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V. Rhythm, Song, And Dance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

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Extract

Dikaiopolis and his followers speak contemporary Greek, but not, of course, as they would at home or elsewhere. Comic dialogue, like tragic, is in verse, and its characters normally carry on their conversation, as in tragedy, in iambic trimeters. The rhythm, however, as earlier noted, is a free one, which (a) admits a great deal of resolution: in the first five feet anapaests (besides the normal spondees), dactyls (in the first, third, and fifth), and tribrachs may represent iambi; (b) ignores Porson’s Law, i.e. permits a fifth-foot spondee to be shared between two words; (c) permits irregular word-division in trisyllabic feet; (d) neglects caesura. Aristophanes employs the line with skill and versatility — in its strictest tragic rhythm (C. 794-6), and at the other extreme resolved into five anapaests (W. 979, κατάβα κατόβα κατάβα κατάβα καταβήσομαι).

Type
Research Article
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 13: Aristophanes , 1979 , pp. 29 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1979

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References

Notes

1. Among features of New Attic are —pp— tor—ρσ, —ττ— for—aa, σύν for ξύν. see Buck, C.D., The Greek Dialects2 (Chicago, 1955), pp. 141–2 Google Scholar. Some Doric words in Aristophanes’ dialogue may be ‘war slang’ (F. 139, 179, with Stanford).

2. I assume an elementary knowledge of the terminology of metrics. See, for the iambic trimeter, Maas, P., Greek Metre (Oxford, 1962), pp. 66 ffGoogle Scholar., Halporn, J.W., Ostwald, M., Rosenmeyer, T.G., The Meters of Greek and Latin Poetry (London, 1963), pp. 13 ffGoogle Scholar., Raven, D.S., Greek Metre2 (London, 1968), pp. 28 ffGoogle Scholar., 31 ff. A specialized monograph is Descroix, J., Le Trimètre iambique (Macon, 1931)Google Scholar.

3. The iambic trimeter was μάλιστα λεκτικάν (Arist. Po. 1449a 24). This is a comment on its use in comic dialogue, not a statement of the reason for its use there (Maas, p. 54).

4. All the tetrameters are, in practice, ‘catalectic’: the final syllable, that is, is omitted. See (for iambics and trochaics) Maas, p. 71; Raven, pp. 32 ff., 34 ff.; (for anapaests) Halporn, pp. 20 ff., Raven, pp. 58 ff.

5. Heph. 8.2.

6. They represent, in practice, divided tetrameters: cf. the Gilbertian stanzas cited (see also above, p. 26 n. 65). For dimeter systems see Raven, pp. 33 ff., 35 ff., 57 ff.

7. I have not attempted to catalogue or report on these in detail. For iambo-trochaic metre see Raven, pp. 36 ff.; Dale, A.M., The Lyric Metres of Greek Drama2 (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 93 ffGoogle Scholar.

8. Euripides’ rhythm may also be a target in the famous (but obscure) ‘lekythion’ joke (F. 1200 ff.). The trochaic dimeter catalectic (with first foot resolution) acquired the name lekythion from that passage (ληκύθιορ άπώλβσευ, 1208).

9. Murray, p. 83.

10. For these, see Halporn, pp. 29 ff.; Maas, pp. 54 ff.; Raven, pp. 71 ff.; Dale, pp. 131 ff.; and (for Aristophanes generally), White, J.W., The Verse of Greek Comedy (London, 1912)Google Scholar.

11. This is not, of course, to say that tragic and comic lyrics are identical. Dochmiacs (e.g.) are rarely found in comedy except (a) in paratragedy or (b) ‘for deliberately and unsuitably prosaic sentiments’ (Dale, Lyric Metres, p. 113).

12. See, however, above p. 12, n. 11.

13. Vases show choruses accompanied by two pipes (Ehrenberg, pl. II).

14. It may be that some metres (see above, p. 7) were thought of as more rapid in themselves. One suspects, however, that effects were rather gained by performers’ use of andante and allegro (cf. Maas, p. 50).

15. See (with scholiast) W. 582, (αύλητής) . . . ‘έξοδον ηυληο’ άπωϋσιν.

16. On dancing in drama see Roos, E., Die tragische Orchestik in Zerrbild der altattischen Komödie (Lund, 1951)Google Scholar; Lawler, Lillian B., The Dance of the Ancient Greek Theatre (Iowa, 1964)Google Scholar; Pickard-Cambridge, DFA, pp. 246 ff.; Webster, GC, passim.

17. See Lawler, Lillian B., ‘Kretikôs in the Greek Dance’, TAPhA 82 (1951), 62-70Google Scholar.

18. For discussion of the dancing at the end of Wasps see MacDowell, pp. 321 ff.

19. See Wilamowitz, pp. 198 ff.

20. It is sometimes maintained (after ancient commentators) that choruses ‘strip’ to dance more freely. If so, that motive is ulterior; the stripping — for fighting or vigorous activity — is clearly motivated, with only two exceptions, in its context (W. 408, L. 637, 662, 686, T. 656). άποδύντες (A. 627) and έπαποδυόμειΐα (L. 615) are metaphors, i.e. ‘getting down to it’, ‘rolling up one’s sleeves’ (Dale, CP, pp. 289 ff., Webster DTC, p. 142 n. 5).

21. C. 555 (a drunk old woman); Theophr. Char. 6. 3;Mnesim. fr. 4. 18 ff., πρόποσις χωρβΐ, Хєпетаі κόρδα1/ακο\ασταίνβι vovţ μαρακίων.

22. C. 540, оибе’ κόρδαχ’ eiXnvaev. The claim is general and not confined to Clouds, as the pointed contrast (555) with Eupolis’ vulgarity makes clear. An alleged ¿onto: (scholiast, C. 542) in Wasps is probably a misinterpretation of Philokleon’s tragic dancing.

23. The mothon, φορτικον ϋρχημα (Poll. 4. 101), is vulgar ‘like the kordax’ (юорбактбес, Phot. s.v. μάυων, Naber, p. 427).

24. Scholiast, K. 697.

25. For the close co-ordination, in performance, of ‘Words, Music and Dance’ see Dale, CP, pp. 156 ff.

26. F. 209 ff. (Stanford); MacDowell, 28 ff., cf. 15. See also above, p. 7.

27. T.B.L. Webster finds trochaic tetrameters (cf. the parodos of Acharnions) in a scene on a Corinthian alabastron in the Louvre (Tradition in Greek Dramatic Lyric, Christchurch N.Z., 1969, p. 7): cf. GC, pp. 182 ff.

28. Lawler (above, n. 16); Prudhommeau, Germaine, La Danse grecque antique (Paris, 1965, 1. 531)Google Scholar.