, and he profits from every prey!” - "Remember, People, how many conspiracies I saved you from!" - "Do not believe him, it was he himself who muddied the water in order to catch a fish!" - “Here is my sheepskin for you to warm old bones! "-" And here is a pillow under your ass, which you rubbed while rowing at Salamis! “I have a whole chest of good prophecies for you!” - “And I have a whole shed!” One by one these prophecies are read - a grandiloquent set of meaningless words - and one by one they are interpreted in the most fantastic way: each for his own benefit and for the evil of the enemy. Of course, it turns out much more interesting for a sausage maker. When the prophecies end, well-known sayings come into play - and also with the most unexpected interpretations on the topic of the day. Finally, it comes to the proverb: “There is, besides Pylos, Pylos, but there is also Pylos and a third!” (there were actually three cities in Greece with that name), there are a lot of untranslatable puns on the word "Pylos". And it's ready - the goal of Aristophanes has been achieved, not one of the spectators will remember this Cleon's "Pylos" without a cheerful laugh. "Here's a stew from me, Folk!" - “And porridge from me!” - "And from me a pie!" - “And wine from me!” - "And from me it's hot!" - “Oh, tanner, look, they’re carrying money, you can profit!” - "Where? where?" The tanner rushes to look for money, the sausage-maker picks up his roast and brings it away from him. "Oh, you scoundrel, you bring someone else's from you!" “But isn’t that how you appropriated Pylos to yourself after Nikias and Demosthenes?” - “It doesn’t matter who fried it, - honor to the one who brought it!” - proclaims the People. The tanner is driven by the neck, the sausage-maker is proclaimed the chief adviser of the People. The choir sings along with all this in verses in praise of the People and in reproach to such and such a libertine, and such and such a coward, and such and such a embezzler, all under their own names. The twist is fabulous. There was a myth about the sorceress Medea, who threw the old man into a cauldron of potions, and the old man came out as a young man. So behind the scenes the sausage-maker throws the old Folk into a boiling cauldron, and it comes out young and flourishing. They march across the stage, and the People majestically announce how good it will be for good people to live now and how the bad ones will rightly pay (and such and such, and such and such), and the choir rejoices that the good old days are returning, when everyone lived freely, peacefully and satisfyingly.
"Clouds"(ancient Greek Νεφέλαι) - a comedy by the ancient Greek comedian Aristophanes.
Placed in 423 BC. e. on the Great Dionysia; took third place in the competition (won Kratins with the comedy "Bottle", the second award was received by Amipsia for the comedy "Conn"). Subsequently, Aristophanes began to remake the comedy for a secondary production, but did not complete the work and new production did not implement. The surviving text of "The Clouds" is a second, partially revised version.
The play is directed against the sophists, who are ridiculed in the person of Socrates, and in general against a new way of thinking and judgments, alien to the conservative Aristophanes, perceived by him as something “foggy” (catching up “clouds” of idle talk) and harmful.
The old farmer Strepsiades is in debt because of his son Pheidippides, who squanders money on horseback riding.
Strepsiades seeks help from a neighbor - the sage Socrates; having come to the "thinking room" where Socrates teaches young people, Strepsiades asks to teach him cunning speeches and evasions that would allow him not to repay debts. But Strepsiades turns out to be unfit for science, and then Phidippides goes to study instead of him.
Having been trained in the "thinking room", Pheidippides really helps his father get away from paying the debt; however, having learned "falsehood", he begins to despise the old customs dear to Strepsiad, goes out of obedience and even beats his father.
At the end of the play, Strepsiades, having later experienced repentance and something like an epiphany, curses sophistry and sets fire to the “thinking room”.
"World"(ancient Greek Εἰρήνη) is a comedy by the ancient Greek comedian Aristophanes.
Placed in 421 BC. e. on the Great Dionysia; received the second award (the first were the "Flatters" of Evpolid, the third - the "Countrymen" of Levkon). Together with "Aharnians" and "Lysistrata" refers to the "anti-war" comedies of Aristophanes. It is distinguished by an optimistic, festive spirit, which is associated with the conclusion of the Peace of Nikia in the same year (see the Peloponnesian War).
The elderly vine grower Trigaeus, tired of war and strife between Greek cities, travels to heaven on a giant dung beetle to talk to Zeus.
Arriving there, Trigeus learns from Hermes that Zeus and other gods are away, and instead of them, Polemos (War) settled in the house of the gods. Polemos threw the goddess of the world Irinuv cave and filled up with stones; together with Horrormon serving him, he is going to “pulverize” the Greek cities in a huge mortar depicting war.
Trigeus, with the help of the Greek villagers who make up the choir in this comedy, frees Irina, and with her the Harvest and the Fair (in the form of two young girls), and brings them to earth.
Like other comedies by Aristophanes, The World contains many satirical and political attacks. The recently deceased Cleon is sarcastically ridiculed, and Euripides is parodied.
The goddess Irina in the performance was not represented by a person, but by a tall statue.
"War" and "peace", appearing in comedy in a humanized form, do not have the same gender in ancient Greek as in Russian. In the original translation of AI Piotrovsky, the god of war is called Discord, the goddess of peace is Silence.
"The Frogs" (ancient Greek Βάτραχοι) is a comedy by the ancient Greek comedian Aristophanes.
Placed by the author on Leneyah in 405 BC. e. on behalf of Philonides; received the first award (the second went to the "Muses" of Frinih, the third - to "Cleophon" of Plato). The comedy was a resounding success and was soon staged a second time - probably at the Great Dionysia in the same year.
The god of the theater, Dionysus, lamenting that there were no good tragedians left in Athens - shortly before writing the comedy, Euripides Sophocles died one after another, - goes to afterworld to bring Euripides out of there.
Compositionally, the play can be divided into three parts.
The first is a journey to HadesDionysus and his slave Xanthius, who often turns out to be smarter and bolder than his master. Dionysus dresses up as Hercules (who has already been to Hades, performing the 12th feat); asks the real Hercules for directions; crosses the lake on the shuttle of Charon (during the crossing, the song of frogs that gave the name of the comedy sounds with the refrain “Brekekeks, coax, coax” (ancient Greek Βρεκεκεκέξ κοάξ κοάξ), imitating croaking); frightened by empousa; talks with horommists (souls initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries); meets a warm welcome from the maid Persephone and a hostile one from Eakai and two merchants.
The second part is a parabase containing statements on topical issues. According to legend, Aristophanes received an olive wreath for the political advice he gave to the city here.
The third part is a contest between two tragedians; she represents special interest because it is an example of ancient literary criticism. Arriving in Hades, Dionysus discovers that among the dead there is a dispute about who is considered the greatest master of tragedy - Aeschylus or Euripides (Sophocles gave way to Aeschylus out of modesty). Dionysus takes on the role of judge. A long scene follows, during which Aeschylus and Euripides parse, quote, and parody each other's writings. At the end, Dionysus awards the victory to Aeschylus and brings him to the ground instead of Euripides.
Adaptations. Composer Stephen Sondheim wrote a musical of the same name based on "The Frogs", replacing the ancient Greek playwrights with English ones: the "old", Aeschylus, with William Shakespeare, the "new", Euripides, with Bernard Shaw. The role of Dionysus in the 2004 production was played by Nathan Lane
Poetics(other Greek Περὶ ποιητικῆς, lat. Ars Poetica), 335 BC. e. A treatise by Aristotle on the theory of drama. According to ancient catalogs, it consisted of two parts, of which only the first has come down to us. The second part was supposedly devoted to the analysis of comedy; about its content, probably, gives an idea of the Coalen treatise. The earliest known list is dated 1100 AD. A total of five manuscripts have survived.
Euripides (485 or 480–406 BC), Greek poet, author of tragedies, considered (along with Aeschylus and Sophocles) one of the pillars of Greek drama
There are few reliable accounts of Euripides' life. Many of the stories passed down about him by later writers have, in the course of time, come to seem credible, while most of them are unreliable, and some are manifestly unfounded. A true Athenian both by birth and citizenship, Euripides lived permanently in his homeland, with the exception of the last year or two, when he was a guest at the court of the Macedonian king Archelaus.
Euripides' parents were not among the richest or most prominent aristocratic Athenian families. In the comedy Women at the Thesmophoria (p. 387), Aristophanes calls Euripides' mother a "vegetable merchant." Euripides was not poor, although, of course, he could not earn money by writing plays. There is no reason to assume that Euripides took a particularly active part in the socio-political life of Athens, even though his plays show an interest in rhetorical argumentation and, perhaps, Euripides himself was trained in rhetoric. His dramas undoubtedly testify to the author's persistent convictions on many issues of public life. In addition, they indicate his interest in modern theoretical thought and make quite convincing the traditional version of the closeness of Euripides to the Athenian natural philosopher Anaxagoras. Less likely is his friendship with Socrates.
The great comedian Aristophanes disapproved of many of the ideas and techniques of Euripides, which is especially clearly evidenced by the comedy of the Frog. However, these attacks should not be given much importance. In ancient times, they tried to explain the move of Euripides from Athens to Macedonia by the desire to escape from criticism or even threats from opponents. However, moving to Macedonia, Euripides could well count on the warm welcome of King Archelaus, who tried to attract prominent Greeks to his court, so the opportunity to leave the city, exhausted by war and internal strife, was in itself a sufficient reason for such a step. Euripides lived in Macedonia long enough to complete his great tragedy Bacchantes.
Critical Assessment
Euripides is usually spoken of as the third most important among the three great playwrights, whose tragedies mainly made up the glory of Athens in the 5th century. BC. Aeschylus lived in the first half of this century, and his work ended almost fifty years earlier than the work of the other two playwrights. Sophocles was somewhat older than Euripides and outlived him. It should be noted that ancient literature has preserved more passages from Euripides than from Aeschylus and Sophocles combined.
The works of Euripides differ in many ways from the tragedies of Sophocles and Aeschylus, but first you need to point out the features that are characteristic of any Greek tragedy. To a person who first turned to Greek tragedy, these general properties are striking rather than differences, if only because the Greek drama is so unlike contemporary works. Its structure is constant: episodes (dialogues in verse between two or three actors) are interspersed with songs of the choir (written in lyrical poetry). The members of the choir are formally the characters of the tragedy, but in fact they are something between the actors and the audience, they can rather be likened to the choir, which is in some religious ceremonies in the middle between the clergy and the parishioners. Dialogue is often preceded by a lyrical part of the actor, performed solo or accompanied by a choir.
The plot of the tragedy, as a rule, is borrowed from the myth. The history of the Trojan War, the fate that haunted the Mycenaean and Theban dynasties, and many other more or less well-known legends from the distant past provided the authors of tragedies with abundant material. Despite the fact that the outline of the plot is known in advance, its details can change at the request of the poet. In this, the plays of Euripides are similar to those of other Greek playwrights, both in terms of form and content. What indisputably and sharply distinguished them was the difference in the spirit and aims of tragedy. The main difference in form is the frequent use of prologues and epilogues, which are written in the verse usually used in dialogues and are spoken either by one of the characters in the drama or (and this happens more often) by a deity who did not take part in it. The explicit purpose of the prologue is to set out the state of affairs in which the action begins, sometimes hints are made here as to what will happen in the future. The explicit purpose of the epilogue is to make changes in the fate or behavior of the characters and tell the story to the end.
Euripides' worldview
The content of the tragedies, their focus and meaning - that's what distinguishes Euripides from the other two great playwrights. He doesn't idealize his characters. Sophocles allegedly said that he himself depicts people as they should be portrayed, and Euripides as they really are. In the hands of Euripides, traditional myths are subjected to such interpretations and changes that the heroes lose their heroic traits, turning into ordinary people. Only the humble and contemptible characters of Euripides - women (especially young girls), peasants, etc. - are sometimes able to rise above the general level, having accomplished a feat of courage, loyalty and selflessness. In addition, the Athenians understood and sympathized with Euripides' characters not only because they were realistically depicted and reminded them of themselves, but also because, in essence, he portrayed his contemporaries in tragedies.
The theme of the tragedy is the misfortunes and suffering that fall to the lot of people. What is their reason? Aeschylus' answer can be summarized as follows: this is the punishment for sin. Sophocles sees the cause in the combination of human pride with stubbornness and their collision with an accident (moreover, the gods sanction what is happening rather than adjust it). Euripides, on the other hand, saw the reason exclusively in human nature: this is the ignorance and stupidity of the people themselves, their unbridled passions and feelings, their greed, ambition and cruelty, which ruin both their own lives and the lives of loved ones. Euripides' view of life can be called sad, but by no means cynical: evil and error can be opposed by virtue and common sense. Too often, however, evil triumphs and misfortune breaks out. Be that as it may, the gods do not interfere in the lives of people in any way. We ourselves are responsible (of course, within the limits allotted to us) for everything good and bad that happens to us in life.
tragedy
Under the name of Euripides, 19 plays have been almost completely preserved to this day. One of them, Res, is an inept arrangement of the Xth Canto of the Iliad and is almost certainly not by Euripides. Another, Cyclops, belongs to the genre of not tragedy, but drama and is the only completely surviving play of this kind, despite the fact that all tragedians wrote satyr dramas. These merry, comical parodies of the tragedy, in which the choir was made up of satyrs, were staged at drama competitions in honor of the feast of the Great Dionysius, as an appendix to the tragic trilogy. The remaining 17 tragedies, about a fifth of all written by Euripides, belong to the mature period of his work. The dating of most of them is doubtful, although some linguistic features make it possible to distinguish early works from later ones.
Alkesta
Being a tragedy in form, the content of Alkest is rather a fairy tale with a happy ending. Admet, king of Ther in Thessaly, is doomed to die if no one gives his life for him. Only his wife Alcesta agrees to die for him. She dies and her body is placed in the tomb. Soon Hercules turns up in Fera, who spends the night visiting his old friend Admet. Upon learning of his misfortune, Hercules lies in wait near the tomb of the god of death Thanatos, overcomes him and returns Alcesta to life.
Medea is a story of female revenge. Jason, who returned from Colchis as a winner, with the Golden Fleece, brought with him the Colchis princess Medea. They settled in Corinth and lived happily there for many years. But now Jason is going to marry a Corinthian princess (a foreigner is not recognized as his legal wife). Jason is not a hero here, but it would be unfair to perceive him as a scoundrel worthy of contempt, as Medea believes, and most modern readers with her. Jason claims, and not without reason, that new marriage will ensure the safety of Medea, and their children, and Jason himself. However, Medea, whom Jason's betrayal throws into a frenzy, thinks only of revenge. She manages to exterminate the princess by sending her a poisoned cloak as a gift. Then, having endured a difficult struggle with maternal feelings, Medea inflicts a truly crushing blow on Jason, killing her own and his sons. In the finale, we see Medea, who flies up on a winged chariot sent to her by her grandfather, the god of the Sun, and revels in the grief and horror of Jason, who is deprived even of the opportunity to punish her for the crime.
Hippolytus is the story of a pure young man prone to asceticism, the son of Theseus from an Amazon. Hippolytus incurred the wrath of the goddess of love Aphrodite with his contempt for her and exclusive devotion to Artemis, the patroness of hunting. To destroy the young man, Aphrodite makes Phaedra, Theseus' wife and stepmother Hippolytus, fall in love with him. Phaedra is ready to die of love rather than discover her passion. However, the old nurse Phaedra, wanting to save her, initiates Hippolytus into the secret, he listens to her story with horror and disgust. Phaedra commits suicide, but resentment prompts her to leave a note in which she accuses Hippolytus of encroaching on her honor. Theseus finds this message and sends his son into exile. This curse must inevitably come true - as Poseidon promised Theseus at one time, and it really becomes the cause of the death of Hippolytus. The dying youth is brought back to Athens, and Artemis appears in the epilogue and reveals the truth, but too late.
XII. EURIPID
1. Biography.
Euripides (c. 480-406 BC), one of the greatest playwrights, was a junior contemporary of Aeschylus and Sophocles. He was born on the island of Salamis. Biographical information about Euripides is scarce and contradictory. Aristophanes in his comedy "Women at the Feast of Thesmosphoria" says that the mother of Euripides was a greengrocer, but the later biographer Philochor denies this. There is no doubt that the family of Euripides had the means and therefore the great tragedian was able to get a good education: he studied with the philosopher Anaxagoras and the sophist Protagoras, the Roman writer Aul Gellius (Attic Nights) speaks about this. In 408, Euripides, at the invitation of King Archelaus, moved to Macedonia, where he died.
Euripides began in the heyday of the Athenian policy, but most of his activity takes place already in the years of the decline of this slave-owning republic. He witnessed the long and exhausting Peloponnesian War for Athens, which lasted from 431 to 404 BC. This war was equally aggressive both from Athens and from Sparta, but still it is necessary to note the difference in the political positions of these two policies: Athens, as a democratic slave-owning state, introduced the principles of slave-owning democracy into the areas conquered during the war, and Sparta everywhere planted an oligarchy. Euripides, in contrast to Aeschylus and Sophocles, did not hold any public office. He served his country with his work. He wrote more than 90 tragedies, of which 17 have come down to us (the 18th tragedy "Rhea" is attributed to Euripides). In addition, one satyr drama by Euripides "Cyclops" has come down to us and many fragments of his tragedies have been preserved.
Most of the tragedies of Euripides have to be dated only approximately, since there is no exact data on the time of their production. The chronological sequence of his tragedies is as follows: Alkes-ta - 438, Medea - 431, Hippolytus - 428, Heraclides - ca. 427, "Hercules", "Hecuba" and "Andromache" - c. 423-421, "Petitioners" - probably 416, "Ion", "Troyanka" - 415, "Electra", "Iphigenia in Tauris" - c. 413, "Elena" - 412, "Phoenician women" - 410 - 408, "Orest" - 408, "Bacchae" and "Iphigenia in Aulis" were staged after the death of Euripides.
3. Criticism of mythology.
Euripides is extremely radical in his views, approaching the Greek natural philosophers and sophists regarding their criticism of traditional mythology. For example, he believes that at first there was a common undivided material mass, then it was divided into ether (sky) and earth, then plants, animals and people appeared (fragment 484).
His critical attitude to mythology as the basis of the folk Greek religion is known. He recognizes some divine essence, ruling the world. No wonder the comedian Aristophanes, a contemporary of Euripides, who considers this tragedian the destroyer of all folk traditions, laughs evilly at him and in the comedy "The Frogs" says through Dionysus that he has gods "of his own special coinage" (885-894).
Euripides depicts the gods almost always from the most negative sides, as if wanting to inspire viewers with distrust of traditional beliefs. So, in the tragedy "Hercules" Zeus appears evil, capable of disgracing someone else's family, the goddess Hera, the wife of Zeus, - vengeful, bringing suffering to the famous Greek hero Hercules only because he is the natural son of Zeus. The god Apollo is cruel and treacherous in the tragedy Orestes. It was he who forced Orestes to kill his mother, and then did not consider it necessary to protect him from the revenge of Erinyes (this interpretation differs sharply from the interpretation of Aeschylus in his Oresteia trilogy). Just as heartless and envious as Hera, the goddess Aphrodite in the tragedy Hippolytus. She is jealous of Artemis, who is revered by the beautiful Hippolyte. Out of hatred for the young man, Aphrodite kindles in the heart of his stepmother, Queen Phaedra, a criminal passion for her stepson, due to which both Phaedra and Hippolytus perish.
Critically portraying the gods of popular religion, Euripides expresses the idea that such images are not the fruit of the imagination of poets. So, through the mouth of Hercules, he says:
In addition, I did not believe and do not believe that God would eat the forbidden fruit, that God would have bonds in his hands, And one god would command the other. No, the deity is self-sufficient: All this is nonsense of impudent singers 3 . ("Hercules", 1342-1346.)
4. Anti-war tendencies and democracy.
Euripides was a patriot of his native polis and tirelessly emphasized the superiority of democratic Athens over the oligarchic Sparta. More than once, Euripides portrayed his people as the defenders of weak, small states. So, using the myth, he carries out this idea in the tragedy "Heraclides". To the children of Hercules - Heraclides, who were expelled from their native city by the Mycenaean king Eurystheus, none of the states, being afraid military force Mycenae, did not give shelter, did not stand up for them. Only Athens protects the offended, and the Athenian ruler Demophon, expressing the will of his people, says to the envoy of the Mycenaean king, who was trying to drag the children away from the Athenian altars:
But if anything excites Me, then this is the highest argument: honor. After all, if I allow some foreigner to tear off those praying from the altar by force, then farewell, Athenian freedom! Everyone will say, That out of fear of Argos - I insulted the plea of Treason. Worse than the loop is Consciousness (242-250).
The Athenians defeated the troops of Eurystheus and return the Heraclides to their hometown. At the end of the tragedy, the choir sings the glory of Athens. The main idea of the tragedy is expressed by the luminary of the choir, saying: "It is not the first time that the Athenian land stands for the truth and the unfortunate" (330).
The tragedy of Euripides "The Petitioners" is also patriotic. It depicts the relatives of the soldiers who fell under the walls of Thebes during the fratricidal war between Eteocles and Polyneices. The Thebans do not allow the families of the dead to take the corpses for burial. Then the relatives of the dead soldiers turn to Athens for help. The conversation between the Athenian king Theseus and Adrastus, the envoy of the relatives of the fallen soldiers, is the glorification of democratic Athens, the defender of the weak and oppressed. The choir sings:
You help mothers, help, O city of Pallas, May they not trample on common laws, You observe justice, alien to injustice, You are the patron of everyone, no matter who was dishonorably offended (378-381).
In the same dialogue, through the mouth of Theseus, the aggressive wars started by the rulers because of their own selfish interests are condemned. Theseus says to Adrastus:
Those are eager for glory, these are inflating the Game of war and corrupting citizens, Those are aiming at generals, those - at the authorities, To show their temper, and those are attracted by profit - They do not think about the disasters of the people (233-237).
Euripides reflected the hatred of the Athenians for Sparta in the tragedies "Andromache" and "Orestes". In the first of these tragedies, he portrays the cruel Menelaus and his no less cruel wife Helen and daughter Hermione, who treacherously broke their word, did not stop before killing the child of Andromache, born of her son Achilles Neoptolemus, to whom she was given as a concubine after the fall of Troy. . Andromache sends curses on the head of the Spartans. Peleus, father of Achilles, also curses the arrogant and cruel Spartans. The anti-Spartan tendencies of the Andromache tragedy met with a lively response in the soul of the Athenian citizens, everyone knew the cruelty of the Spartans towards prisoners and enslaved helots. The same ideas are carried out by Euripides in the tragedy "Orestes", drawing the Spartans as cruel, treacherous people. Thus, Clytemnestra's father Tyndar demands the execution of Orestes for the murder of his mother, although Orestes says that he committed this crime on the orders of the god Apollo. Pitiful and cowardly Menelaus. Orestes reminds him of his father Agamemnon, who, like a brother, came to the aid of Menelaus, went with his troops to Troy to save Helen and, at the cost of great sacrifice, saved her, returned Menelaus his lost happiness. Recalling his father, Orestes asks Menelaus to help him now, the son of Agamemnon, but Menelaus replies that he does not have the strength to fight the Argos and can only act by cunning. Then Orestes bitterly remarks:
Nothing like a king, but a worthless coward at heart Having left friends in trouble, you run! (717-718)
The tragedies of Euripides with anti-Spartan tendencies closely adjoin tragedies in which the author expresses his anti-war views and condemns aggressive wars. These are the tragedy "Hecuba", staged around 423, and the tragedy "Trojanka", staged in 415.
The tragedy "Hecuba" describes the suffering of Priam's family, which, together with other captives, after the capture of Troy, the Achaeans lead to Greece. Hecuba's daughter Polyxena is sacrificed in honor of the murdered Achilles, and her only surviving son Polydorus is killed by the Thracian king Polymestor, to whom the child was sent to save him from the horrors of war. Hecuba humbly asks Odysseus to help her save her daughter, but he is relentless. Euripides draws Polyxena as a proud girl who does not want to humiliate herself in front of the Greek victors and goes to her death:
What promises me The temper of my future masters? Some savage, having bought me, will make Grind the wheat, the house of revenge... ... And the weary day will end, and the purchased slave will desecrate my bed... (358-365). I have nothing and no reason to fight (371). ... Life will become a burden for us when there is no beauty in it (378).
As a great connoisseur of the human soul, Euripides depicts the last minutes of Polyxena's life, proudly going to her death; but it’s hard to die in the prime of life, and she, clinging to her mother, sends greetings to her sister Cassandra, who became the concubine of Agamemnon, and her little brother Polydor. Polyxena dies as a heroine. Her last words were:
You, sons of Argos, That my city was destroyed! By my will I die. Let no one hold Me... ...But let me die Free, I conjure the gods. Just like I was free. The princess is ashamed to descend as a slave to the shadows (545-552).
The tragedy of Hecuba is pessimistic in its mood, the author, as it were, wants to say that human life is hard, injustice, violence, the power of gold reign everywhere - such is the law of life and such are the last words of the tragedy: "necessity is adamant."
The tragedy of Troyanka is close to this tragedy in its anti-war tendencies and even in its plot. It also describes the suffering of captive Trojan women, among whom are the women of the family of King Priam.
This tragedy, like the tragedy of Hecuba, depicts a war between the Greeks and the Trojans, contrary to the usual mythological interpretation that glorifies the exploits of the Achaeans. The Trojan Women depicts the insane suffering of women and children after the fall of Troy.
A messenger from the victorious Greeks informs the family of Priam that the wife of King Hecub will be a slave of Odysseus, her eldest daughter Cassandra will become the concubine of Agamemnon, the younger Polixena will be sacrificed at the grave of Achilles, Hector's wife Andromache will be given as a concubine to Achilles' son Neoptolemus.
Andromache is deprived of her baby son Hector, although she begs to leave him to her, since the child is not guilty of anything before the Greeks. The victors kill the child, throwing it off the wall, and the corpse is brought to his grandmother, Hecuba, distraught from suffering.
The unfortunate old woman, who has lost her homeland and all her loved ones, screams over the corpse of her grandson:
Blood is flowing from the crushed skull... I'll keep silent about the worst... About hands, Exactly like father's! The joints are all Shattered... O sweet mouth... (1177-1180). ...What will the poet write on your tombstone? "The Argives killed this boy Out of fear" - a verse shameful for Hellas (1189-1191).
In many tragedies where the idea of patriotism is promoted, Euripides depicts heroes sacrificing their lives for the sake of their homeland. So, in the tragedy "Heraclides" the daughter of Hercules, young Macaria, sacrifices herself, saving her native city, her brothers and sisters.
In the tragedy "Phoenician Women" (staged between 410-408), the son of Creon, the young man Menekey, sacrifices his life for the sake of the victory of the motherland over the enemies. The father persuades the son not to go on such a feat, but to go somewhere far away, outside the homeland. Menekey pretends to agree with the will of his father, but in his heart he has already firmly decided to give his life for the sake of saving his homeland.
Euripides was very upset by the entire course of the Peloponnesian War, the hardships and military defeats of his fellow citizens. He saw that the principles of the democratic polis system were collapsing, that privileged social groups, the rich, money dealers, owners of land and enterprises were coming to the helm of the state. Therefore, the playwright in his tragedies defends the principles of Athenian democracy with such passion and stigmatizes tyranny. He considered the middle social groups, that is, small free workers, peasants and artisans, to be the basis of Athenian democracy. In the tragedy "The Petitioner" its main character Theseus, the spokesman for the views of Euripides himself, says:
There are three kinds of citizens: some are rich And useless, everything is always not enough for them, Others are poor, in eternal lack. They are terrible, they are seized by envy, And in anger they aptly sting the rich. They are driven down by the bad tongues of the Troubles. The third kind is the middle one, Support of the state and protection of the Law in it... (238-246).
Aristotle adhered to the same views ("Politics", VI, 9).
Free small workers Euripides depicted with deep sympathy, especially the toilers of the earth. The old honest farmer in the tragedy "Electra", to whom Queen Clytemnestra marries her daughter in order to remove her from the palace, as she is afraid of her daughter's revenge for her murdered father, understood the plan of the insidious Clytemnestra, considers his marriage fictitious, protects the honor of Electra and treats her like a daughter. The peasant is kind and hardworking, he says: "Yes, whoever is lazy, let the words of prayers not leave his lips, but he will not take bread" (81).
The same image of an honest farmer, the custodian of the democratic principles of Athens is given in the tragedy "Orestes". Only he alone spoke in defense of Orestes at a public meeting, demanding indulgence for this young man, since the murder of Clytemnestra was committed by him on the orders of the god Apollo. This is how Euripides characterizes this citizen, dear to his heart:
Here stands the orator - not a handsome man, But a strong husband; not often leaving a footprint On the square of Argive, He plows his land - on such Now the country rests. He is not poor in mind, if there is sometimes a chance To measure himself in a verbal contest. And in life he is an impeccable husband (917-924).
5. Social dramas.
The tragedies of Euripides should be divided into two groups: on the one hand, tragedies in the full sense of the word, and on the other, social and everyday dramas, which depict not heroes who are outstanding in their thoughts and deeds, but ordinary people. Will bring to these dramas comic element, which the classical ancient tragedy absolutely did not allow, and a successful denouement, which also contradicts the canon of the tragic genre. These should include such, for example, plays as Alkesta, Elena, Ion.
a) Alkesta.
Alcesta was staged in 438; of the works of Euripides that have come down to us, this is the earliest. The hero of the drama is the Thessalian king Admet, whom the gods promised that his life could be extended if someone voluntarily agreed to die for him. When Admet fell seriously ill and was threatened with death, none of his relatives, even his elderly parents, wanted to die in his place, and only him young wife, the beauty of Alcesta, agreed to such a sacrifice.
Euripides depicts with great skill the last moments of Alcesta's life, her farewell to her husband, children, slaves. Alkesta loves life, and it is hard for her to die, but even in her dying delirium she thinks about the fate of her husband and children.
Alkesta's husband, Tsar Admet, is an ordinary person, not a hero: a good family man, loves his wife and children, is hospitable to friends, a hospitable host, but an egoist and loves himself most of all. Admet curses himself for accepting the sacrifice of his wife, but is not capable of self-sacrifice, of a feat.
There is a scene in the play that really convinces that there is only one step from the tragic to the comic - when the father of Admet Feret brings a veil and wants to cover the corpse of the deceased with it. Admet is outraged by the behavior of his father, who did not sacrifice his fading life to save his only son, but reproaches his father for selfishness, and the father, in turn, scolds his son for relying on self-sacrifice from his parents. The old man accuses his son of living, in essence, at the expense of his wife, who sacrificed her young life. This quarrel between two egoists is both comical and bitter. Euripides very vividly conveys it with the help of short, ordinary, catchy phrases:
Admet (pointing to the corpse of Alcesta) You see your guilt there, old man. Feret Il bury her for me, you say? Admet You will need me too, I hope. Feret Change your wives more often, you will be more whole. Admet You are ashamed. Why did you spare yourself? Feret Oh, this god's torch is so beautiful. ADMET And this is the husband? A disgrace among men... Feret I'd become a laughing stock for you when I died. Admet You will die, too, but you will die ingloriously. Feret Infamy does not reach the dead. Admetus Such an old man... And at least a shadow of shame... (717 - 727).
Admet and Feret are ordinary people as they are. No wonder Aristotle noted that Sophocles depicts people as they should be, and Euripides - as they are ("Poetics", 25).
The playwright draws Hercules not in the halo of exploits, but in an ordinary a good man who knows how to enjoy life, capable of a deep sense of friendship. Euripides tells how Hercules, on the way to Thrace, comes to Admetus, and he, not wanting to upset his friend, does not tell him about the death of his wife, but arranges a treat in one of the remote rooms of the palace. Hercules gets drunk, sings songs loudly, and this behavior outrages the slave who served him, who mourns for Alces. Hercules is at a loss and delivers a whole speech in which he tells his worldly sges! About what to live, they say, is necessary for fun, for love, for enjoyment. But when Hercules learns from a slave that Alcesta has died, then for the sake of his friend he descends into Hades, beats off Alcesta from the demon of death and returns her to Admet, distraught with joy.
b) Elena.
Euripides' play "Helen", staged in 412, should also be attributed to the same genre of social dramas. It used little known myth that Paris took with him to Troy not Helen, but only her ghost, and the real Helen, by the will of Hera, was transferred to Egypt to King Proteus. The son of this king, Theoclymenos, wants to marry Elena, but she persists, wanting to remain faithful to her husband. After the fall of Troy, Menelaus takes a ship home; the storm wrecked his ship, but Menelaus, with several comrades and the ghost of Helen, escaped and was thrown onto the coast of Egypt. Here he accidentally meets the real Elena at the gate, who comes up with a cunning escape plan. She tells Theoclymenes that she will become his wife, but only asks for one favor - to allow her, according to Greek custom, to do it at sea funeral rite in honor of the deceased Menelaus. The king gives her a boat, rowers, and now Elena in a mourning dress gets into the boat, the rowers enter there, among them Menelaus and his comrades, all dressed in Egyptian clothes. When the boat was already far from the shore, Menelaus and his friends killed the Egyptian rowers, their corpses were thrown overboard and, with raised sails, headed for the shores of Hellas.
Before us is again not a classic Greek tragedy, but an everyday drama with a happy ending, with ups and downs of an adventure nature, with the idea of glorifying true conjugal love. The Helena of this drama is not at all like the Helena depicted in the tragedies "Andromache", "The Trojan Women" and "Orestes", where she appears before us as a narcissistic beauty, cheating on her husband and throwing herself into the arms of Paris. This image is far from the Homeric image beautiful Elena, forcibly taken away by Paris to Troy, languishing away from her homeland, but not taking any steps to return to her family.
c) Ion.
In terms of social drama created by Euripides and the play "Ion". It depicts the son of Apollo, Ion, born of Creusa, the victim of this god. To hide his shame, Creusa throws the baby into the temple. Subsequently, she marries the Athenian king Xuthus and by chance, thanks to the preserved swaddling clothes in which the child was once thrown, she finds her son, who has already become a young man. The plot of the abandoned child later, in the era of Hellenism, would become the most popular among Greek comedians, who generally believed that they "came out of the dramas of Euripides", since according to ideological content, in the depiction of characters, in composition, the Hellenistic comedies are undoubtedly very close to the social dramas of Euripides. In the dramas of Euripides, one of the most important guiding forces is no longer fate, but an accident that has befallen a person. As is known, the role of chance will be especially significant in Hellenistic literature.
6. Psychological tragedy.
Among the works of Euripides, the famous tragedies with a pronounced psychological orientation, due to the great interest of the playwright in the personality of a person, with all its contradictions and passions, stand out especially.
a) Medea
One of the most remarkable tragedies of Euripides - "Medea" was staged on the Athenian stage in 431. The enchantress Medea is the daughter of the Colchis king, the granddaughter of the Sun, who fell in love with Jason, one of the Argonauts who came to Colchis for the Golden Fleece. For the sake of a loved one, she left her family, her homeland, helped him master the Golden Fleece, committed a crime, and came with him to Greece. To her horror, Medea learns that Jason wants to leave her and marry the princess, heir to the throne of Corinth. It is especially difficult for her, because she is a "barbarian", lives in a foreign land, where there are no relatives or friends. Medea is outraged by the clever sophistical arguments of her husband, who is trying to convince her that he is marrying the princess for the sake of their little sons, who will be princes, heirs to the kingdom. Offended in her feelings, a woman understands that the driving force behind her husband's actions is the desire for wealth, for power. Medea wants to take revenge on Jason, who ruthlessly ruined her life, and destroys her rival, sending her a poisoned outfit with her children. She decides to kill the children, for the sake of the future happiness of which, according to Jason, he enters into a new marriage.
Medea, contrary to the norms of polis ethics, commits a crime, believing that a person can act as his personal aspirations and passions dictate to him. This is a kind of refraction in everyday practice of the sophistical theory that "man is the measure of all things", a theory undoubtedly condemned by Euripides. As a deep psychologist, Euripides could not but show a storm of torment in the soul of Medea, who planned to kill the children. Two feelings struggle in it: jealousy and love for children, passion and a sense of duty to children. Jealousy prompts her decision - to kill the children and thereby take revenge on her husband, love for the children makes her discard the terrible decision and take a different plan - to escape from Corinth with the children. This painful struggle between duty and passion, depicted with great skill by Euripides, is the climax of the entire chorus of the tragedy. Medea caresses the children. She decided to leave their lives and go into exile:
Alien to you, I will drag out the days. And never, having changed a different life, you will not see me, which carried you ... With these eyes. Alas! Alas! Why are you looking at me and laughing with your last laugh?.. (1036-1041).
But the involuntarily escaped words "with the last laugh" express another, terrible decision, which has already matured in the recesses of her soul - to kill the children. However, Medea, touched by their appearance, tries to convince herself to abandon the terrible intention dictated by insane jealousy, but jealousy and offended pride take precedence over maternal feeling. And a minute later, we again have a mother who convinces herself to abandon her plan. And then the pernicious thought of the need to take revenge on her husband, again a storm of jealousy and the final decision to kill the children ...
So I swear by Hades and all the underworld power, That the enemies of my children, Abandoned by Medea for mockery, cannot be seen ... (1059-1963).
The unfortunate mother last time caresses her children, but understands that the murder is inevitable:
Oh sweet hugs, The cheek is so tender, and the mouth A pleasant breath... Go away... Go away quickly... There is no strength to look at you... I am crushed by flour... What I dare, I see... Only anger is stronger than me , and there is no more ferocious and more zealous executioner for the kind of mortals (1074-1080).
Euripides reveals the soul of a man tormented by an internal struggle between duty and passion. Showing this tragic conflict, without embellishing reality, the playwright comes to the conclusion that passion often takes precedence over duty, destroying the human personality.
b) In terms of the idea, dynamics and character of the main character, the tragedy "Medea" is close to the tragedy "Hippolytus", staged in 428. The young Athenian queen, the wife of Theseus Phaedra, passionately fell in love with her stepson Hippolytus. She understands that her duty is to be a faithful wife and an honest mother, but she cannot tear out a criminal passion from her heart. The Nurse asks Phaedra for her secret and informs Hippolytus of Phaedra's love for him. The young man in anger brands his stepmother and sends curses on the head of all women, considering them the cause of evil and debauchery in the world.
Offended by the undeserved accusations of Hippolytus, Phaedra commits suicide, but in order to save her name from shame and protect her children from it, she also leaves her husband a letter in which she accuses Hippolytus of encroaching on her honor. Theseus, after reading the letter, curses his son, and he soon dies: the god Poseidon, fulfilling the will of Theseus, sends a monstrous bull, in horror from which the horses of the young man rushed, and he breaks on the rocks. The goddess Artemis reveals to Theseus the secret of his wife. In this tragedy, as in the tragedy of Medea, Euripides skillfully reveals the psychology of the tormented soul of Phaedra, who despises herself for her criminal passion for her stepson, but at the same time only thinks about her beloved, tirelessly dreams of meeting and intimacy with him.
Both tragedies are similar in composition: the prologue explains the reason for the situation, then the heroines are shown in the grip of a painful conflict between duty and passion, the whole tragedy is built on this high tension, realistically revealing the secrets of the heroines' souls. But the outcome of the tragedies is mythological: Medea will be saved by her grandfather, the god Helios, and she, with the corpses of the killed children, flies away on his chariot. The goddess Artemis appears to Theseus and reports that his son is not guilty of anything, that he was slandered by Phaedra. Such endings, where the knot of the conflict is resolved with the help of the gods, sometimes contradicting the entire logical course of tragedies, is usually called in the practice of the ancient theater deus ex machipa, characteristic of Euripides, the master of complex, intricate situations.
7. Special interpretation myth.
Euripides in his tragedies often changes old myths, leaving them, in fact, only the names of the heroes. Great tragedian, using mythological subjects, expresses in them the thoughts and feelings of his contemporaries, raises topical issues of his time. He, if I may say so, modernizes the myth. And this is the great difference between Euripides and Aeschylus and Sophocles. The difference in the artistic system of the playwrights is especially noticeable when comparing the tragedy of Euripides "Electra" with the tragedy of the same name by Sophocles and with the tragedy of Aeschylus "Choephora", which is the second part of his trilogy "Oresteia". The plot in them is the same - the murder of Clytemnestra by her children Orestes and Electra as revenge for the murdered father.
In Aeschylus, both heroes, Orestes and Electra, are still completely dominated by religious principles, they fulfill the order of Apollo to kill their mother because she killed their father, her husband, the head of the family and the state, violating the priority of the paternal principle.
Aeschylus still has great respect for the myth, with him the gods to a large extent decide the fate of people. For Sophocles, Electra and Orestes are also champions of the laws given by the gods, for Euripides, they are just unfortunate children abandoned by their mother for the sake of Aegisthus' lover. Wishing to strengthen his position, Clytemnestra deliberately passes off Elektra as an old poor farmer, so as not to have pretenders to the throne from his daughter. Orestes and Electra kill their mother because she deprived them of the joy of life, deprived their father.
The whole interpretation of the murder by Orestes and Elektra of their mother by Euripides is revealed more vitally, psychologically more deeply.
In the tragedy "Electra", Euripides condemns the methods by which Aeschylus and Sophocles recognize Elektra's brother: by a lock of Orestes' hair, cut off by him and laid on his father's grave, by the trace of his feet near this grave. In Euripides, when Uncle Orestes suggests that Electra put the lock of hair found on the grave to her locks, she, expressing the arguments of the author himself, laughs at him.
And this strand? But could the color of the hair of the Tsarevich, who grew up in the palestra, And the delicate color of the maiden's braids cherished by a comb, could preserve the resemblance? (526-530)
When the old man invites Electra to compare the footprint on the ground near the grave with the footprint of her foot, the girl again says with a sneer:
On the stone footprint? What are you saying, old man? Yes, if his trace had remained, Is it really possible for a brother and sister to match the size of their legs? (534-537)
The old man asks Elektra that maybe she recognizes her brother by the clothes of her work, in which Orestes was once sent to a foreign land. Euripides laughs at this too, putting the following sarcastic objections into the mouth of Electra:
Are you delirious? Why, then, old man, I was a child: Will my brother put on this chlamys even now? Or maybe clothes grow with us? (541-544)
Quite differently from Aeschylus, he depicts Euripides and the scene of the murder of his mother by Orestes. Without hesitation, even with malice, he kills her lover Aegisthus, as the culprit of all the suffering of his family, but it is terrible and painful for him to kill his mother. Aeschylus shows only the moment of Orestes' hesitation before the murder of his mother. Euripides depicts the terrible torment of his son, who cannot raise his hand against his mother, and when Electra reproaches him for cowardice, he, covering his face with a cloak so as not to see his mother, strikes her with a sword ...
After the murder, Orestes is tormented by pangs of conscience. In the tragedy "Orestes", which was staged in 408 and which reveals the same plot as the tragedy "Electra", only slightly expanding it, the sick Orestes to the question: "What ailment is tormenting?" - directly answers: "His name is and the villains have a conscience."
In Aeschylus, in the trilogy "Orestes" Erinyes, terrible goddesses, defenders of maternal rights, pursue Orestes, in Euripides, in the tragedy "Orestess" - this is a sick young man suffering from seizures, and after the murder, during delirium, it only seems to him that Erinyes is around wishing for his death. And in Medea, contrary to the myth, Euripides forces the mother to kill her children. What is important here for Euripides is not the mythology of tragedy, but the closeness of characters and life situations.
8. "Iphigenia in Aulis" - an example of a pathetic tragedy.
Posthumous tragedies of Euripides were the tragedies of "Bacchae" with its complex religious and psychological problems and "Iphigenia in Aulis". Both of them were staged at the feast of the city's Dionysius in 406. For the tragedy "Iphigenia in Aulis", the author was awarded the first prize. "Iphigenia in Aulis" is one of the perfect tragedies of Euripides. It depicts the Achaean army, ready to sail on ships from Aulis to Troy. The goddess Artemis, insulted by Agamemnon, does not send a fair wind. In order for the wind to blow and the Greeks to reach Troy, and therefore conquer it, it is necessary to sacrifice the eldest daughter of Agamemnon Iphigenia to Artemis. Her father calls her together with her mother under the pretext of the girl’s marriage to Achilles, but the goddess Artemis herself saves Iphigenia and, invisibly to everyone around, during the sacrifice, transfers her to her temple, to distant Tauris.
If in the tragedies of Euripides "Hecuba", "Andromache", "Trojan women", "Electra" and "Orestes" the Greek campaign in Troy is depicted as an aggressive war, the purpose of which is to defeat Troy and take Helen, the wife of Menelaus, then in the tragedy "Iphigenia in Aulis" the war of the Greeks with the Trojans is covered from Homeric positions, that is, as a war for the honor of Hellas. Such an interpretation, raising the patriotic spirit of the Greeks, was especially relevant in last years 5th century BC. for Hellas and the policies depleted by the Peloponnesian war. People sacrificing themselves for the sake of their homeland were more than once portrayed in the tragedies of Euripides: Macarius in the tragedy "Heraclides", Menekey in the tragedy "Phoenician Women", Praxiteus in the tragedy "Erechtheus" (only a fragment reached) - but there these images were not the main ones.
Iphigenia, central character this tragedy, sacrifices his life for the sake of his homeland. She is shown surrounded by people who are experiencing a painful conflict between duty and personal happiness. So, Agamemnon must sacrifice his daughter for the victory of Greece, but he does not dare to do this. Then, after painful torments, he nevertheless sends a letter to his wife so that she brings Iphigenia to Aulis, since Achilles allegedly wooed the girl. Soon Agamemnon comes to the conclusion that it is impossible to sacrifice his daughter and writes a second letter to his wife that there is no need to come with Iphigenia, since the wedding is postponed. This letter was intercepted by Menelaus, he reproaches Agamemnon for selfishness, for lack of love for the motherland. Meanwhile, Clytemnestra, having received her husband's first letter, arrives with Iphigenia in Aulis. Agamemnon suffers greatly when he meets his daughter, but the sense of duty wins. He knows that the entire army understands the inevitability of this sacrifice. Agamemnon convinces Iphigenia that her homeland needs her life, that she must die for her honor. In contrast to Agamemnon, Clytemnestra cares only about the happiness of her family and does not want to sacrifice her daughter for the common good.
Achilles indignantly learns that Agamemnon deliberately lied in a letter to his wife about his marriage to their daughter, but he is touched by the beauty of the girl, her defenselessness, and he offers her his help. However, Iphigenia has already decided on the sacrifice and refuses his offer. Achilles is struck by the nobility of the girl's soul, her heroism, and love for Iphigenia is born in his heart. After some time, he already persuades her to refuse self-sacrifice, since he puts personal happiness above duty to the motherland. Thus, the people around Iphigenia are depicted by Euripides as immersed in the conflict between duty and personal happiness. Iphigenia herself plays the main role in resolving this conflict. Her image is revealed by the author with high pathos and love, and the achievement of Euripides is that it is not static, like most images of ancient tragedies, but given in its own internal development. At the beginning of the tragedy, we are simply a sweet, glorious girl, happy from the consciousness of her youth, full of joy from the upcoming marriage with the glorious hero of Hellas, Achilles. She is glad to meet her beloved father, but she feels that her father is worried about something. Soon she learns that she was brought to Aulis not for marriage with Achilles, but for a sacrifice to the goddess Artemis, and that this sacrifice is needed by her homeland. But the girl does not want to bring life to the altar of her homeland, she wants to live, just live, and begs her father not to destroy her: “After all, looking at the world is so sweet, but descending into underworld so scary - have mercy "(1218 et seq.). Iphigenia recalls to her father the days of her childhood, when she, caressing, promised to rest him in her old age:
I keep everything in my memory, all the little words; And you forgot, you are glad to kill me (1230 ff.).
Iphigenia forces her little brother Orestes to kneel and beg his father to spare her, Iphigenia. Then she exclaims in despair:
What else can I say? It is gratifying for a mortal to see the sun, And it's so scary underground... If someone does not want to live, he is sick: the burden of life, All torment is better than the glory of a dead man (1249-1253).
Further, Euripides shows the indignation of the army, which is eager to go under Troy, and demands that Iphigenia be sacrificed, otherwise there will be no fair wind, otherwise you will not reach the enemy and defeat him. And now, seeing warriors eager to defend the honor of their homeland, ready to give their lives for it, Iphigenia gradually realizes that it is shameful for her to put her happiness above the common good of warriors, that she must give her life to defeat the enemy. Even when Achilles tells her of his love and offers to secretly run away with him, she firmly declares her readiness to die for the honor of the fatherland. So Iphigenia from a naive frightened girl turns into a heroine who realizes her sacrifice.
9. General conclusion.
Euripides in his tragedies raised and resolved a number of topical issues of his time - the question of duty and personal happiness, the role of the state and its laws. He protested against aggressive wars, criticized religious traditions, and promoted the ideas of a humane attitude towards people. His tragedies depict people big feelings, sometimes committing crimes, and Euripides, as a deep psychologist, reveals the breaks in the soul of such people, their painful suffering. No wonder Aristotle considered him the most tragic poet ("Poetics", 13).
Euripides - great master constructing the ups and downs of tragedies, they are always causally motivated, vitally justified.
The language of tragedy is simple and expressive. The choir no longer plays in his tragedies big role, he sings beautiful lyrical songs, but does not participate in resolving the conflict.
Euripides was not fully understood by his contemporaries, since his rather bold views on nature, society, and religion seemed to go too far beyond the usual framework of the ideology of the majority.
But this tragedian was highly appreciated in the era of Hellenism, when his social and everyday dramas began to enjoy special popularity, undoubtedly having a great influence on the dramaturgy of Menander and other Hellenistic writers.
Brief information:
Euripides (also Euripides, 480, Salamis - 406 BC) is a Greek poet, considered (together with Aeschylus and Sophocles) one of the pillars of Greek drama, a representative of the new Attic tragedy, in which psychology prevails over the idea of divine fate.
The outlook of Euripides, in comparison with the other two great playwrights: E. does not idealize his characters. Sophocles portrays people as they should be portrayed, and Euripides as they really are. In Euripides, the heroes in traditional myths turn into ordinary people. The Athenians understood the characters of Euripides, because. he portrayed his contemporaries in tragedies.
The reason for the unhappiness of people according to Aeschylus: this is the punishment for sin. According to Sophocles: the combination of human pride with stubbornness and their clash with an accident (moreover, the gods "sanction" what is happening, they do not adjust it). According to Euripides: ignorance and stupidity of the people themselves, their vices. Euripides' look is sad, but not cynical. The gods do not interfere in people's lives, they themselves are responsible for everything good and bad in their lives.
Euripides was occupied with the dynamics of passion and feeling. female image, believed Euripides, gives more material. Women live naturally and sincerely.
The image of the struggle of feelings and internal discord is something new that Euripides introduced into Attic tragedy. Along with this - numerous arguments about the family, marriage, fatherhood, about the fatality of passions.
"Medea", summary(431 BC):
Medea, the sorceress princess, the daughter of the king in Colchis, saved the hero Jason when he and his friends were mining the sacred golden fleece. Medea gave Jason magical potions, thanks to the cat. Jason plowed arable land on fire-breathing bulls, helped put the dragon guard to sleep. When Jason and Medea, who fell in love with each other, set sail from Colchis, Medea killed her brother and scattered pieces of his body along the shore in order to detain the Colchian pursuers. When they returned to Iolk, Medea, in order to save Jason from the deceit of Pelias (Jason's elder relative who seized power), persuaded the daughters of Pelias to slaughter their old father, promising to resurrect him young after that. Medea reneged on her promise, and the parricide daughters fled into exile. However, the people rebelled against the foreign sorceress, and Jason, Medea and two young sons fled to Corinth. The old Corinthian king offered him his daughter and kingdom as his wife, so that he could divorce the witch. Jason accepted the offer: after all, a new marriage would ensure the safety of Medea, their children, and Jason himself. On a solar chariot sent to her by her grandfather, the god of the Sun, harnessed by dragons, Medea fled to Athens, and ordered her children to give her stepmother a “wedding gift” - a cloak and a bandage that were soaked in poison: she manages to kill the princess. She then kills her own children as well. Jason vainly prays to Zeus, but Medea's revenge has already come true.
"Hippolytus", summary (431 BC):
The son of Theseus from the Amazon, Hippolyta, wants to punish Aphrodite for pride and contempt for love. Hippolytus is devoted to fasting to Artemis, the patroness of hunting, he comes out with a wreath in his hands and dedicates it to Artemis - "pure from pure." To destroy the young man, Aphrodite makes Phaedra, Theseus' wife and stepmother Hippolytus, fall in love with him. Phaedra is sick and delirious. The old nurse of Phaedra, wanting to save her, initiates Hippolytus into the secret, he listens to her story with horror and confesses: “Oh, if only it were possible to continue your race without women! A husband spends money on a wedding, a husband takes in-laws, a stupid wife is difficult, a smart wife is dangerous - I will keep the oath of silence, but I curse you! Phaedra commits suicide, but resentment prompts her to leave a note in which she accuses Hippolytus of encroaching on her honor. Theseus finds this message and asks Poseidon to fulfill his third wish: to send his son into exile. Hippolyte tries to convince his father of his innocence, but in vain. The curse comes true when Hippolytus rides a chariot between the rocks and the seashore. The dying youth is brought back to Athens, in the epilogue Artemis appears and reveals the truth, but too late: Hippolytus dies, forgiving her father, and Athena proclaims Hippolyta eternal memory: before marriage, every girl will have to sacrifice a strand of hair to him.
"Electra" summary:
Elektra was given by her parents Aegisthus and Clytemnestra to marry a poor Mycenaean plowman. but this marriage remains a fictitious one, because the peasant is conscious that he did not rightfully receive Electra. Electra goes to fetch water and meets Orestes at the spring, who, together with Pylades, secretly arrived in Argos and, from a conversation between Electra and the choir, recognized her as her sister. Elektra is frightened at first, then she recognizes her brother in him from the scar and from the evidence of Aegisthus. A revenge plan is drawn up, and Orestes is confused, not knowing how to deal with Aegisthus and his mother at the same time. Elektra offers her help in relation to the mother, she makes a plan herself. She must lure Clytemnestra into the house on the pretext of having her first child. Before the arrival of Clytemnestra, Orestes is horrified and doubtful, he is completely ready to abandon the idea of \u200b\u200bkilling her, and only the perseverance and inflexibility of Elektra returns him to the original plan. Elektra meets Clytemnestra with full hatred and reproaches with a speech and escorts her to the house where Orestes kills her. Immediately after the murder of the mother, the brother and sister raise a cry about what they have done, and Elektra takes all the blame.
"Iphigenia in Aulis", summary:
At the very beginning of the action, Agamemnon is talking to his faithful old slave. Agamemnos doubts whether to lead the army to victory and propitiate Artemis or save his daughter, who was intended to be sacrificed to the goddess. Agamemnon sent an order to Argos to bring Iphigenia to Aulis (as if for a wedding with Achilles), then writes a letter canceling this order and sends the old man on his way. But when leaving the camp he meets King Menelaus; who took away the secret letter. He reproaches Agamemnon for betraying the army. The brothers are arguing, but Clytemnestra and Iphigenia have already arrived. Agamemnon fails to convince Clytemnestra to leave for Argos, leaving her daughter with her father. Clytemnestra and welcomes Achilles as a future son-in-law. Achilles is at a loss, then the old slave reveals to them all the deception.
Knetimnestra and Iphigenia fail to convince Agamemnon to change his mind. The warriors demand the princess as a sacrifice, but Achilles is ready to fight against everyone. But Iphigenea decides to voluntarily go to death for the sake of the fate of her homeland.
"Bacchantes", summary;
The Theban king Pentheus and his mother Agave do not believe in divine origin Dionysus, they say that the mother of Dionysus suffered from a mere mortal, but she invented about Zeus. And in general they are against the cult of Dionysus. They don't like the fact that women break loose en masse in bacchanalia several times a year. Pentheus grabs Dionysus, disguised as a wanderer, ties him up and locks him in a barn.
Dionysus is offended: mortals have raised their voice against God! To begin with, he organizes a small earthquake, destroys the palace of Pentheus, deprives Agave of her mind, makes her his passionate follower, obsessed with a maenad, sends her to the mountains with a crowd of other distraught women, plunges her into an abyss of revelry and orgies. The distraught mother, being under the spell sent to her by Dionysus, kills Pentheus, her own son, tears him to pieces and returns to the city with his head impaled on the thyrsus - the rod of Dionysus. Agave, stupefied by Dionysus, thinks that she has attacked a lion, and considers her son's head to be a lion's head. She terrifies the townspeople. Dionysus gives the mother to come to her senses and understand the horror of what happened. This is followed by the lamentation of Agave: Agave conquers her religious fear and, with weeping, kisses separate pieces of Pentheus' body. Dionysus turns Agave's father into a dragon, his old wife into a snake, and Agave and his sisters, with whose hands he tore Pentheus to pieces, he sends into exile.
