This page intentionally left blank
W O M E N A N D T H E C O M I C P L OT IN MENANDER
Taking a fresh look at mistaken identity in the work of an author who helped to introduce the device to comedy, Professor Traill shows how the outrageous mistakes many male characters in Menander make about women are grounded in their own emotional needs. The core of the argument derives from analysis of speeches by or about women, with particular attention to the language used to articulate problems of knowledge and perception, responsibility and judgment. Not only does Menander freely borrow language, situations, and themes from tragedy, but he also engages with some of tragedy’s epistemological questions, particularly the question of how people interpret what they see and hear. Menander was instrumental in turning the tragic theme of human ignorance into a comic device and inventing a plot type with enormous impact on the western tradition. This book provides new insights into his achievements within their historical and intellectual context. ar i ana t r a il l is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
WO M E N A N D T H E C O M I C P L OT I N M E N A N D E R ARIANA TRAILL University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521882262 © Ariana Traill 2008 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2008
ISBN-13 978-0-511-39719-6
eBook (NetLibrary)
ISBN-13
hardback
978-0-521-88226-2
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
For Brian
Contents
Preface
page ix
1 Those obscure objects of desire
1
2 Misperception of status
14
Siky¯onioi (The Sikyonians) Misoumenos (The Man She Hated) Perikeiromen¯e (The Rape of the Locks) H¯er¯os (The Hero) Dyskolos (The Grouch) Aspis (The Shield) Phasma (The Apparition) P. K¨oln 203 (Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott) Conclusion
3 Misperception of character
16 25 33 46 50 56 65 67 72
79
Samia (The Girl from Samos) Dis Exapat¯on (The Double Deceiver) Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos P. Ghˆoran ii and Theophoroumen¯e (The Girl Possessed) Roman adaptations Conclusion
4 Informing the audience
86 92 110 117 119 125
130
Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos Samia Conclusion
131 156 170
5 The women of the Epitrepontes
177
Who is Pamphile’s kyrios? Charisios’ perspective Another mistaken whore? The mistakes of Smikrines, Onesimos and Charisios
vii
179 188 196 203
viii
Contents Informing the audience: Pamphile’s choice Habrotonon’s choice Conclusion
6 Why women? References Index of passages discussed General index
205 223 235
245 269 284 287
Preface
This project began as an attempt to explain the origins of the so-called bona meretrix (“good prostitute”) in Terence, but the Menandrian material proved so richly informative that it soon became a study of Menander’s hetairai. It transformed into something much broader when it became clear that the mechanisms at work in the representation of hetairai applied to other female characters. The simple question “Are they good?” led to many other questions about the dramatic representation of women, women’s identity, and the basic premise of mistaken identity. With roots in folk tale, tragedy, and Old Comedy, the mistaken identity plot was developed by Menander and his contemporaries into a versatile and productive comic form. Menander’s plays, in particular, show how it could be adapted to all kinds of situations. This book traces some of these variations and explores the rich dialogue Menander engaged in with his literary predecessors and with the intellectual currents of his time. His comedies have not only enriched the western tradition with many of its basic plots and devices, but they also open a fascinating window into the laws, customs and social mores of late fourth-century Athens. This book has been many years in the making. I owe special thanks to Richard Thomas, who supervised the Ph.D. thesis from which it grew, and to Cynthia Damon and James Halporn, who both read the thesis with a critical eye. I have been very fortunate to have had supportive colleagues both at the University of Colorado at Boulder and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Peter Hunt patiently answered many questions about Greek historical topics. David Sansone, Maryline Parca, and Angeliki Tzanetou all read chapters with their usual painstaking care, generously sharing their expertise on ancient women, tragedy and Greek literature in general. I am very grateful to Kirk Freudenburg for his support and advice, both as a department chair and a friend. David Konstan was kind enough to read chapter four, giving invaluable advice. Andreola Rossi and Jud Hermann invited me to present portions of the work in progress ix
x
Preface
and provided both warm hospitality and an appreciative audience. Thanks are also due to my editor, Michael Sharp, to my copy-editor, Muriel Hall, and to the anonymous readers for Cambridge who offered valuable suggestions for making this more of a book and less of a dissertation. Students in classes at the University of Illinois, both graduate and undergraduate, have commented helpfully on excerpts. My graduate research assistants Lindsay DesLauriers, Angela Kinney, Ryan McConnell, Michael Monroe, and Rebecca Muich all took time from their own work to make this a better book, reading it with an awareness of the needs of the nonspecialist, pointing out opportunities for clarification, and catching innumerable errors. I owe a special debt to Michael for his sensible suggestions and his tireless proofreading and reference checking; now there is, indeed, a little bit of him in the book. Thanks are also due to the other Greek historian who has provided so much advice and encouragement over the years: my father, John Traill. Finally, no thanks can ever express my gratitude to my husband Brian whose unwavering support has done more than anything else to bring this book to completion.
chap t e r 1
Those obscure objects of desire
! " # (Thrasyleon, Men. fr. 181 K-A)
Most of the time ‘know thyself ’ is not good advice: ‘know other people’ would be a lot more useful.
There is a plot type that has become a staple in the western comic repertoire: the troubles of a small community – a few families, some friends – escalate as misunderstandings grow, accusations fly, and everything threatens to unravel until the situation is set right with the discovery of a long-lost son or daughter. The lovers can now marry; the rich man has an heir; the orphan finds his or her parents. These mistaken identity plots are essentially stories of wish-fulfillment which pretend, perhaps in deference to conservative attitudes towards social mobility, that the transformations required by poetic justice are simply revelations of a hidden truth. The plot type may be traced back to Plautus and Terence, who inspired the Renaissance dramatists who in turn instated it at the heart of the western comic tradition. Credit for its original development, however, must go to the Greek models for the Roman plays, most of which have been lost. Fortunately, a number of the comedies of Menander (342/1 – c. 290 bc), the most famous Greek New Comic playwright, still survive. They center on problems of social identity and the obstacles that blind people to truths about their closest friends and family. Over and over in Menander’s mistaken identity plots characters are forced to make judgments on partial or misleading evidence, while emotion, self-interest and self-delusion foster misapprehension (# ) – the recurring theme of the plays. Proverbial wisdom may have urged “Know thyself,” but Menander’s comedy had the more utilitarian goal, “Know other people.” The plays dramatize how and why things go wrong. 1
2
Those obscure objects of desire
The basic narrative pattern of the mistaken identity plot has a long history prior to comedy. “Theoxeny” stories of gods such as Demeter, Dionysus, or Aphrodite disguising themselves to test mortals are common in Greek myth and folk tale.1 The motif first appears in epic, where gods regularly appear incognito and where a favored mortal like Odysseus can even perform his own “test” in disguise, complete with epiphany, revelation of special powers, and distribution of rewards and punishments.2 Once mortals become the protagonists, the disguise-recognition story begins to take on a familiar dramatic form, particularly in Euripidean tragedy. Alcestis, Telephus, and Menelaos in the Helen conceal their true identities; Ion and Iphigeneia (from the Iphigeneia in Tauris) do so as well, although not by choice. All are eventually recognized and restored to their rightful positions. In the cases of Alcestis, Menelaos, and Iphigeneia, the recognition is clearly associated with transcending mortality, a connection already evident in Homer and still detectable in Menander. In the Aspis and Perikeiromene¯, for example, misrecognized figures are left for dead.3 This plot type was not entirely foreign to Old Comedy: although he makes little use of other forms of mistaken identity, Aristophanes does spoof the disguise motif in the Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae and Frogs. It is hard to know whether New Comedy borrowed this central, structuring device directly from tragedy or whether earlier fourth-century comic poets should be given credit for adapting it. In either case, so thoroughly were disguise and recognition stories naturalized in their new genre that ancient scholars started to identify prototypical elements of “comedy” in the Odyssey.4 This book explores how the mistaken identity plot was used by one of the playwrights who helped to give it definitive form as a comic device. Two major developments from myth and tragedy are noticeable in Menander. First, the motif takes on an increasingly sophisticated shape. Mistakes are rationalized, with supernatural intervention yielding to human psychology as the primary cause. The “disguise” is usually unwitting and the focus is the dupe, not the trickster, with a corresponding emphasis on how the mistake is made. By grounding identity mistakes in psychological mechanisms, Menander was able to use comedy to explore questions of perception and subjectivity. Second, the misrecognized characters are disproportionately 1 2 4
Burnett 1970: 24–5 n. 8. See Thompson 1955–8 K8111 “Gods (saints) in disguise visit mortals” for folk-tale examples. 3 On the Homeric association see Murnaghan 1987: 16–17. Murnaghan 1987: 11–13. E.g., Ps.-Long. 9.15, Eust. Com. ad Hom. 2. 3.488.17–20. Even Aristotle thought the resolution of the Odyssey was more comic than tragic (Poet. 1453a31–9). See further Knox 1970: 89. The kyrieia disputes discussed in chapter 2 are arguably prefigured in the Odyssey (Lacey 1966: 62).
Those obscure objects of desire
3
women, particularly when the mistakes concern relatively objective aspects of identity, such as social status. Plays frequently revolve around attempts to free or marry a seemingly forbidden woman, such as a slave, captive or prostitute, who is eventually restored to her rightful status. The characters who suffer loss of status – e.g., through piracy, war, exposure or more complicated mishaps – are predominantly women. One particular group is a useful entry point to my discussion because they typify a problem Menander explored with many different characters: the difficulty of knowing the truth about one’s $% (“loved ones,” immediate family and close friends). In Athens and other Greek cities there was a demimonde of women who could not marry for economic or legal reasons and who therefore had to form other relationships for support. These women included the expensive call girls and musicians Greeks called hetairai (“companions”).5 The foreigners, freedwomen and slaves who made up the majority of historically attested hetairai are the women with the largest speaking roles in Menander, including many of his female romantic leads.6 Although these women are misidentified in many different ways, some of the wilder mistakes concern their moral character. Readers since antiquity have suggested that some of Menander’s hetairai are “good,” since they usually prove innocent of the worst charges laid against them. His brand of mistaken identity certainly involves falsely suspected hetairai and some “good” women who are not hetairai at all, but did he really depict – or even invent – the whore with a heart of gold?7 The strongest positive claim occurs in Plutarch’s Moralia at the end of a speech on the merits of various dinner entertainments. This passage is worth examining because it raises questions about the definition of status, the relationship between status and character and the appropriate criteria for virtue – the same questions 5 6
7
On the etymology and connotations of the name see Davidson 2006: 35–6. Examples of foreigners include Chrysis (Sam.), Thais (Ter. Eun.), the “Bacchides” (Dis Ex.), Pythias (Syn.), and probably a number of title characters (And., Per., Hymn., Khalk., Leuc., Mess., Olyn.). Slaves include the two Habrotonons (Epitr., Perik.), Malthake (Sik.), Dorkion (Fab. Inc. 5 Arnott), the title figures in the Aul¯etris (and Paidion?), a habra-turned-pallak¯e (Pseudher.), and the three-mina woman in the Kolax. There are a few lost daughters (Glykera, Perik.; Plangon, Syn.; Krateia, Mis.) but no hetairai of recognized citizen status. There may be a few freedwomen, such as the & mentioned in Rhap. fr. 332 K-A, if she is the woman who is ‘slapped’ (a sign of a lover’s jealousy, Luc. Dial. Mer. 8.1) and perhaps the title figure of the Anatithemen¯e. The title character of the Thais and the two hetairai in Fab. Inc. 8 Arnott are free but nothing more is known about their status. Cf. Keuls 1985: 188 “the stereotype [of “the whore with the noble character”] can be traced back to Classical Greece, at least as far as the fourth-century playwright Menander, and perhaps further.” See also Webster 1953: 117, Henry 1988: 113–15, Zanker 1987: 149, and Zagagi 1994: 33. Modern scholars agree that Menander depicted women sympathetically (e.g., Ruiz 1981: 49 and passim, Keuls 1985: 191–4, Henry 1988 and 1987 and Martina 1997 ii.2: 287) but no one quite matches Post 1940: 457–8: “Every woman in Menander’s gallery is courageous and independent in face of trouble.”
4
Those obscure objects of desire
that create misunderstandings in the plays. After praising Menander for offering both pleasure and instruction, Plutarch claims that he is the sort of poet to send symposiasts running back to their wives. But the philosopher has to resort to some special pleading about the sexual content: '( )%, * ( + ,, ' -$. , / % - , '( , & / 0 &% 0 , / 1 2-, $ '3 2 - $-. (Mor. 712c) As regards hetairai, if they are audacious and bold, the affair is cut short by selfcontrol or a change of mind in the young men; for those who are good and loving in return, either a legitimate father is found or some additional time is allotted to the affair, with a humanely indulgent attitude towards the disgrace.8
Scholarly efforts to apply these categories to the extant Menandrian comedies and Roman adaptations have been unconvincing, in part because of the limitations of the evidence and in part because this passage is selective and slightly tendentious.9 Plutarch’s categories do not hold up well, even for the few plot endings that survive. The only affair to be “cut short” (in the Heauton Timoroumenos) is terminated by paternal authority, not youthful remorse, while one of the two affairs granted “additional time” (between an old man and his live-in mistress in the Samia) seems permanent. It is hard to believe that a time limit figured prominently in any resolution that left a lover and a hetaira together (no limit is mentioned in the other example, in the Eunuchus); furthermore, the sudden shift to the topic of “humanity,” $-%, suggests that these endings did not promote marriage in quite the same way as fifth act weddings. Scholars have also asked who counts as a hetaira and how many types are distinguished.10 Plutarch’s categories require a broad definition of the 8
9
10
With Minar, Sandbach and Helmbold, I take $ as “indulgence” rather than “companionship.” Brown 1990: 246, follows Russell and Winterbottom’s “which brings a humane relationship of respect,” with reservations. ' , usually “sense of shame,” can mean “that which causes shame, scandal” (LSJ s.v. ii.1). Cf. Gilula 1987: 513–14. Plutarch’s scheme excludes certain plays (Gilula 1987: 512–13, Brown 1990: 246). Contra Anderson 1984: 128 takes it as roughly accurate. Plutarch consistently criticizes hetairai (Pomeroy 1999: 118) and his views on marriage may reflect a new “reciprocal” ideal promoted by Stoic and Christian ethics (but contra Patterson in Pomeroy 1999 argues that much of this is traditional). Gilula 1987, Anderson 1984. Brown 1990: 249–50 argues that two of these women (Glykera and Krateia) are % (“mistresses”) and not hetairai, but Davidson 1997: 101–2 cites cases where such women are called hetairai. These are subjective terms reflecting the attitude of the speaker as much as the status of the referent (Reinsberg 1989: 89, Konstan 1993: 142) and categorical distinctions may be impossible (Ogden 1996: 157). Since kinless women had little hope of marriage, any arrangements they might make were liable to be represented as prostitution. Cf. Omitowoju 200: 213, McClure 2003: 9.
Those obscure objects of desire
5
term hetaira. His argument, after all, is that these women get their just deserts, not that most of the women who appear to be hetairai are really something else. The underlying opposition between marital and extramarital relations suggests that “hetaira” covers virtually all objects of male affection who are not recognized daughters of respectable families from the start of the play. It is not entirely unreasonable to group these women together, but in the surviving plays young women with “legitimate fathers” in their background are not openly and straightforwardly classed as hetairai. The four best-known lost daughters are described as a “captive” and soldier’s “beloved” ( -, Misoumenos), as a “beloved” who was “raised as befits a free woman” (Siky¯onioi), as a “slave . . . to an extent, in a way” (H¯er¯os), and simply as a “girl” ( , ,4, Perikeiromen¯e). The lost daughters in Terence and Plautus are described as a “girl” (puella, virgo) and a “citizen . . . I think” (Eunuchus), as a “teenager” (adulescentula) and “foreigner” (peregrina, Andria), as a “girlfriend” (amica, Heauton), and as a “girl”(puella) reared “decently and chastely” (bene et pudice, Cistellaria). None of these characters accepts the label of hetaira and one explicitly rejects it (Perik. 711). This problem stems from real ambiguities about the status of women in fourth-century Athens. One of the arguments of this book is that Menander’s plots characteristically involve women whose social position is unclear, many of whom could be (and sometime are) called “hetairai” by biased observers. A more troubling issue is that Plutarch’s categories are not parallel. In the surviving fragments of Menander, “audacious” (0) and “bold” ( ,) are stock epithets for hetairai but “good” ( 0) and “loving in return” (& ) are not.11 It has been suggested that the latter should be split, so that “good” women find fathers and “loving” women earn extensions, although as Peter Brown points out, the Greek construction ( . . . ' indicates that “good and loving” is meant to parallel “audacious and bold.”12 There appear to be only two groups here, one of which – the “good and loving in return” – does not correspond to a Menandrian type. Finally, it is also unclear whether Plutarch uses “good” ( 0) in a Menandrian sense: does it carry social implications which would make its application to hetairai oxymoronic, or does it mean little more than “nice” and potentially apply to anyone?13 Menander uses the feminine form 11 12 13
For 0, cf. Dis Ex. 21, 101, Perik. 713. For ,, cf. 163 K–A, P. I.F.A.O. 337 (= Demiourgos iv K-A). Brown 1990: 251. I would add that the single article in , '( , & also supports this reading. Gilula 1980: 147 restricts 0 to citizens. Brown 1990: 252 argues that it was used in a broader sense in the fourth century bc and suggests the translation “nice” here.
6
Those obscure objects of desire
surprisingly rarely (whereas the masculine and neuter are quite common), and two examples turn up in sententiae which leave no doubt that the virtues commended belong to a wife: “a good ( 0) woman is the rudder of the house”(Mon. 155); “a good woman is a prized possession for a decent man” (Mon. 835). Menander wrote a Khr¯est¯e, which may have featured an atypical hetaira (a “good” wife or daughter is not much of a premise), but nothing is known of the play. “Loving in return” is equally problematic. It means “rival in love” as often as “love in return” (cf. the “young rivals,” & %-, at Samia 26).14 Furthermore, Menander barely recognizes the possibility that a woman might reciprocate her lover’s passion. The most devoted women, the loyal young wives in the Epitrepontes, Stichus and (probably non-Menandrian) Didot Papyrus i, do not even speak of affection, much less the intense sexual passion of 2-.15 The hetaira in the Epitrepontes would like to be loved ( 5 432) but shows no sign of succumbing to 2- herself, while the “Samian Girl” speaks of her lover’s 2- with good-natured condescension (“he’s in love too, and pretty badly” Sam. 81). The title character in the Perikeiromen¯e is assumed, at most, to have “liked” her lover (491). In fact, in the entire Menandrian corpus only two women are “in love:” the title character of the lost play Syner¯osa (a feminine participle which translates roughly “loving jointly with,” perhaps in a kind of rivalry?) and the lost daughter Plangon in the Synarist¯osai, who returns her lover’s & (fr. 338 K-A) – the sort of emotion a nurse might feel for a baby (e.g., Sam. 247, 278). If Plautus’ adaptation of this play is any reliable guide, the opening scene dwelt on the bizarreness of her problem (“A heart-ache? Where did you get a heart?” Cist. 65). Plutarch is probably referring to hetairai who forego multiple relationships in favor of a single lover. They are “good” because they are faithful. But he makes an association that Menander does not. Sexual fidelity for Menandrian women has comparatively little to do with virtue and a great deal to do with opportunity. The luxury of a monogamous relationship is out of reach for slaves in the clutches of pimps and for many freeborn hetairai as well. The important choices facing these women are not about fidelity to a lover but about dedication to a natal family, if they have one, or to the welfare of their community, if they do not. Romantic attachments were anything but virtuous, except in the eyes of the lover. As L. A. 14
15
Both Antiphanes and Nikostratos wrote an Anter¯osa (“qui peut signifier la Rivale,” Legrand 1910: 112). There are, however, love-struck hetairai in Plautus, Lucian and Alciphron. Posidippus’ Apokl¯eiomen¯e may have been another (Legrand 116). They admit only to “goodwill” and “liking” (Epitr. 830, P. Did. i.18). Cf. Konstan 1994: 142–3, 145–6.
Those obscure objects of desire
7
Post remarks, “the word eros did not become respectable until late, at least where women were concerned.”16 For Plutarch, who is arguing that the plays promote married love, it is not unreasonable to claim that virtue and “loving in return” go hand in hand, but nothing could be less Menandrian. 2-, a disruptive and often violent emotion, is not associated with good behavior in anyone.17 Its male victims may be treated with considerable sympathy, but their obsessive desire is still an affliction, an embarrassment, and a potential threat to the stability of the community. If Menander was playing to the fantasies of a freeborn male audience, it was surely by making their kin, and not their hired girlfriends, good and loyal. Plutarch might be dismissed as a moralist writing five centuries after Menander and determined to find lessons the plays were not written to teach, but arguments over the moral character of hetairai go back to at least the fourth century, when Middle Comic poets started to describe hetairai in positive terms and to debate the virtues of individual women, praising them as “dignified” ( 0), “clever” ( $0), “witty” (& ,), and “wellbehaved” ( %).18 The comic poet Antiphanes (iv bc), perhaps the first to give a heart of gold to a whore, defended the “true” hetaira in his Hydria: 6 ' 7 - 8 '9 )% 2- &$%, & 1, 0 ' , ! 3 &: , ;- )%. < ( # = > , ;- ? The man I’m speaking about saw a certain hetaira living in his neighborhood and fell in love with her – a citizen, but bereft of a guardian and relatives, in possession of a character of gold where virtue is concerned, in truth a “companion”. The rest damage the name with their character, although it is in reality a fine one. (Athen. 572a = fr. 210 K-A)
The word “hetaira,” itself a euphemism, had acquired some tarnish by the fourth century. In Anaxilas’ (iv bc) Neottis (“The Chick”), the modest suggestion from an unidentified speaker that “hetaira” is a more appropriate term than “whore” ( ) for a particular woman elicits a rant from his companion about the general destructiveness of hetairai, followed by a point 16 17 18
Post 1940: 454. Dover 1974: 212, for example, defines 2- as “an exceptionally strong response to stimuli, i.e. a very strong and obsessive desire.” Henry 1988: 37.
8
Those obscure objects of desire
by point comparison between named individuals and the legendary monsters of myth (Chimaera, Charybdis, Scylla, the Sphinx, Harpies, Sirens, frr. 21–2). The speaker in the Antiphanes passage above, however, is not simply pointing out the hypocrisy of the name. He is making the paradoxical argument that the woman’s virtue (&0) makes her all the more a hetaira. He takes pains to distinguish her @ (“character,” often in a moral sense) from the (“ways” or “character” in the sense of habits and temperament) of other hetairai. His argument requires redefining “hetaira” by resurrecting its original meaning. Any suggestion that it might be possible to be virtuous despite being a hetaira is undercut both by the concession that this woman is an exception to the rule (“the rest hurt the name”) and by her juridical status. Destitution, he seems to imply, is what drove her to become a hetaira, and her heart of gold is unmistakably associated with citizenship. Since Athenian citizenship required two married Athenian parents, she is, evidently, another lost daughter who was probably not left to a life of prostitution. The suggestion that individual hetairai ought to be called something more in accordance with their character would be wholeheartedly endorsed by several Menandrian figures who bandy about less euphemistic names like “whore” and “ground-beater”. An anecdote recorded in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists, composed some time after the death of Commodus in 192, describes a disagreement between Menander and his fellow comic playwright Philemon: A '( B' C : @ D 0 '. E0 )% , : 8 F ' 3 ', & G B' H '5 = 1. That Menander the poet loved Glykera is common knowledge. But he was ashamed of it. For when Philemon fell in love with a hetaira and called her “good” on stage, Menander wrote in response that none [sc. no hetaira] was good. (13.594d)
Athenaeus’ acceptance of the dubious tradition that Menander loved a hetaira named Glykera is consistent with the assumption, common in antiquity, that playwrights’ lives provided material for their plays.19 By this principle, if Philemon expressed his opinion in a play, Menander must have responded in kind. The story has a suspiciously comic flavor: an infatuated lover finds in his girlfriend virtues that a more cynical lover denies to her whole profession. The phrase “none is good” suggests a lover at a low point, not a playwright discussing his work. It looks as if a biographical incident 19
See K¨orte 1919 on Menander and “Glykera.”
Those obscure objects of desire
9
has been extrapolated from passages that happened to make contradictory claims about hetairai, but unfortunately none survive.20 All this story can confirm is something implicit in the Antiphanes passage: it was provocative to claim that a hetaira could be “good” since her profession was thought to preclude it. The issue, then, is not literary innovation – at least, not before Donatus – but whether a member of a despised status and profession could be “good” in any sense.21 Antiphanes and Athenaeus are operating within the fictional world of New Comedy. Plutarch is more detached, but what he sees is noticeably shaped by his own agenda. It is questionable whether any of these references really provides evidence for a “good” stock type on the comic stage, although they do testify to an interest in the moral character of a type that had formerly embodied only vice. I have used the question of the good hetaira as a point of departure because it introduces larger questions about female identity. Menander’s female characters were shaped by a combination of literary traditions, philosophical ideas and the real circumstances of life in the Hellenistic Greek world. Economic and social conditions dictate some of their behavior, as do contemporary expectations about qualities that come naturally to different subsections of the population. Greeks recognized many significant status distinctions among women: legal (e.g., citizen, foreigner, slave, freedwoman), social (e.g., unmarried girls, wives, old women), even professional (e.g., midwives, market sellers, pipe players). Menander’s plays fully acknowledge the status divisions which Greeks – and Athenians in particular – considered important, but they also challenge notions of absolute and clearly demarcated groups by presenting women whose status is not quite clear. Problems of determining status lie at the center of these plays: virtually all contain errors about a woman’s position within her community. This book begins with an examination of relatively objective mistakes, the most common type for women. Chapter 2 argues that Menander devised ingenious variations in order to explore how and why characters make blatant mistakes which they often refuse to give up. The underlying psychology in the plays is consistent with fourth-century theories of perception. Chapter 3 examines errors about more subjective aspects of identity, arguing that serious suspicions about a woman’s moral character are acceptable only when her status is low. These suspicions often draw on the stereotype of the wicked prostitute, whether the woman is a prostitute or not, and 20 21
Henry 1988: 44, Gilula 1987: 514–15, n. 16. See also Legrand 1910: 113, Anderson 1984: 133 n. 2. Donatus credited Terence with inventing the “good hetaira” (ad Eun. 198, ad Hec. 774, cf. Evanthius De Fabula 2.4, discussed by Norwood 1923: 145, Duckworth 1952: 259, Perelli 1973: 39 and Gilula 1980). On his generally sympathetic treatment of women see Taladoire 1972: 114 and Perelli 1973: 32.
10
Those obscure objects of desire
the emotional disposition of the viewer plays an even greater role than in mistakes about status. Naturally, the audience needed to recognize mistakes as such, since they provide much of the dramatic interest, and New Comedy often resorts to artificial means to provide the sort of background knowledge that tragedy could simply assume. This was particularly tricky for morally ambiguous behavior, since the audience had to be convinced, and not merely informed, of the correct interpretation. Chapter 4, which explores questions of women’s moral agency and the relationship between social roles and moral expectations, examines how Menander tries to engage our sympathies for the characters who are rewarded at the end of the play. Chapter 5 focuses on a single play, the Epitrepontes, which features the likeliest “whore with a heart of gold” in Menander. This chapter shows the connection between mistakes about “who” (socially, legally) and mistakes about “what” (personally, morally) a woman is and argues that even a sympathetic hetaira can only be called “good” in a limited sense. The final chapter turns to broader questions about the Menandrian mistakenidentity plot: where did it come from and why did women become the typical objects of mistakes? Did Menander also create la femme incomprise? The core of my argument derives from close analysis of speeches by and about women, with particular attention to the language Menander uses to articulate problems of knowledge, perception, responsibility, and judgment, as well as the multiple means he employs to keep his audience in a position of privileged understanding. I concentrate on the Greek plays and fragments. Although some reference is made to Roman adaptations, these are of limited use in demonstrating that devices and themes are characteristic of Menander (my findings do, however, offer new insights into Plautus and Terence). My primary concern is how Menandrian women are seen and judged by Menandrian men. I am interested in the subjective elements of statements about status and moral character, and my readings emphasize both the fictional context and dramatic character of the speaker. My goal is to recuperate the range of meanings available to an original audience, including both implicit and contextual meanings and the nuances of individual words or phrases. “Contextual meanings” include the specific dramatic context, the generic context (how conventions of New Comedy, or in some cases tragedy, influence what is said and how it is received), and the broader historical context. My basic approach is philological, starting with close readings of the text and drawing on the growing corpus of Menandrian textual criticism and commentary. Emphasis is placed on concepts expressed within the plays themselves (e.g., # , ) and interpretive tools available to the playwright and his audience (e.g., contemporary
Those obscure objects of desire
11
ethics and rhetorical theory). Ancient readers praised Menander for his realism and plausibility, a standard held up by Aristotle and plenty of “internal playwrights” within the corpus.22 For actions to seem plausible, either on stage or in the courtroom, they had to conform to commonly held assumptions that were being investigated and classified by contemporary philosophers, especially the Peripatetics. Many Menandrian characters in fact think and act in ways that fourth-century scholars of rhetoric and ethics were theorizing. For the historical context, I am indebted to the many scholars who have illuminated the questions of formal status and points of law and custom that figure in Menandrian identity mistakes.23 It is important to recognize the implications of being a citizen, metic, freedwoman or slave, the relevant Athenian laws of family and property, and the socioeconomic context – from women’s religious activities to marriage customs, family dynamics, and the many gradations of ancient prostitution. Menander’s plays have long been recognized as sources, albeit slippery ones, for Attic social and legal history; they show the “law in action” – how people thought about the law and how it affected their daily lives. Nor can political context be discounted. These plays were once disparaged as apolitical, escapist fantasies written for people who took two-talent dowries as a matter of course and did not need the theoric fund to afford tickets. But more recently scholars have shown the plays’ ideological engagement, particularly with social and economic issues, and have questioned whether they really are politically neutral.24 Classicists have drawn on theories of Marx and Althusser, among others, that works of fiction are always ideologically engaged in a broad sense of “ideology”: the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. Fiction often supports values that serve the interests of politically powerful groups (“dominant codes of behaviour”), even when it is not overtly political.25 Several major recent studies have collected ample evidence of “political” engagement in this sense in Menander, even though New Comic conventions did not make it easy to include overtly political 22 23
24
25
Aristophanes of Byzantium, Manilius and Quintilian note Menander’s “realism” (Test. 83, 94, 101 K-A). Arist. Poet. 1451b12–13, 1455a33–4. More scholars have grappled with the problems of using Menander as a historical source than can be listed here. Scafuro 1997, Krieter-Spiro 1997 and Lape 2004 are excellent starting points for law, society and politics, respectively. Apolitical readings include Shipp 1960, Barigazzi 1965: 18, 222, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 23–4, Davies 1978: 113–14, Webster 1953: 100 and 1974: 2–5, Green 1990: 73, Walton and Arnott 1996: 29–30, and Nesselrath 1997: 287, n. 54. Ideological readings include Masaracchia 1981, Konstan 1995 and Rosivach 1998, who focus on social issues; Scafuro 1997 and Omitowoju 2002, on legal issues; and Wiles 1991: 29, on tensions between the individual and the state. E.g., Lape 2004. Quotation from Rabinowitz 1987: 127.
12
Those obscure objects of desire
content.26 Although I have profited greatly from these, my own project differs from studies which read Menander for implicit ideological content in order to better understand the values and assumptions behind Attic laws. My purpose is not to analyze the extra-textual work the plays are doing (for example, defending and justifying patriarchal values such as the subordination of women) but to illuminate the patterns of thinking that generate errors within this fictional form. I share the historicist belief that a phenomenon like mistaken identity is best understood through its historical development, starting with its original historical, intellectual, and artistic context, and I am more interested in the development and application of the device than in the specific values it was used to promote. Finally, this project owes an enormous debt to feminist scholarship on the representation of women in earlier Greek literature. Tragedy and epic addressed problems that recur in New Comedy, such as the conflicting loyalties wives often feel for their natal and marital families or the problems of integrating women into civic space, and used similar strategies to neutralize the threats posed by women’s supposedly insatiable sexuality and propensity for deceit.27 Anthropologically based studies have shown the importance of evaluating women’s behavior within a framework of expectations based on social roles.28 This work has been particularly helpful to me for understanding the moral choices faced by Menander’s women, who are often subjected to conflicting demands from very different roles: a false identity forced upon them by circumstances and a true identity which must remain hidden. This is usually dramatized as conflict of loyalties to different male figures. The problem in evaluating their moral choices is to situate them in the right role (and what other characters see is heavily influenced by what they believe this role ought to be). Menander thus follows in a long tradition, going back to tragedy, of using women to explore questions of ethics, perception, and judgment. Since Simone de Beauvoir’s seminal work on women as Other, classical scholars drawing on Freud and psychoanalytic theory have shown how the tragedians and others used women as a “projection surface,” for both fantasies and problems of interest to fifth-century male audiences.29 Menander’s women are particularly well suited to serve as a screen for the projection of male hopes and fears because they are 26
27 28 29
Evidence has been found of pro-Macedonian (Major 1997), oligarchic (Wiles 1984), and even democratic (Hofmeister 1997, Lape 2004) ideology. Incidental references to political figures and events had long since been noted, e.g., by Webster 1953: 103–110. See, e.g., Murnaghan 1995, Rabinowitz 1993. E.g., Demand 1994, Wohl 1998, Foley 2001, Blok 2001. Rabinowitz 1993, Seidensticker 1995, Zeitlin 1996, Kurke 1997 and 1999, Wohl 1998, Gilhuly 1999, McClure 1999, Ormand 1999, Foley 2001, and Griffith 2001.
Those obscure objects of desire
13
heavily constructed figures – sometimes in multiple ways, as, for example, when a stock type is overwritten by individual characters who determine “who” and “what” she is to serve their own ends. There is little possibility of recovering any kind of authentic female voice here; even when they are allowed to speak, these women ventriloquize the values of others. What these plays do show is an awareness of the construction of identity as a process – an act of interpretation, even creation (an idea which becomes explicit in Plautus) – rather than a detection of some underlying truth. There is considerable overlap with techniques of rhetoric. Indeed, Menander and his contemporaries were very much aware of the subjectivity of the viewer, a principle that is explicitly articulated in the Aspis.30 Not only does Menander freely borrow tragic language, situations, dramatic techniques, plot elements, and themes, but he also engages with some of the epistemological questions that interested the tragedians, notably the question of how people interpret what they see and hear.31 In other words, he is interested in the process of creating meaning out of spectacle. As a comic poet, he explores these problems lower down the social scale than tragedy, in the “real” world of the average citizen rather than the mythic world of kings and heroes. He uses women to develop scenarios that make these problems dramatically interesting and exploits comedy’s traditional license to rupture dramatic illusion in order to comment on the play as a play. Not only does he create internal spectators, whose reactions offer insight into how contemporary audiences interpreted the actions of characters on stage, but he embeds critiques of their interpretations within the dramatic fiction. Menander was able to look back on a long history of dramatic explorations of problems of knowing oneself and others. He also had the benefit of a critical tradition that had named and classified many of the conventions used in these plays. This book argues that his comedies show an awareness of the process by which identity mistakes are made and that they employ a richly varied language, to which formal rhetoric and ethics certainly contributed, to reflect on a central, absorbing problem: how do people fail to understand those they supposedly know best? 30 31
See the discussion in chapter 2, pp. 62–5. Euripides, for example, articulates the problem of inferring the unknown from the visible: , 3 &$1 (Oenomaus, fr. 574 Nauck), &$1 % - I% (Phoenix, fr. 811 Nauck).
chap t e r 2
Misperception of status
The mistaken identity plots of Greek and Roman comedy are notoriously formulaic: pirates, kidnappings, sale into slavery, threats of prostitution and then last-minute rescues through recognition. It can be hard to see why audiences kept coming back for new plays. The most familiar type is probably the “lost daughter” play, about a girl on the brink of prostitution who clutches her birth tokens through three or four acts until a legitimate father turns up by the fifth.1 She appears in many guises. Some lost daughters pass for prostitutes (e.g., in Plautus’ Cistellaria and Terence’s Andria, both adapted from Menandrian originals); others are living as concubines (e.g., in the Perikeiromen¯e) or as slaves (the Misoumenos, Siky¯onioi). Women can be “lost” in many different ways, however, and mistakes are made about other things than free birth and a legitimate father. This chapter looks at ways the stock device can be varied in order to try to explain why ancient audiences and playwrights found this premise so engaging. My focus is on how and why characters go wrong and my aim is to show how Menander managed to turn relatively simple errors about legal and social status into dramas full of conflict, emotion and even humor. Disputes over the position a woman holds or ought to hold in a community figure prominently in almost every Menandrian play. The Siky¯onioi, Misoumenos, Perikeiromen¯e, and H¯er¯os feature heated arguments about the heroine’s status, while the Dyskolos, Aspis, and Phasma explore more imaginative mistakes. An unidentified play, Arnott’s Fabula Incerta 8, preserves the remains of a particularly complicated mistake: an excitable young man seems to have fallen successively for two different women, thinking they were the same one. These disputes are largely between men and usually 1
Often called “lost citizens,” these women are rarely referred to as such in the Greek. Before recognition they are “slaves,” “captives” and even “hetairai;” after, they are “daughters.” Only Philoumene is called a , (“citizen”) and it is in the context of a debate over her juridical status. There is also a & 0 in Karch. 38–9. See Omitowoju 2002: 206–8 on the scarcity of citizenship terms. It was Terence who regularly used the word civis (e.g., And. 780, Eun. 890, Phor. 114, Ad. 725, cf. Poen. 372).
14
Misperception of status
15
over sexual access to the woman: who has it and on what terms. They range from a very public assembly to a very private debate between friends and they cover everything from the legal (a deadlocked ransom negotiation) to the metaphysical (an argument about a psychological illness). Much of the humor of mistaken identity plots comes from what the philosopher Henri Bergson called the “reciprocal interference of series,” situations which “[belong] simultaneously to two altogether independent series of events and [are] capable of being interpreted in two entirely different meanings at the same time.”2 Menander was a master in creating ironic arguments at cross purposes between characters who cannot see beyond their own interests. This chapter emphasizes women, not because the playwright is uninterested in mistakes about men, but because the latter tend to concern moral character rather than status, at least when they are central to the plot (the Siky¯onioi is an exception). Mistakes which play out as arguments are of course a useful technique for providing insight into a character’s motivation and beliefs. As one scholar notes, “Menander is by no means concerned with ¯ethos [character] by itself, but rather with the way his characters think, the way they make assessments and deductions, the way that ¯ethos is sometimes a function of dianoia [intelligence, intellectual capacity].”3 Misperception is treated here as an aspect of dianoia, an intellectual process grounded in what Menander’s contemporaries would have recognized as basic human psychology. Fourth-century rhetorical and philosophical theory about the role of emotions in perception can help contextualize Menandrian mistaken identity. For an ancient audience, it was common wisdom that emotions affected judgment. Rhetorical handbooks recognized that moving an audience was halfway to convincing them and accordingly taught how to exploit the conditions that made people irrational judges. A late fourth-century manual in the sophistic tradition advises aspiring orators to gauge the disposition of their audience and address any hostility right away: “in addressing an audience on [subjects liable to rouse hostility] one should . . . put the blame on necessity, fortune, circumstances, considerations of expediency, and say that the responsibility . . . lies not with the advisers but with the facts of the case.”4 Implicit is the assumption that the case is already lost if the audience is “hostile” (' 0). This manual also suggests that emotional impairment could serve as a criminal defense: “try to gain pardon 2 4
3 Scafuro 2003: 115. Bergson 1981: 123. Rhet. ad Alex. 1437b22–7 tr. H. Rackham. Speech introductions should secure attention and goodwill: “we shall secure their goodwill by first considering how they happen to be disposed towards us of themselves – whether they are friendly or hostile or merely neutral” (1436 b17–19).
16
Misperception of status
by bringing in the passions to which all mankind are liable, that divert us from rational calculation ( ) – namely love, anger, intoxication, ambition and the like.”5 In his own treatise on rhetoric, Aristotle also recognizes the possibility of swaying an audience by appealing to their emotions: “all people are persuaded either because as judges they themselves are affected in some way ( % < %) or because they suppose the speakers have certain qualities or because something has been logically demonstrated.”6 Aristotle takes a greater interest in causes than the author of the sophistic treatise and offers a psychological explanation of the effect of audience disposition ( ', % - &0) on judgments at trials: Things do not seem the same to those who are friendly and those who are hostile (misousin), nor [the same] to the angry and the calm but either altogether different or different in importance: to one who is friendly, the person about whom he passes judgment (krisin) seems not to do wrong or only in a small way; to one who is hostile, the opposite; and to a person feeling strong desire (epithumounti) and being hopeful, if something in the future is a source of pleasure, it appears that it will come to pass and will be good; but to an unemotional person and one in a disagreeable state of mind, the opposite. (Rhet. 1377b31–1378a5 tr. Kennedy)
What is important here is that Aristotle sees emotions directly affecting perception – how things “seem” ($%). The plays discussed in this chapter will furnish many examples of “persons feeling strong desire” who believe that their hopes will come to pass: Moschion (the Perikeiromen¯e), Sostratos (the Dyskolos), Daos (the H¯er¯os), Smikrines (the Aspis), Speaker A (Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott). There are also examples of the pairs Aristotle cites: Polemon and Pataikos in the Perikeiromen¯e can easily be described as “the angry and the calm;” Thrasonides and Getas in the Misoumenos are certainly “the friendly and the hostile.” We may see outrageous errors by characters desperate to believe their beloved belongs to an accessible status category. In contemporary terms, however, they are simply “judging” as people in the grip of desire generally do.
s i k y o¯ n i o i (the sikyonians) The Siky¯onioi is one of a number of plays in which the heroine’s status is at the center of all major conflicts. It is a good starting point because it concerns juridical status in a narrow sense: whether or not the woman is 5
Rhet. ad Alex. 1429a16–19.
6
1403b10–13, tr. Kennedy.
Siky¯onioi (The Sikyonians)
17
an Athenian citizen. One of the few status categories with a clear legal definition, citizenship is theoretically determinate, although Menander knew how to muddy the waters. In this case, he motivates the conflict by setting up a complicated situation of false enslavement. A prologue fragment tells how a four-year-old Athenian girl named Philoumene and a family slave were kidnapped and taken to Caria, where they were sold to an “extremely decent commander – rich too.” The commander is probably a soldier named Stratophanes. Sikyonian by birth but raised in Athens, he has returned home intending to settle down with Philoumene, now old enough for him to have fallen in love with her.7 The young woman has other ideas, however. She takes advantage of their return to Athens to flee to the sanctuary at Eleusis, where she pleads for a chance to find her lost family and reclaim her citizenship. Not surprisingly, since the enslavement of Athenians was illegal at Athens, she receives a sympathetic hearing. Her disclosure effectively blocks the marriage, since a Sikyonian could not marry an Athenian.8 Stratophanes’ status of course proves satisfactory in the end: the Sikyonians were only adoptive parents; his real parents were Athenian. His recovery of citizenship generates comparatively little conflict, however. Menander is far more interested in the tensions created by the temporary uncertainties surrounding Philoumene’s status. In the course of the play almost everyone becomes involved in the dispute between Stratophanes and Philoumene. The people of Eleusis meet to adjudicate it. There are at least two, and possibly three, claimants to Philoumene, not counting her actual father. The dispute also affects the soldier’s other dependents: his parasite Theron, who hopes to marry Stratophanes’ housekeeper (and interim mistress?) Malthake, and the slave sold with Philoumene, Dromon, who wants to reunite her with her family.9 Some of the uncertainties about Philoumene’s situation cannot be easily resolved. The background would be clearer if more of Acts I and II had
7
8 9
Alternatively, the buyer might be his deceased Sikyonian foster father (“more probably,” Arnott 2000a: 211 n. 4, cf. MacCary 1972: 286 and n. 22), but this character sketch would then be superfluous. It is unlikely that an Athenian family gave a child to a mercenary and unclear how Stratophanes was once poor (fr. 6 Arnott) if his father had been rich. On prohibitions on marriage between Athenians and foreigners see Harrison 1998 i: 24–9, MacDowell 1978: 87, Sealey 1984: 112–19, and Just 1989: 62–4. Malthake must be Athenian if Theron is (Arnott 2000a: 209) but they might both be non-citizens (Lape 2004: 219 “the marriage. . . . would have been akin to a metic marriage”). Pollux (4. 119) mentions a parasite wearing white to a wedding “in the Sikyonios,” probably this play. The title is attested in both the singular and plural. Faced with the necessity of a choice, I have followed papyrological and pictorial evidence against the majority of the testimonia (see Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 632, Belardinelli 1994: 56–9, and Arnott 2000a: 196–8 for discussion).
18
Misperception of status
survived.10 As it is, some detective work is needed to reconstruct her relationship to Stratophanes. Photius preserves a short quotation from the play, evidently from the prologue, suggesting that the soldier originally intended to make her a habra (lady’s maid) but changed his mind. He bought another woman for the purpose and raised Philoumene as a free woman instead: J> &-8, - 8 ( '- 2 , 2$ '( - H . (fr. 1 Sandbach = fr. 4 Arnott)11
. . . buying instead a lady’s maid, he did not hand his beloved over for her to have but raised her separately, as befits a free woman.
It looks as if Philoumene was raised to replace Malthake in a more formal union when Stratophanes was ready to settle down. “For her” must refer to the only other female member of Stratophanes’ household, Malthake, who is probably the soldier’s mistress.12 She is the only person in the play who could be called a hetaira (409) and the likeliest to complain about feeding donkeys on marches (411–12). (The speaker here is female because of the feminine participle and cannot be Philoumene. A “free woman” would be spared this menial task.) As soon as everything falls into place for Stratophanes’ marriage, Malthake is bustled out of the house with enough baggage (“suitcases, knapsacks, hampers, trunks” 388–9) to imply years of generous maintenance. This rather suggests a mistress who had to be dismissed before the bride could be received and who was ready to retire whenever the soldier would release her on good terms.13 “His beloved” in line 2 of the fragment is best taken as a pregnant construction, describing Philoumene as she is now, not as she was at the time of purchase (although 10
11 12
13
Except for three short scraps appearing in 1906, most of the play was first published by A. Blanchard and A. Bataille in 1964. Arnott 2000a prints the remains of 470 lines, the majority from Acts III–V. All Siky¯onioi citations are from Arnott except fr. 1. I have moved up Sandbach’s comma after - so that the J> is not the beloved. A J> was an unusually trusted and privileged slave (Francis 1975, cf. Men. frr. 63 and 411 K-A). The unnamed woman might be the soldier’s foster mother (Galiano, Corbato, both cited Belardinelli 1994: 235–6) but '- is a casual way to describe sending someone across the Aegean (the sale takes place in Caria and the foster parents evidently lived in Athens, since Stratophanes sends a slave “home,” K' at 120). They cannot have raised Philoumene (Arnott 2000a: 207) because her enslavement at Athens was illegal. For the same reason, it is unlikely that she lived there with Stratophanes and exploited a campaign absence to seek sanctuary (as Lape 2004: 218 suggests). See Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 634 and Henry 1988: 89–92 (Malthake as mistress), Krieter-Spiro 1997: 53 (as housekeeper) and Ireland 1992: 114 (as both).
Siky¯onioi (The Sikyonians)
19
this means the prologue speaker must have stopped referring to her as “the child” somewhere in the 26–40 missing lines).14 Stratophanes’ intentions are a mystery. Raising her “as befits a free woman” suggests that he freed her (technically, one had to be born an or “free woman,” so he could only make her an &, “freedwoman”) but he is still called her master (' ) at the beginning of the play. At four, the girl was too young for any kind of work.15 He had to raise her in any case, but why as a free woman? One possibility is that he intended to return her to her family, a benevolent scheme which figures in the Eunuchus and the Andria. There was, however, no reason to wait until she was an adult or to conceal his intentions (and if he had told her the truth, she had no reason for flight). He does claim to have “saved” her for her father (253), but only after he has learned of his own citizenship, and in the same breath as a marriage proposal. It seems unlikely that he restored her to her homeland intentionally. I suspect the benefactions he brags about in 79–84 (“benefactor,” “favor . . . child,” “doing an act of charity”) were similar to those Thrasonides conferred on Krateia: nominal freedom, clothing, jewelry, servants, and a position of authority within the household. Stratophanes paid Philoumene’s $, or rearing expenses and gave her a comfortable life when she could have expected only slavery. We are told about this at least three times: in fragment 1, at 226 (“I raised [her from] a small child”), and at 237 (“I waive her $,”). Child rearing was an expensive investment, never undertaken in New Comedy for purely sentimental reasons – at least, never by men – and Stratophanes can hardly have fallen in love with a four-year-old. He must have had some hope of future return and a long-term plan to make her a domestic partner seems the likeliest explanation. Slave concubines were probably common (although raising one for the purpose is a little unusual).16 Stratophanes’ willingness to waive her rearing expenses when he bids for her hand suggests that he regards marriage as adequate compensation. Moreover, the education he gave her qualified her for nothing but concubinage or marriage: a “free woman” did not learn marketable skills.17 We know that Stratophanes had 14
15 16
17
First suggested by Marzullo 1967: 16–17, but Gallavotti 1970: 50 notes that the two participles (&-8, -) would need to refer to different points in time. The lack of an article with - is also a problem. My reconstruction follows Henry 1988: 88–9 and Arnott 1997c: 102. Barigazzi 1986: 189, Belardinelli 1994: 234 n. 1, Arnott 1997c: 102. Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 168. Adoption of (but not marriage to) a freed /0 is attested (179); concubines evidently had to wait until they had children to be manumitted (see 167, 169 for examples). Clark 1989: 12.
20
Misperception of status
enough money to forego a dowry. Since his Sikyonian citizenship left him few marital options at Athens, a freedwoman of his own rearing may have seemed preferable (or simply easier for an ex-soldier to obtain?) than the daughter of another metic. Menander goes to some effort to mislead his hero about the heroine’s status. It looks as if Stratophanes never knew Philoumene’s Athenian origins. A tantalizing fragment from the prologue, right after the account of the purchase, mentions a man bringing someone or something in apparent ignorance: [] '%- : [%'] [.]. - , [ [ ] ..'. ', []
(perhaps [])
(17–19)
for the little child, her father[land] . . . [recently?] bringing . . . into (her?) familial . . . [before] seeming to know [what/anything]
Philoumene is the only “little child” in the play (mentioned as such in lines 5, 17 and 84). At some point Stratophanes brought her from Caria, where she was purchased and probably reared, to her “fatherland” of Athens, the setting of the play (“this is Eleusis” in line 57 suggests recent arrival). It is hard to believe that he knew he was repatriating her. He had every reason to avoid Athens, the one place where she could permanently escape his grasp. It may be simply that Dromon lied to him in the hope that they might return some day, a reasonable expectation once he learned that his master had Athenian ties. Her flight to the sanctuary clearly comes as a surprise; evidently he has been under a false belief about her nationality. This ignorance has serious consequences: his most important emotional relationship – at least a decade in the planning – is now predicated on a mistaken assumption about Philoumene’s status. The question of who has kyrieia (legal authority) over Philoumene thus pits the two principal characters directly against one another, eventually bringing them before a local deme assembly. The messenger who reports the assembly’s deliberations in Act IV describes Philoumene sitting “by the gates” of the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore – appropriately enough for a kidnapped girl fleeing an unwanted marriage.18 “Sitting” ( 190) can also mean “sitting in supplication.”19 He also describes her as “having fled” (214), which suggests some urgency. We do not know her immediate reason for flight. Dromon offers an explanation, but the lines 18
Arnott 1997a: 3, Lape 2004: 238 n. 89.
19
Belardinelli 1994: 165 ad 190.
Siky¯onioi (The Sikyonians)
21
are badly preserved (“that the master . . . do harm,” C 8 0 194) and it is not clear whether he is discussing why she fled or how the soldier reacted. We were told earlier that she had three causes for fear. An unidentified speaker, probably Moschion, reported: “she’s afraid, (s?)he says, of him as master (' ), foreigner (4[]), and third, lover ( )” (97–8).20 This passage, the only potentially direct evidence for Philoumene’s views, significantly puts “master” before “lover” and suggests that their relationship was colored by fear. She seems to think of herself as an Athenian: calling Stratophanes a “foreigner” sounds like an assertion of national identity, since it implies membership in some group against which foreigners could be defined. As an Athenian, she has grounds to challenge his claim to be her “master,” although she does acknowledge the amorous relationship (but only as a third cause for fear – perhaps because he will be more reluctant to relinquish her). Since Greeks did not assume, or even expect, mutual affection in such relationships, recognition of his tender feelings need not imply any on her part: “ardent suitor” may capture the sense here. What anticipated harm, then, drove her to flight? Belardinelli suggests she was worried about losing her virginity and the consequences it might have for her reinstatement as an Athenian.21 It seems unlikely, however, that this would prevent her from seeking her parents. Glykera and her father are delighted to find one another in the Perikeiromen¯e, despite her affair with a soldier, and the father in the Misoumenos still wants to reclaim a daughter who has belonged to a soldier for some time. Moreover, Dromon later praises the soldier to Philoumene’s father for “saving your girl [ , i.e., unmarried girl] for you” (379) and emphasizes that she is “a virgin still, without experience of men” (373–4). This would be an odd position to take if he knew that she had fled to avoid rape. It also seems out of character for a “thoroughly decent commander” like Stratophanes to use force against a girl he has raised. Even the soldier in the Misoumenos balks at rape, and he is violent enough that his slave hides the household swords. If “lover” really is the most important item it is hard to see why it comes last on Philoumene’s list. Stratophanes’ love is a complication but surely not the main problem. Philoumene must have had a more pressing reason to flee. Fear of obstruction in the search for her family is a more plausible explanation. When he addresses the informal assembly, Stratophanes takes it for granted that she wants to find her relatives and tries to release her from 20 21
CGFP 242.85–6 suggests this list may have been a topos (Belardinelli 1994: 126 ad 97–8). “Lover” might come as a surprise, a '% effect. Belardinelli 1994: 126 ad 97–8.
22
Misperception of status
“fear” of himself ($ > . . . L 3 241) by relinquishing kyrieia to the assembly (a bit gratuitous, since she would be as well protected from any advances once she was lodged with the priestess, whether he remained her kyrios or not). His concession, “let her find her father and relatives – I’m not offering any opposition” (238–9), suggests a change of heart and at the same time acknowledges that opposition from him might be expected. If he had learned or suspected the truth, he may have threatened to take her away from Athens. Even if he had made no explicit threat, a dependent who hoped to escape his kyrieia had grounds for fear. He had the authority to take her away (as her “master”), soluble ties to Athens (as a “foreigner”) and a particular reason to block her flight (as her “lover”). There are hints earlier in the play of a plan that may have included leaving Athens. An unidentified speaker, most likely Theron, proposes “dragging off” someone (59–60), very likely Philoumene, during the confusion of a town meeting. His talk of finding a person “to witness thus” (M- , 55) is probably not a proposal to pass Philoumene off as a citizen, as Arnott suggests, because this would not do Stratophanes any good (he is still a presumptive Sikyonian).22 It is more likely a conjecture about her own plans: a scheme of this sort would help her. Theron is projecting his own duplicity, pointing out how easy it would be to find a dishonest witness and advising the soldier to forestall this with a quick abduction. There would be no point in dragging her away from the sanctuary unless steps were also taken to prevent further attempts. Leaving Athens would have been the simplest solution. Stratophanes puts a very different color on the relationship than Philoumene does, if my reconstruction is correct. Implicitly denying all three of her reasons for fear, he claims that he is not a “foreigner” but “a citizen of yours” (% L), if his mother’s will and the tokens can be trusted (and he is modest – or clever – enough to profess some doubt). Far from calling himself her “lover,” he avoids any suggestion that he might have treated an Athenian girl as a sex object. Instead he talks about “having saved her for her father” and about “petitioning” for her hand (253–4), confesses to “hope” (251) – putting sex firmly in the future – and twice refers to her as a , “unmarried girl” (252, 255). The lines about their past relationship are fragmentary, but two references to “rearing” (226, 237) and the word (“girl/maiden” 236) suggest that he did not represent himself as her master or speak of her as his slave. When the papyrus resumes at 235 he is grandly giving her something that was 22
Legrand 1910: 93 n. 1, Arnott 1997a: 7, 2000a: 217–18.
Siky¯onioi (The Sikyonians)
23
her father’s “but is now mine.” This can only be Dromon (the gift is in the masculine singular). Not only does this magnanimous gesture win him sympathy, but it also gives credibility to his narrative of generous treatment, at the same time underscoring the difference between Philoumene and the actual slaves in his household. He had already convinced the assembly of his sincerity with sighs and tears (220–21); he may even have invited them openly to judge his conduct (this seems to be the implication of “in a way worthy of you (plural)” in 230). Surprisingly, Stratophanes carries his denial of the master-slave relationship to the point of ceding his legal rights, claiming neither kyrieia (he fully acknowledges her citizenship) nor recompense for her rearing expenses – all in order to advance his suit with her undiscovered father, for which he asks permission (“allow me to ask him” 254). This is pure flattery, “a masterstroke,” as one critic describes it.23 Not even the full Athenian Assembly, the voting body of male citizens that met on the Pnyx, could deny someone the right simply to ask a man for his daughter. They could however adjudicate a kyrieia dispute, which is what this assembly does when it places Philoumene with the sanctuary priestess. It is also flattery to pretend that the girl belongs to the assembled citizens, at least temporarily (“being this girl’s guardians yourselves” 240–1), and that the priestess will serve their interests by keeping her (“let her watch the girl for you” 242–3). “Guardians” is an honorific title without legal force here. It was the archon, not the Assembly, who acted as kyrios of orphans.24 Stratophanes, moreover, has already recognized her father as her real kyrios. But the pretence that she belongs to the people of Eleusis serves his rhetorical ends: it earns him “much goodwill” (243–4) and a favorable response to his request. The assembly shouts approval and encourages him to continue (“everyone cried ‘he’s right,’ and then again from everyone ‘speak’” 244–5). It also allows him to appear disinterested – the sort of person to give up his rights for the girl’s benefit – and it gives the assembly a personal interest in her fate. Since it effectively turns his rivals into their opponents, it also forestalls alternative proposals (“let none of my opponents become kyrios of the girl before he [sc. her father] appears” 255–7). Finally, he is careful to make denial appear particularly cruel: “don’t take this hope away from me yet” (251–2).25 23
24 25
Hofmeister 1997: 311, q.v. 312–13 on Stratophanes’ use of rhetorical strategies typically employed by elite speakers before mass audiences (it is unclear, however, that a foreign ex-soldier, without property, political clout, or aristocratic birth, would necessarily have been regarded as “elite”). Harrison 1998 i: 102–4. Lape 2004: 231–2 emphasizes the symbolic meaning of yielding kyrieia: sexual control (which he cedes) symbolizes political control (which they assert in accepting kyrieia). Lape 2004: 218 n. 39.
24
Misperception of status
At least one of Stratophanes’ opponents takes a less benign view of the relationship between the soldier and the young woman. Moschion, who speaks up against the soldier in the assembly, attempts to arrest him and Theron afterwards as kidnappers (&'' 272). The young man seems to have chosen this particular charge less for its plausibility than because it permitted summary arrest, which would keep the soldier from contracting a marriage in the short term (Moschion actually uses the technical term for summary arrest, & ,[], in 272). Because “kidnapping” a citizen usually meant enslavement, the ostensible crime is probably not placing her with the priestess, which would be hard to construe as enslavement (or even detention, since she is at the sanctuary of her own will), but having kept her as a slave for the last decade.26 This would imply that Stratophanes knew she was a citizen. “Kidnapping” may even allude to the “tragic rubbish” (i.e., the story about recently discovered citizenship) Moschion criticized when he accused the soldier of planning to keep the girl, now that he had “got her for himself” (262–3).27 It is not unreasonable for him to suspect fraud. The will that made Stratophanes a citizen turned up at a suspiciously convenient moment and might well look like a scheme to keep Philoumene in a sham marriage, arguably little more than “kidnapping.” Although this assembly ignored the smooth-shaven fellow who “looked like a womanizer” (210), Moschion may have hoped to convince another assembly that the soldier’s claim to citizenship, and thus to the girl, was fraudulent. His agitation during the assembly (he turned white and “jumped in,” 258–9) suggests that the news came as an unpleasant surprise. At very least, it removed an advantage he had probably hoped to exploit. Moschion applies a revealing double standard to the two claims of citizenship. Stratophanes’ infuriates him; Philoumene’s (via Dromon) seems to have inspired him to “dare” something (102), despite momentary doubts about the slave’s honesty. We do not know what he had in mind but he must have contacted the slave prior to the assembly, since he asserts there that Dromon knows who he is (or perhaps what he is saying – the text is uncertain) and he claims to have been “helping” the two for a while (204–5). His envy at the news that Stratophanes is indeed a citizen (and his 26 27
Placing her with the priestess might be “kidnapping” if Moschion thought his family owned her (Arnott 2000a: 260–1 n. 27), but he seems to have accepted her as a citizen. & may imply more of a victory than Stratophanes actually won: it can mean “marry” when the object is a woman. Pace Arnott 1997b: 30 (“there seems to be no designed ambiguous allusion here”), the ambiguity is unavoidable: “taking” a was marrying her and Stratophanes has made no secret of his intentions. On the “tragic rubbish” see Hunter 1985: 119.
Misoumenos (The Man She Hated)
25
own brother!) confirms that he had wanted to marry Philoumene himself. He cannot “even look at the girl any more” with her “milky white skin and beautiful eyes” (397–9); it is his “brother who is marrying her, lucky him” (400); and he will have to “be the best man” ( 0 404). These are not the complaints of a man who hoped to amuse himself with a pretty slave; he must have believed in her citizenship. Like many Menandrian lovers, Moschion saw what he wanted to see. At the time of the assembly neither the girl nor the soldier had proved a claim to citizenship, and yet she was “not alien” ( &% 105) while he was a foreigner talking “tragic rubbish.” Even with scant remains of Moschion’s part and nothing of Philoumene’s (if she even had a speaking part) we can see very different constructions of her relationship to Stratophanes. Moschion is unwilling to concede any legitimacy to the soldier’s claims: he does not own her and cannot marry her. Stratophanes is reluctant to represent himself as her master, or even former master, and he is too rhetorically astute to represent himself as her lover. Philoumene, who probably regarded him as both master and lover (and a foreigner as well), at least made her opinion clear when she fled to the sanctuary. Even in an apparently simple case of mistaken identity, Menander creates dramatic conflicts from different views of the same situation. He explores the subjective elements of what characters see and the emotional implications of their mistakes.
m i s o u m e n o s (the man she hated) The Siky¯onioi illustrates a pattern we see repeated in the Misoumenos.28 Here too an ambiguity concerning a woman’s status gives rise to a kyrieia dispute. Another soldier who wants to marry a dependent finds himself at odds with her over their relationship, largely because he is unaware of a family connection which threatens to destroy the “marriage.” The soldier Thrasonides, like Stratophanes, is trying to circumvent normal marriage procedures by buying himself a bride – in this case, a Cypriot war captive named Krateia. When the play begins, he has recently returned from campaign and set up house with Krateia as his mistress. He would like to believe she is his wife but he has little success in establishing this archaic model of marriage in the real world of the late fourth century.29 The “marriage” is valid only within the household, where he can compel a semblance of recognition from his other 28 29
All Misoumenos citations are from Arnott 1996a. Translations are my own. See Lacey 1966: 62 “in Homer, the state of marriage was the state of living openly with a woman and calling her your wife, installing her as the mistress of your N and acknowledging her children as your heirs”.
26
Misperception of status
dependents; it lacks the support of the community, Krateia’s family and even Krateia herself. Indeed her rejection of any intimate connection with Thrasonides, including the role of wife, is the problem that gives the play its title. She refuses even friendly conversation with the would-be husband she “hates,” probably out of the mistaken belief that he killed a member of her family (the scholarly consensus is that it was her brother).30 When her father arrives, he is overjoyed to discover that his lost daughter is still alive and, he assumes, available for ransom. Thrasonides, however, has different plans. Hoping to marry Krateia formally, he insists on treating Demeas as her proper kyrios, much to Demeas’ confusion. After a difficult interview, the father eventually secures his daughter’s release. Eventually the confusion about the death is cleared up and the play ends with a betrothal and wedding preparations, all with Krateia’s full consent. There are a number of uncertainties about the plot, due to the poor state of preservation of the play.31 Fortunately, two comparatively well-preserved scenes, the opening and the beginning of Act IV, treat Krateia’s relationship to Thrasonides. Her situation is far from straightforward, even before a second potential kyrios arrives. Thrasonides ought to be pleased with his enviably secure possession of Krateia. The first thing we learn about him, however, is that he self-identifies as a lover, not a master. His opening monologue starts with a reference to Aphrodite (line 1) and runs through the stock elements of comic love: the paraclausithyron (“I’m standing now in front of my own door” 6),32 the hint of insanity (“loving as madly as possible” 11–12) and the declarations of passion (the root -- appears in 3, 5, 9, 12). Thrasonides is perfectly aware of his rights (“I can lie down . . . I have the right,” 4 8' . . . 24 9–10) but he refuses to exercise them. We learn that he wants her consent even more than her compliance when he tells Getas, a trusty confidant just returned from abroad, about his efforts to make Krateia his wife. 30
31 32
The prologue presumably identified the deceased mentioned at 647–50 and the sword mentioned at 677 (evidence that Thrasonides killed him?). Arnott 1996a: 273, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 441, 452–3 ad 246–50, MacCary 1972: 285, Sisti 1985: 11, 104–5 ad 246–58. Following Borgogno 1969a, Arnott assigns lines 647–50 (Sandbach 246–50) so that Krateia is the one who knows the identity of the murderer. Choricius attributes her hatred to Thrasonides’ miles gloriosus traits (Test. 1 Arnott = fr. 1 Sandbach) but the soldier is not particularly offensive (Turner 1979: 109–11, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 438, Sisti 1985: 115–16, contra Lape 2004: 188–91 and n. 55). If anything, he needs to be prodded to act like a soldier (see lines 244–5). Since her hatred vanishes by Act V, it is unlikely that his basic disposition was the problem. Choricius may not have read the actual play ($ , “they say that . . . ,” suggests an intermediary source). Arnott 1996a prints about 160 nearly complete lines and another 430 partial lines of text. Turner 1979: 108–9, Bornmann 1980: 157, Goldberg 1980: 50–2, Lape 2004: 193.
Misoumenos (The Man She Hated)
27
[0, ] %, 1 % [' ] &'%4, %, % [< ']8, , % – (D.) N %; [ 0 L>]%O; (37–41) Having bought [her], granted her freedom, appointed her [mistress] of the house, [given] her maids, jewelry, [dresses,] considered her my wife – (Ge.) Then what? [Your wife] abuses [you]?
Krateia’s formal status is not clear. Although Thrasonides claims he freed her and later uses a word that may suggest free status (“little girl,” '% 53), “granted” (%) is not a technical term and there is no indication he has gone through the usual forms of manumission.33 It is possible that concubinage was a formal condition of Krateia’s manumission, as Borgogno suggests (freedom often had strings attached), but nobody mentions this later when it ought to matter.34 Her situation is not apparently that of a freedwoman. Simply walking out, as the soldier’s mistress does in the Perikeiromen¯e, is evidently out of the question (admittedly, this right had to be spelled out in the rare manumission that came with unconditional freedom).35 No one even suggests the possibility. When her father arrives, he negotiates as if for a captive, unaware that his daughter is supposedly free, and later in the play Getas seems to think the choice to ransom her still lies with his master (“I wouldn’t ransom her” 716), despite a concession at 41 (“your wife,” supplemented by Turner) to make Thrasonides come to the point.36 Some translators have been tempted to modify Thrasonides’ language (“promised her her freedom” [Arnott], “treated her like a free girl” [Miller]), but the Greek is explicit. Since the soldier treats Krateia as free when he pleads with Demeas, he must mean what he says here. The problem may be that he has granted her a privilege of little practical use. Far from Cyprus and without friends or kin, she can do little with this “freedom” – except 33
34
35
Manumission generally included a public announcement and witnesses (Harrison 1998 i: 183, Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 184–5, 207). On % see Lloyd-Jones (cited Brown 1980: 6). Krieter-Spiro 1997: 54 n. 7 takes his declaration at face value (q.v. for further references). Ammonius the grammarian (Men. fr. 97 K-A) distinguishes , (a slave) and '% (a free girl) in Attic usage but LSJ provide examples of '% in both senses. Borgogno 1987: 195 n. 3 and 1988: 94–6. The life of a slave freed with “conditional release” (. 0) could change very little: it was not uncommon to serve former owners until their death (Hopkins 1978: 146–9, Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 225–6). See further Harrison 1998 i: 185, MacDowell 1978: 82–3, Todd 1993: 190–1, Davidson 1997: 101 and Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 222–48. A recent Athenian law banning the purchase of a freeborn person enslaved in war may be suppressed for dramatic reasons (Lape 2004: 191–2), if the play is set in Athens. 36 Brown 1980: 6. E.g., SGDI 1719 (Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 271).
28
Misperception of status
marry him. He has, after all, given her authority over the household slaves, while his gifts of clothing, jewelry, and servants, all typical dowry items, give her the trappings of a married woman. Thrasonides is aware of the difference between what he has chosen to believe (he only “considered,” % , her his wife) and what custom and the law recognize. He refers to her as “the captive” in line 37, partly for Getas’ benefit and partly in order to represent her behavior as hubris (“I’m being abused,” he complains at 36). It counts as “abuse” only because it comes from an ex-slave who has received far better treatment than she could have expected. It is because Thrasonides realizes she is not really his wife that he feels entitled to her gratitude (a wife would not owe all of her possessions to her husband), he considers himself disgraced by her rejection (41), and he does not press his claims as her husband when he meets her father. His forebodings when the father arrives (“my soul presages some ill, Getas” 668–9) betray a more realistic fear. He is afraid that Demeas will reject him as a suitor (“what if he does not . . . give her legally” 663–4), not that he will insist on a divorce. As in the Siky¯onioi, this conflict starts with the couple but affects the whole household. After a little prodding, Thrasonides admits that Krateia hates him, despite his gifts, and that her hatred is no accidental discovery. He had his suspicions; in fact, he even devised a scheme to test them: (P.) Q% M [= ], & , >. 2 - : '( . (D.) N %; (P.) “'% >'% ,” $%, “', @' ', ,”
% ; . 5 * : ': []3[ ] K, “3 Q M, + ; [ #]- ;” (50–6) (Thr.) I watch for a real downpour, when it’s night, with lightning and thunder. I’m lying down with her. (Ge.) Then what? (Thr.) “Little girl,” I shout. “I have to go right now to see someone,” and I come up with a name. Any woman would say at least this: “in a downpour, poor dear? To see someone?”
The weather needs to be harsh enough to make her reaction a clear sign of her feelings; hence the elaboration of what we already know from Getas’ grumbling (“it’s not fit for a dog out here” 15–16). The soldier spares none of the conventional details – darkness, thunder, lightning, heavy rain – and he reminds us that it is loud enough, even inside, for him to have to shout to his bedmate ( is an otherwise odd word for pillow talk). We do not
Misoumenos (The Man She Hated)
29
know what Krateia said, but it is clear she did nothing to stop him, and so we see him pacing in front of his own house. Thrasonides tells the story as evidence of her hatred, but it also offers a glimpse of the domestic situation he tried to create. He has been playing the husband, chatting in bed about household trivia, pretending she has a right to know his whereabouts and generally treating her as the wife he would like her to be. A correct response would show compassion, even echo his thoughts (his word “downpour” should also figure in her response) with feminine expressions of concern (“poor dear”).37 Better yet, she should question the necessity of the errand (“to see someone?”), perhaps even try to dissuade him. His affectionate “little girl” looks for a reciprocal endearment, something like the “poor dear” that any woman would say. As we later learn, not being “spoken to kindly” is a sore point (88–9). Putting himself in danger and giving her an opportunity to intervene is a tactic he will also repeat. Krateia not only fails as a wife but demonstrates a basic lack of humanity. “Do you suppose this is human (& ) and ordinary?” (44– 5), he eventually asks Getas. Thrasonides considers his wish realistic and reasonable: he only wants to hear what “any woman” (line 55) would say. By “any woman” he naturally means any woman in the same situation, i.e., a wife or mistress ( 0 can mean either “woman” or “wife,” depending on the context). Knowing nothing of Krateia’s past, the soldier assumes she will accept his generosity, as any sensible slave would. Her un-slavelike behavior leaves him mystified. The audience of course knows the real reason: she has refused him out of loyalty to another man, probably her brother. A third party is thus central to the quarrel, even though he is not named. Not surprisingly, the conflict between the couple escalates when this party gains an advocate. What is surprising is that Thrasonides receives the news that his “wife” is the daughter of a visiting Cypriot so quietly (“Krateia’s father, you say, has just arrived” 660) and accepts his authority so readily: “if he doesn’t find me suitable (' ) and give her legally (%-), Thrasonides is done for” (663–4). Of course, he thinks of Demeas’ authority primarily as a right of disposal, including the right to test and approve suitors (' covers both).38 It never occurs to him that her father might have other intentions and he discounts Krateia’s influence completely in assuming that Demeas will make the decision. 37 38
+ is gendered (Wilamowitz 1925: 74, Dedoussi 1964: 2, Bain 1984: 33–5, McClure 1995: 45). 'O- occurs several times in connection with matrimony (Men. fr. 804.11 K-A, Dysk. 137, Sisti 1985: 106 ad 262) and may also have legal overtones. By the end of the fourth century, ' % was becoming usual for finalizing the conferral of citizenship by decree (Harrison 1998 ii: 207).
30
Misperception of status
The two men see the situation so differently they can scarcely communicate with one another. Thrasonides wants to convert his informal “marriage” into a legitimate one; Demeas wants to rescue his daughter from enslavement as a soldier’s concubine. The two come head to head in an amusing scene of mutual misunderstanding. Ironically, both men place themselves in the weaker position as each pleads with the other for Krateia. As in the Siky¯onioi, the soldier yields his legal claim in order to win his beloved back as a bride, initiating a dispute about who her kyrios actually is. We learn about this off-stage discussion at cross purposes from Getas, who does his best to win our sympathy for his master: ,] '( 3 .].[. ] [] [], Q, $ R] , [H] C5, [ " ' N ]: < > 8.” J[] -, &> ; 8. (692–6)
Not a peep out of [that guy] . . . (reporting Thrasonides’ speech) “and further, Demeas, [I love Krateia] myself, as you can see, I really do. [You’re her father] guardian.” He says all this crying, pleading. But it was like a donkey hearing a lyre.
Thrasonides frames the dispute as a marriage negotiation and accordingly addresses Demeas first. He makes a point of his affection (the main emphasis of the sentence falls on the subject, highlighted by the demonstrative and the grammatically unnecessary pronoun ), presumably to counter a claim of fatherly affection. But then he makes the surprising assertion “you’re her guardian.” Since Thrasonides became her kyrios when he purchased her, this is tantamount to renouncing his ownership. He is negotiating as if she were free and eligible for marriage. Of course, he has good reason to take this line of argument. He could hardly accept a ransom and then demand the girl back along with a dowry (which was required, whether he wanted it or not, if the marriage was to be distinguishable from the concubinage that preceded it). He therefore accords her the status that serves his long-term goal. But no one else believes that she is free to leave and rejoin her father – neither Krateia, nor her nurse, nor her father, nor even Getas. Demeas simply assumes, and Getas confirms (“if it were me, I wouldn’t ransom her” 715–16), that she is the soldier’s to release. The only question is whether he will agree. The old man is understandably confused by Thrasonides’ suit and never quite sees his point of view:
Misoumenos (The Man She Hated)
31
S 3 ' K “: 3 &4 T- &3 U 0.” “ 9 ' , , Q.” (698–700)
But he adds just this: “I’m here to ask you to ransom my daughter, as her father.” “But I’m begging you for her as a wife, now that we’ve met, Demeas.”
Demeas offers several justifications for his request: Krateia is “his own” (: 3 excludes any significant connection to Thrasonides); he is her father (that is, his is a prior and more valid claim); and custom and decency are on his side (&4, “ask for, expect to, think appropriate,” applies slight moral and social pressure). Getas himself confirms that ransom is “Greek custom and done everywhere” as an act of pity (716–17), although he thinks custom should be disregarded, given Demeas’ and Krateia’s “unheard of and inhuman cruelty” (685–6).39 What Demeas does not do is act as his daughter’s kyrios, even though the soldier seems willing to allow it and it would remove any need to argue about ransom. The choice not to exploit the soldier’s “gift” of freedom must be deliberate. It is unclear who made this decision, but Demeas does seem to be guided by his daughter’s opinion. She was answering all of the questions and inviting him inside “to plan” (657) at her last appearance. Perhaps she refused to take anything from Thrasonides, even a dubious and highly conditional offer of freedom. Since the two men both stubbornly insist on their own view of her formal status, they have no real dialogue and quickly reach a stalemate. Demeas makes his request and holds his peace while Thrasonides repeats his pleas. The deadlock forces Thrasonides to take up his suit with Krateia herself, thus returning the dispute to the original parties but with a new balance of power. He has to adopt a different approach with Krateia. He was inviting her father to enter a new relationship; he is asking her to acknowledge and continue an existing one. This means convincing her to accept that he really has been her husband: “&>, R, , : [ ]%, K[]$ [ &: 0 , V , & ], $, R $ % %; 8 , %.” ' & . (706–11) 39
See Lape 2004: 190 on social and ethical pressures to ransom.
32
Misperception of status
“I’m begging you, Krateia, don’t abandon me. I took you as a virgin, I was the first man called your husband, I loved you, still love you, adore you, Krateia sweetie! What have I done to upset you? You’ll find out that I’m dead, if you abandon me.” No answer.
Thrasonides uses similar language with father and daughter – “love” ($), “plead” (&>), “wife/husband” ( 0/&0), vocatives (“Krateia,” “Demeas”), even an emphatically placed “I” – and encounters the same silence. The claim to have taken her as a (“virgin, unmarried girl”) need not signify that she has lost her virginity (his complaint that they are not having sex at 9–12 suggests otherwise); his point is that he took her as a marriageable girl, i.e., not as a slave. Furthermore, local gossip supposedly recognized the union: “I was the first man called your husband.” &0 is as close as Greek comes to a word for husband; in informal unions, the man is more likely to be called an 0, “lover” (e.g., Perik. 128, 343, Sam. 26). His subsequent declaration of love (“I loved you, still love you, adore you”) lays out his qualifications, along with a hint of disbelief that feelings as strong as his are not returned. Thrasonides treats the negotiation almost like a divorce, demanding that she show cause (“what have I done?”). He also appeals to her sense of responsibility: the word “abandon” (707, 711) connotes heartlessness, betrayal and desertion (incidentally, it also confirms that he considers her free); the “hammering away on the second person at the ends of the lines” ( , , ) demands her attention;40 and lastly the suicide threat escalates the consequences of refusal. At no point does he assert his legal rights as her owner, even though he understands that he could “prevent this man from taking her away” (794–5). Instead, he decides to turn to drink (765–6) once her coldness has destroyed any hope that “pity” (his pity in letting her go) will change her mind: “but will she say ‘you’ll charm away all my hatred of you with pity?’” (797–8). Thrasonides is determined to have either marriage with consent or nothing at all, even if it means parting with the woman he loves. His generosity, like Stratophanes’, is not entirely disinterested but it is not hypocritical either. Menander gives this soldier a highly subjective perception of Krateia’s position in his household – a perception that is part willful denial, part wishful thinking – to motivate otherwise implausible behavior. He contrasts this misperception, if it may called that, with the more practical and realistic views of Getas and Demeas. Like the Siky¯onioi, the Misoumenos uses differing perceptions of the heroine’s relationship to the soldier in order to generate conflict. Even a 40
Brenk 1987: 50.
Perikeiromen¯e (The Rape of the Locks)
33
comparatively straightforward matter like kyrieia, for which there were laws and procedures to settle rival claims, could generate emotionally charged misunderstandings with dramatic consequences. These surprisingly subjective disputes over what ought to be objective facts have a certain psychological plausibility, at least in fourth-century terms. The disputants’ emotions strongly influence what they perceive to be true; their most improbable speculations are limited to the short period of uncertainty after the heroine’s old identity is brought into question but before the new one is confirmed. Their limited perspective is striking, particularly in the Misoumenos, where neither party seems able to understand the other’s point of view. The insight into dianoia offered to the audience is deliberately withheld from the actual participants, whose misguided efforts acquire a poignant, if amusing, irony.
p e r i k e i r o m e n e¯ (the rape of the locks) The third preserved soldier play, the Perikeiromen¯e, also dramatizes the story of a rejected soldier who discovers, to his dismay, that his “bride” has stronger ties to another household. This play, too, features an illusory “marriage,” with the same cast of characters: the decent soldier, his loyal confidant, his shady young rival, the lost daughter who refuses to become his unofficial “wife,” and her fortuitously discovered father. It also uses the same technique of contrasting perspectives on the status of the heroine, with both lovers seeing only what they want to see and struggling to persuade the larger community to share their perspective. The soldiers in all three plays are quick to cede kyrieia, real or fancied, when it no longer serves their purpose to assert it. What is remarkable is how small a role coincidence – or fate, the gods, pirates, etc. – plays in these mistaken identity plots. The set-up may be artificially contrived, but the mistakes escalate because of very human causes. We learn from the prologue that the hot-tempered soldier Polemon has settled with Glykera next door to a young man named Moschion. A quarrel arises when Polemon, learning that Glykera had embraced Moschion while he was out of town, cuts off her hair in revenge. The embrace was innocent on her part because the young man is actually her unacknowledged brother. It was less innocent on his part: ignorant of the family tie, he has rather inconveniently fallen in love with her. Happily for him, she is unwilling to spoil his reputation by disclosing the truth. She is, after all, only a soldier’s mistress, whereas he passes for the legitimate son of a wealthy couple. Angry with Polemon, Glykera takes shelter with the only other person who knows the truth – Moschion’s mother – a move that gives the young man
34
Misperception of status
false hopes and the soldier false suspicions. Like other misperceiving lovers, Polemon and Moschion look at Glykera with a kind of circumscribed vision, perceiving her only in relation to themselves. What each sees is not implausible, although deeply colored by personal hopes and desires; yet their views are mutually contradictory and, in point of fact, equally wrong. The two rivals are actually introduced in analogous situations: each sends for a report on Glykera (with the same question: “what is she doing?” 296, 355) and each consults with a confidant about how best to win her. Moschion appears first, in Act II, Scene i (lines 267–353). His errors are relatively straightforward, deriving from the simple assumption that Glykera is a hetaira. He never says this directly but it is clear enough from his boast about being “[attractive] to hetairai” (303), which he assumes is the reason Glykera did not flee his embrace (301). It is not unreasonable for Moschion to assume that a soldier’s ex-mistress intends to take up the trade. Although she is reluctant to call herself a hetaira (711–13), a destitute orphan had few other options, and he does not know that she is his sister. From an initial mistake about her reasons for entering his house, wishful thinking soon leads to a further error: presuming that she is available for a casual relationship. He expects her to drop Polemon at a moment’s notice and require nothing more than “encouragement” (, 293) to accept him instead. His slave Daos feeds this delusion by claiming to have expended “thousands of words” in “persuading” her ( 273, cf. 327, 328). At this point even Moschion can smell a fib (“if you’re lying to me again . . .” 267–9) and promptly sends the slave to confirm his report (295). In the meantime he speculates about Glykera’s motives. & 2'4 3 H 1 ) ' 2$ , & >3 [ ] . &': H 2 K ', ' [ ,, K, : W5, & )%[ $0.
(300–3)41
But she showed something of this when I approached her last night. She didn’t flee when I ran up, but put her arms around me and [drew me close]. I’m not unpleasant, it seems, to look at or [talk to], I do believe – by Athena! – but [attractive] to hetairai.
Her approval flatters his vanity, confirming – at least in his own mind – that hetairai find him charming. His satisfaction (and he is still pleased a few lines later, “I’m not unpleasant” 309) betrays a mixture of insecurity 41
All Perikeiromen¯e citations are from Sandbach 1990. Arnott’s 1996a supplement $0 is printed in 303.
Perikeiromen¯e (The Rape of the Locks)
35
and pride; he even invokes Adrasteia, the goddess who punishes pride, as a precaution.42 It has been noted that Moschion displays traits of the braggart soldier that Polemon himself lacks, such as vanity and overconfidence.43 Unlike his namesake in the Siky¯onioi, who tries to exploit the girl’s fear of the soldier, Moschion simply leaves Polemon out of the reckoning. Attributing the rift to his own charms, he ignores the act of violence and anticipates no retaliation as he crows over his rival’s defeat (293–4). It is not even clear that he knows what happened (although it may be implied by , 293, which can also mean “comfort”). Moschion is wrong-headed on a number of counts. He presumes rather naively that hetairai choose lovers for “charm” alone and hardly considers the terms of his offer until Daos brings up the subject (339). His interpretation of the embrace fits his notions about hetairai, revealing what one scholar has described as “a strong tendency to reinterpret events as his own impulsive spirit suggests.”44 In an analysis of the discrepancies between Moschion’s version and the prologue’s account, Lamagna notes that the former makes Glykera the subject (“she put her arms around me and [drew me close]” 301), whereas the latter does not (“running up, he embraced her” 155–6). In his recollection, it was she who embraced him.45 Moreover the prologue merely says she “did not flee,” but according to Moschion she “drew him close.” The prologue also explains that she accepted his embrace and his kisses – which Moschion omits – out of family loyalty, choosing to regard them as brotherly. But her motives are lost on the young man, who reads her action strictly within the parameters of her presumptive type. Hoping for a sign of a hetaira’s favor, he not only reads his own meaning into her behavior but even makes her responsible for what is, in effect, his subjective impression: “she showed . . . this” (i.e., that she liked him). He felt confident enough to hazard a pick-up line about wanting “to see her about something when they had more time” 159–60) and now, knowing of no invitation except his own, he takes her arrival as an acceptance. He is ready to believe anything that confirms she really is there “for him” (331–2). Daos is ready to oblige: she is “bathed and waiting” (305), he reports, “the meal is ready” and they wait on Moschion, or at least “seem to,” to judge from the preparations ( '3 % 308).46 42 43 44 45 46
Schol. in Aesch., P. V. 936. Wehrli 1936: 111, MacCary 1972: 282–4, Goldberg 1980: 49–50, Ireland 1992: 84–5 ad 164f., Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 485 ad 302–3, Brenk 1987: 40–1 and Lape 2004: 180. Lamagna 1994: 202–3 ad 111, and see also 48, 63–4. Lamagna 1994: 202–3 ad 111. See also Capps 1981: 167 ad 181. “Bathed and waiting” suggests the hetaira (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 485 ad 305, citing Ar. Pax 868, Ireland 1992: 87 ad 305). Cf. Men. fr. 471 (Lamagna 1994: 204 ad 115).
36
Misperception of status
This scene dramatizes the psychological mechanisms at work in comic identity mistakes. In this case, the youth is mistaken about both his prospective mistress and his mother. Coincidence certainly plays a role where Glykera is concerned, but the underlying dramatic trick of disguising a citizen as a hetaira only sets the process in motion; Moschion’s greater mistakes spring from interpreting her actions according to his own wishes. Much of his perception is pure fantasy. Like many young Menandrian lovers, he is given to substituting fantasy for action. While waiting for Daos to return, he imagines how the encounter will play out: she will be as modest as she was the night before (“she’ll feel shame”) and will draw her veil when he enters, since “[this] is the [custom]” (312). There is no ambiguity to this gesture: the veiling is part of his fantasy and it carries the meaning he assigns to it – modesty, rather than coyness or pretensions above her class. K¨orte’s very plausible supplement ! (“custom”) in 312 has Moschion admit he is going by common practice (although we may wonder how many women, veiled or unveiled, he has actually met). Since Glykera did not veil herself at their last meeting, he really has little reason to expect that she will now. The gesture might, however, help to conciliate his mother, who looms large in his world. Whatever may be happening inside, Myrrhine is definitely “in charge” (', 306). Daos’ report makes it clear that she decides whether Glykera is received into the house. Persuading her on this point is almost as important as persuading Glykera herself (273–5). Even Moschion, who takes Glykera’s consent for granted, realizes that his mother’s may be harder to win. This is why he focuses on Myrrhine, instructing Daos to find out where she is. Moschion is worried, despite the slave’s optimistic report, that she may not be “wholly” convinced, but he is willing enough to believe that she will fall in with his plans if he exerts a little effort: : '( " $1 ', , &0 A-, 8 . , O1 8 I H %- . (312–15)
But when I come in I need to give my mother a kiss straight away, wholly win her over, turn on the flattery, simply live for her alone. She’s managed the present affair as if it were her own business!
This short speech covers a remarkably swift transition, from first appeal (after an irresistibly charming entrance) to triumphant success. The audience can appreciate the dramatic irony of “her own business,” knowing
Perikeiromen¯e (The Rape of the Locks)
37
that Myrrhine considers Glykera very much her own business – and not Moschion’s. His surprise (“as if it were . . .” H ) reveals a vague awareness that maternal cooperation was not to be assumed. Moschion is asking his mother to approve, and even arrange, a liaison with a hetaira in her own home and in his father’s absence – an unprecedented indulgence, even in comedy. The closest any New Comic mother ever comes to abetting a son’s love affair is at the end of Phormio when Nausistrata, furious with her bigamous husband, overrules his objections: “So you think it’s wrong if a young man has one girlfriend, while you have two wives!” (1040–1). More typical is Artemona from Plautus’ Asinaria, who limits her son’s allowance “as fathers usually do” (Asin. 79) to keep him from the “corruption” his father happily tolerates (Asin. 867). Yet Moschion imagines his mother completely supporting the scheme, indeed playing (in his fantasy) the unlikely role of madame.47 The audience knows that Myrrhine considers Glykera a member of her own circle, but in Moschion’s imaginary world influences are reversed: the matron is drawn into the hetaira’s world, where everyone strives to gratify his desires. “As if it were her own business,” is pure projection. In his imagination, women are susceptible to his eloquent charm, eager for his attentions (the language he uses of his mother is almost erotic: “simply live for her alone, kiss her,” cf. 300–4), and willing to do improbable favors out of love. Moschion is so willing to be deceived about Glykera that he overlooks contrary evidence. From the start of the scene, he suspects Daos of lying (“if you’re deceiving me” 269). Disillusionment comes abruptly when Daos reports Myrrhine’s far-from-charmed response: “No more of this! . . . [How] did he hear about it? Or did you blab to him about how she was terrified and ran over here [to us? Of course you did . . .], damn you!” (319–21). Conspicuously absent here is any reference to the young man’s charm and savoir-faire. As Myrrhine shrewdly guesses, Moschion has done little besides gossip with the family slave. She unknowingly exposes Daos’ lie: Glykera has come for refuge, not employment. Although he has difficulty believing that Glykera is not there “on his account” (he asks the question three times: 326, 331–2, 333), Moschion is shaken out of his daydream by his mother’s brusque dismissal and Daos spends the rest of the scene coaxing him back into it. Daos mixes error with fabrication when he promises what Moschion is so eager to believe: that Glykera finds him charming and will soon be his. His strategy is to appeal to the one belief that has not been challenged – the 47
Cf. Lape 2004: 180.
38
Misperception of status
belief that Glykera is a hetaira. Without directly answering the question “not for me, then?,” Daos reinterprets the scene inside to bode better for his young master. Glykera’s actions do promise gratification, he argues, just not immediately. Moschion needs only to understand her motivation, which he proceeds to fabricate out of stock assumptions about hetairai. His speech mimics an improvisation, as if the slave were thinking aloud, stalling and spinning each idea out of the one before: K - >8, , 4 '1 3 , H 2 , & &4, [ ' ] ' , &3 3 , : Q%. H ]. [] ' H %' !. (B.) 3 '], Q5 . (Q.) '. %.[ N ] X[ ] , N. %, . . $.. .[, <> ] 0 " , / Y >8, 4 % &3 ]3 &3 ', 3. (337–45) Just maybe she doesn’t want this, you know, so suddenly – um – as it happens, but she thinks she should hear your terms [before] you find out, yes by Zeus! It’s not as if [she’s here (?)] as a pipe-girl or some cheap slut. (Mo.) [Now] you’re talking again, Daos. (Da.) Examine (the situation). I think [you know the sort of thing that’s going on.] She left a home [and – I’m] not making this up – a lover. If you’re interested in three or four days, someone will pay attention to you. Oh, she shared this with me. And now is when you need to hear about it.
His explanation makes reasonable sense for an exclusive hetaira: she did not come to start an affair directly but to look into Moschion’s offer. Trying to learn his terms before he “found out” was simply a negotiating tactic (perhaps because revealing that she had left Polemon would have tipped her hand?). Daos suggests that the incident reflects her wishes and intentions and reduces Moschion’s mother to an accessory. By putting Glykera behind the scene, he manages to account for Myrrhine’s opposition (she is just acting on the young woman’s wishes), but he still must explain to a young man who thinks himself irresistible why Glykera would want to hide from him. And so he moves her up the professional scale, reminding Moschion that terms of employment could not simply be assumed for a hetaira of her class. But the young man should not despair: she has shown a sign of interest in “abandoning” Polemon. Daos chooses his words carefully. “Abandon” suggests that the break is permanent, while “lover” makes the relationship a casual affair, blurring any distinctions between a rich ex-mercenary who can offer a permanent home and a penniless youth who needs his mother’s
Perikeiromen¯e (The Rape of the Locks)
39
permission. “Lover” allows Moschion to assume he is next in line.48 The prediction that she will accept a three- or four-day contract is a reasonable inference (only a “pipe-girl” would look at anything shorter than a few days), but he still caps it with a lie – “She told me” – and a weak excuse for withholding the information: “now is when you need to hear about it,” as if Moschion would not have wanted to know earlier. Daos’ errors are less innocent than his master’s. He is much more realistic about the motives of hetairai (money, concern about professional standing) and less subjective in his assessment than Moschion, although no less wrong. He is also astute enough to be perplexed by the women’s “completely strange” (318) behavior. After extolling Myrrhine’s indulgence in receiving a hetaira into her house (“I can’t praise my mistress enough . . . that’s a mother!” 262–4), he is at a loss to explain her about-face. As Moschion bitterly observes (544–6), Daos has no emotional stake in the outcome beyond a dim hope of freedom. For him the problem is an intellectual one, something to be “examined” ('% 341) and reasoned through. But his efforts only result in frustration (“You aren’t letting me think in peace!” 348) at what proves a surprisingly tough call: “this isn’t as clear ([1]) as I thought” (353).49 Daos may be no Pseudolus, but he is not stupid. Glykera’s actions really are puzzling to anyone who takes her for a hetaira because she is not motivated by either money or sex.50 He manages to make her behavior appear to conform to the norms of her ostensible status, without realizing that she has no intention of adapting her conduct to her socio-economic position. It is not difficult for Daos to resurrect a mistake which Myrrhine’s comments had temporarily dispelled. As Ireland notes, Moschion is eager to accept this new reality. Even though Daos’ first story proved false, the second is prefaced with “a highly significant ‘perhaps’,” and he has had no chance to speak to Glykera himself.51 When the young man reappears at 48 49
50
Lamagna 1994: 213 ad 153. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 493 ad 353 and Lamagna 1994: 219 ad 163 take [1] in the sense “indicating a good crisis, favourable, of symptoms” (LSJ s.v. iv) but also suggest =[], as at Epitr. 353. “Easy to judge” is inappropriate because Daos is not making a judgment. He wants to “think in peace” (348) because he is baffled (I take “dry from fear” as a sign of uncertainty, cf. Epitr. 901, Sam. 515; slaves who see definite trouble express despair). But 0 is also problematic. As a medical term, it varies according to the word modified: “having had a good crisis, convalescent” of a -, but “indicating a good crisis” of symptoms. Neither makes sense as a description of Daos’ earlier impression (H + 353) before anything went wrong. Since 0 only means “favourable” with respect to a % (turning point in a disease) and there is nothing to suggest a medical metaphor here (3 is too general and Daos uses no other medical language), the non-technical sense “well-separated” and therefore “distinct, clear” (LSJ ii) seems preferable. 51 Ireland 1992: 87 ad 341 and 343. Cf. Omitowoju 2002: 218.
40
Misperception of status
the end of the next act to recount a second setback (the text of his monologue unfortunately breaks off before he explains why there is “no more wretched man alive” 535–6), we learn his state of mind at the end of the earlier interview. After dispatching Daos to report his arrival, he retired to a back room to wait. “Lying down, I said to myself, ‘Mother will be here any minute with a message from my love about the conditions on which she’ll get together with me.’ I was working on my speech . . .” (547–50). Glykera and Myrrhine are back in their roles as the “beloved” ( -) and the go-between sent by her to report her terms. In the meantime he composes a speech in his head, preparing for a moment that will never come. Moschion shares none of Daos’ doubts; he believes the rationalizations that put Glykera within his grasp and clings to his mistake, even as her intentions become all too clear. If Moschion is a day-dreamer, content to lie in a back room while his slave negotiates on his behalf, Polemon is a man of action, armed and ready for attack at his first entrance. When the soldier finally comes on stage in Act III, Scene i (lines 486–525), he has been drinking and is ready to storm the house. But from the start he proves a half-hearted attacker and a relatively sober komast (“I’m talking to you because you’re less stewed” 471, says his friend Pataikos). In fact, he denies being drunk at all, claiming to have stayed alert for “what might come” and to have “foreseen all this” (471–3). In other words, this is not typical komastic violence. Polemon had already intended to take action before the drinking began, but he had no clear plan. His slave Sosias evidently proposed the attack on the house and Polemon leapt at the suggestion. Pataikos has the unwelcome task of dissuading him and disabusing him of a fundamental misunderstanding of his legal relationship to Glykera. The argument between the two friends began offstage. When pressed to defend his claim, Polemon must have asserted that she was his wife. She cannot be, Pataikos explains, without a “giver,” a legally qualified guardian. 3 !, Z-, X $ L, , : , – (Z.) X , Z. (Z.) '$ ' . (Z.) 9 : 8. (Z.) : > . % ' 2 C '8; (Z.) %; 0. (486–90) If the matter were something of the sort you (pl.) claim, Polemon, and she were your married wife – (Po.) What a thing to say, Pataikos! (Pa.) But it makes a difference. (Po.) I considered her married! (Pa.) Don’t shout. Who gave her away? (Po.) Who gave her to me? She did.
Perikeiromen¯e (The Rape of the Locks)
41
Here we watch Polemon discover that his assumptions about the relationship are false, moving from initial denial (“what a thing to say”) to reluctant admission that what he considered fact is merely opinion (“I considered her married”). He has a very different notion than Moschion or even Sosias of Glykera’s social status. To him she has always been a “wife,” a woman whose fidelity could be assumed. The prologue hinted that he expected more than a temporary arrangement. He bought a house in his native town (suggesting an intent to settle) and effectively made Glykera mistress of the household. Although he did not make a point of secluding her (Pataikos has spoken with her “many times” – enough to be a “friend” ( 0) and to have seen her wardrobe, 508–9, 519–20), she was not expected, as a hetaira would be, to accompany the soldier on his travels.52 Indeed, he showed a sense of entitlement bordering on ownership when he cut off her hair. This is why he refused to accept Sosias’ explanation that she succumbed to the charms of a “womanizer” and sent the slave on two spying missions (177–80, 354–6) to learn her intentions. His mistake is not simply self-delusion. The Old Woman gave Glykera to him as a virgin, almost as if in marriage (“she gave the girl to him as her own daughter” 130–1) and afterwards Glykera lived a modest life, socializing primarily with Myrrhine.53 The “difference” that Pataikos points out was clear enough to those who knew her situation (as Rosivach notes, Moschion felt free to kiss her),54 but outsiders could not easily have known whether she was a mistress or a wife, and there would have been few occasions to remind Polemon of her real status if he chose to ignore it. Moreover, his household takes a casual attitude towards the distinction and is ready enough to treat the relationship as a marriage. Pataikos’ plural “you” in 487 implies a consensus that Glykera is more or less a “married wife.” Even Sosias considers her off-limits to the likes of Moschion, and Doris goes further, lamenting the hard lot of anyone who “takes” (2>, a gnomic aorist) a soldier as a husband (&0, 185–6).55 Her indignant complaint, “they’re 52
53
54 55
Hetairai might be taken to parties and festivals all over Greece (Davidson 1997: 92, McKechnie 1989: 153) or follow soldiers on campaigns (Cox 1998: 174 and n. 33). Aristippus spent two months a year with Lais at Aegina for the festival of Poseidon (Athen. 13.588e) and Phrynion showed off Neaira everywhere (Ps.-Dem. 59.33). Polemon’s “she gave herself” (490) does not contradict this account, since Glykera must have agreed to the arrangement. He emphasizes her consent while the prologue emphasizes its respectability (“the language sounds vaguely like giving one’s daughter away in marriage,” Rosivach 1998: 54, cf. Omitowoju 2002: 216). See also Konstan 1995: 110. Rosivach 1998: 54. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 477 ad 186 and Konstan 1995: 110 translate #' “husband.” > was a technical term in marriage contracts (> , , Beauchet 1969: 126) but could be used of informal unions as well (Cox 1998: 182).
42
Misperception of status
all law-breakers – can’t be trusted!”, implies a long-term relationship very different from the one- or two-year contracts common between hetairai and soldiers, with their stipulated fees and expiry dates. In this short scene Menander sketches a surprisingly complex motivation for Polemon’s refusal to accept that Glykera is nothing more than a mistress. He has several incentives to misrepresent the affair. As his “wife,” she can, he believes, be reclaimed by force. This is of course false. The very last thing a husband could do was bring an adulterous wife home (at Athens, he was obliged to divorce her on pain of &%, loss of civil rights). If Glykera had moved in with Moschion, as Polemon assumes, he could not take her back.56 We may also detect a prick of conscience in his reluctance to accept responsibility for the quarrel. When Pataikos reproaches him, “She left because you didn’t treat her appropriately,” he objects, “What? Didn’t treat her appropriately? You hurt me most of all when you say that” (492–5). In a marriage, Polemon’s actions alone would not determine whether Glykera stayed or left (her “giver” would at least need to approve) but a less formal relationship depends only on the will of both parties (“maybe she liked you but not anymore,” suggests Pataikos). His neutral wording minimizes the problem: Glykera did not “abandon” Polemon (, the word Daos and Polemon both use, connotes emotional as well as physical rejection, suggesting a permanent break); she simply “left” (&0) because he treated her “inappropriately” ( ) (492).57 Pataikos eventually forces his dejected friend to recognize that he is nothing more to Glykera than a “lover in a sorry state” (as Omitowoju notes, Polemon makes no objection to the word “lover”).58 On his side is 2- (sexual love); on hers, mere “liking” (and even this is a qualified “maybe,” K -). Polemon needs to realize he is not her husband and to accept that Glykera belongs to the class of women who can indulge their likes and dislikes. As Pataikos puts it, she is “her own mistress.” The phrase he uses, )1 %, is very close to a recurring formula in manumission inscriptions, which often mention freedom of movement as a newly acquired right (e.g., “doing whatever she wants and 56
57 58
Harrison 1998 i: 35 . See also Sealey 1990: 28–9 and Todd 1993: 279. His options had he known she was not committing adultery are less clear. There is a legal inconsistency in his plan (Omitowoju 2002: 217, although wanting her back may not be “acknowledging her status as unmarriageable,” since Polemon has a dim grasp of the law). It is also unclear why a play apparently set in Corinth should emphasize fine points of Attic law (on the setting see K¨orte 1931: 743–4, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 470 ad 125, Webster 1974: 169, Lamagna 1994: 21, Konstan 1995: 107 and Arnott 1996a: 374). Corinth perhaps had similar laws (Rosivach 1998: 173 n. 16, Scafuro 1997: 442) or the “the law” in New Comedy may simply be Attic by convention (Lape 2001: 53; contra Webster 1960: 11 n. 1). Goldberg 1980: 49. The usual word when a wife left was &% (Lamagna 1994: 249). Omitowoju 2002: 217 and n. 47.
Perikeiromen¯e (The Rape of the Locks)
43
going wherever she likes” SGDI 1719, line 12). The latter can probably be connected, as Zelnick-Abramovitz argues, to phrases in honorific decrees protecting foreigners from arbitrary seizure.59 Calling Glykera “her own mistress,” therefore, just after asking Polemon whom he intends to “seize” (# , the technical term for reclaiming a runaway slave) is a reminder that he cannot, legally, reclaim her by force.60 With the legal misconception removed, Polemon’s fantasy of marriage collapses. Yet he is not yet ready to regard Glykera as a freelance hetaira who can change lovers on a whim. He looks to Moschion’s actions to justify an attempt to retrieve her: “her seducer in my absence – doesn’t he do me an injustice?” (499–500). Polemon is not seeking revenge against Moschion; he simply wants Glykera back. Pataikos understands this when he asks “who are you after?” (496–7). Moreover, his commonsense arguments (“She’s her own mistress” and “Your problem is that you’re in love”) aim at dissuading Polemon from pursuing Glykera, not Moschion. Polemon’s word “seducer” (C '$ , literally “corrupter”) probably implies sexual activity rather than corruption of morals.61 Although he is furious about the supposed affair, he does not consider Glykera too “corrupted” to take back, and the fact that he dates the “corruption” to his absence suggests he is thinking of the embrace (he is in town when Glykera actually leaves him). Blaming a third party helps to excuse both his actions (they were not the reason – or at least, not the only reason – she left) and hers (she is a victim herself ). Of course, this also classes her again with respectable women: hetairai are not “seduced.” But Pataikos cuts all of this short. The soldier’s grievance provides grounds for “complaint” (2 ), not legal action. “Not even now [sc. that her departure has proved the affair]?,” objects Polemon. “Not even now” (503). By convincing the soldier that his only recourse is persuasion (498), Pataikos forces him to recognize Glykera’s independence and to adopt methods more appropriate to winning a hetaira. He also helps Polemon to several realizations necessary to turn him into an acceptable husband. First, he must win Glykera’s consent (“This is the way to save the situation” 513 – a precondition for marriage, as Pataikos will insist on it when he recognizes her as his daughter).62 Second, he must share the blame. Polemon does concede at 514, “if I ever actually did anything wrong . . . ,” a qualified and 59 60 61 62
Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 271. The recurring formula is - 3/-5. Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 221 (on # ). Lamagna 1994: 247 ad 249. Contra, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 507 ad 499–503. He also needs to win Pataikos’ approval, an unintended result of his efforts here (Lape 2004: 187, q. v. 180–3 on the “lesson in civics” Polemon learns).
44
Misperception of status
hypothetical confession, but a confession nonetheless. Unfortunately, the promise of reform starts a sequence of associations that lead him back to an idealized view of his relationship.63 Already presupposing her return, he agrees to “continue making every effort” – presumably, to make amends and treat her appropriately in the future. This in turn reminds him of his past generosity and the gifts she has esteemed so lightly. : ' $8 – 1 -0 – (Z.) 2 . (Z.) , Z, 5 0 . (Z.) + Z '. (Z.) '8 K. '8 X [ '( $% Y% * > 8- ) K -. (Z.) 2 - . (Z.) '0 ! #4 ',. (515–22) (Po.) If I don’t go on striving in every way64 – if you could just see her clothing! (Pa.) That’s okay. (Po.) Take a look, Pataikos, for god’s sake. You’ll pity me more. (Pa.) Oh, Poseidon! (Po.) Come in. (His mind wanders.) What clothes! And how she looks whenever she puts one of them on. Not something you’ve seen, maybe. (Pa.) Yes, I have. (Po.) And she’s so tall, really it’s worth seeing.
The clothing is intended to stir pity as proof of his generosity, and perhaps to suggest a subject of conversation for Pataikos, whom he has asked to intercede (“talk to her, be my envoy” 509–10). Implicit is the idea that his generosity imposes an obligation which has not been met: he is still reluctant to admit that he deserves to be cast off. Basing his claim on gifts is as close as Polemon comes to acknowledging that Glykera is a hetaira (Thrasonides, in contrast, pleads love when he wants to be accepted as a suitor). This does not, however, mean that he regards the gifts simply as payment, as Demeas does in the Samia, or that he sees her in the same light as Moschion. Long-term affairs at the higher socioeconomic levels were not normally conducted on a fee-forservice basis. As James Davidson and Leslie Kurke have demonstrated, these relationships worked as gift-exchange systems. One salient feature of gift exchange is that the social function of the gift is prioritized over the 63 64
Lamagna 1994: 251 ad 266. See also 252 ad 269 (Polemon reasons by association, not deduction; the traductio N/[ shifts from the beauty of the clothes to Glykera’s beauty). Brenk 1987: 43 takes $8 as ambiguous, “to treat lavishly” and “to strive for honor,” reflecting both “the military and the romantic,” but I am persuaded by Lamagna’s argument 1994: 251 ad 265 that the context demands a promise to Glykera. Lape 2004: 184–5 reads $8 in a civic sense, as an attempt “to reconfigure the romantic relationship along the lines of the liturgical or euergetic bond.”
Perikeiromen¯e (The Rape of the Locks)
45
economic: gifts help to create or maintain relationships between people.65 Polemon wants his gifts to carry this kind of personal meaning. When he mentions the (clothing and jewelry) he gave Glykera, he describes it not in terms of its economic value but as she looked “when she wore it.” The clothing has a special personal meaning because, as a tangible sign of his affection (he even attributes to it the capacity to arouse pity, 518), it evokes recollections of a time when she welcomed his love. The general condition (“whenever”) suggests that the image in his mind’s eye is still true – a frozen picture of the Glykera he desires, wearing his gifts. Even as a hetaira, she belongs to the exclusive sort who cultivate serious long-term relationships with select individuals, often only one at a time. Polemon’s lapse into nostalgia shows how difficult it is for him to see her as anything but his. Now that Pataikos has banished this misapprehension for the present, his only alternative to accepting the truth is to slip into the past. He leaves the stage lost in remembrance of the days when she was entirely his, an image he intends to recreate with the help of the clothing she left behind. It is a nice dramatic irony that these reminders of their happy union include the tokens – perhaps the only thing Polemon did not give her – that will place her under another man’s kyrieia. A pattern in the mistakes about Glykera’s identity emerges from these two scenes. Both Polemon and Moschion assume that she has little choice in her relationship with them and that they can dictate the terms. They see different, although equally limiting, sets of constraints. Both err in their own favor in assessing her social position and look to her to confirm or disprove a cherished self-image. Polemon wants to be generous, devoted, and sincere; Moschion fancies himself charming, witty, and attractive. Each interprets her actions accordingly. Moschion imagines that she comes as a hetaira, free of attachments and willing to consider his offer. Polemon, who also thought she came to him without attachments, assumes her complete dependence. There is nothing deliberately dishonest in his attempt to elevate her socially. He is not even aware that the law is against him when he launches his attack and he is willing enough to abort it when he learns the unpleasant truth. These are typical errors for Menandrian lovers – more delusional fantasy than deliberate scheming. Menander is skilled in using these mistakes to show us motivations of which the characters themselves are unaware, inviting us to make our own inferences, as the rhetoricians 65
Davidson 1997: 109–112, 120–7, Kurke 1999: 182–5. Cf. Miner 2003: 21 n. 9.
46
Misperception of status
advised.66 These mistakes can also manipulate our sympathies by aligning characters with or against normative values. Soldiers who pursue marriage are not only gratifying their sexual desires legitimately; they are seeking a settled life as part of a community. Young men who lust after their sisters (or future sister-in-law, in the Siky¯onioi) are pursuing sexual partners who cannot become wives. Behind their misconceptions lie values we are supposed to notice and question.
h e¯ r o¯ s (the hero) Soldier plays are a good place to start because their errors are fairly obvious (the type was not known for intellectual subtlety), but we can see similar mechanisms in other lost-daughter plots. The H¯er¯os is a good example. Like the other plays, it features a heroine whose ambiguous status gives rise to a fantasy, and a lovelorn youth who is convinced that she can and will be his. As a slave, this youth is an unusual victim of 2-.67 He exhibits the same psychology as other lovers, however, although his story is not resolved as happily. The 97 lines of the play that survive include an expository scene in which Daos tells his fellow slave Getas of his love for a girl named Plangon. Plangon is the twin sister of Gorgias, who is currently working off a debt to Daos’ master, Laches. The love-struck slave emphasizes that she has the right background for him: “a young girl ('% ) – brought up with me, innocent, at my level ( )” (18–19). He wants to see her as socially available (Arnott translates more explicitly “she’s my class”), but he uses an ambiguous word: '% could designate both slaves and free girls.68 Getas understands the importance of her status and is quick to pin him down with an uncommon but legally precise word for slave: “is she a '8?,” he asks.69 Getas’ bluntness forces Daos to qualify his claim (“yes, to an extent, in a way”) and to deliver a lengthy justification for setting his sights on a girl who is not, strictly speaking, a slave. Her situation is not as straightforward as Daos pretends. Plangon and Gorgias were allegedly born to the shepherd 66
67 68
69
Theophrastus (in Dem. De Eloc. 222), following Aristotle (Rhet. 1371b5–10), advises speakers to exploit the satisfaction audiences derive from making inferences on their own (Massioni 1998: 172–3). Cf. Rhet. ad Alex. 1434a35–7. On his “typical” symptoms see Barigazzi 1956: 325, Hunter 1985: 49, Krieter-Spiro 1997: 60. Arnott 1996a: 17. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 38 ad 19 translate “suited to me,” “of my own station in life;” Capps 1981: 15 ad 19, “‘in my station’ i.e., H '8.” On '% see n. 25 above. H¯er¯os citations are from Arnott 1996a. “'3 is used only where the emphasis is on the legal status” (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 389 ad 20).
H¯er¯os (The Hero)
47
Tibeios, “as he said himself ” (24). The name suggests he was an ex-slave, although probably not Laches’, since he is described as joining his household (“having become a domestic servant when he was young” 22), and Laches later says, “I took on a shepherd” (73). Plangon and Gorgias have names which suggest citizenship but, as children of a manumitted slave, they are probably 48 (freedmen) at this point.70 Their situation is complicated by Gorgias’ decision to enter Laches’ service after Tibeios dies in order to pay off a debt. As Daos tells it, he did so voluntarily (Laches may have had means of compelling him, but gratitude for two loans seems a likelier motivation for the decent young man Gorgias appears to be).71 He also brought along Plangon, who now serves Laches’ wife. At this point, the conversation turns to a thoroughly puzzling exchange about Plangon’s current status: (D.) Y Z 9 '( %; (Q.) 1 1 O 2 ', . (D.) '% . (Q.) , D – 5. (D.) W (Q.) , D, %. (36–40)
(Ge.) What about Plangon? (Da.) She works wool with my mistress and serves her. (Ge.) (sarcastically) A slave-girl! (Da.) Quite. Getas – you’re mocking me! (Ge.) No, by Apollo. (Da.) She’s quite genteel and demure, Getas.
Not all editors agree with the speaker divisions printed here, which follow the papyrus. Sandbach, for example, gives all of 38 to Daos. There is even less agreement about the meaning of these lines. Capps suggests that Getas is amused by the “tragic seriousness with which Davus recites the trivial hardships of Plangon” and accordingly takes '% as “spoken in a tone of mock sympathy, a girl does such things?”72 Daos’ language is not, however, noticeably tragic and several of his lines violate Porson’s bridge. Arnott finds 70
71
72
Hesych. s.v. 48, cited Harrison 1998 i: 181 n. 3. Children were not automatically manumitted with their parent(s) (Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 164–5) but Tibeios was already free when he acquired the twins (21–3). Laches gave Tibeios the loans for compassionate reasons (he was struggling to feed the children). He could hardly have expected to repay them himself but may have pledged his son’s labor (debts could be inherited, Harrison 1998 i: 124 and n. 4). Certainly Gorgias’ first step after the burial is to work off the debt. Whether Laches could compel repayment depends on whether the Solonian law against enslavement for debt applied to non-citizens. See Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 389 ad 24, 391 ad 36, Post 1940: 442–3, and Ogden 1996: 205. Capps 1981: 17 ad 38–9.
48
Misperception of status
a double entendre in '% (“little girl” often meant “slave girl” and sometimes “working girl”); he translates “(leering) Serves you, does she?”73 But it is not obvious why “works wool with the mistress and serves her” – both perfectly respectable tasks – should prompt a wink and a nudge from Getas, whose earlier views on sex (it is an indulgence that will probably land Daos in the mill) make envy or approbation seem unlikely here. It is also hard to explain why '% has a suggestive double sense here that it did not have a few lines earlier when Daos used it at 18, particularly since Getas asked him to clarify a different ambiguity there (Did “little girl” mean “slave girl”?) and claimed to understand the answer (“Now I get it,” 25). Getas has said or done something to prompt “you’re mocking me.” But what? It may simply be that Daos takes '% as an indication of agreement until he realizes that Getas is being sarcastic, repeating Daos’ word, which was not very well defined (“a slave?” “to an extent, in a way”), only to mock it (“oh yes, wool and service prove it – definitely at your level”). Getas already showed a sarcastic side when he suggested that overeating was the root of Daos’ romantic problem, and he has been skeptical since his opening line (“I think you’ve gotten yourself into huge trouble” 1–2). His insinuating '% shows a continuing interest in the girl’s formal status and helps explain his surprise when he learns that Laches has actually promised her to Daos (“Well, aren’t you something!”, N 44). Daos reasonably objects that servile status need not imply low character (“She’s genteel ( ) and demure”), although his choice of words is ironic and probably prescient: literally means “of freeborn character.” Daos may be making a social rather than a strictly legal argument. Being dependent on others and working for them could suffice to label someone a '3, regardless of the legal relationship.74 Plangon falls into this category: she performs the work of a slave but is not owned and her service lasts only until her brother (with her help?) works off Tibeios’ debt. Although the remaining fragments of the play do not add substantially to our understanding of Plangon’s situation, it is clear enough that her ambiguous, “quasi-servile” status is contrived to facilitate misunderstanding and conflict. A reference to a woman’s misfortune (“the only woman in such misfortune!” 76, perhaps spoken by Laches’ wife, Myrrhine) and to a rape in the past (“someone . . . you by force once?” 79) suggest that Plangon was indeed Myrrhine’s daughter, as the hypothesis states. Myrrhine would have known who the children were if she gave them to Tibeios to raise 73
Arnott 1996a: 21. See LSJ s.v.
74
Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 34–5, 38–9, 245.
H¯er¯os (The Hero)
49
(hyp. line 2); hence her distress at discovering that her daughter was apparently raped by Daos and about to marry him (hyp. 9–10).75 Daos’ brief description shows Myrrhine taking care to employ her daughter respectably – no running about on public errands – in the hope, perhaps, that something might happen to improve her marriage prospects. She can do nothing more without knowing the identity of her rapist. Thus, even though Daos does not actually call Plangon a “fellow slave” (C ', hyp. 6), he has some justification for regarding her as tantamount to one. The scam Getas suspected was just a red herring, a ploy to focus our attention on important background information as we scrutinize Daos’ narrative for signs of duplicity. After watching his distress (“Why are you standing around pulling out your hair?” demands Getas, 5), we may be surprised to learn that no one opposes the union and all Daos has to complain about is a few months’ delay. Daos’ mistake is interesting because it shows that he has internalized values above his class. Getas’ joke about overeating (a stock one, cf. “You were never in love” “Because I never had enough to eat” fr. 490 K-A, “In satiety Kypris, not in hunger” Mon. 231, or “Kypris’ power is greatest in satiety [sc. of food]” Mon. 263) is an implicit accusation of inappropriate aspirations. Like other lovers, Daos also seeks a reflection of an ideal self in his beloved and he is, in a sense, aping his social superiors in choosing a wife for her respectability. He sees Plangon as “innocent” (#), “genteel” ( ), and “demure” ( %), qualities normally attributed to citizens like Knemon’s “innocent” daughter, with her “genteel rusticity,” or the Samia Moschion and his “modesty.” Like lovers of higher classes, he wants the kind of woman who has to be approached through her kyrios. Technically this is Gorgias, but Daos needs Laches’ permission to bring another dependent under his roof. He therefore makes a point of consulting his master, who assumes that Gorgias will raise no objections (“he promised she [would live with] me, after he spoke with [her brother] 43–4). In following proper channels, Daos treats Plangon as if she were what she in fact is: a legitimate daughter of freeborn parents. He explicitly rejects anything “underhanded,” i.e., rape, which her apparent status might authorize (the rapist in the Eunuchus pleads that he thought his victim was a “fellow slave,” conservam 858, the same mistake Daos makes).76 He even takes the blame 75
76
Sonnenburg 1914: 81–2. Cf. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 386, Omitowoju 2002: 192. It is probably an informal union; slaves could not legally marry at Athens (Todd 1993: 186, contra Harrison 1998 i: 24; see further Ruiz 1981: 98–9 on this passage). % 42 “probably . . . would not be incompatible with rape as we are finding it described in these texts” (Omitowoju 2002: 192).
50
Misperception of status
for her soon-to-be-discovered pregnancy (hyp. 8–9), presumably in order to secure the marriage. This false confession allows him to act out a stock crime of high-status comic lovers without doing anything that would preclude a happy ending (a slave could not make the conventional reparation of marrying his victim). Daos’ love of course is doomed to disappointment, but his behavior reveals a standard of ethics that sets him in sharp contrast to the young neighbor who actually committed the rape (and, incidentally, to Laches himself, who will prove the twins’ father). In Plangon, Daos sees a woman who embodies the qualities of free birth but – conveniently – occupies the position of a slave. Unfortunately for him, he is only half right. The virtues he admires also qualify her for a better marriage (to the actual rapist, hyp. 12). Falling in love may prove presumptuous, as Getas warned, but Daos is at least more aware than other lovers of his beloved’s problematic social position and cautious about taking her availability for granted.
d y s ko l o s (the grouch) The examples discussed so far have all concerned lost daughters whose separation from their families disqualified them for marriage. Other aspects of status, however, are also subject to misconception. The Dyskolos and Aspis feature women who are known to be the legitimate daughters of freeborn parents but are still misidentified in ways which affect their eligibility for marriage. In the Dyskolos, Knemon, an antisocial farmer, blocks his daughter’s social development by isolating her from the community and setting an impossible standard for any prospective suitor. The would-be groom, a young man named Sostratos, is thus left to chase a bride who can be approached illicitly but not actually married. In the Aspis, the prospective groom is a decrepit old man in love with the bride’s money but not the bride. Her status as an heiress is the central issue in this play, since her choice of suitors depends on whether she comes with an estate. In all of the plays discussed so far, the real problem is the absence of a proper kyrios. For any number of reasons – death, warfare, piracy, rape – the contested women are deprived of a legitimate authority to give them in marriage. Unsurprisingly, other characters try to exploit this vulnerability. The soldiers attempt to create marriages by purchase or cohabitation, while the would-be grooms in the Dyskolos and the Aspis scheme to subvert the wishes of a kyrios who cannot or will not exercise his authority. Again, ambiguous circumstances may create the initial misconceptions, but mistakes escalate
Dyskolos (The Grouch)
51
because of individual wants and needs. Menander depicts people who are more than willing to be fooled. The Dyskolos explores the consequences of a misanthrope’s withdrawal from society. Knemon lives with his daughter in the rural deme of Phyle, next to a shrine of Pan and the Nymphs. Because the daughter (who is not named) has been conscientious in honoring her divine neighbors, Pan has made the rich young Sostratos fall in love with her. Sostratos recognizes her immediately as a “freeborn child” with a kyrios somewhere (although there is a significant ambiguity in his allusion to “the kyrios of the house, whoever he is” 73–4).77 Assuming that this kyrios will be more than happy to arrange such a rich match, he worries only about whether to approach him in person or through a proxy. Sostratos’ assumption is reasonable: a freeborn girl’s eligibility could normally be taken for granted. Knemon’s daughter, however, is a special case. To start, the antisocial Knemon is in denial about her appeal to outsiders. We learn from her half-brother Gorgias that he has done nothing to find her a husband. He fails even to provide what the family slave Daos considers an appropriate guard (223–4), simply because threats of rape or seduction – threats which preoccupy her brother – never cross his mind. Knemon refuses to acknowledge that he has anything an outsider might want: “not a pot, not an axe, not salt, not vinegar” – and certainly not a marriageable girl. He regards his daughter as part of a self-contained household; she has no role outside it and she is of no use as a means of establishing community ties. He forbids his only servant even to open the house door. The problem is not only that the girl cannot leave the house and no one else can come in; she is also not allowed to grow up. There is a kind of timelessness in Knemon’s house. As resistant to change within as he is to contact without, he ignores his daughter’s approaching maturity, infinitely deferring the choice of groom by demanding the impossible: that she marry someone like himself. “He says he’ll give her away as soon as he finds a groom with a personality like his,” explains her brother (336–7). “In other words, never,” concludes Sostratos. Knemon is in effect seeking stasis, not just solitude, and, like a folk-tale villain, he deprives his daughter of her rightful transition to adulthood by enforcing an artificially prolonged childhood.78 The situation is structurally identical to that in the Aulularia, except that 77 78
Konstan 1983: 101. All Dyskolos citations are from Sandbach 1990. On folk-tale elements here see Theuerkauf 1960: 40–6 (Knemon) and 64–5 (the girl), Zagagi 1994: 96, and Hunter 1985: 173 n. 9. Not everything in the “virtue rewarded” metanarrative is fiction. “Downwardly mobile marriages” between urban/rural or rich/poor families are attested (Cox 2002a:
52
Misperception of status
Euclio hoards the dowry-money while Knemon hoards the girl herself.79 So effectively does the old man conceal his daughter that Pan must exploit her one pious gesture of disobedience (she leaves the house, under pain of a beating, only to “garland the nymphs” 51) in order to let the community know she exists. Hidden away and virtually enslaved by a man who gives only orders and beatings, Knemon’s girl is a kind of lost daughter waiting to be recovered. Sostratos’ initial mistake is in assuming that Knemon will give the girl to a reasonably qualified suitor. The question of whose consent he really needs is not resolved until Knemon transfers his authority to Gorgias, instructing him to “find her a husband.” Gorgias takes a very different view of the girl. He sees neither a potential bride nor an eternal child but a daughter mistreated by her own father and about to be victimized by a dubious stranger. Suspecting nothing good from a young man who dresses like a wealthy Don Juan and – even worse – was seen chatting with the girl, he is quick to assume a planned rape or seduction. In a tense meeting with Sostratos, who has learned his mistake about Knemon, he complains that the poor are always at risk from the rich. “Don’t trust to wealth, if you have it and treat poor folk like us with contempt” (284–6). Gorgias sees an innocent victim on the brink of disaster. Both he and Daos repeatedly refer to the girl as a (“girl” 220, 222, 228, 235), a word with status implications. R are usually unmarried, respectable and freeborn (young female slaves, in contrast, are ,'), that is, the sort of girls whose families kept a close watch on them. In speaking to Sostratos, Gorgias makes no mention of kinship, calling the girl only a “a freeborn unmarried girl ()” (290–1), a blunt reminder of what the youth ought to have noticed and respected. He offers impersonal arguments: he would consider any harm to a freeborn girl the “injustice,” even hubris, of the leisured class (293–5).80 As a stranger, Sostratos is entitled to know nothing more. In fact, Gorgias admits to being her brother only after the young man has made his intentions clear. Gorgias is being disingenuous: the girl is not really poor (her father’s estate is worth two talents). He is, however, unwilling to let a stranger know that she is – as he sees it – regularly neglected by the person who
79 80
393–4), although Knemon’s daughter is hardly poor, Sostratos’ family is not really urban (Cox 2002b), and both marriages reflect the custom of marrying locally (Cox 2002a: 391–2). See Theuerkauf 1960: 46–51, Arnott 1964a and 1964b, and Ireland 1995: 15–16 on similarities between the plays. Arnott 1964a: 118, Rosivach 2001: 129, and Lape 2004: 117 see an accusation of hubris (restored in line 298). I agree with Rosivach that economic class is the play’s major stumbling block and that its characters form judgments based on it, but I do not think the Dyskolos is exceptional in problematizing social status (127).
Dyskolos (The Grouch)
53
ought to be her most vigilant protector. Although more or less resigned to Knemon’s negligence in arranging her marriage, Gorgias agrees with Daos about his “duty” ( 1 223) to shield her from the likes of Sostratos. It is such a fundamental duty that negligence is tantamount to a repudiation of family ties. Even Daos acted “like a stranger” (& 238) when he failed to intervene and Gorgias himself would be imitating Knemon’s estrangement (“our father wants to be a stranger,” C : & – a bitter oxymoron 241) if he took no action. The girl is an “innocent maiden left deserted by her father” (Daos’ words, 222–3), needing and deserving protection. In pointed contrast to Knemon, Gorgias acknowledges a moral obligation (“I still worry about my sister” 240–1), criticizing the sour disposition that has made Knemon “want” to be estranged from his wife and stepson: “let’s not imitate this fellow’s ' %” (242–3). He also cares about the good opinion of the community, embodied in the outsider who judges by “the event” without inquiring who is responsible (245–6). Unlike Knemon, Gorgias recognizes that his sister has a public character at stake and that kinship ( 240) links his own reputation to hers: her disgrace ( 8) is his shame (;', a supplement 243–4). He takes her victimization personally; when it comes to the question of reputation he ceases to speak for his household (“us,” 242, 243) and begins to speak for himself (“me,” 244). Whereas her father demonstrates a dispositional and physical incapacity for the role of kyrios, her stepbrother fulfills the essential responsibilities without recognition or legal sanction (Sostratos still talks of negotiating with Knemon even while he is asking Gorgias for her hand, 305–6).81 It gradually becomes clear that Gorgias has a more subjective reason for regarding his sister as a victim of paternal neglect. He is taking a selective view of events. Knemon did not “desert” his daughter. As far as he knew, she was safe behind locked doors (427–9). As she herself admits, she disobeyed him when she opened the door (“I’ll get a beating if he catches me outside” 205–6) and she spoke to Sostratos of her own will (showing, it must be admitted, more interest in the water than the young man). Gorgias concedes that she might be complicit when he accuses Sostratos of planning a seduction (% . . . 4, 290, “to persuade to sin”), with force as a back-up (292–3), even though he privately faults Knemon alone. The reason he is so hard on his stepfather is clearly personal. When he describes the experience of speaking with Knemon he uses the uncommon word 81
“Gorgias’ relationship to Knemon’s daughter [does not] give him any legal right to make himself responsible for her” (Handley 1965: 177 ad 240ff.). See Konstan 1983: 101 on Knemon’s “abdication of the responsibility for his household.” Cf. Zagagi 1994: 101.
54
Misperception of status
O ,, “to fight in a yoke” (250), the same word Pan used to sum up the old man’s treatment of his wife (“fighting in the yoke with her” 17). This conspicuous repetition reminds us that Gorgias’ only personal experience of his ex-stepfather was the squabbling that drove his mother away and forced him into an early maturity, according to the prologue. The “estrangement” he resents on his sister’s behalf (241–2) has not really separated father and daughter. Gorgias knows that the old man takes her to work the fields with him and she is the only person he “chats” with willingly ( , 334, a very uncharacteristic verb for Knemon). If Knemon has abandoned anyone, it is his wife and stepson, as he more or less admits when he entrusts kyrieia of his daughter to Gorgias: “you’re properly ( -) your sister’s guardian” (737), making the adoption a recognition of kinship as well as a recompense for a specific service. This adoption also rescues Gorgias from poverty (unlike his sister, he has ample reason to resent the arrogance of the rich). Gorgias is projecting his own abandonment onto the girl, exaggerating Knemon’s neglect and downplaying her part in the meeting with Sostratos. His view of his sister’s situation is highly subjective, and we may perhaps detect, behind his noble ideals of family solidarity, the same wishful thinking that makes him hope for a supernatural providence that will reward his own virtue and punish Sostratos’ supposed vice (271–87). Sostratos’ perception of the girl is equally subjective. Where the brother sees a victim of neglect, the suitor is determined to see nothing but an attainable bride, despite the grim warnings of Pyrrhias, Gorgias and Daos. His initial impression is of compatibility: he sees a “freeborn child” of “incomparable beauty” – his first, and perhaps only, desiderandum. His friend Chaireas lists the sort of thing one ought to investigate (“family, property, character” 65–6) but none of this concerns Sostratos, who knows nothing of her lineage or disposition and is ready to overlook her apparent poverty. When his more conservative father objects to bringing “beggars” into the family, Sostratos affects a lofty contempt for “such an uncertain thing as money” (797). As a man with a stake in the girl’s virtues, he is eager to find evidence of them in everything she does. The resultant absurdities show how deeply passion colors his judgment. He exclaims at her manners, “Hickish (# ), in a genteel kind of way” (201–2, %-, a word with both social and ethical implications) in response to a remark only a lover would find genteel. “Yes – for god’s sake [and be quick],” she barks, when he offers to fill her jug from the nymphs’ spring (201).82 We know little about how well-bred Athenian girls spoke, but Knemon’s daughter 82
associates breeding with citizen status (Fantham 1975: 57 n. 33). See also Omitowoju 2002: 208.
Dyskolos (The Grouch)
55
does not sound particularly refined. Several commentators have noted her exit without so much as a “thank you,” after Sostratos brings the water.83 Oaths, moreover, are more characteristic of free-spoken old slave women and hetairai than high-status women, and the girl’s chatter about buckets and wells, hot water and beatings (mentioned twice, 196, 205) might pass for the conversation of a slave.84 In fact, it is the old slave Simiche who brings us the next two installments in the story of the well, bucket, rotten rope and manure shovel. Linguistically, the statement “he’ll give her hell” (&, []) classes the girl with slaves, and we already know enough of Knemon’s discursive style to recognize his influence.85 There is also her remark about “annoying” the people sacrificing inside: the only other characters who use the verb “annoy” ( ,) are Daos, Getas, Sikon and of course Knemon. The girl is admittedly upset, but the Georgos shows how a widowed citizen, a “well bred and modest woman” (42) expresses distress. She uses phrases like “I’m at a loss” (&3 86, cf. 49) and leaves the oaths to her slave, who monopolizes the invective in this scene. At her loftiest, Knemon’s daughter achieves only bathos, using the language in which Krateia recalls the death of her brother (Mis. 648–9) and Glykera laments her own exposure (Perik. 810) to describe dropping a bucket down a well: “unhappy me, with all my woes” (Dysk. 189).86 Girls with one-talent dowries did not normally work as field-hands.87 Knemon has not only taken slaves’ chores upon himself (328–31); he has imposed them on his daughter too, obliging her to work the fields and heat his water. Her life of menial tasks differs little from Simiche’s and her conversation reflects her living conditions. An ancient audience might, as Ireland suggests, have found her shyness sympathetic, but they are unlikely to have seen “concern for others” in her efforts to cover for a slave’s mistake 83 84
85 86
87
Frost 1988: 45, Ireland 1994: 128 ad 212. Oaths could mark gender (e.g., 9 9 for women, + % % for men) and individualize the speaker (Webster 1974, Bain 1984, Feneron 1974). Women’s oaths are fewer and less varied than men’s (Bain 42, Feneron 90), although hetairai seem to be exceptions (e.g., Dis Ex. 21–2, Epitr. 480, 484). Lost daughters do use oaths (e.g., Perik. 807, perhaps 827, Ter. And. fr. 38 K-A), but is rare (there are two other possible instances from women versus at least thirty-six from men, Bain 40–1). The girl’s + $% \8$ (197) is not really an oath. The nymphs are “neighbors” (445), not imaginary friends (as Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 169 ad 212 suggest); deities were presumed to inhabit their sanctuaries, at least occasionally. E.g. 442, 601, 926–7. Cf. Ireland 1992: 11 ad 212. For tragic parallels see Handley 1965: 164 ad 189 (who notes Sostratos’ idealization 167 ad 210f., cf. Walcot 1987: 6, but finds less evidence of & % in her speech, along with Bain 1984: 40), Sisti 1985: 105 ad 247, Ireland 1995: 8, and McClure 1995: 47. Her lament is complemented by Sostratos’ at 202–3 (Arnott 1975: 144), arguably equally overblown. Zagagi 1994: 101, 184–5 n. 22. Women do not perform field work on vases but this may be for ideological reasons (comparative evidence, and perhaps Arist. Pol. 1323a5f., suggests that the poor had little choice, Scheidel 1995: 210–11, Lewis 2002: 83).
56
Misperception of status
(195–6).88 All of this makes a mockery of Sostratos’ speculation about her classy upbringing (“raised as befits a free person” 385–7). But the young man is determined to find an # (677), a priceless treasure, and manages to convince himself that her education has only increased her value for her “lucky” husband (, a conventional epithet of bridegrooms).89 He makes assumptions about her (character) from what little he knows about her background and praises her isolation for insulating her from the influence of women and giving her a share in her “vice-hating” father’s virtue (384–9).90 We know that this is not entirely true. The girl may be dutiful towards the gods, but she has also learned from Simiche how to deceive her father in order to escape a beating. While Pan tells us that she grew up with “no meanness” in her (35–6), he also makes it clear that her father had no moral legacy to bequeath. Her signal virtue, piety, flourished despite Knemon, not because of him. (The old man greets even Pan begrudgingly and regards the Nymphs as the kind of neighbors one moves to avoid, 444–6.) In Sostratos, Menander is caricaturing Knemon’s belief that contact outside a narrowly defined social category (people who are like him, C ) inevitably means contact with vice and that isolation is conducive to virtue (“if everyone were [like me], there would be no courts, nobody dragged off to jail, no wars” 743–5). We may suspect from the youth’s scoffing at his mother’s “daily sacrificial rounds” (260–3, not dissimilar to Knemon’s own grumbling, “they bring couches and wine jars – not for the gods but for themselves” 448–9) that piety is the very last quality he will be disposed to admire in a wife. His image of rustic purity owes more to infatuation than to observation.
a s p i s (the shield) The three soldier plays, the Dyskolos, and the H¯er¯os are all reasonably sympathetic to young men who labor under false beliefs about the women they love. They invite a certain indulgence for delusions inspired by 2-; even Gorgias’ misplaced resentment has an understandable cause. If we make 88 89
90
Ireland 1995: 127 ad 198–9. # is the language of aristocratic gift exchange (Lape 2004: 127 and n. 43, cf. Wohl 1998: 27, 71). On see Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 87 ad 294, Sisti 1985: 100 ad 133, and Martina 1997 ii.2: 475–6 ad 873–4 (also used of brides). See Theuerkauf 1960: 65 (who also notes the irony of Sostratos’ praise), Foley 2001: 115, and Pomeroy 1999: 120 and n. 22 on this misogynistic commonplace. The complaint recalls earlier criticisms of his mother (Handley, 1965: 196–7 ad 384–9, Ireland 1992: 18, 1995: 140 ad 381–92). Lape 2004: 128 sees his recognition of gender difference as a social construct as potentially subversive. Sostratos certainly thinks women’s faults are acquired, not essential, although Knemon makes a similar point about vice in general (742–5), an argument with which Sostratos would sympathize (he justifies the old man’s behavior, for example, as %).
Aspis (The Shield)
57
allowances for self-delusion, these mistakes are made more or less in good faith. But errors follow a similar pattern even when they are not made in good faith and the characters who make them are not sympathetic. The Aspis depicts a selfish old man’s efforts to marry the young heiress to a rich estate. Smikrines is a greedy miser, long resentful of his brother’s prosperity. The unnamed woman, who happens to be his niece, is sister to the warhero Kleostratos, presumed dead on a battlefield in Asia Minor. She has been living with her other uncle Chairestratos, brother to Smikrines and stepfather to Chaireas, a decent young man who also wants to marry her. The young man had petitioned Chairestratos for her hand, believing he was acting in accordance with the laws and Kleostratos’ own wishes (“I asked the uncle to whom you [sc. Kleostratos] left her” he says in a monologue 291–2). Giving her away in marriage was her uncle’s responsibility and no one could fault him for choosing his stepson. Kleostratos had in fact entered military service in order to earn a dowry to secure her a “worthy groom” (9). But when Kleostratos’ slave, Daos, returns from Asia Minor with rich spoils, Smikrines demands the girl for himself. This kyrieia squabble pits a legal claim against a moral one; it is not resolved until an individual with both rights – Kleostratos – returns in the fourth act. It is important to understand the niece’s legal situation in order to follow the conflict that ensues. Smikrines bases his claim on well-established Athenian law. An orphaned girl who came “with a property” (epikl¯eros), usually because her father had died without a male heir, had to marry a relative on her father’s side in order to keep the property within the (male) family line.91 The epikl¯eros found herself in an unstable and often contentious position. She was a desirable match because she could bring a husband far more property than a dowered wife normally would (dowries were one third of an estate or less), but there might well be more than one aspiring groom. A law specifying the order of claimants attempted to limit the disputes that frequently arose (Andoc. 1.117–23 is an example), but it could not eliminate them entirely, as this play makes clear.92 The Aspis exploits 91
92
MacDowell 1996: 60–1. See also Ireland 1992: 105 ad 272f., Ruiz 1981: 58, and Omitowoju 2002: 148–9 on the situation in this play. Brown’s 1983: 419 suggestion that the booty was the sister’s personal property is less likely ( % Y C%- % 348 seems to rule this out) but Brown is right that Smikrines – like any Athenian – might well fear prosecution for reasons that had little to do with the law. On the legal position of the epikl¯eros see Harrison 1998 i: 132–8 and MacDowell 1978: 95–8. The main details can be corroborated from other sources. On the evidential value of those that cannot see Karabelias 1970, MacDowell 1996, Brown 1983, and Omitowoju 2002: 144–6. With Brown and Omitowoju (against MacDowell 1996: 64–5), I see the play criticizing not the law itself but those who exploit it. Comedians were never kind to the $ and Chance’s expressed purpose, as Brown 414 notes, is to expose Smikrines, not the inequities of Attic inheritance law. Aspis citations are from Sandbach 1990.
58
Misperception of status
the inherent divisiveness of the epiklerate for the familiar comic purpose of exposing vice and folly. The young woman may be the object of contention, but we know from the prologue that the real issue is Smikrines’ own standing within the family. All of his schemes will of course prove futile, since Kleostratos is not really dead. The prologue-goddess Chance has deliberately misled the old man about his niece (and Daos is quick with a counter-scheme – to mislead him about another niece) in order to dispel a much more serious misapprehension. “After giving himself a lot of trouble and toil, he’ll make himself much better known ( - ) to everyone – what kind of man he is,” the goddess explains (143–5). In other words, the other characters will eventually be able to do what the audience can already: read mistakes for what they reveal about the person who makes them. The opening scenes show why Smikrines needs to be exposed. It is not just that he is a grasping old miser but that he knows how to cast himself as a champion of justice and the law. He understands the art of misrepresentation. As Katherine Gutzwiller points out, in an attempt to secure the support of his “good fellow” Daos, he tries very hard to create an illusion of his own.93 He argues, for example, that it would have been “just and lawful” ('%, " ) for his nephew to have lived and become the legal owner (kyrios) of all of Smikrines’ goods after his death. Of course, he is fishing for the assurance that it is equally just for him to receive all of Kleostratos’ goods as a fair return for the legacy Kleostratos would have received.94 Smikrines is careful to advance his legal claim only indirectly, mentioning the crucial point of his seniority (“I’m the eldest” 172, i.e., legally first in line for the epikl¯eros) as the basis of a grievance rather than an entitlement. Alleging that his brother “always” encroaches on his rights, he complains of injustice (“I put up with being wronged,” &'8) and greed (“I see him always grabbing more,” 3 172–3). His brother, moreover, has treated him like “a slave or bastard” (175–6) in failing to consult him about the girl’s marriage and even mistreated her in promising her to “some I-don’t-know-who” (177) – an outrageous misrepresentation of Chaireas’ connection to the family.95 93 94
95
Gutzwiller 2000: 126. This is not the normal order of succession, as " suggests, but an unusual provision which would have required a special will (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 76–7 ad 164). Smikrines ignores inconvenient details and stretches the truth (Brown 1983: 415, Ireland 1992: 102–3 ad 170f.). On here see Ogden 1996: 204–205. Bastardy was figuratively associated with “other secondary statuses,” including slavery (Ebbott 2003: 45–6). Ireland 1992: 102–3 ad 153 and 170f., and 105 also notes his twisted reasoning and sense of persecution.
Aspis (The Shield)
59
Smikrines needs to establish his brother’s negligence because he is trying to base a moral claim, not just a legal one, on kinship. Casting himself as the victim and his brother as the aggressor, he pretends that righteous anger (“I’m furious when I look at all this” 180–1) has moved him to adopt a course recommended by his acquaintance and necessitated by his brother’s “estrangement”: ': ' &%- 2 - , 0 - 3 : % %G- : : ' 8, A '( 3 % -%- 0G : , 8 C ', M- -, Q5. (181–7) Since he’s estranged towards me, I’ll do the same. I won’t leave my property to be plundered by these people, but – as some of my acquaintances suggest – I’ll take this girl as my wife. And the law I think says something like this, Daos.
As at Dyskolos 238, “estranged” (& ) implies neglect of family responsibilities, allowing Smikrines to suggests that his purpose in marrying the girl is retributive: to treat his brother in turn “like a stranger” by disinheriting him. The marriage will ensure that his own property (he omits any reference to the girl’s) goes to a deserving heir.96 One can only admire the ingenuity of appending his legal claim to an accusation of mistreatment, as if the law merely confirmed what fairness and decency require. As Ireland notes, “By his contorted reasoning . . . Smikrines has managed to convert his greed . . . into action prescribed by law, supported by others, justified by the neglect he has supposedly suffered from his brother, and designed to wreak vengeance on Chairestratos in turn by denying him a share in Smikrines’ own estate.”97 The miserly old devil can quote scripture, using the language of the law to defend an action that good sense and human decency condemn. His speech ends, in good forensic form, with a demand for a verdict from Daos. Behind his talk of justice we may detect a tacit recognition that he is violating the spirit of the law, but we have the advantage of knowing from the prologue that “he beats everyone in wickedness.” We also know that he has no acquaintance to advise him (“he knows neither relation nor friend,” 96 97
Smikrines would not disinherit his brother just by marrying the girl; an heir was needed (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 78 ad 184). Ireland 1992: 103 ad 184f. He was entitled, but not obliged, to marry her himself (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 78 ad 187).
60
Misperception of status
explained Chance 117–18), that the groom Chairestratos picked out is his stepson (132–7), and that Smikrines was not consulted because he had long since rejected any contact with his family. Daos has no sympathy for his ludicrous allegations. He even goes so far as to repudiate any family connection, at least as the old miser defines it. “You ought to think about this . . . you’re not a stranger,” says Smikrines (188–9). “Oh I’m just a Phrygian,” Daos eventually replies (206), although he acknowledges strong ties to Kleostratos outside Smikrines’ hearing (2, 14, 213–15). Daos knows the old miser well – better than anyone else, in fact – but to an outsider his arguments might seem persuasive. An elder brother had a right to be consulted, a sense of family responsibility was laudable, and letting an epikl¯eros go to “just anyone” was not only wrong but illegal. Smikrines can play the aggrieved, mistreated elder brother with reasonable credibility. We are not meant to believe him but we are meant to recognize that his performance might play well before a jury. He is dangerous because he knows what his legal rights are and how to secure them by cloaking shameless behavior with a semblance of decency. Thanks to Chance, Smikrines and his brother are equally wrong in supposing the girl to be an epikl¯eros, but their common mistake reveals how differently each regards the ties of kinship. For the generous Chairestratos, Kleostratos’ death brings an additional obligation (“we have to see to the burial” 251–2) but does not change his familial or even financial responsibilities to the girl; it simply deprives him of the authority to fulfill them. Chairestratos had been acting as the girl’s kyrios. He raised her and shouldered the heaviest burden of kyrieia – the one that drove Kleostratos to mercenary service – in offering a dowry from his own property (268–9). Faced with his brother’s alarming proposal, he makes little difficulty about Smikrines’ legal rights but disputes his decision to exercise them by marrying the girl himself. A revealing argument ensues over whose wife she should become, who is entitled to make the choice and what the guiding criteria ought to be. In choosing a groom, Chairestratos argues, one ought to consider age and familiarity: “Chaireas was raised with her” (262–3); “let her have a groom her own age” (266–7). Smikrines counters that he is not the first old man to marry (260), but at the same time he is careful not to emphasize the age gap, referring to her only as a “girl” ( 271) or “unmarried girl” ( 177, 185, 253), while his brother calls her a “child” (, 258, 262) and “little girl” ('% 266). While Chairestratos speaks of “moderation” (257) and humanity (“handle this humanely!,” &-%- 260–1) – allocation of property is noticeably absent – Smikrines speaks of a wife almost as an acquisition
Aspis (The Shield)
61
(“you have a wife inside; I should get one” 255–6). He treats death, including his own, as an occasion for the transfer of wealth (169–71) and talks of kinship purely in terms of rights and privileges: possession of property (171, 182–4), consultation about his niece (178–9, 254), the right to marry her, and the deference due an elder brother (176, 172 and 255). Kinship is not simply void of emotional meaning; it is reckoned in economic terms. He harbors resentment, for example, at the “injustice” that precedence in birth should not correlate with precedence in wealth and he sees in his brother’s good fortune only 4%, desire for gain beyond one’s entitlement. Kinship means nothing to him until property enters the picture, and even then he is only interested in a legally significant “distinction of kinship” ('$ 202) that works to his advantage. It is exactly the kind of distinction that Chairestratos has tried to elide – treating his niece like a daughter, bringing his stepson closer into the family – in order to strengthen ties of affection.98 Smikrines is motivated by a fundamentally illegal urge, as Daos hints when he hails him as “heir” ( 85) and Chairestratos begins to understand in this scene. Realizing that the only kyrieia his brother really wants is of the property, Chairestratos proposes a separate distribution: “You take everything, become legal owner (kyrios), we give it to you. Just let the little girl have a groom her own age. I’ll throw in two talents of my own money as a dowry” (265–9). But he is still thinking as the girl’s guardian, considering only the complications for her (she would need a dowry). As Smikrines hastens to object (269–73), the proposal is illegal because it effectively disinherits her future children. Tellingly, he does not argue that he wants a wife and child, as he asserted in line 256, but that the proposal will not secure him the property against a lawsuit (“if there is child, I’ll face prosecution” 272). The whole point of the marriage, however, was to produce a child who would eventually claim the estate. Whether Smikrines or Chaireas married the girl was in a sense immaterial, unless the old man intended to father no children (and a Solonian law in fact specified sexual relations at least three times a month to prevent precisely this problem).99 The purpose of the epikl¯eros law was to secure the property not for the husband but for the family (it was essentially held in trust for 98
99
Omitowoju 2002: 148–9 also contrasts Chairestratos’ broad view of the forces that keep an oikos together (affection, decency, blood ties, marital bonds) and Smikrines’ narrow one (“purely legal terms”). I differ only in regarding the legalistic language as a strategy to coerce his brother and hide his real view of the oikos as a closed group competing for control of limited wealth. Sealey 1990: 30, 174 n. 60. Smikrines is afoul of the law and custom, too, since he is too “advanced in years” (142–3) to marry an epikl¯eros (Lape 2004: 108–9).
62
Misperception of status
the woman’s children). The Aspis is emphatic about Smikrines’ % (“wickedness,” mentioned at 116–17, 140, 309, 316, 369): he is marrying for the wrong reasons and at the wrong age, causing others “pain” (371) and seeking to profit from the death of his nephew. The Aspis is unusually explicit about the role of human psychology in comic identity mistakes. So successful is Chance’s plan in exposing Smikrines that Daos quickly recognizes “love of money” as the old man’s Achilles’ heel and invents a second, richer epikl¯eros to lure him away from the first.100 He instructs Chairestratos to make his daughter an epikl¯eros by feigning his own death. Smikrines is “related to both in the same degree” (352) but his greed will perceive a vast difference between the two: sixty talents to four. After a hasty wedding, his first concern will be to inspect and secure his “dream wealth” (358–9) and he will “gleefully give [the other girl] to the first comer, in front of three thousand witnesses” (353– 5). Like Chance, Daos plans and thinks like a playwright (“We need to put on another kind of tragedy” 329–30), deliberately setting up a comic error for the dramatic purpose of exposing Smikrines. He goes further than Chance, however, in articulating the general principle behind this type of plot. Schemes like these work because they exploit natural human behavior: 7 >8 C ' & 2 1 &% 0. (326–7)
Seeing and expecting only what he wants, he will be an irrational judge of the truth.
Daos is speaking about Smikrines but the link between desire (“what he wants”), perception (“seeing”) and rational judgment could describe many mistaken characters in Menander. Desire limits what the old man sees and expects, and deficient observation in turn limits his grasp of the truth. That is, a choice has already been made, albeit an unconscious one, even before he “looks” at the new epikl¯eros. We have seen this principle at work in other plays but only here does Menander explicitly ground identity mistakes in the psychology of the viewer.101 Implicit is the idea that people choose among multiple interpretations of what they see. One has to be a “judge” (0) of the truth; simply “looking” is not enough. 100 101
On this “doubling” of the larger plot see Gutzwiller 2000: 122, 132 and n. 75. Cf. Gutzwiller 2000: 128–9. She emphasizes the metatheatrical context of lines 326–7.
Aspis (The Shield)
63
Something similar to Daos’ theory can be found in Aristotle. In a study of emotions and judgment, Stephen Leighton cites several passages, including Rhetoric 1377b31–1378a5 (cited at the start of this chapter), which show that “Emotion can alter perception and consequently the judgments based on these perceptions.”102 For example, in De Somniis Aristotle uses the example of the coward and the lover: We are easily deceived about our perceptions (t¯as aisth¯eseis) when we are in emotional states (en tois pathesin ontes), some in one state and others in another; e.g. the coward in his fear, the lover in his love; so that even from a very faint resemblance the coward expects to see his enemy, and the lover his loved one; and the more one is under the influence of emotion, the less similarity is required to give these impressions. Similarly, in fits of anger and in all forms of desire all are easily deceived, and the more easily, the more they are under the influence of emotions. So to those in a fever, animals sometimes appear on the wall from a slight resemblance of lines put together. (460b1–15, from Leighton, based on Hett’s translation)
Leighton points to the role of expectation in making the coward mistake another person for his enemy, something Daos actually makes explicit (“seeing and expecting,” ').103 Smikrines is all the more ripe for a second duping because the unexpected first epikl¯eros alerted him to the possibility of instant wealth. Daos himself mistook a corpse for his master, in part because a long, bloody battle predisposed him to fear the worst. He literally misidentified the figure he was seeing. One might compare Aristotle’s explanation of how emotions can prevent people from hearing correctly in a passage from the Nicomachean Ethics about the relative dangers of failing to control anger versus desire. Anger seems to listen to argument to some extent, but to mishear it, as do hasty servants who run out before they have heard the whole of what one says, and then muddle the order, or as dogs bark if there is but a knock at the door, before looking to see if it is a friend; so anger, by reason of the warmth and hastiness of its nature, though it hears, does not hear an order, and springs to take revenge. For argument or imagination informs us that we have been insulted or slighted, and anger, reasoning as it were that anything like this must be fought against, boils up straightaway; while appetite, if argument or perception merely says that an object is pleasant, springs up to the enjoyment of it. (1149a24–35, tr. Ross, revised by Ackrill and Urmson)
102 103
Leighton 1996: 213. On philosophical treatments of the broader problem of inferring the unknown from visible signs, see Grimaldi 1980 and Allen 2001. Leighton 1996: 212 “this concerns the perceptual level of emotions affecting perceptions rather than the epistemic level of emotions affecting beliefs and knowledge.”
64
Misperception of status
If emotion can create illusions like the hallucinations of the sick, it can also alter how people “put together” ( %) what they see.104 Sometimes the very object we perceive allows room for misperception. Leighton notes a distinction made in De Anima 2.6 between objects perceived per se (
L), e.g., “a white thing,” and objects perceived per accidens ( . >> ), e.g., the white thing perceived as “the son of Diares.” People may see the same thing per se, but differ in their perceptions per accidens. The hasty servant “hears the object per se, the sound, but through his or her emotion he or she is expecting something, and does not hear (does not put together) the object per accidens, the order issued.”105 Similarly, the coward and lover correctly perceive a person but misidentify the individual through fear or desire. Menander often exploits the discrepancy between perceiving something per se and per accidens. Daos recognizes a fallen Greek soldier but the swollen face prevents him from identifying the individual (“it wasn’t possible to recognize him clearly” 69–70); hence he relies on a nearby shield. Sostratos sees a “freeborn girl” and has to learn that she is the daughter of a notorious misanthrope; Moschion sees an attractive young woman and has to learn that she is his sister; Thrasonides sees a “captive” and even a “wife,” but only discovers later that she is related to a man he claims to have killed. This kind of selective perception is especially characteristic of the lover, who rarely envisions possibilities outside his hopes and desires, and the old Smikrines is as passionate about money as the young men are about women. He is also “rash” (0) 324 and egocentric, like other comic lovers. There is a sharp contrast, however, between his love of money and the legitimate passion of the real lover in this play. Chaireas “fell in love but not by choice” (288), with an idealized expectation of marriage (“to be blessed () in life” 294) and a proper sense of priorities. He envies Smikrines his kyrieia of the girl rather than her property: “the law makes another man kyrios of her” (297–8). A reason for this contrast is not hard to find. ] ^- was pardonable, particularly in the young, but New Comedy had no sympathy for the avarice of old men. We are consistently alienated from Smikrines’ point of view by the hostile perspectives of Daos, Chaireas and Chairestratos, by the authoritative condemnation of the prologue and by the old man’s transparent attempts to misrepresent himself (what was probably his only monologue begins with “So no one can say I’m greedy . . .”149). The Aspis suggests that humans are partly responsible for their own mistakes; everyone can mistake the truth when they “see” what they expect. 104
Leighton 1996: 215.
105
Leighton 1996: 213–15. See also 215–16.
Phasma (The Apparition)
65
Even Daos “mistook” a feigned death for a real one (' 110), just as Smikrines does (“having mistaken,” ' 324). However, the play also distinguishes degrees of gullibility. Because Smikrines understands kinship only in terms of money and privilege, he is particularly vulnerable to a scheme that promises to fulfill his dreams. He believes in the second epikl¯eros, even though it means accepting the extremely sudden, and highly unlikely, death of his younger brother. What Daos saw was a thoroughly convincing spectacle, staged by Chance; the play performed for Smikrines could only fool an “irrational judge of the truth.”
p h a s m a (the apparition) The “hidden” daughter of the Dyskolos and the false epikl¯eros of the Aspis illustrate alternatives to mistaken identity plots centering on lost daughters. Menander probably reused both premises in other plays. There is a false epikl¯eros in the Phormio of Apollodorus, who was heavily influenced by Menander, and Menander himself wrote two plays entitled “The Epikl¯eros.”106 The hidden-daughter motif, however, recurs in the slightly better preserved Phasma. Fifty-six lines from the first act survive, as well as fragmentary remains of another 65 lines and some testimonia, including a plot summary in Donatus, the author of a fourth-century commentary on Terence. The identity mistake in this play has an unusual, supernatural twist but a familiar psychology. As in the Dyskolos, the sequence of events in the Phasma starts when a young man (“Pheidias”) glimpses an attractive young woman he is not supposed to see. Pheidias sees a female figure in a shrine in his stepmother’s room. We know from Donatus’ summary that she is really his stepmother’s secret daughter by a pre-marital rape. After her marriage, the woman hid the girl in a neighbor’s house and constructed a passageway through the adjoining wall, disguising the entrance as a shrine.107 Thus the girl finds herself, literally and figuratively, between households, and the shrine makes her seem to emanate from the divine world. Pheidias initially takes her for a 106
107
One of these even featured an informal trial, mentioned in a rhetorical treatise: “when both the husband and wife plead their case with the child as judge, he [sc. Menander] does not give either a proem because there was already goodwill [sc. on the part of the child]” (Anon. Seguerianus 34, Rh. Gr. i, p. 359, 21, Epikl. > Test. iii K-A). Quintilian confirms that there was a iudicium (Inst. Or. 10. 1.70). Unfortunately, not enough of the play remains to determine if the problem that required the mock trial stemmed from a misidentification. Phasma citations are from Arnott 2000a. A recent trial may have given new life to this old device (used, e.g., in Euripides’ Protesilaus, Webster 1953: 175). In 333 bc a man was accused of conducting an illicit affair through a secret passageway (P. Oxy. 1607, cited Turner 1969: 319).
66
Misperception of status
numen (“divine power,” probably a translation of the Greek $ , Kock’s supplement in line 40), perhaps even “the goddess” (56) of the shrine herself. There is a marked element of subjectivity to his misapprehension. The prologue describes her flesh-and-blood appearances with a verb that emphasizes the role of the viewer, $O (“appears” 49, not a common word in Menander), and the young man’s father evidently makes no such mistake (a mosaic depicting a scene from Act II shows an angry man discovering the girl).108 Pheidias is wrong about her physical identity but his misconception aptly reflects her symbolic role: as living proof of her mother’s carefully hidden secret, the girl has long exerted an unseen influence over the household. Only now does the young man experience this “ghost” of his mother’s past directly. Initially her influence is manifested in a strange malaise, a kind of “psychosomatic melancholia and insomnia,” that follows the vision.109 According to Donatus, “at first sight of the lovely girl [Pheidias] was terrified” (ad Ter. Eun., prol. 9). When he first appears, he does not seem to know the truth (the divine prologue will soon explain “she’s [not an apparition] but a real girl” 40). In the opening scene between Pheidias and his slave, Menander presents discrepant perceptions of the “apparition” in the unusual form of an argument concerning the nature of the young man’s illness. Where other lovers speculate about the status of the women they love, this youth puzzles over his symptoms. He describes insomnia (9) and general discomfort (“I feel strange and sluggish” 21), while his slave scoffs at his “sickness” (& 20) as the ennui of the idle rich. In the slave’s view, Pheidias has insomnia because his whole life is sleep – an indolent course of strolls and baths (10–12) – and his problem is foolishness (& 22). He suffers from an empty evil, not a real one (25–8), and ought to be able to cure himself with a change of attitude (“Find a fake drug for a fake disease, and imagine it’s doing you some good” 27–8), or perhaps try a few quack remedies for bad dreams (29–31).110 Comic slaves often trace spiritual ills to physical causes (compare Getas’ “You’re probably over-fed” at Her. 17). In good comic form, this slave takes a reductive view of human existence, reminding Pheidias of the basic physical needs that preoccupy the less fortunate: “You have so many blessings, you have nowhere [to crap]” (17–18). But there may be more than a slave’s 108 109 110
See Turner 1969: 320, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 674, Barbieri 1999: 87, and Arnott 2000a: 366–7 for interpretations of this mosaic. Unfortunately the figures are not labeled. Quotation from Arnott 2000a: 368. Arnott had earlier suggested 1998b: 46 that the illness might be a sham to hide his new passion but this seems unlikely (why dupe his confidant?). Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 679 ad 45. See also Arnott 2000a: 380 n. 3.
P. K¨oln 203 ( Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott)
67
pragmatism behind the advice to appreciate his enviable lot. Significantly, he tries to draw his young master down to a human plane: “How much does wheat [cost in the market]? (2); “Be aware that you’re a human being yourself and that [the needy] are human beings too, so that you don’t desire [things] beyond [you]” (6–8, cf. Mon. 246). Nothing in Pheidias’ conversation here or in Donatus’ summary would suggest he wanted a second look at the terrifying vision, and yet this seems to be implied by the word “desire,” which introduces a hint of attraction as well as fear. The slave happens to be right. As soon as Pheidias realizes the girl is not an apparition, he slips into a more conventional sickness (“and then after the truth gradually became known, he fell in love with the girl,” Don. loc. cit). His symptoms indeed invite comparison with 2-, revealing more to us than to the patient himself: he has a lover’s sleeplessness (cf. Mis. 6–9, Fab. Inc. 8 Arnott, 5–7), wretchedness, irrationality, and even “possession” (cf. Dysk. 44 “I’m making him possessed”). Empty though it may be, the disease has also had consequences. It has delayed a marriage with the neighbor’s daughter and prompted a stern reprimand at 34–8 (from his father?).111 His vision thus fills the same plot function as 2-, obstructing an impending marriage and preoccupying him with another woman. Pheidias’ vague self-diagnosis shows that he does not understand his affliction but realizes that the “apparition” is the cause. Once the truth was discovered the conflict presumably shifted to a more conventional form, following a typical Menandrian pattern in moving from perceptual to practical difficulties. The hidden daughter becomes a lost daughter, who is eventually “found” in time for the wedding in the fifth act. If characters in the Dyskolos make relatively realistic guesses about a hidden girl, the Phasma shows some of the more imaginative possibilities of this comic premise. ¨ p. k oln 2 03 ( fa b u l a i n c e rta 8 arnot t ) A highly conventional genre runs the risk of growing tedious, and Athenian audiences evidently grew bored with lost daughters, hidden girls and disputed epikl¯eroi. An extremely fragmentary play suggests a demand for ever more bizarre cases of mistaken identity, offering a fascinating glimpse of Menander’s ingenuity in devising new variations. The remains of some 241 lines of an unnamed play include two scenes between a lover (speaker A) and a skeptical confidant (speaker B, probably a slave and perhaps the 111
The father who eventually allows the marriage (Donatus mentions his consensus, perhaps significantly) may have planned another one initially (Barbieri 1999: 86–7).
68
Misperception of status
lover’s ' - , a kind of male nanny), not unlike the pair in the Phasma.112 Speaker A suffers from an extreme case of comic confusion. In the two fragments of P. K¨oln 203 he appears both before and after making a serious mistake about the identity of a woman he claims to love. He is thoroughly aware that he has a perceptual problem, so aware in fact that he calls his mistake an “error of ignorance” (& ). # , often thematic in Menander, carries specific associations: the “ignorance” always concerns the character or identity of an intimate friend, lover, or relative and usually has harmful consequences for both the household and the larger community. This is the first time the form & appears in comedy, but this play seems to have been unusually insistent about its departures from convention.113 Speaker A draws attention to the novelty of his “unlikely” situation: C %- & - [ 9] [] - [] )9[ ] : ;G _ , " ' ' [8] 9–11 For I’m in love, miserable me, in the newest way in all mankind. I haven’t seen what the woman I love looks like, by the twelve gods!
Comic lovers rarely understate their symptoms, but this speaker is trying especially hard to convince his confidant that his feelings are real. He claims all the symptoms of conventional passion: misery, rejection of his friends (“I couldn’t care less about the [post-symposium street revel]”), obsessive pursuit (“night and day I’m shut out”) and perseverance (“I’m persisting,” 8). How he first fell in love with his unseen marvel is unclear, but he tells us a little about her attractions. In the last badly preserved lines of this fragment, he appears to praise her “sophisticated character” (& , !) for leaving him “struck dumb” ( 0 18, a common metaphor for sudden love), and he may be claiming to place a low value on physical appearance: “for [I believe? I have said?] looks (;G) are never” (17).114 This nameless lover is not the only Menandrian character to fall in love with a woman’s !. The husband of P. Ant. 15 professes to have been 112
113 114
See ch. 33, n. 33 on the identification of this play. Speaker B’s crass language and reproving tone suggest a pedagogue or slave (Gaiser 1986: 17, Corbato 1988: 421, N¨unlist 1993: 262 ad A 14) rather than a friend (Maresch 1985: 2). Similar reproaches appear at Phasma 27ff. (N¨unlist, loc. cit.), frr. 740 (= 602 K-A) and 538.1 (= 761 K-A, N¨unlist, loc. cit.) and the first scene in Samia (63–5, 67–9, 70–6). Fab. Inc. 8 citations are from Arnott 2000a. Maresch 1985: 16 ad B ii 14 (“& hier zum ersten Mal in der Kom¨odie”). See further Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 466–7, Lef`evre 1979: 314–20, Duckworth 1952: 141 and Stoessl 1973. LSJ s.v. ii.2. See also Zagagi 1986: 39 and N¨unlist 1993: 266 B ii 17.
P. K¨oln 203 ( Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott)
69
“bound by [his new wife’s] freeborn character and honest way of life” (11).115 How Speaker A came by his information is a mystery, but it may not be completely reliable. He attributes to the woman both sophistication (lit. “a citified character,” i.e., the sort of polish acquired from urban living) and modesty (being % 19), a virtue normally associated with seclusion. & , ! suggests charm, refinement, intelligence, and wit – qualities one would expect in the more exclusive sort of hetaira and therefore an odd match with “modesty.”116 Is this simply a complimentary way of describing an expensive hetaira’s selectivity? It seems more likely that these lines are not straightforward description (it is clear enough from the next fragment that the speaker knows little about the woman) but a reflection of his desires: urban glamor but with the reassurance that the beloved will remain true. This young man is in love with an ideal. He is also striving for a certain self-image, which may account for the note of pride in the uniqueness of his situation. Commentators have pointed out that the complaint of unparalleled distress was itself an erotic topos, and this lover’s predicament, although paradoxical (love was proverbially sparked by sight), is no more implausible than Thrasonides’.117 Its novelty strikes the lover more forcefully than the slave, who shows only a perfunctory curiosity about this latest manifestation of $0 (“I think you screw around and party too much” 14). After claiming the sort of refined sensibility that holds beauty in contempt, he looks rather silly in the next fragment. By this point he has finally seen his beloved but appears to have confused her with someone else and inadvertently transferred his affections. Despite the mistake, he remains blissfully infatuated: % '( , [], ' ; @[-] '9 [ ,] 3 3. ;G- ,[] V> _ N' _ ` . N' A -, : & $ '[,] & 0 3 2 L - , a ) , , Y', , )% -. 115 116
117
Printed in Sandbach 1990: 327–8 but not attributed to Menander. Cf. Men. frr. 570, 571, and 580 K (cited N¨unlist 1993: 265 ad B ii 10). See Ireland 1992: 36 ad 18 and N¨unlist 1993: 262 ad A 16 and cf. Ter. Heauton 521–2 (mulier . . . faceta haec meretrix). The paraclausithyron and B’s , also suggest the hetaira (Zagagi 1986: 38, N¨unlist 1993: 261 ad A 6–7). % often implies chastity (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 569 ad 272 ) but N¨unlist 1993: 263 ad A 19 cites examples used of hetairai. E.g., Zagagi 1986: 38, N¨unlist 1993: 259–60. Maresch 1985: 10–11 ad A 11 notes the topos of love at first sight. Love, sight unseen, does figure in the Greek novel (e.g., Heliodorus 8.2, Achilles Tatius 2.13) and in an anecdote about Alcibiades (Athen. 13.574).
70
Misperception of status 28–35
What have I suffered, by the gods, that’s so terrible? I loved a particular personality, sight unseen, and I still praise it. I wanted to get a look at [lit. see the ;G of ] the woman I saw, not the woman I thought (I saw (?)). I don’t know what I’m saying, except that I really like her a lot and this mistake suits me just fine. She has a supremely lovely face, the one I’ve seen – sweet in conversation, a hetaira’s personality.
The original editor wanted “the woman I saw” and “the woman I thought” to be one and the same and accordingly suggested that the lover had seen her veiled.118 But as Brown points out, he praises her face specifically, calling her L -, “of supremely lovely face”, an unlikely choice if this is precisely what he could not see.119 Another solution is to give lines 31–2 to B and construe “in conversation” with the preceding clause (“I saw through description,” as at Soph. Oed. Col. 138 “I see through sound, as the saying goes”). The lover would not have seen the girl at all, and the slave would be expressing a hypothetical wish (“I would like to get a view I’ve already seen”).120 But it is hard to imagine a report arousing this degree of enthusiasm, particularly in the one area where language can least do a subject justice (and he is already coining new words for it: L -). This highly subjective view can only be the statement of an eyewitness. I follow Brown in assuming that two women were involved: the one the speaker loved without seeing her ;G (“appearance”) and the one he did see (and now loves).121 Arnott suggests several possible explanations for the first love: “the passion might have been inspired by a portrait of the girl, a glimpse of her from behind, a dream, or he could even have raped her at a festival in the dark during the previous night.”122 ;G means “looks” or “appearance” and although face-to-face contact is usually implied (it can also mean “face, countenance”), the word does not exclude a portrait or a partial glimpse and it is frequently used of visions in dreams (although 118 120
121
122
119 Brown 1986: 33. Maresch 1985: 2. Gaiser 1986: 13. Gaiser’s attempt to fit these fragments into the Hydria (“she” is actually a pot of gold and speaker A is deceiving B, who takes “her” to be a hetaira) is ingenious but unpersuasive. In addition to the difficulties noted by Arnott 2000a: 563, Gaiser’s theory requires an extension of the erotic metaphor over several scenes to no apparent purpose (B was presumably “duped” by the end of the first) and it does not account for B’s evident attachment to A. If B is A’s slave, why is he not an accomplice? If he is not A’s slave, why does he care about A’s romantic woes? Brown 1986: 33. N¨unlist 1993: 265 ad B ii 12 suggests yet another possibility: different aspects or impressions of the same woman (_ N' and _ ` would represent “die verschiedenen Stufen des Wissens”). His argument for attributing these fragments to the Dis Exapat¯on (pp. 271–8), however, requires two women, “Bacchis” and her sister. Cf. Sheldon 1988: 16. Arnott 2000a: 559. Sheldon 1988: 12 makes similar suggestions.
P. K¨oln 203 ( Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott)
71
this is usually made clear by phrases like “at night” or “in a dream”).123 But Arnott’s first three suggestions would have the lover equivocating with a word he later uses in a straightforward sense (“I wanted to get a look” 30–1). A rape is also unlikely. Rapes of unknown women in New Comedy do not inspire tender feelings, and the parties involved rarely get a good glimpse of one another (hence the many plots involving victims and rapists who marry one another unawares, e.g., in the Epitrepontes, H¯er¯os and Phasma). This speaker lays such stress on not having seen her ;G that he must mean he has no idea what she looks like. Something other than looks inspired his feelings (and he tells us what it is: her character). Without further knowledge of the circumstances it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to make sense of lines 28–33. [ ] might also mean “someone’s personality,” if the genitives are taken separately; the emendation [] would change the meaning to “was sort of in love;” “I wanted” (V> ) might also mean “I would like;” and it is not absolutely certain that two women were involved.124 The language may well be “deliberately incomprehensible,” as Brown suggests, in order to show the speaker’s distraught state of mind.125 He is on the defensive and trying to save face after being blamed for his own misfortune (“you surrendered yourself,” speaker B remarks), evidently by arguing that the new development, whatever it was, is not so terrible. He certainly believes there are two women, whether or not this actually proves true, and he thinks he has transferred his feelings from the one with the & , ! to the one with more conventional attractions. With a half-hearted claim to consistency (“Even now I praise it” 30), the man who made so much of loving inner beauty abandons sophisticated modesty for good looks, appealing conversation, and a hetaira’s personality. His “mistake” shows a discrepancy between his professed and real values. Perhaps his aspirations to a more spiritual love had more to do with being locked out than with loving modesty. The slave naturally takes a cynical view, answering his “I want to spend the rest of this life with her” with a terse “None of the gods could save this fellow” (36–8). He remains unpersuaded that this confessed hetaira could or should make a life time partner (particularly if she was instrumental in either the 123 124
125
LSJ s.v. i.3. N¨unlist 1993: 265 suggests separating the genitives. Otherwise the genitive construction is paralleled at Amphis fr. 15.3 - 0, Bato fr. 7.4 K-A - . . . 5 (cited Maresch 1985: 16 ad B ii 10). Brown 1986: 34 conjectures . On V> as an unreal condition without * see Gaiser 1986: 13, Verdenius 1974: 19–20 ad 30. Cf. Epitr. 166, perhaps also Sam. 640. “I wanted” would continue the narrative begun with @[-] line 29 and would perhaps better suit his speaker, who is anything but hesitant in asserting his wants (note, e.g., >8 36). Brown 1986: 33.
72
Misperception of status
lock-out (7) or the continuing ill-treatment the lover complains about at line 23. This man is so determined to be in love that the woman he sees immediately becomes the woman he loves. Her identity is almost a matter of indifference. As J. S. Sheldon has pointed out, his unseen love recalls the situation in the Phasma,126 but whereas the Phasma collapses different perceptions of the beloved into a single character (Pheidias sees first a goddess, then a real girl), Fabula Incerta 8 apparently splits the different roles between different women. conclusion The same basic mechanisms underlie all of the plots studied in this chapter. Stratophanes, Thrasonides, Polemon, Moschion, Daos, Sostratos, Smikrines, Pheidias, and Speaker A in P. K¨oln 203 are mistaken in points of fact about the women they hope to marry (or at least seduce). Why was something as formulaic, artificial, and implausible as the mistaken identity plot so popular with Athenian audiences? Its advantages are not hard to see. Mistaken identity is one solution to the basic problem of involving women in dramatically interesting situations without openly challenging the rules that were supposed to keep them out of these situations in real life. It was not always easy to introduce doubt into what ought to have been determinate facts; hence, the far-fetched coincidences for which the genre was famous. For Menander and the other New Comic poets, the obvious way to jeopardize a woman’s legal, social, and economic position was to deprive her of a legitimate father. This device has roots in earlier versions of the disguise-and-recognition plot: the absence of the male head of the household in the Odyssey, for example, already results in a kind of “disguise” – in the form of diminished status – for his dependents (Laertes, Telemachus, Eumaeus, Penelope).127 In New Comedy, the lost daughter is separated from her family long before the play begins. In the Siky¯onioi, Misoumenos, and Eunuchus she is stolen by pirates or captured in war; in the Perikeiromen¯e and Heauton Timoroumenos her father orders her exposed at birth. In the H¯er¯os, Phasma, and Synarist¯osai, she is the result of a pre-marital rape forgotten by the father. Even within the small Menander corpus that survives there are many variations of the lost-daughter plot. Plays like the Dyskolos and Aulularia remove the father by incapacitating him. In Terence’s Andria and Eunuchus, complicated misfortunes leave the girl in the care of a kindly prostitute, 126
Sheldon 1988: 12.
127
Murnaghan 1987: 25.
Conclusion
73
and something similar probably happened in the Perinthia. The Aspis kills off both the father and his next of kin, leaving the girl officially an orphan. In a sense, all of these young women are orphans (even those in the H¯er¯os and Phasma who have surviving mothers), because a legitimate father – the deus ex machina of New Comedy – is the parent they really need. Like the minister or ship’s captain in comedy of a later era, the father is the man who can tie the knot, and in many of these plays he does little else. Plutarch in fact singles out the “legitimate father” (: 0 ) as the reward for “good and loving” hetairai, i.e., lost daughters (Mor. 712c, cited in chapter 1). A double identity also opened up the dramatic possibility of social mobility – precisely what law and custom tried to prevent. As a dramatic premise, mistaken identity is thus virtually guaranteed to create conflicts involving the entire community, with some members resenting apparent violations and others trying to exploit them. Questions of identity, including social, economic, and juridical status, touched on emotional issues, particularly for Athenians, and women posed special problems. In theory, divisions between citizen/slave, slave/wife, wife/mistress, and mistress/prostitute were clear and no one made mistakes about whether a woman was eligible for marriage. But the historical record shows that this was not always the case. Despite the importance which Pericles’ citizenship law of 451 bc attached to double citizen marriage, Athens did not keep track of female citizens nearly as carefully as male citizens. Without phratry registration, birth certificates, or marriage licenses, and with custom limiting the public visibility of women of the propertied classes, it was often difficult to prove a woman’s juridical status (and sometimes even existence) to the satisfaction of a jury.128 Athenians could and did argue about whether a woman was a “wedded wife” and who should marry an epikl¯eros; young men did fall in love with ineligible women, perhaps even trying to marry them (Isae. 3.17), and cases could hinge on whether a woman was married or a citizen.129 It was difficult enough to distinguish men by class. One self-styled citizen was initially prosecuted as a metic and later accused of being a runaway slave (Pancleon in Lys. 23). A historian went so far as to complain that “The Athenian People is no better clothed than the slave or alien, nor in personal 128
129
One girl is said to have been introduced to her father’s phratry (Is. 3.73 and 76), perhaps because she was an epikl¯eros. A wife was normally presented to her husband’s phratry but probably not registered (Lambert 1993: 36, 180–1, 183–5, contra Pomeroy 1995: 117–18, see also Gould 1980: 40–2, Cole 1984: 235–8). E.g., Dem. 57, Is. 8. See Hunter 1994: 112, Patterson 1994: 35, Cox 1998: 178–9, Lewis 2002: 100, and Miner 2003: 26 on the difficulties of proving women’s status at Athens and see Connor (1994) on larger problems of defining and policing citizenship.
74
Misperception of status
appearance is there any superiority” (Ps.-Xen. Ath. Pol. 1.10 tr. Dakyns) and a Middle Comic poet complained “Many are not now free, but tomorrow they’ll be Sounians and the day after they’ll use the agora” (Anax. fr. 4). The ease with which women slip in and out of status categories, whether by accident or by choice, has some basis in reality. These are problems an Athenian audience could imagine happening. There were good reasons to fight over status. For a lost daughter, recognition meant the difference between poverty and secure maintenance, prostitution and marriage, self-support and the protection of a family. An epikl¯eros suddenly left with an estate could expect a change in her marriage arrangements in order to keep the estate within the family. Men can of course be “lost” too. Stratophanes and Gorgias (the twin brother in the H¯er¯os) are recognized as Athenians and Moschion (Perik.) recovers his biological father. The title character in the Hypobolimaios (“Changeling”) is probably restored to his rightful parents, like the baby in the Epitrepontes, although little is known of this play.130 Men can also be subject to identity mistakes: Kleostratos and Krateia’s brother are both presumed dead because of a misleading piece of armor. A summary of the Hiereia indicates that the misperceived characters are both young men: the son and the supposititious son of the priestess’s neighbors. I also suspect that the “Carthaginian” who wants to marry a citizen girl (Karch.37–9) proves to be another lost citizen; his frank naivet´e suggests that he will get the girl.131 Their stories are less gripping, however, than the women’s. Moschion is not about to slip into prostitution and Stratophanes has never been enslaved. There was clearly some discomfort about subjecting citizen men to the same humiliations as women (prostitution was an option for destitute young men, too, but we would never know this from New Comedy). Chapter 6 will explore this gender bias in more detail. Here I only note that kyrieia could not be a dramatic issue with freeborn adult men (they were their own kyrioi) and that conflicts over women’s status were as much about emotional as legal issues. Both twins are in the same situation in the H¯er¯os, but the debate focuses on Plangon because Daos is in love with her. Stratophanes has the same claim to citizenship as Philoumene, but he does not have suitors vying for his hand. Indeed, because the emotions that women inspire are more important than 130
131
We know of five comedies entitled Hypobolimaios (Ogden 1996: 110). “Changelings” are always male and usually children, although adults are involved in Hier., Perik., and Mis. Pressure to produce male heirs may well have created a real-world black market (Ogden 110–11). The pueri suppositio (Plaut. Capt. 1031) motif is common in folklore, however (see ch. 6 n. 22); it cannot be attributed simply to Athenian preoccupation with citizenship. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 408.
Conclusion
75
those they feel (a phenomenon that continues even in twentieth-century film), they often get relatively little stage time.132 The people we actually watch quarreling, arguing, misjudging, and misinterpreting are men. The real dramatic interest of these plots is not in the formulaic elements – the abductions, exposures, recoveries, and recognitions – but in the unique course each error takes in a character’s mind, as he clings to his mistake and struggles to convince himself and others of its truth. It is not the maze itself but how the characters negotiate it that holds our attention. Mistaken identity is about more than ignorance, as Menander realized (and so did the orators and playwrights who studied his plays with an eye to writing performance scripts of their own). His characters do not quite turn lines on the wall into animals (although Pheidias in the Phasma comes close), but they do repeatedly demonstrate that people are “easily deceived about perceptions when in emotional states.” Speaker A in the Cologne papyrus comes closest to Aristotle’s example: he expects to see his beloved and therefore does, even though he is looking at the wrong woman. Characters in the grip of desire “spring up” – as Aristotle argues (NE 1149a29, cited above) – to enjoy hoped for pleasures long before they are secure. Daos in the Aspis speculates that Smikrines will “immediately” give the one niece away, marry the other, and get down to the business of inspecting his new property (353–9). Sostratos in the Dyskolos likewise falls in love “immediately” and presses his suit the next day; moreover, he can barely refrain from kissing the girl while he is supposed to be rescuing her father (686–8). Moschion in the Perikeiromen¯e chafes at waiting “two or three days” to fulfill what his imagination promises immediately (343–4), while Polemon has to be restrained from storming the house of the “seducer” who has stolen his “wife.” These lovers are eager to believe the women can and will be theirs. These plays should be appreciated as studies in human psychology which explore the relationship between perception and knowledge and the role of the emotions in shaping how people see and judge one another. They show similarities to the principles taught by contemporary teachers of rhetoric, although it is impossible to prove direct influence. Menander makes no obvious effort to describe misperceptions in Aristotelian terms, for example, and the statement in the Aspis of the psychological principle behind the stock comic device is unparalleled elsewhere in the corpus. Menander was 132
“What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself, the woman has not the slightest importance” (Boetticher, cited in Mulvey 1999: 63).
76
Misperception of status
simply developing a premise that was conventional wisdom in rhetorical handbooks and had been elaborated by at least one major philosopher. He grounded mistakes about a woman’s status in what was, in fourth-century terms, realistic psychology. His comedies part company with philosophy in exaggerating the absurdity of the mistake and emphasizing the degree to which characters collude in their own deception. Young men like Polemon, Glykera’s Moschion, Daos, and Sostratos expend considerable efforts to persuade themselves and others that their beloved belongs to an accessible class. Smikrines’ is the most blatantly instrumental view of a woman, but all of these characters embrace a particular status assessment for practical reasons. Thrasonides and Stratophanes cede kyrieia because they hope to get their mistresses back as wives. Moschion in the Siky¯onioi supports Philoumene’s claim to citizenship because he wants to marry her. Conversely, the other Moschion barely acknowledges that his own sister might be more than a “pipe-girl or cheap slut.” These are characters who want to be wrong. As speaker A cheerfully admits, “This mistake is fine by me” (Fab. Inc. 8.33). Misapprehension and Chance may preside over the plays, but mistaken identity propagates through human mechanisms. These mistakes are richly revealing of hopes and fears, and even values and ideals. The more sympathetic characters pursue women for their own sake, not for dowries or social connections. Stratophanes, Thrasonides and Polemon are looking for companionship; Sostratos brags of his indifference to the girl’s fortune or family; Pheidias falls in love with his “apparition” as soon as she proves mortal (but before she finds a father . . .); and poor Daos, far from seeking advancement through Plangon, actually tries to convince himself that she is a slave. The soldiers who take their mistresses for wives show a very unmilitary preference for the stability of civilian life. They want recognition of their kindness, generosity, and devotion, not their rich spoils or battlefield accomplishments. Young men like Chaireas, Sostratos, and Moschion (Sik.) cherish an idealized notion of marriage, wistfully pronouncing the man who marries their beloved “blessed” (). They also want wives of superlative beauty. Like Daos, who takes the blame for a rape he did not commit, Sostratos and Moschion regard themselves as rescuers (from poverty and “kidnappers,” respectively). Of course the real rescuer in the Dyskolos is Gorgias, whose mistake reveals his own values. His intervention to protect an abandoned child is intended as a criticism of Knemon’s ' % (“grouchiness”) and a lesson in the meaning of kinship. Smikrines, on the other hand, calculates kinship in drachmas and is ready to regard either niece as the instrument of his “dream wealth.” Since misperceptions often reflect what characters would like to believe
Conclusion
77
about themselves, errors about status can also reveal deficiencies of selfknowledge. Smikrines is the obvious example, but Moschion (Perik.) and the lover in Fabula Incerta 8 also look for confirmation of rather unlikely selfimages. There are obvious parallels here with feminist theories of women as “a mirror of value of and for man” without specific qualities of their own.133 These men are treating the women as blank slates, ready to be overwritten with their own values. Misperceptions accordingly help an audience to separate the good from the bad. The more sympathetic the character, the more plausible the mistake. At one extreme is Smikrines, who believes in a second false heiress; at the other is Daos, who mistakes an unrecognizable corpse; somewhere in between we find figures like Stratophanes, who was probably never told that Philoumene came from Athens. Chance in the Aspis makes everyone “wander in ignorance” for a while, heroes and villains alike. Menander goes to some trouble to create situations in which misunderstandings seem plausible so that characters can be drastically mistaken without looking like fools. The unlikely coincidences – enslaved citizens returned to their native city, exposed twins living as neighbors, girls raised in secrecy – ensure misunderstanding, even by sensible and well-intentioned characters, and permit broadly discrepant views on the woman’s status. These mistakes are often self-serving, but they are not deliberate deceptions. Polemon is not trying to fool the neighbors, and he does not even consider pretending that Glykera is his wife after Pataikos assures him that she is not. The two Moschions chase women they sincerely believe to be accessible and desist, albeit reluctantly, when they learn otherwise. Daos would like to marry Plangon, but he is not trying to deprive her of her birthright as a freeborn citizen. These men produce fantasies, not schemes, and their clumsy efforts at realization are never calculated to deceive (unlike those of the many real Athenians who misrepresented mistresses and illegitimate children). When lovers do succeed in turning an illicit affair into an acceptable one, it is through chance, not machination, and the woman’s promotion is always justified as a restoration to a lost “true” status. The most implausible aspect of the Menandrian mistaken identity plot may not be the far-fetched coincidences, the unlikely confusions or the exaggerated emotions, but the fact that there is a clear solution at the end. Ancient readers thought highly of Menander’s plays because they are more than just rote applications of comic formulas. Their complicated identity mistakes show imagination and artistry, permitting far more varia133
Irigaray 1985: 177, 187.
78
Misperception of status
tion than might initially appear. Not all concern daughters stolen in infancy who flirt with prostitution, ensnare stable young men, and manage to marry them in the end. Mistaken identity was a versatile plot device, useful for putting attractive young women in unusual situations – without infringing social norms – and for creating possibilities for social mobility that rarely existed in real life. It also served as a test of character. What individuals see reveals more about their own psychology than about the reality of any particular case, and their mistakes often take a convoluted course as they struggle against the truth. These errors had antecedents in earlier genres and were to a degree theorized by contemporary intellectuals, but their real roots and enduring appeal surely lie in a universal tendency to cling to a comforting delusion. Mistaken identity taps into something very human.
chap t e r 3
Misperception of character
The previous chapter showed how Menander used mistakes about comparatively objective aspects of identity to generate conflict and reveal aspects of character. This chapter focuses on mistakes about more subjective aspects: “what” a woman is, morally, rather than “who.” Misperceptions of character and misperceptions of status have much in common: what characters see is partly determined by what they expect and what they expect is shaped by their assumptions about sex and status. Again, we watch distraught characters reason their way into false conclusions about women they love. We have already seen Sostratos’ sudden convictions about the sterling qualities of Knemon’s daughter (she has real virtues, of course, but they are not what inspires his enthusiasm). The mistakes examined in this chapter are less flattering than Sostratos’. Where female characters are concerned, misperceptions of character typically involve “discovering” in a more or less innocent figure the negative stereotype of the avaricious prostitute and concluding that this is the real truth – everything else about her is pretence. Mistakes about moral character accordingly tend to center on socially marginal women: foreigners, orphans, and slaves. In other words, they involve women who are or might easily become prostitutes. There is a certain cultural logic to this. The prostitute was an adaptable villain. Her vices included greed, lust, drunkenness, shamelessness, dishonesty, pretense, and servility, and her misbehavior ranged from ruining young men and breaking up marriages to threatening the stability of respectable households. She flourished as both a stock comic type and a cultural stereotype, alluded to time and again by Menandrian characters, even if she does not appear in propria persona in any of the preserved plays. She represents a latent possibility in all hetairai. A kind of all-purpose malefactor, she represents one side of a pervasive cultural image. That she comes readily to mind when characters think about female misconduct is consistent with what anthropologists have identified as the paradox of the prostitute in general, a figure who is often “socially marginal” but “culturally central” 79
80
Misperception of character
because she is so useful, conceptually, as a negative example for groups that are socially central to use in their own self-definition. Marxist- and Freudian-influenced critics often treat her as a “fetish” whose use-value is concealed behind an illusory appearance.1 This illusory appearance may be partly traced to necessity: the professional prostitute had to possess skill as a performer (many Greek hetairai were in fact musicians, dancers, acrobats or amateur actresses – what Davidson calls “mousik¯e-workers”).2 A figure who must appear be something other than she is makes a convenient medium for male projection. We have already seen Menandrian characters who love low-status women because they see qualities in them they would like to possess themselves (e.g., Plangon in the H¯er¯os) or who read their behavior in terms of their own emotional needs (e.g., Polemon and Moschion in the Perikeiromene¯). As a publicly viewable woman, the prostitute could also play a double role as an object of desire for both the fictional characters and the audience, a phenomenon that has been explored extensively for women in film.3 Of particular concern here is the literary prostitute, who has been described as “a cultural sign that could embody a broad range of literary, social, political and discursive issues.”4 So deeply engrained is this figure in the Greek cultural imagination that she is used to “think with” in many genres besides comedy (oratory, lyric, even philosophy). Laura McClure shows, for example, how Athenaeus uses her as a nostalgic emblem of Athenian civilization at its acme back in the fifth and fourth centuries. As a professional roleplayer and performer, she was useful precisely because of her “artificiality and fictiveness.”5 She brought especially useful traits for comedy – intelligence, initiative, and trickery – along with the capacity to represent the best and worst of women: she could be maternal, loyal and affectionate or lustful, dishonest and greedy. As McClure points out, “the hetaera is represented as inherently theatrical: she is never herself, but always performs the part of someone else.”6 Over two thousand years later, Simone de Beauvoir could still describe the literary prostitute as “one of the most plastic feminine types, giving full scope to the grand play of vices and virtues.”7 1
2 5 7
Quotations from McClure 2003: 3. The classic discussion is Irigaray 1985: women have traditionally served as products for male consumption, holding either a “use-value” (as wives/mothers) or an “exchange value” (as virgins). Prostitution is a special case because it illustrates a breakdown in this distinction (“Prostitution amounts to usage that is exchanged” 186) and because of its overt recognition of “woman” as a sexualized body (84–5). Notable applications by classicists include Davidson 1997 and Kurke 1999. 3 E.g. Mulvey 1999: 63. 4 McClure 2003: 26. Cf. Gilhuly 1999: 12. Davidson 2006: 35–42. 6 McClure 2003: 120. McClure 2003: 5. Cf. Hawley 1993: 75. “For the timorous puritan, the prostitute incarnates evil, shame, disease, damnation; she inspires fear and disgust; she belongs to no man, but yields herself to one and all and lives off such commerce . . .
Misperception of character
81
Her versatility obviously appealed to the comic dramatist: as a type, she could take on any role from “whore” to “wife.” Versatility was no virtue, however, for those who – in fiction and real life – distrusted someone who could play anyone. This chapter looks at characters who share the view attributed to Menander, in the anecdote from Athenaeus cited in chapter 1, that “no hetaira is good.” They think in terms of a particular version of the literary hetaira, the “whore” who embodies the traditional faults of women (intemperance, sensuality), vices relevant to the dramatic situation (infidelity, deception), and anything that threatens the stability of the household (financial ruin, corruption, social fragmentation, even illegitimacy). They condemn the women for embodying qualities and behaviors which they themselves vehemently reject. Their projections, however, are just that. They are not accurate perceptions of the women, nor are they consistent with what the audience sees. In fact, the projected images these men use to “think with” are at odds with the figures who actually appear on stage. No clear distinction has been made here between prostitutes and other low-status women. The reason is a certain amount of overlap and assimilation between the two categories. Once the possibility was introduced, little evidence was required to identify a low-status woman as a prostitute. Some errors about character thus begin as errors about status and many of the same subjective factors are at work. The arguments these men make would have been familiar to a fourth-century audience; they are the kind of arguments that were taught by rhetoricians and familiar from public fora (as Michael Gagarin notes, most men “did not learn rhetoric through formal education but rather from direct experience in the Assembly or the courts”).8 The problems these characters face are similar to those faced by juries: deciding whether an action constituted a crime, weighing it against past behavior, determining the agent’s motivation, evaluating the evidence, and generally trying to expose truths other people would like to hide. Menander wrote for an audience accustomed to sophisticated oral arguments, often constructed according to principles developed by philosophers and teachers of rhetoric. It is therefore important to understand something of the style of argument and the assumptions about human nature that underlie these comic mistakes.
8
On the other hand, a man who is not afraid of the flesh will enjoy its generous and straightforward affirmation by the prostitute; he will sense in her the exaltation of a femininity that no morality has made wishy-washy” (Beauvoir 1953: 193–4). Horn and Pringle 1984 survey the prostitute in western literature; Roberts 1993, in western history and culture. Gagarin 2001: 166.
82
Misperception of character
When Menandrian characters talk about “character” in the abstract, the word they most often use is . 0 (stamp, personality), the term Theophrastus applies to human personality types, appears only once: “a man’s 0 is known from his speech” (72 K-A). This was, however, a recent and somewhat technical use of the word ( 0 means literally an “engraved mark” or “stamp”),9 which one would not expect in a genre that draws its vocabulary from daily speech. !, the term Aristotle uses in the Poetics, is not common either. A short fragment mentions that wealth changes a person’s ! (fr. 840 K-A) and the word occurs in the sense of “moral character” a few times. There are also scattered references to @, “habits, character.”10 For human nature in general or under particular conditions – such as love or misfortune – Menander uses the word $8 , “nature.” When applied to an individual, $8 denotes innate, and usually inalterable, qualities.11 To speak of a person’s character, Menander most often uses the word , literally “turn” and by extension “manner, way of life, habit, character.” One fragment claims, “b8 is the same for all, but contributes the personal” ( ,, fr. 698 K-A). is fundamentally ethical. When characters speak of someone’s (sometimes plural, ), it is usually to categorize it as good or bad, although there may be more specific descriptors: civilized, reticent, blunt, Greek, youthful, elderly, vice-hating.12 does not mean “character type” on the order of a Theophrastan 0; there are no categories of under which everyone may be classified. Many Menandrian figures do, however, share with Theophrastus the assumption that a person’s does not change, although it may be deliberately concealed. A person who “says a lot about every topic” shows his in his words (fr. 693 K-A); another who “pretends to be boorish” is actually a scoundrel (fr. 780 K-A); Knemon’s makes persuasion useless (Dysk. 253–4, cf. 869–70); and grooms ought to learn the of their bride before 9 10
11
12
Steinmetz 1960: 188 n. 12. ! means “habits” in a moral sense in fr. 165 K-A, Mon. 287, 310, 320, 856. On Aristotelian and Theophrastan $8 , !, and in relationship to Menander, see Steinmetz 1960, Barigazzi 1965: 69–86, Keuls 1975, Hunter 1985: 148–9, Rusten 1993: 11–18, and Massioni 1998: 9–43. On conceptions of character in Greek literature, oratory, and philosophy generally see Pelling 1990. b8 of human nature: K-A frr. 219.3, 191.1, 250, 286, 602.14, 698, 701, 848, Mon. 42; $8 of women’s nature: K-A frr. 808, 812, Mon. 153, 157, 860; $8 of innate qualities: Asp. 338, Epitr. 322, Perik. 136, K-A frr. 323, 776, 793, 835. as , -, '%, $-, , 8, , , T, c ^0, or , $3, , : Asp. 125, Dysk. 321, 388 (and implicit at 770), Perik. 1008, Sam. 347 and 550, frr. 764, 793–94, 803, 851–2, Mon. 148, 206, 215, 232, 334, 393, 458, 458, 701, 711, 717, 731, 867. Cf. Mon. 267. A is probably good (opposed to at Mon. 461, bearing Mon. 402); some are neutral, e.g., (Mon. 240), O- (fr. 831), - (fr. 776).
Misperception of character
83
they marry (presumably it will not change). A cynical father promises, “I’ll drag my girl through the whole city . . . look at what kind of evil you’ll get” (fr. 804 K-A) and Chaireas in the Dyskolos follows the same procedure (“I find out her family, finances, ” 65–6). There are also maxims based on the stability of character: “if you would be just, use your as a guide” (Mon. 193); “ is judged most in silver” (i.e., in financial affairs, Mon. 267); “Know the of your friends but do not hate them altogether” (Mon. 804). Since is usually moral and unchanging, it is not surprising that human fortunes are sometimes attributed to it: “To some Chance gives plenty of [evils]; to others, their ” (fr. 846 K-A); “[those things] for which is not responsible . . . the well-born ought to bear nobly” (fr. 159 K-A); “what else, if not his , destroys this man [sc. who thinks an evil deed a necessity]?” (Epitr. 1106).13 Sometimes people deceive themselves: “the person who doesn’t bear things according to nature calls his own chance” (fr. 687 K-A). Despite a general belief that individuals do not usually change in their moral character, some exceptions are recognized. Knemon is not alone in complaining about the corrupting effect of society. Bad company (fr. 165 K-A, Mon. 383) and bad habits (Mon. 287) corrupt, as do wealth (frr. 839– 840, implicit in Mon. 359) and misfortune (fr. 854 K-A, Mon. 313). There is of course no reason to expect philosophical consistency from different characters in different plays. We will see two characters who try to convince themselves, when faced with evidence of misconduct, that the culprit was bad all along. Others blame misconduct on necessity, suggesting that the individual has not really changed (e.g., Perik. 164, fr. 854 K-A). What is consistent is the moral content of statements about “character” in the abstract and the minimal role given to individual choice: a Menandrian character does not choose to have a good or bad . Nor does Menander use Peripatetic language to talk about character generally or apply Aristotelian criteria (sc. of habitually practiced virtue, deliberately chosen) or even Theophrastan personality types. When characters make judgments about specific individuals, as this chapter will argue, they rely on assumptions about what people of a given status usually do. Their mistakes arise from misinterpretations of ambiguous evidence, not deficiencies in their understanding of human nature. And this is where another branch of contemporary philosophy can be helpful. 13
Massioni 1998: 16–19, 30–1, 43 argues that Menandrian and Theophrastan $8 both include innate as well as acquired qualities, which are hard to change once ingrained and can determine an individual’s lot (q.v. pp. 29–31 on the philosophical context of fragments contrasting 8 / or identifying with an individual’s '%-). Cf. Steinmetz 1960: 188–90.
84
Misperception of character
For a fourth-century Greek audience, it was axiomatic that character differs predictably with age, sex and status. We may be more likely to see figures who depart from a stereotype as individualized and therefore realistic, but it was an accepted convention among ancient audiences that “realism” meant conforming to familiar types (embodied, most notably, in the advice in Aristotle, Rhet. 1388b31–1391b6). Plato’s Ion was already boasting that he knew “what is appropriate for a man to say, and for a woman, and for a slave, and for a free person, and for a subject, and for a ruler” (540b). Aristophanes of Byzantium praised Menander for “imitating life” (Comm. in Call. Pin. fr. 5) and Quintilian singled out his characters as models for aspiring orators: “he has all the more to offer declaimers, since they must adopt multiple personae according to the circumstances: fathers, sons, bachelors, husbands, soldiers, farmers, rich people, poor people, angry people, entreating people, gentle people, fierce people” (Inst. Or. 10.1.71). It is not surprising that orators found common ground with playwrights. Both needed to appeal to common beliefs and opinions (what Aristotle called 2'4) in order to write effective speeches.14 One fourth-century dramatist in fact wrote a rhetorical treatise, unfortunately lost, and some of the best evidence for the underlying assumptions about character in Menander may be found in contemporary rhetorical theory.15 Two surviving works mentioned in the previous chapter are particularly valuable. The first is Aristotle’s Rhetoric, which covers proofs, style and arrangement and draws on sophistic rhetoric, as well as Aristotle’s own research into logic, politics, and ethics. Composition of the Rhetoric spanned many years (the latest datable reference is 336 bc) but the work was certainly available before Menander produced his first play in 321.16 The second is the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, a handbook named for a spurious dedication to Alexander the Great, dating to the late fourth or early third century.17 Both treatises cover types of oratory and formal elements of speeches. The Rhetorica ad Alexandrum offers more practical advice than Aristotle, outlining, for example, the best arguments for common legal defenses: what to say for a defendant who admits the charge, how to counter the defense that it was a mistake or bad luck, how to discredit witnesses, how to use arguments from probability. Probably little in this treatise is 14 15 16 17
Cf. Ober and Strauss 1990: 238–9, Dover 1974: 13–14 and n. 10. Theodectes’ lost work on rhetoric is summarized in Arist. Rhet. 1410b2 (see Kennedy 1963: 80–1). On the date of the Rhetoric see Kennedy 1963: 84–5 and n. 73. On the date of the Org¯e see Men. Test. 3 and 49 K-A. The work has been attributed to Anaximenes on the strength of a passage in Quintilian (3.4.9). On the date see Rackham 1937: 258 and Kennedy 1963: 114. All translations are from these editions.
Misperception of character
85
original, but it is the best surviving representative of the sophistic tradition and it offers insight into the expectations of Menander’s audience.18 Menander counted on his audience to recognize when characters use arguments intended for winning lawsuits in order to fool themselves. The contents of a handbook such as the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum were the ABCs of rhetoric. An audience used to hearing these rhetorical techniques and argumentative strategies from public speakers would have little difficulty recognizing them in the mouths of comic characters.19 Many of the assumptions about human psychology and human character voiced in Menander are consistent with the advice in these treatises. Athenians were evidently willing to hear arguments such as the following: “Now perhaps he will lament his poverty, the blame for which rests not with me but with his own character ( )” (Rhet. ad Alex. 1433a33–5). This was not just amoral sophistry; even Aristotle acknowledged that considering oneself rich or poor could have an effect on one’s moral character or @ (Rhet. 1369a28–31.). According to the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, the argument that a rich person behaved well fits with “reasonable expectation” because “most people obviously think that those who are rich are more honest than those who are poor” (Rhet. ad Alex. 1429a31–7). The character in Menander who says “the words of the poor are empty” (Mon. 752) is not necessarily a crank or a snob. Both Aristotle and the author of the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum understood how a jury’s emotional disposition towards a defendant could influence their verdict. This chapter takes a closer look at how three lovers judge women they believe have betrayed them: Demeas in the Samia, Sostratos in the Dis Exapat¯on and Thrasonides in the Misoumenos. The images Demeas and Sostratos create reflect the type of the corrupt prostitute and serve their immediate emotional needs. When faced with suspicious behavior, they rush to cast the women as whores, even supplementing their accusations with scenarios they invent. Since both eventually decide to break off their affairs, the monologues detailing their responses are, at least functionally, decision speeches. But the real dramatic interest of the speeches lies in their exploration of the essential Menandrian problem of knowing intimate friends and family ($%). The men’s distorted reasoning illustrates the effects of emotion on their perception and judgment, and the portraits they draw reveal their own anxieties and fears. In the Samia and 18 19
Kennedy 1963: 115. Mutual influence is now generally recognized. On political and legal rhetoric in drama see Bers 1994, Hall 1995, Ober and Strauss 1990: 259–69, and Scafuro 1997; on “persuasion” more broadly in tragedy see Buxton 1982.
86
Misperception of character
Dis Exapat¯on, conventional mistakes are made in conventional ways; in the Misoumenos (and to a lesser extent, in the Perikeiromen¯e), Menander splits the “disillusioned lover” role between two closely linked characters who reason their way into different mistakes. In all four plays Menander again exploits the ambiguous position of the outsider with emotional ties to the oikos. The misjudged women are of low status, at least at the beginning of the play. A few exceptional examples involving high-status characters, including two from Roman adaptations, will show how misperceptions of character follow a different track when the women are known to be of good birth.
s a m i a (the girl from samos) The Samia illustrates the difficulty of inferring moral character from behavior. This play shows how the figure of the “whore” can shape what characters see, suggesting charges beyond anything warranted by the immediate evidence. Guaranteed to evoke a hostile response, the stereotype was equally useful to slander an enemy (by association) or to exculpate a friend (by offering a more culpable party to blame). The central character in this play does both. A wealthy citizen named Demeas has fallen in love with a hetaira from the island of Samos, famous for its expensive prostitutes. His adoptive son, Moschion, explains in the prologue how he encouraged his father to bring “Chrysis” into the house in order to spare himself the nuisance of young rivals. Once there, the ex-hetaira struck up a friendship with the wife and daughter of Demeas’ neighbor Nikeratos, eventually inviting them over to celebrate the festival of Adonis. It was at this festival that Moschion impregnated the daughter, a little more than nine months before the play begins. Since the fathers have been out of town, they know nothing of the child and Moschion is reluctant to confess the truth. To help him out, Chrysis pretends that the baby is hers. She is quite convincing because she has recently given birth herself (the fate of her child is unknown) and can therefore nurse Moschion’s. The play’s complications all develop out of this basic misrepresentation of her relationship to the baby. Demeas initially worries that Chrysis is manipulating the ill-defined position of a concubine to insinuate herself into a more permanent position in his household.20 His first instinct is to expel her along with the child, thereby affirming his control over the household and preventing a “hetaira” from passing herself off as “married.” 20
Blume 1974: 61.
Samia (The Girl from Samos)
87
(Q.) . . . : )%, H 2 , 2 -. (B.) 0; ; & < > . (Q.) [] [ ] L< >, H 2, . [. . .] # 1 % [@]'. >. []3. . (B.) '. (Q.) '; # ! G 2' L '5 ; (130–6)21 (De.) It escaped my notice that I’ve evidently married a hetaira. (Mo.) Married? How? I don’t get your meaning. (De.) A son has been born to me, evidently, in secret . . . She can go straight from my house to hell and take him along! (Mo.) No!! (De.) What do you mean ‘no’? Do you really expect me to raise an illegitimate son inside?
Technically, even a married woman lacked the authority to recognize a child as legitimate and raise it; this was the father’s right.22 Demeas is downplaying issues of gender, however, to concentrate on the social offense. For a hetaira to introduce a child into a household was tantamount to claiming a much more privileged status: that of the freeborn, legitimate daughters of Athenian parentage whom men such as Demeas married. Marriage, after all, was “for the sowing of legitimate children,” a formula that appears several times in Menander (e.g., Dysk. 842, Perik. 1013–14, Sam. 727). Demeas takes it for granted that his mistress knew what to do with any child she might bear but chose to disregard his wishes, effectively breaking their informal contract. He reads her action in strictly social terms, as an attempt to better her own position and that of her illegitimate child.23 He also assumes it is deliberate, even hinting at deception (“in secret”).24 This is a little unfair, since he was out of town when she supposedly gave him “a secret son.” Moreover, a calculated attempt at social climbing is not the only, or even the most obvious, motivation to attribute to a mother who keeps a child against the father’s wishes. New Comedy is full of women who 21
22 23
24
Bain 1983, Lamagna 1998, and Arnott 2000a print & ! (“do you really expect”) in 135; Sandbach, following Turner, prints #- (“for someone else,” i.e., Chrysis). On the generalizing masculine see Lamagna 1998: 229 ad 135. But #- gives the wrong emphasis. What upsets Demeas is the thought of raising a bastard, not the incidental benefits to Chrysis. Harrison 1998 i: 70–1, MacDowell 1978: 91. Illegitimate children ( ) who were recognized had some legal status at certain periods. On the status of the concubine and her children see Wolff 1944: 75, MacDowell 1978: 85, Sealey 1984: 112–16, Ogden 1996: 157–9 Harrison 1998 i: 15, and Cox 1998: 183. Goldberg 1980: 96 takes to refer to the conception (“. . . he presumably means that it was not conceived with his prior consent, an unreasonable but not unheard of attitude for a father to adopt”). The issue, however, is recognition, not conception. Chrysis is at fault for giving him a “son” (L i.e., a recognized child) in secret.
88
Misperception of character
secretly rescue illegitimate or unwanted babies. The mother in the Phasma hides her daughter next door, the old woman and Myrrhine collude to save Glykera and Moschion in the Perikeiromen¯e, and the mother in the H¯er¯os may have helped to place her twins with Tibeios.25 Nikeratos’ own wife colludes with Chrysis to save her grandson. Nikeratos himself, aware that his women have encouraged Chrysis, regards it as typical feminine misconduct rather than a violation of a specific status code. Keeping the child was “idiocy” (411) but throwing Chrysis out of the house on the eve of Moschion’s wedding is just irrational temper, evidence that Demeas has spent too long in the “unhealthy” Pontus (416–19). Nikeratos shows no sign of the deeper suspicions about Chrysis’ motives that trouble Demeas. He sees the child as a trivial infraction, hardly worth disrupting two households on an occasion that should bring them together (“a bad omen in the middle of the wedding preparations . . . Demeas is acting shitty” 423–7). Demeas’ response is, in his view, an overreaction. If keeping the baby is presumptuous, Chrysis’ second offense is far worse. After yielding to his son’s plea for leniency, Demeas overhears an old servant woman babbling about the baby’s resemblance to Moschion, “its father.” A quick and merciless examination of his slave Parmenon confirms that the child is in fact Moschion’s. Since Demeas has no reason yet to doubt that Chrysis is the mother, he concludes that the two have had an affair. In an attempt to preserve his good opinion of his son, he slants the evidence to pin most of the blame on his mistress: she is obviously fond of the baby, whereas Moschion seems happy about the marriage. She must have lusted after him; he must want to escape her (“not from love, as I once thought, was he in a hurry [sc. for the wedding] but from eagerness to escape, finally, from my Helen in there” 335–7). Demeas infers motivations that seem “plausible” ( ): Moschion is “so decent and well-behaved to everyone else” (344– 5), whereas she is “a whore ( 8, literally ‘ground-beater’) and a curse” (348).26 A hetaira was always vulnerable to such accusations, but Demeas goes out of his way to emphasize the social gulf between himself and Chrysis. (She was never a streetwalker, as 8 implies. Even he acknowledges that she would return to the symposium circuit.) Nor does he try to fit her behavior into an individualized portrait, as he does with Moschion. He simply maps it onto a template – the depraved hetaira – in keeping with his emotional priorities. 25 26
Cf. Plaut. Cist. 123–4 (a woman picks up an exposed baby), Truc. 407–9 (she canvases households for an unwanted child), Ter. Heauton 629–30, 636 (she gives the baby a chance to survive). The only other instance in Menander, fr. 472 K-A & 8 | %O , is evidently another insult (“shrieks” is hardly flattering).
Samia (The Girl from Samos)
89
When he confronts her face to face, however, he frames his objections in socioeconomic terms, accusing her of taking her comfortable life for granted and not knowing how to behave. He evicts her without specifically naming her fault, effectively denying her any chance to defend herself (a plot necessity at this point, although adequately explained by his distress and his wish to protect Moschion).27 Again, Menander creates an argument at cross purposes. She assumes he is angry because she kept the child; he assumes her real offense is too obvious to mention. (d.) A 3 & ; (Q.) ' 3 % – (d.) % “%”; (Q.) ' 3. (The cook interjects briefly.) (Q.) $5 V% . (d.) V ; % ' 2 7 ; (Q.) % 2 _ ' '%, d % – ; – . (d.) % e; (Q.) ! , A $8- 2. (d.) 3 '( %; (374–80) (Chr.) Because I kept it? (De.) Because of that and – (Chr.) And what? (De.) Because of that. (Cook) . . . (De.) You didn’t understand how to live in luxury. (Chr.) I didn’t understand? What are you saying? (De.) Even though you came to me in linen, Chrysis – do you hear me? – completely plain linen! (Chr.) And so . . . ? (De.) Then I was everything to you, when you were badly off. (Chr.) And who is now?
“Live in luxury” does not mean that Demeas regards his lifestyle as extravagant; he is using “luxury” in a relative sense, reminding Chrysis that she was living above her station. He mentions that she came “in plain linen,” i.e. with nothing more than a chiton, a kind of tunic. It is hard to miss his implication: back then, when she wore simple clothes and lived hand-to-mouth, she looked like who she was. In representing his benefactions in economic terms he implies that they have no emotional meaning for her; she was never interested in anything but his money (“when” (A) implies a causal as well as a temporal connection: “when/because you were doing badly”). Unlike Polemon, Demeas distances himself from his gifts, stripping them of any personal meaning (“you have everything of yours” 381) and leaving no doubt that his parting gifts, “a hint that she has been paid for services rendered,” signify only termination (“I’m throwing in the slaves and jewelry. Get out of my house” 381–3).28 Demeas is selective about the accusations he makes to Chrysis directly, tailoring them to reflect the low standard of conduct he believes appropriate for a woman who would seduce his son. He frames his criticisms in largely 27
Cf. Bain 1983: 119 ad 369ff.
28
Quotation from Konstan 1993: 142.
90
Misperception of character
social terms (“Who do you think you are?”), faulting her for social climbing and abusing his generosity, rather than for disobedience or unchastity, the rules she would have broken had she been his wife. Even a hetaira could be expected to show gratitude, or at least to recognize when she was well off, but Chrysis has forgotten what she owes him and how desperately she needs his support. The underlying suspicion is that she is incapable of becoming anything other than a hetaira. Expelling her, he reasons, will put her back where she belongs and remind her who she is: (Q.) 5 . 1 ;G : 3 &> T X. < , d %, ' ' f ', % # # * &- , / * : 3 )%- 8 . K ' ' 3 , N' A, _ 8, % e Y. (390–7)29
Such a big shot! In the city you’ll see yourself exactly as you are. Women like you, Chrysis – other ones – chase after dinner parties to collect only ten drachmas and drink their wine straight until they die; or they go hungry if they don’t do this readily and quickly. You’ll know this better than anyone and I know you’ll come to realize who you are and what a mistake you made.
The burden of his criticism is not, as one might expect, that she has done something unheard of (the complaint Nikeratos makes later), but that she has let good fortune turn her head. Demeas had written off the infidelity as the cost of bringing a “Helen” into the house and he was already assimilating her to a larger group at line 385, when he anticipated her replacement (“another woman will be happy with what I have to offer”). In other words, she has nothing another woman could not easily provide and the only difference between her and her kind (“women like you,” that is, party entertainers paid per diem) is that the latter have no alternative to a life of poverty. She is by nature a hetaira. The verbs he uses, N 391 and e 397, describe a state of being. Despite living in Demeas’ house, she never abandoned her true self; it only took a “mistake” on her part to reveal it. A love-struck man like Demeas might be expected to lament the difference 29
With Dedoussi, Austin, Lamagna, and Arnott I print < from the Cairo codex in 392, in preference to from the Bodmer codex (Jacques, Sisti, Coppola, Sandbach). Demeas’ point is surely to group her with other hetairai (“women like you”), not to distinguish her (“not like you”). g ^ is inclusive (Barigazzi 1972: 206–7).
Samia (The Girl from Samos)
91
between what he thought she was and what he now knows, but he actually downplays his own error and attacks her arrogance and folly instead: “such a big shot . . . what a mistake you made.” These charges derive in part from a stereotype and in part from a personal conviction that luxury has left her deluded about her true worth. Another woman will be grateful “and sacrifice to the gods” (386). Once thrown back into public life (“in the city”), where Chrysis will live and look like a ten-drachma call girl, she will “see,” “know,” and “realize” the truth about herself. The future tenses (;G, K , ) only emphasize the contrast with the present. She does not know herself now. The grim fate Demeas describes for Chrysis – as if she knew nothing of symposium life – is something of a revenge fantasy, showing her how she will suffer for treating him so contemptuously. The termination of their relationship returns her to the status she deserves, while the ominous reference to death from alcoholism or starvation suggests she possesses qualities which will keep her there.30 By real-world standards, however, what Chrysis faces is mild: a ten-drachma symposium entertainer lived in luxury compared to a three-obol streetwalker, and Demeas omits the possibility of unemployment, declining fees with age, or the poverty that may have forced real-life prostitutes to moonlight as textile workers.31 Ten drachmas does not of course represent a reliable daily wage,32 but what makes it paltry in Demeas’ eyes is the comparative value of what she has lost. He has, after all, just given her goods and slaves worth considerably more than tens of drachmas. And by New Comic standards, it is a harsh picture. Nothing could be further from the carefree world of parties and beauty contests depicted by Lucian and Alciphron. Roman comic bawds like Scapha in the Mostellaria may lecture on the importance of accumulating a nest egg and Epicrates’ Anti-Lais and Philetairos’ Kyn¯egis certainly paint harsh pictures of old hetairai, but these all concern the inevitable onset of age. Demeas is the only New Comic character to recognize that the profession itself might hasten the process, or that a young and attractive woman might starve. Demeas has no illusions about hetairai or the world 30
31
32
Old prostitutes were proverbially alcoholic, e.g., Epicrates’ Lais (called fr. 3.1–2) or the famous sculpture of an old woman clutching a wine jug (iii bc, fig. 86 Reinsberg 1989 = Keuls 1985 fig. 180) probably a prostitute (the slipping garment is an attribute of Aphrodite, Reinsberg 153). Davidson 1997: 86–90 argues that the “spinning hetairas” depicted on many vases testify not to the erotic appeal of women’s work (Keuls 1985: 258–9) but to economic necessity. They may, however, not be hetairai at all (Lewis 2002: 188–9). See also Reinsberg 1989: 142 and McClure 2003: 130. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 587–8 ad 392–3.
92
Misperception of character
of the symposium. He sketches the hazards of the profession with enough empathy to recognize that even a successful woman had reasons to hate it. To him, Chrysis is simply a pauper who was lucky enough to be offered a home.
d i s e x a pat o¯ n (the d ouble deceiver) Demeas’ mistake is a typical Menandrian misunderstanding that is paralleled in other plays. Women who appear to behave inappropriately are often simply playing the “wrong” part through mishap or pretence. Chrysis is not the child’s mother, however affectionately she may pamper it, and Demeas has turned a relatively small mistake about her biological relationship into a much larger mistake about her moral character. He is not the only Menandrian lover to interpret ambiguous evidence to realize his worst fears: Phaedria does not trust Thais enough to leave her with a rival for a few days in the Eunuchus and even Clinia briefly suspects the irreproachable Antiphila in the Heauton Timoroumenos (both plays based on Menander originals). Nor is he the only lover to hurry into an imprudent decision on the strength of a false suspicion: Polemon cuts off Glykera’s hair in the Perikeiromen¯e and Charisios rejects his wife for a harp-player in the Epitrepontes. The closest parallel to Demeas’ situation, however, is in the Dis Exapat¯on, which also features a lover who reasons his way from a mistake about identity into a mistake about moral character. This young man is equally enamored of a hetaira. He shares many of the same assumptions as Demeas, makes similar arguments, and reaches similar conclusions. Like Demeas, he too is eager to salvage a relationship with a man he believes to be his rival and consequently willing to interpret the evidence to maximize the woman’s fault. The extant fragments of the Dis Exapat¯on include two monologues by the lovelorn Sostratos, delivered after he has been given reason to believe that his hetaira (unnamed in these fragments) is having an affair with his friend Moschos. His reaction unfolds over three partially preserved scenes. These 113 lines, pieced together from 13 papyrus scraps, constitute the longest Menander passage for which a Latin adaptation survives. Eric Handley first identified them as the source for Plautus’ Bacchides 494–562, a play long known to have been adapted from the Dis Exapat¯on.33 The Bacchides 33
P. Oxy. 4407 (Handley 1997). The major portions have been published by Questa 1965, Arnott 1979, and Sandbach 1990 since Handley’s original publication 1968. N¨unlist 1993 tentatively ascribes
Dis Exapat¯on (The Double Deceiver)
93
helps to fill in the plot behind these fragmentary scenes, although questions remain. The opening scene is largely lost and the Roman play appears to have three, rather than two, deceptions. Even before the publication of the Greek fragments, it was clear that Plautus made significant changes: he removed the choruses and act breaks and added lyrical passages (notably Chrysalus’ songs at 640 and 925) as well as a fourth speaker in the final act.34 The new fragments showed that he also changed the names and the meter. He combined two separate monologues, removed the father from the on-stage conflict and teased out the misunderstanding between the two friends for 30 lines, adding his own jokes and rhetorical figures. As a result, his version is both longer and emotionally less complex; Plautus was “playing it for laughs.”35 It is, accordingly, difficult to reconstruct the Dis Exapat¯on from the Bacchides, but we do know the broad outline of the plot. Two hetairai, who may have been sisters, were using the same professional name (Plautus calls them both “Bacchis”).36 Sostratos, an Athenian, met one while he was in Ephesus collecting a family debt, but she soon left for Athens. At this point he solicited (by letter?) the help of his friend Moschos. While arranging Sostratos’ affairs, Moschos fell in love with the other woman, to the chagrin of his relatives. When the fragments begin, his father and paidag¯ogos are encouraging the recently returned Sostratos to admonish the “wastrel” (16). They must have told him about Moschos’ infatuation, without realizing that a second woman was involved. Their misinformation elicits an angry outburst from Sostratos after they leave the stage. Like Demeas, Sostratos struggles through an intense emotional reaction to what appears to be evidence of betrayal. He delivers two monologues. In the first, he decides that the money he collected should actually go to his father – and not to the fickle hetaira.
34
35 36
other fragments (which Arnott prints as Fab. Inc. 8) to the Dis Exapat¯on, an attractive suggestion although the evidence is inconclusive. Gaiser 1986: 15–22 proposes a less plausible attribution to the Hydria. Fraenkel 1960: 67–9, Webster 1960: 131, Questa 1965: 30–3, Anderson 1993: 23–7. The scholarly literature on the Bacchides/Dis Exapat¯on fragments is extensive. See Barsby 1986, Damen 1992 and Katsouris 1995 for references. Handley 1968: 14. Handley 1968: 21 ad 15 and Del Corno 1973: 31 translate $ ' L1 94 as “her own name says it” (i.e., she is called Chrysis) but this seems forced (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 124 and Arnott 1979: 161 translate simply, “she’s telling herself”), while the parallel ipsum nomen clamat (Bacch. 284, cited by Handley), reflects Plautus’ predilection for name puns (e.g., Bacch. 240, 362 on Chrysalus; 53, 371 on Bacchis, Fraenkel 1960: 145), a type of humor Menander avoids (Barigazzi 1993: 122).
94
Misperception of character (h-.) @' 6 $3'. [ 8 4. h 0 . &0 , #' % – : – < T4 . : % [.][ : % – []. . [ , h] K - % '3[ 9 , Y ' H[ ] 2 '[ ] [ ].. % [] 8 [A] K [, 1 ]%, [] [3. & ] @' [] ', [ , ],. (Dis. Ex. 18–30)
He’s already gone . . . She’ll get him under her thumb. You snatched up Sostratos first . . . She’ll deny it – that’s quite clear to me. She has some nerve – and all the gods will come into it. So don’t . . . All right, to hell [with her]! Hold on, Sostratos. Maybe she’ll talk you into [it]. A slave . . . I, especially. But let her work her magic on (lit. “succeed in persuading”) a man as good as broke, with nothing to spend . . . The money [is going back] to my father. Oh, she’ll stop the sweet talk as soon as she notices that she’s talking, as they say, to a corpse. But I should go to him immediately.
This rash step moves the plot forward, but money is hardly the focus of the speech. As Cesare Questa notes, the decision to return it is merely “a moment of decisiveness in the midst of emotional turbulence.”37 Menander shows less interest in providing clear and stable motives for the return of the money, or in developing the relationship between the youths, than in exploring the effects of Sostratos’ emotions on his assessment of the hetaira.38 What the money reveals about the woman matters considerably more than who ends up with it. (In Plautus the conflict is simpler: direct competition for a prize in which the youth has a personal stake. He calls it mea pecunia 512.) And whereas Moschos’ father and paedagogue stressed the perils and disgrace of chasing a hetaira (12–17), Sostratos has other priorities. After line 19 (“she’ll get him”) his friend does not cross his mind until the end of the second speech (around line 100). His first speech is followed by a short scene with his father and an act break, and then roughly thirty fragmentary lines before the second speech begins. This monologue also reveals conflicting emotions which influence 37 38
Questa 1970: 198. Cf. Blundell 1980: 39. On Plautine changes to the psychology of the scene see Jacques 1968, Questa 1970: 195–7, Gaiser 1970: 59–61, P¨oschl 1973: 17, Grisolia 1976: 69–70, Maurach 1976: 481–2, Bain 1979: 33, Barigazzi 1993: 115, and Batstone 2005.
Dis Exapat¯on (The Double Deceiver)
95
how the young man interprets the news. He speculates about how the hetaira will treat him, now that he has empty pockets, and tries to explain his friend’s behavior: [] . . [: '] : 0 & : ', - * Y. '. []-. ' – “%” $ % ' L1 – 5 7 %O- %. “ %O 3 %, : " 8, %- – % 5; – &4%- 3.” M ' <, 3 , L [<> i e , ' &> B .. . ( 2 - F %O, ' , 3 K &'0 , : ' - %. (Dis. Ex. 91–102) I can just see my fine, upstanding sweetheart – I’ll enjoy it now that I’m broke – wheedling and expecting – “any minute now” she’s saying to herself – all the money I’m bringing. “Of course he’s bringing it, like a gentleman, by the gods – who better? – and just as I deserve!” She has turned out (and it’s a good job she has) to be about what I once thought. But Moschos, poor fool . . . and I’m certainly mad about part of it but as for the rest I think he’s not responsible for what has happened and she’s the most shameless woman in the world . . .
Sostratos’ description of his beloved is no more reliable than Demeas’ complaints about Chrysis. The inferences about her current character are false because he has mixed her up with her “sister,” while his arguments from prior knowledge rest on a reinterpretation of the past. Both Demeas and Sostratos draw their accusations from the standard New Comic arsenal.39 Greed is a stock charge against hetairai. Sostratos convinces himself that his hetaira thinks only of his money, “all the gold I’m bringing,” even as she works on her next victim. He means nothing to her: “she’ll stop the sweet talk when she realizes she’s talking, as they say, to a corpse.”40 Demeas relies more on innuendo but expresses a similar view: Chrysis ought to have appreciated his money (if nothing else . . .); it was more than she will make working parties. The gold-digging meretrix avara, “greedy prostitute,” so familiar from Roman comedy and the letters of Lucian and Alciphron is rare in Menander but attested.41 Thais’ legendary prices lived on in Roman poetry 39 40 41
Anderson 1993: 11, Batstone 2005: 19, 22, 25. From the intensity of his disappointment, he must have believed she loved him (pace von Reden 1998: 271–2, he wanted more than “a good bargain”). See Legrand 1910: 100–4 on the rapacious hetairai of Lucian and Alciphron.
96
Misperception of character
(Propertius, for example, mentions “Menander’s pricey (pretiosa) Thais,” 4.5.43) and some Menandrian hetairai have considerable economic clout. Thais and a hetaira in Fabula Incerta 8 (Arnott) are in a position to shut out lovers at will (from their own homes?), while Terence’s Chrysis (Andria) and Thais (Eunuchus), like Sostratos’ hetaira, maintain their own residences. A woman in Fabula Incerta 5 (Arnott) who offers ten minae in goods has enough wealth to waive repayment, and an old man in Terence’s Heauton Timoroumenos is ready to believe that a meretrix loaned the same sum on the surety of a slave girl. If they are not quite profiteers on the order of a Phronesium, these women have no illusions about the costs of fidelity. Demeas and Sostratos are imagining a viable possibility within Menander’s dramatic world. They are, however, quick to turn a single infidelity into an ingrained habit: Chrysis is a “ground-beater” and a “Helen,” while Sostratos’ hetaira, “beats them all in shamelessness” (Dis Ex. 101, cf. 21). Demeas invokes, as Blume points out, only the negative side of the Helen myth, Helen as libidinous seductress.42 He simply cannot conceive of Chrysis in any other role than hetaira. He must see her nursing the baby to believe she really is a mother, and even then he tries to work the child into the evil whore stereotype, perversely taking it as a sign of her desire for Moschion. He calls her a “married hetaira” but not a mother and certainly not a wife; she is only an object of desire ( , 2-, Sam. 350). Hence his initial embarrassment at falling in love with her (“He hid it, he was ashamed” Sam. 23) and his readiness to believe Moschion did the same – at least after a few drinks. Sostratos concentrates his reproaches in the word 0 (“brash, reckless, shameless”), which evidently covers lying (“she’ll deny it” Dis Ex. 20), false oaths (“all the gods will come into it”), manipulation (“wheedling”) and “injustice” (&'% Dis Ex. 101) – in short, any morally reprehensible behavior that brings in money. When used of women, 0 also implies sexual aggressiveness and may have been a stock criticism of comic hetairai (context suggests that they are the primary referent of “all,” when he calls her “most 0 of all” 101–2).43 42
43
Blume 1974: 126–7. Phaedra may seem the more obvious parallel (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 578 ad 337), especially if the Hippolytus story is recognized as an intertext (see Wehrli 1936: 64, 120, Katsouris 1975: 131–5, Jacques 1971: xxiv–xxv, Lamagna 1998: 64–7, and Gutzwiller 2000: 109). Euripides may have made Phaedra so infamous that an explicit reference was better avoided (Lamagna 1998: 294, an attractive idea, particularly since Menander needed a heroine he could rehabilitate by Act V). Also, Helen’s seduction brought ruin (e.g., Eupolis fr. 267 K-A, cited Lamagna 1998: 292) whereas Phaedra’s attempt failed (Gutzwiller, 2000: 109). 0 is associated with hetairai, e.g., in Plut., Con. Praec. 18 (with sexual connotations) and Mor. 712c.
Dis Exapat¯on (The Double Deceiver)
97
Demeas and Sostratos also see the women as con artists who prey on the vulnerable: “Moschos, poor fool” (Dis Ex. 98–9) and the “modest” and “decent” Moschion, caught off guard (“She must have gotten hold of him when he was drunk of course – when he wasn’t in control of himself.” Sam. 339–40). As William Batstone notes, “the focus on the hetaira makes Sostratos a victim in his own eyes as well as in the audience’s eyes.”44 These are comforting fantasies. Sostratos’ fantasy indeed presupposes a satisfying revenge: Moschos will meet with the same betrayal (and so he can comfortably offer pity).45 Demeas wants reasons to believe Chrysis seduced his son. The young man’s (“decency”) supplies one; her sluttishness, another. He describes the seduction as “co-conspiring” and acknowledges her allure (“my Helen . . .” 337), although he gives her little chance to use it (“Don’t talk to me!” Sam. 380). Sostratos describes his hetaira’s “wheedling” (Dis Ex. 93, restored in 27) in similarly predatory terms (“She’ll get him,” “snatched you up” Dis Ex. 19) and eventually decides that an empty wallet is his only safeguard against her powers of persuasion (“She just may persuade you” Dis Ex. 24). These are also stock accusations. The hetaira’s talk was proverbial. The larger-than-life Thais is “persuasive” (0), as well as beautiful, and skilled in “pretending” ( ) to love the men she fleeces. A monostich claims that “the whore and the politician have the same tears.”46 Not only was the hetaira’s speech deceptive; it was also uninhibited. Sostratos scripts ruminations for his hetaira in the style of women without a shred of respectability: chatty, colloquial, flippant. Even her oath “by the gods” (Dis Ex. 95) suggests the hetaira.47 Comic models strongly influence what they see. Accusations of greed, promiscuity, shamelessness and deceit all belong to the stock type. One Menander fragment runs, “A hetaira has never worried about virtue when vice brings a reliable income” (fr. 811 K-A), while another mentions a “brazen, but not wicked” woman, probably a hetaira.48 The “greatest of the gods, Shamelessness” is invoked in yet another (fr. 201 K-A); a hetaira is probably somehow involved. Who else would need “shamelessness” on a 44 47
48
45 Batstone 2005: 22. 46 Mon. 584. Cf. Ter. Eun. 67–8 Batstone 2005: 19. Hetairai use six of the seven “oaths by the gods generally” spoken by Menandrian women (Feneron 1974: 90). The Dis Exapat¯on opened with , (P. I.F.A.O. 337 = Sandbach fr. 1), a speech habit, perhaps, of Sostratos’ hetaira (or just what Sostratos himself would say, Sommerstein 1995: 65 n. 16)? Unfortunately the speaker, though probably female (Damen 1995: 16), cannot be identified. P. I.F.A.O. 337, attributed to the Demiourgos (Borgogno 1969b), Karine fr. 201. If Turpilius’ Demiurgus is based on Menander’s (Webster 1974: 129), a meretrix had a role (fr. 4.42 Ribbeck). On the shamelessness of hetairai, cf. Men. fr. 811 K-A. Orators accused them of M> (e.g., Ps.-Dem. 59.12, 107, 48.55, Isae. 6.48), & > (Ps.-Dem. 59.12), $ (ibid.), and & % (Ps.-Dem. 59.50) (Glazebrook 2001: 69–71, 98 n. 96). See also McClure 2003: 40–2.
98
Misperception of character
cosmic scale? Likewise, Menander’s Thais is allegedly “brazen” ( ,) and “unjust” (&'3 ) (fr. 163 K-A), while Glykera in the Perikeiromen¯e thinks playing the hetaira to Moschion would be (adverbial, Perik. 713) and “shameless” (Perik. 717). In the same play, Sosias can hardly believe the pipe-girl is “embarrassed” (Perik. 485) by his lewd suggestions; hetairai were supposed to be incapable of shame. In the Epitrepontes, Smikrines says much the same as Sostratos and Demeas of a hetaira he does not even pretend to know as an individual: she is a capable of destroying a man’s substance (; 3 >% Epitr. 750, cf. Sam. 348) through flattery and other corrupt means (Epitr. 794–6). These accusations have their origins in Greek social attitudes and can be traced back to Old Comedy.49 Although Demeas toys with tragic models – Chrysis as Helen and himself as the outraged husband – he soon reverts to the stock comic scenario of a drunken, late-night sexual encounter. Sostratos never deviates from comic types (Moschos as the dupe, the hetaira as the gold-digger) and comic diction (“to hell with her,” Dis Ex. 23, “broke ( )” Dis Ex. 25, 92). Of the roles available to non-citizen women, only the “whore” permitted sexual infidelity, which is why Sostratos and Demeas immediately fix upon it, filling out their scraps of misinformation with other traits and behaviors of the stock type. Their misunderstandings are plausible since they are thinking along comic lines quite close to the truth: Moschion and Moschos are in fact involved with forbidden women, just not the ones they think.50 Moreover, their sources inspire reasonable confidence. It is Moschos’ father and pedagogue who gives Sostratos the unwelcome news, while the servant who lets Moschion’s secret slip used to be his nurse. She ought to be a reliable witness because she spoke without any reason to lie, not knowing that Demeas was there (Sam. 276–7).51 Both happen to be wrong, but there is nothing in the commonplaces themselves or even in the assumptions about typical hetaira behavior that signals their mistake. Because New Comedy regularly connects specific behaviors with specific types, it is logical for characters to assume that knowing an individual means getting her type right, rather than constructing a more complex image, for example, with contradictory traits or traits that change over time (either of which might account for the “surprising” actions of these ex-friends and lovers). Many reliable characters, including prologue speakers, describe characters accurately through stock traits and 49 51
50 Damen 1995: 24 n. 18. Henry 1988: 13–31. This is what is recommended when a witness is suspect (“You must declare that a man of that sort would not give false testimony either as a favour or for the sake of revenge or gain” Rhet. ad Alex. 1431b27–28).
Dis Exapat¯on (The Double Deceiver)
99
behaviors. For example, Pan explains that Knemon “hates everyone from here to Cholargos” and the goddess Chance types Smikrines as a miser and little else (Dysk. 32–4, Asp. 114–21). Within the semiotic system of the genre, one stock action can be enough to classify a character and there is an underlying assumption that character is fixed, with little possibility for change or growth. An audience can reasonably expect a character who thinks according to comic norms to be correct, whether he applies these norms self-consciously (as “what happens in drama”) or more naturalistically (as simple truths about human nature). Demeas and Sostratos are not wrong because they are thinking in types or excluding the possibility of reform. They are wrong because they identify with the young men and not the young women. Demeas’ initial mistake about the baby’s parents may have been an easy one to make but he reaches very different conclusions about their relative responsibility. Whereas it is “by no means likely” that someone as “decent and well-behaved” as Moschion should betray him, he does not consider Chrysis’ past “decency.” Sostratos, likewise, makes excuses only for his friend. Both men use their prior knowledge to try to understand the young men and reconcile past and present behavior, while they ignore what they know of the women, overwriting their old image with the “evil whore,” the femme fatale of New Comedy. In a sense, they want to be wrong. The emotional biases in these speeches have been analyzed in detail. William Batstone shows how Sostratos suppresses contradictory and antisocial impulses in the interest of creating a socially acceptable façade.52 Gregor Maurach demonstrates how an inconsistency in Sostratos’ rhetoric can even be read (and performed) as the result of unconscious motivations.53 Although one must be cautious about treating Menander as a psychological realist, these monologues do create emotionally complex characters who appeal to an audience’s sympathy.54 At the same time, Menander blocks any straightforward identification by telling us truths the characters are unaware of, creating emotional distance through a layer of dramatic irony. He also uses subtle techniques to expose their errors and misjudgments, giving us the sense that we see the women through a kind of filtering subjectivity. 52 53
54
Batstone 2005: 25–7. The switch from excusing Moschos to blaming him (V'%, Dis Ex. 110) is a revelation of Sostratos’ true feelings: he did not mean what he said. He does not want to believe the woman he loves guilty (Maurach 1976: 482–3). Cf. Batstone 2005: 38, who explores with subtle insight the hypocrisies, self-contradictions, suppressions and sublimations of the Menandrian scene and Plautus’ exposure of emotional “truths” which Menander conceals under a “smooth surface of realistic civility and self-control” (25). Cf. Batstone 2005: 18–19.
100
Misperception of character
Demeas’ and Sostratos’ speeches are filled with small linguistic cues that they are emotionally invested in their mistaken views. Demeas, for example, begins in high tragic style with a quotation from Euripides’ Oedipus: “O, city of the Kekropian land, O, spreading heavens, O–.” Andr´e Hurst has demonstrated that “tragedy” for Menandrian characters is often synonymous with the improbable, and tragic models mislead those who use them to interpret “real” i.e. comic, events.55 Although Demeas explicitly rejects the tragic perspective, the tragic paradigm of Helen-the-adulteress recurs to color his thinking and his high-flown opening sounds a note of warning, suggesting a kind of posturing. The abrupt change in tone that follows (“Demeas! Why are you yelling? Why, you fool, are you yelling? Get a hold of yourself, tough it out”) shows that he can choose the style in which he speaks.56 Even more than diction, the shifting disjointed syntax of both speakers shows their uncertainty and confusion, warning us that what they say cannot be trusted. Sander Goldberg describes Demeas’ “short, choppy sentences” as “characteristic of comic figures in distress.”57 Choppy sentences and sentence fragments characterize Sostratos’ speech as well: “wheedling and expecting – ‘any minute now’ she’s saying to herself – all the money I’m bringing” (Dis Ex. 93–4). These lines must be construed without strict regard for syntax (how to punctuate “any minute now” is unclear). Particles reveal other deficiencies of logic. Demeas uses , “for, because,” six times to mark the steps of his reasoning, but no other word to show causal connection (at Sam. 328, 330, 335, 338, 343 and 347). At least two of these suggest conclusiveness (335, 338) and the speech could be cited to support Denniston’s observation that “confirmatory and causal” (all six fall under this category) is “commoner in writers whose mode of thought is simple than in those whose logical faculties are more fully developed.”58 Sostratos connects his arguments with no more rigor: he uses %, “therefore, so,” twice in successive lines (“so don’t . . . all right, to hell [with her]” Dis Ex. 23–4). j% is common in dialogue, particularly colloquial dialogue, to introduce a new point, often only loosely connected with the preceding one.59 Its repetition here shows the disorder in Sostratos’ 55
56 57 59
Hurst 1990: 109. See Gutzwiller 2000: 109–10 and 105 n. 12 on the extensive scholarly literature on Menander and tragedy. Sostratos makes no tragic allusions, although $3' might be considered a “high-flown, out-of-date word” (Bain 1979: 206 n. 51). Goldberg 1980: 100, Blume 1974: 120, Lape 2004: 154. 58 Blume 1974: 125, Denniston 1954: 58. Goldberg 1980: 100. Denniston 1954: 568–77. He cites a passage (574) from Aristophanes to illustrate a similar pairing of a “logical” and a “transitional” %: O % < %', – '8, , – % >( $ (Cl. 255).
Dis Exapat¯on (The Double Deceiver)
101
stream-of-consciousness tirade and creates an impression of distinct voices in dialogue with one another, as he shifts through first and second person verbs: “Hold on, Sostratos. Maybe she’ll talk you into [it]” (23–4), “I can just see my fine, upstanding sweetheart” (91–2). Both speakers use more structured ( . . . ' constructions (“on the one hand . . . and on the other”) only at the end, when they have sufficient detachment to try to control the emotions that have dominated them to this point (“I’m furious” Dis Ex. 99, “forget desire, stop loving” Sam. 350).60 There are also tell-tale signs of ambivalence. To convince themselves, Demeas and Sostratos both look for earlier signs of corruption. In effect, they are re-evaluating the women’s past behavior to create a more consistent, and therefore more credible, picture of guilt. They are not looking for evidence of innocence. Demeas reinterprets Chrysis’ affectionate treatment of the baby, previously no more than a sign of stubborn disobedience, as indirect testimony of her love for Moschion and therefore of the truth of his suspicions: “then again when I look at how she was fond of it and forced me to rear it against my will . . .” (Sam. 277–9). Sostratos claims to have had misgivings earlier: “she has turned out . . . to be about what I once thought” (Dis Ex. 97–8). This is certainly the first we hear of them, since it is his first appearance in the play, and they sound suspiciously like an attempt to save face by convincing himself of something he does not quite believe (comic lovers usually begin affairs with a rosier perspective).61 Both men harbor doubts. Sostratos wants to pay a visit to confirm his suspicions (will she really “drop the sweet talk”?), while Demeas waits for Parmenon’s confirmation before constructing his own imaginative scenario. “Clearly (''0) she got hold of him, perhaps () when he was drunk” (Sam. 339). The particles which mark the suppositional nature of this story stand out all the more here because of their absence from the preceding survey of the “evidence.” As Blume points out, Demeas presents the affair “in the form of an unreal condition” and fails to recognize the elements from his own imagination.62 If the emotional language and hints of ambivalence in these speeches warn us not to trust them, so too do the obvious elements of fantasy. We are not allowed to forget that the speakers’ assertions spring from their imagination as they sketch unmistakably hypothetical scenarios. Sostratos 60 61
62
Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 580 ad 351–2. There is a certain hypocrisy to the accusations of theft and deceit from a speaker who is lying about his own feelings and had planned to steal his father’s money (Batstone 2005: 21, 24). Grisolia 1976: 63, Barigazzi 1993: 121 and Bain 1979: 32 note his efforts to convince himself. Blume 1974: 124.
102
Misperception of character
sets his encounter in the future: she will deny it (Dis Ex. 20), the gods will come into it (21–2), she will persuade him (24), and she will stop (27) as soon as she notices (in the future-more-vivid subjunctive, K []) that he is broke (28). He writes both her dialogue and her monologues, telling us what she says when he is not there (93–6).63 Even the form of his speech serves to undermine his credibility. The monologue fantasizing an off-stage lovescene is a regular New Comic device, employed for example in the Samia (120–6) and the Perikeiromen¯e (287–300), as well as in Plautus’ Casina (117– 40, a parody). Dario Del Corno has shown how these monologues give a theatrical form to an internal, mental event. Drawing on a psychological model that interprets daydreaming as substitution for an unsatisfactory reality, Del Corno reads them as examples of “projection:” as a means of actualizing reality on a psychological level and thereby avoiding the need to act. These monologues do not advance the plot, but they do foreground the ineffectiveness of the love-struck youth, whose efforts to transform his situation are limited by an inability to envision multiple outcomes. If the lover’s fantasy becomes reality, it is by coincidence – despite, rather than because of, his conscious efforts. It is the imagined scenarios of characters with a “transformative vision of reality” (such as clever slaves) that actually come true.64 Genre conventions are, accordingly, enough to tell us that Sostratos’ speculation is idle. Although his imaginary encounter reflects fears rather than wishes, it is as much a “pure projection” as the daydreams of the two Moschions.65 His scene will never be played. It is not even clear that he wants to perform it. One can read, with Batstone, “an almost erased trace of a lingering desire” in words like - and Y'- (92). At the end of the second speech he still has not reached a decision.66 Whereas the imaginative elements of Sostratos’ monologues suit a lovelorn youth, Demeas’ take a form more appropriate to his age and status. His speech is essentially a defense addressed to an audience of Athenian citizens with a view to winning acquittal for his son. Scafuro notes that his “address to ‘gentlemen’ (#'), directed to the audience of spectators, carries overtones of an address to dikasts.”67 In treating the theatrical 63 64 65 66 67
Del Corno 1973: 30. Cf. Batstone 2005: 25, “the words he gives her become the evidence that she is what he says.” Del Corno 1975: 207–8. Del Corno 1975: 207 describes these daydreams as “una mera proiezione mentale sprovvista di effetti propulsivi sulla vicenda del dramma.” Batstone 2005: 25. Scafuro 1997: 261. I am greatly indebted to her stimulating interpretation of this speech as a formal defense here and in Scafuro 2003. See also Lape 2004: 153–5. Others have found traces of tragic addresses to the chorus (Leo 1908: 117) or comic parabases (Wilamowitz 1925: 97, Martina 1997 ii.2: 484–5 ad 887). See also Kraus 1934: 68, Blundell 1980: 41–2, and Ireland 1992: 44–5 ad 214.
Dis Exapat¯on (The Double Deceiver)
103
audience as a jury, Demeas continues a pose he had already adopted in an earlier speech (“gentlemen, I’m not asserting this before you, nor am I insinuating it, but I’m bringing the matter into the open” Sam. 269–70). The forensic character of the speech becomes evident when he shifts from self-address to the second person, speaking to the spectators, “gentlemen” (#'), directly. After telling himself to “stop yelling” and “tough it out,” he turns to his case: '( &', B %- . > C K - , #', & & . ( / > / 2- 3 24 / , ! * 1 1 '% 2 " % . ' & $ # &8 . (Sam. 328–335) After all Moschion does you no wrong. This may be a rash claim, gentleman, but it is true. For if he had done this because he wanted to, or he was pricked by desire, or he hated me, he would brazen it out with the same intent, drawn up against me. But now he has defended himself as far as I’m concerned. He was happy to hear about the marriage when it was made known to him.
The technical term & , “has defended himself,” introduces a legal note, alerting us that Demeas regards this speech as a defense.68 He uses the rhetorical topos of “division” ('% ) at 330–1, “if A, or B, or C.”69 Like any good orator, he anticipates objections with counterarguments (G): is innocence a “rash” claim (328–9)? It is Moschion’s motivation, not the actual deed, that counts. Is it not natural for an adopted son to be less loyal (346–7)? Blood ties are beside the point when a man has always behaved well, even to strangers.70 His arguments are couched in the language of criminal justice: “does no wrong,” “has defended himself,” “responsible” (% 338, cited above), “co-conspirator” (342), and “accident” (&8 351). Even the exaggeration of ', “ten
68 69 70
Dedoussi 1965: 46 ad 118–20. Rhet. 1398a30–2, esp. 31 / 3' f / 3' / 3'. See also Lamagna 1998: 290 ad 330. Cf. Rhet. ad Alex. 1432b11–13 “Anticipation (prokatal¯epsis) is the device by which we shall remove illfeeling that we encounter by anticipating the criticisms of our audience and the arguments of those who are going to speak on the other side.” Speakers were advised to “explain the cause” of paradoxes (Lamagna 1998: 288–9 ad 328 takes > in the sense “paradoxical”), e.g., Arist. Rhet. 1400a24, Rhet. ad Alex. 1430b5–7). Lysias also uses the kin/stranger and / - antitheses (31.23, 13.91, cited in Lamagna 1998: 297 ad 344–5 and 298 ad 346).
104
Misperception of character
times” (“no, not if he’s ten times adopted” line 346) is common in oratory.71 Demeas uses standard techniques for manipulating a jury: false inference, suppression of contrary evidence, and “sophistic argumentation.”72 The comparison to Helen is a typical example. As Edith Hall notes, “the orators introduced mythical parallels to themselves or their opponents in order to provide a memorable and familiar analogy which would stick in the jurors’ minds when detailed evidence might be lost on them.”73 Demeas also depersonalizes the defendant by avoiding her name and using the derogatory J- (“the person” 348, often of slaves), while recalling her foreign status (“the beautiful Samian” 353–4).74 At the same time he individualizes Moschion by naming him in 328 and emphasizes their kinship (“my son” 346–7). Demeas’ imagination leads him to employ strategies common in forensic speeches. Arguments from probability ( ), “a major characteristic of Greek rhetoric, in part because of the distrust of direct evidence,” were recognized as a type of proof (% ) and rhetorical treatises taught how to use it properly.75 The Rhetorica ad Alexandrum advises that such arguments work best when they appeal to what an audience already knows or believes, and Aristotle offers some blatantly fallacious arguments as examples.76 Here, in order to support his claim that it is not “probable” ( ) that Moschion did him an injustice, Demeas needs to offer an explanation that seems likelier than those he dismisses (lust, hatred). Accordingly, he must show that his scenario fits the character of each defendant. For Chrysis, he draws on negative female stereotypes his audience knows, from Helen, the archetypal adulteress, to the cheapest of prostitutes. The stereotype of the whore appeals to common feelings of resentment and mistrust; it also helps to establish a pattern of behavior (a tactic also advised by handbooks: “with regard to persons, in accusations prove if you can that the party has often committed the same act before, or if not, actions like it,” Rhet. ad 71
72 73 74 75 76
E.g., Dem. 8.37, Isae. 9.31 (cited in Lamagna 1998: 298 ad 346), Lys. 24.9, and Dem. 19.53. Dem. 21.119 perhaps suggests ' was losing its force. Lines 343–6 are an argument 3 5 _ (Arist. Rhet. 1397b12–19). See Scafuro 1997: 261–2 and Lape 2004: 153–4 on other forensic elements in this speech. Weissenberger 1991: 427 and n. 43. On the flaws in his reasoning about maternity/paternity, see Scafuro 2003. Hall 1995: 54–5, citing as examples Ant. 1.17, Dem. 1.37, Andoc. 1.129, and Hyper. 1.7. On J- as an insult see Lamagna 1998: 299 ad 348, Austin 1969–70 ii: 71 ad 348, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 579 ad 348, and Ireland 1992: 46 ad 265, 49 ad 337. Quotation from Kennedy 1991: 176. See also Scafuro 1997: 58–60. “A probability is a statement supported by examples present in the minds (en tais dianoiais) of an audience . . . we must always pay attention in our speeches to the question whether we shall find our hearers possessed of a personal knowledge of the thing we are speaking of, as that is the sort of statement they are most likely to believe” (Rhet. ad Alex. 1428a27–32). Arist. Rhet. 1392b19–21.
Dis Exapat¯on (The Double Deceiver)
105
Alex. 1428b18–20). What started as a single seduction has progressed to the point of driving Moschion out of the house. This is pure supposition, based on assumptions about her character (and as such, a circular argument), but it is consistent with rhetorical theory, at least in the sophistic tradition represented by the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum. Speakers are encouraged to fabricate intentions and even character traits, and when a probability argument cannot be made about an opponent personally, they are advised to “infer what is normally the case from people resembling them (& C%-) . . . for example . . . say that [a young man] has acted as persons of that age usually do act, for the allegations will be believed against him too on the ground of similarity” (Rhet. ad Alex. 1428b25–9). Demeas is simply assimilating Chrysis to her A here; later he will speak openly of “women like you” (< ). Demeas employs standard arguments for each side of the case. If the action was characteristic of Chrysis and women like her, it was an aberration for Moschion: “no, it’s not this. I’m looking at his character” ( , 347).77 What was planned and deliberate for her was unplanned and involuntary for him: “if he had done this voluntarily (> ) . . . he would be in the same intent ('%)” (330–2). Arguing that a crime was planned was a technique of magnification (=4 ); arguing that it was deliberate might be necessary to establish that it was a crime at all.78 Demeas’ “proof” is another argument from probability intended to show, as Aristotle recommends, that the accused had the capacity and will to commit the crime. She had the opportunity to seduce Moschion, he claims, when he “wasn’t himself ” and she acted with premeditation as a “co-conspirator.” The young man, on the other hand, acted with neither will nor intent: “she must have gotten hold of him when he was drunk of course . . . wine and youth cause a lot of stupid things when they find a co-conspirator nearby.” Here Demeas sketches the extenuating circumstances usually invoked to exculpate the aggressor in a rape (wine, night, youth) in order to depict Moschion as the victim of an involuntary sexual encounter, euphemistically described as an 77
78
His argument may be analyzed as an application of Aristotelian % (“fairness,” or the obligation to assess the deed in terms of the whole of a person’s character, Arist. Rhet. 1374b15–16, Scafuro 1997: 262). Demeas may also be protecting himself in downplaying Moschion’s misdeed. The Rhet. ad Alex. 1441a16–18 cautions speakers, “say little, for people do not think that orderly conduct and self-restraint [ % N $, cf. Sam. 344] in young people is due so much to themselves as to those who are in charge of them.” “The more premeditated the crime, the greater the wrong” (Arist. Rhet. 1375a7); wrongdoing is “doing harm intentionally () ) contrary to law” (1368b6). “Another possible way of magnifying good or bad actions is if you prove that the agent acted intentionally” (Rhet. ad Alex. 1426a35– 37); “if possible prove that the defendant committed the offence of his own free will, and not from a merely casual intention, but with a very great amount of preparation” (1426b40–1427a5).
106
Misperception of character
“accident” &8 351).79 This was the recommended line to take when a defendant had to admit the charge.80 By suppressing the prior relationship between the two parties, Demeas manages to present the offense as a common and minor one, the sort of “stupid thing” young men are always doing. In good forensic style, he closes by proposing a verdict: acquittal for Moschion, with the additional protection of silence, and expulsion for Chrysis (her “guilt” was of course settled in line 338: “she’s the one responsible”). If we should be aware of the techniques of characterization behind the personae he creates for Chrysis and Moschion, we should also notice how distorted his thinking is, even as he tries to persuade us of its logic. The faulty reasoning by which he identifies Chrysis as the mother is an example.81 Aristotle warned speakers that they must show good sense ($ ) to be persuasive, and Demeas provides a striking example of someone who “does not form opinions rightly” on account of his “lack of sense” (&$ 8).82 He might apportion blame more equitably, even from the facts he knows. Nikeratos, for example, blames Moschion as well as Chrysis. There is a subjective element to Demeas’ “mistake” about Chrysis. He does not have enough information to prove Moschion’s relative innocence or Chrysis’ premeditation. Various explanations have been offered based on his character type, his psychology, and the play’s continuing engagement with the Hippolytus myth.83 One particularly persuasive argument is that Demeas cherishes the belief that he and his son have an exemplary relationship and is therefore reluctant to face evidence to the contrary.84 Part of his motivation in defending Moschion is surely a wish to preserve his self-image as an ideal father, but he is neither as candid nor as unselfconscious as these explanations suggest. We soon learn that his tolerant, forgiving tone is a façade from his quarrel with Moschion in the next act. A modern audience may find this about-face more surprising than Athenians did. Greek orators were skilled at creating rhetorical personae, and Menander’s contemporaries were unlikely to have taken a speech that began with an assertion of candor (“rash . . . but true” 328–9) as a revelation of the speaker’s true feelings. The forensic language should pose 79
80 83
84
Blume 1974: 125–6, Ireland 1992: 48 ad 328. The verb >- (339) “find someone in a certain condition,” implies that Chrysis controlled the situation (Lamagna 1998: 294–5 ad 339, following Oguse). See also Arnott 1998: 14 and n. 20 on these lines. 81 Scafuro 2003: 132. 82 Arist. Rhet. 1378a 10–1. Rhet. ad Alex. 1428b37–9, 1429a15–19. Angry old men are supposed to be irrational (Goldberg 1980: 101); loyalty to his son (Legrand 1910: 310, Zagagi 1994: 127–8), emotion (Dworacki 1977: 21–2) or anger, combined with “his vision of Moskhion’s kosmiot¯es” (Scafuro 2003: 127), blind him to his own unfairness. See also West 1991: 18 and Weissenberger 1991: 427 n. 43. Jacques 1968: 223 compares him with Sostratos in this regard. Weissenberger 1991: 420–1.
Dis Exapat¯on (The Double Deceiver)
107
an obstacle to interpreting his speech as a reflection of an individualized consciousness (Adele Scafuro has shown that New Comic characters tend to think and act in forensic terms).85 As John Blundell has demonstrated, Menander’s monologues are not strictly devices to reveal a character’s inner thoughts and unconscious motives, like Shakespearian soliloquies. These monologues can be overheard and often are.86 The characters who deliver them recognize that they are speaking out loud to a potential audience (a slave girl, for example, reprimands the old woman for spilling the secret, 255–6). Demeas is not just thinking out loud but presenting his thoughts to an audience he recognizes in a manner which minimally ruptures the dramatic illusion: he treats them as a jury. This does not, however, mean that his persona in this speech is simply pretence, based on a calculation of what will win over an audience. His struggle to make a convincing case out of arguments he does not quite believe himself speaks volumes about his priorities and feelings for his son. It also reveals the limits of his friendship with Nikeratos (he will lie in order to keep the wedding on track). Demeas is a serious character by comic standards and Menander invites us to sympathize with him, even though we know he is wrong. In Nikeratos, however, we see Demeas’ mistakes repeated and caricatured: the accusations are more ridiculous and the threats more outrageous. One example is his use of the term 0. After learning that his neighbor’s mistress has slept with his prospective son-in-law, Nikeratos imagines a humiliating revenge for the “hubris” of “shaming” Demeas’ bed: “the next day, I would be the first person to sell the concubine” (508–9). This unlikely proposal requires him to represent her as more dependent than she really is, calling her a 0 (508) or “concubine.”87 Z0 is a status term of uncertain legal significance. It is not clear just when and how a hetaira became one.88 Passages in the orators suggest that 0-relationships once had legal recognition and some protection, although by Menander’s time this no longer appears to be true.89 (Pataikos, for example, advises Polemon that 85 87
88
89
86 Blundell 1980: 19–20. Scafuro 1997: 10–11 and passim. There is no mention of purchase from a pimp (Dedoussi 1970: 161). Nikeratos is either hearkening back to Solon’s era, when female kin could be sold as punishment for sexual activity (Lamagna 1998: 361 ad 509), or simply exaggerating (Krieter-Spiro 1997: 44 n. 4). Chrysis was still vulnerable nonetheless (Sandbach, in Dedoussi 1970: 178, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 601 ad 509, Lamagna 1998: 361 ad 509). See Bushala 1969: 71 on the status of the non-citizen 0. A woman needed to cohabit for a while to be a 0 (MacDowell 1978: 89, Todd 1993: 178, Roy 1997: 17) but it is not clear that this sufficed. We know of monogamous, long-term relationships with “hetairai” (Davidson 1997: 101–2); some even produced families (Cox 1998: 186–7). See also Konstan 1993: 142 and McClure 2003: 18–21. Dem. 23.53 cites a law exempting a man who kills another found “with a 0 whom he keeps for free children” from prosecution for homicide. There may have been no legal definition
108
Misperception of character
he cannot legally use force against Moschion for the supposed seduction of Glykera because she is not his married wife. He does not even suggest claiming her as a 0.) Menander does not often use the word. Eight plays feature women in some form of concubinage either during or prior to the action, but only two women besides Chrysis are called %: the title figure of the Z0 and a former lady’s maid in the Pseudheracles.90 Elaine Fantham describes the term as “archaic and technical,” and a distinction should probably be made between an obsolete legal sense and a slightly honorific social sense, which seems to survive in Menander.91 At most we can say that “hetaira” put a polite gloss on a disreputable occupation, for which cruder terms were always available, whereas 0 seems to have carried respectable associations. Nikeratos is speaking in grandiloquent style here, invoking the archaic paradigm of the nobleman and his slave concubine.92 His first instinct, like Demeas’, is to think in tragic terms. He compares Moschion, for example, with legendary perpetrators of incest – Tereus, Oedipus, Thyestes, and Amyntor (Demeas himself alluded to a tragic version of the Oedipus myth). He misrepresents Chrysis’ status in order to magnify her crime. Calling her a 0 gives her an exclusive relationship to Demeas and makes her actions accordingly “dreadful” ('% 516); as Demeas points out, they are simply what one would expect from a whore. The mythical allusions go even further, implying that she has been a kind of wife to Demeas and stepmother to Moschion. Nikeratos is deliberately overstating the case to incriminate Moschion, whom he considers the primary culprit and greater threat. “Who would you not touch?,” he asks the young man (501), while Chrysis is just an “and also” in 508. Demeas wanted to see habitual behavior so he could forgive his son; Nikeratos wants to see a horrific crime so he can call off the wedding. Nikeratos is more liberal about status mobility than Demeas. He was willing to accept Chrysis as his neighbor’s mistress and his wife’s close friend so
90 91
92
of % (Sealey 1984: 118). See Wolff 1944: 74, MacDowell 1978: 89, Todd 1993: 178, Harrison 1998 i: 15 and Ogden 1996: 33 on who counted. The other examples are: Antiphila (Heauton), Glykera (Perik.), Krateia (Mis.), Malthake (Sik.), and Plangon (Syn.). Alexis (fr. 169 K-A) and Diphilus (fr. 59 K-A) also wrote Pallakai. Fantham 1975: 65 n. 47. Socially, the 0 held a lower position than the married woman (Harrison 1998 i: 13 n. 1, Roy 1997: 17, Kapparis 1999: 8–9), although her day-to-day life could be similar (Post 1940: 445, Vernant 1980: 47–9, Cantarella 1987: 49, Davidson 1997: 132, Cox 1998: 178–81). On the status of the concubine in relation to Menander see further Ruiz 1981: 131–6. Bain 1983: 124 ad 517: “The word melathrois, absurd as a description of Nikeratos’ humble abode, belongs to lyric and tragedy, and so does its scansion [sc. the long first syllable].” Likewise the anacolouthon 0 . . . 0 . . . “is mainly found in tragedy” (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 601 ad 510).
Dis Exapat¯on (The Double Deceiver)
109
long as she behaved appropriately. Once he classes her as a threat, however, he is unwilling to change his mind, even after he discovers his daughter nursing the baby. Although Chrysis is clearly not the mother and therefore not guilty of incest, she is still “plotting against me and doing absolutely terrible things” (556–7). He realizes that his own women must have colluded with her (he knows that they have something to “confess” 558), but he still blames Chrysis: she “conspired” (556) and “talked them into” (558) defying him. Demeas resorted to similar tactics when he realized Chrysis could not be held solely responsible for the baby: he accused Moschion of being “in league with” his enemies (474–5) and described Parmenon as “in the know” (478). In other words, Nikeratos’ bad-apple theory serves the same purpose as Demeas’ drunken-seduction scenario: it exculpates his immediate family. But he goes further than Demeas, representing himself as a victim too. (\.) : , ( C , A- '( : , 2 '( >% '% 0 % $ % k : 8O , 1 -. (Q.) 1 ; (\.) 8' M. (Q.) ', \0. (\.) ' > ,. (Sam. 558–63) (Ni.) She’s talked my wife into admitting absolutely nothing and my daughter too, and she’s keeping the baby by force and refuses to hand it over! So don’t be surprised if I end up killing her . . . (De.) Killing your wife? (Ni. oblivious) . . . because she knew about the whole thing . . . (De.) Don’t, Nikeratos! (Ni.) . . . but I wanted to tell you first.
Chrysis’ offences form a neat tricolon in the past, present and future tense: “she has talked . . . is keeping . . . and . . . refuses to hand it over (a future infinitive).” Nikeratos threatens far worse than the bleak life of poverty Demeas wished upon her. The last clause (“so don’t . . .”) makes his threat the result of these offenses, suggesting that they provide ample provocation. The emphatic “she” in line 562 could refer equally to Chrysis or Nikeratos’ wife. Hence Demeas’ question. But Chrysis is Nikeratos’ bˆete noire here.93 His accusations center on her and he follows up his threat by chasing her out of the house (568ff.). There is no reason to suppose he intends to go after his wife until Chrysis escapes with the baby and 93
Legrand 1910: 310, Ireland 1992: 55 ad 568, Lamagna 1998: 381, and Arnott 2000b: 120 identify “her” as Chrysis (“though the Greek is ambiguous at this point – no doubt deliberately so,” Ireland). Austin 1969–70 ii: 90, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 610 ad 580, and Zagagi 1994: 190 n. 124 identify “her” as the wife.
110
Misperception of character
Demeas threatens a lawsuit (“I’ll go in and kill my wife! What else can I do?,” he mutters in desperation (580–1)). Demeas mentions the wife at 561 to distract him, but Nikeratos pursues his own train of thought. The causal clause, “because she knew the whole,” justifies his plan to kill Chrysis, while the “but” clause, “but I wanted to tell you first (sc., before killing your ex-mistress),” is a courtesy to his friend, acknowledging Demeas’ stake in her punishment. Demeas had appealed to their friendship earlier (“share my injury, as a true friend” 518) and Nikeratos has consistently shown him deference throughout the play. Even the threat (560–1) is politely phrased as a mere possibility, in a conditional clause rather than the simple future. The gesture shows Nikeratos’ respect for his wealthy neighbor and accounts for an otherwise unmotivated entrance (why else interrupt a heated argument inside?). Nikeratos’ principal function here is to parody his neighbor’s mistakes: misinterpreting a chance discovery, attempting to force a confession, resenting his exclusion from a circle of insiders, even blaming Chrysis for another’s misconduct. He plays an angrier, less rational, and funnier Demeas. We are not supposed to take his ranting, any more than that of Demeas or Sostratos, at face value. All three characters make accusations based on the wrong stock type and to serve their immediate need for a scapegoat. It is more important to cast the women as outsiders, blaming them for the misdeeds of $%, than to salvage anything of the romantic relationship. The dramatic purpose of detailing the men’s mistaken reasoning is to reveal their fears and anxieties, as well as their emotional and moral priorities, not to characterize the women. They do not even try to assign blame reasonably: Moschion, Moschos, Plangon, and her mother are simply excused as victims or at worst accomplices. Ties of affection certainly influence these judgments, but it should be noted that Demeas and Sostratos also love their mistresses. The problem is that they believe in an underlying moral basis for social divisions and are therefore determined to see evidence of status-appropriate moral character, even if it means going to extraordinary lengths to dismiss evidence to the contrary. Like the mistakes examined in the last chapter, these errors comically illustrate what happens when people observe and judge those they care about most.
p e r i k e i r o m e n e¯ and m i s o u m e n o s As hetairai, Chrysis and Sostratos’ unnamed beloved open up new possibilities for misperception because their moral character can be questioned in ways that are unacceptable for women of higher status. Not a breath of
Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos
111
criticism touches Nikeratos’ daughter Plangon, for example; even her sexual experience casts no shadow on her character. For well-born women, “mistaken identity” is almost always a matter of false social or juridical status. The only way to subject their morals to suspicion was to lower their status artificially, something we see in the Misoumenos and Perikeiromen¯e. In both plays the men are wrong about the character of the women they love because they are wrong about their birth-identity – not because they are cynical or stupid or too emotionally engaged, and certainly not because women who lose status also lose corresponding qualities of character. Moreover, these men want to believe that their mistresses can and should be wives; it is their slaves who scrutinize the women’s actions for qualities consistent with their apparent status. Much of the hostility expressed by the conflicted lovers in the Samia and Dis Exapat¯on is thus displaced onto cynical confidants in the Misoumenos and Perikeiromen¯e. This role-splitting makes it possible to explore some of the more disturbing implications of the heroine’s behavior without altering the lover’s feelings or lending any real authority to the charges. The worst suspicions are voiced by the lowest-status characters, whose dramatic function is to be proved wrong about both status and morals. Glykera is not a novice hetaira, Krateia is not going to remain a slave, and neither has betrayed her lover. In the Perikeiromen¯e, it is Sosias who criticizes Glykera on moral grounds. Polemon refuses to blame her at all (the rift is entirely Moschion’s fault) and Pataikos offers her an excuse (she left because Polemon treated her badly). But Sosias assumes that she betrayed him for another man. He insinuates that she left for mercenary reasons (“What a lifestyle they’re living!” 183–4) and reads her departure as an expression of contempt (“telling us to go howl at the moon (lit. ‘wail long and hard’)” 370–1). To Sosias, Glykera is a hetaira who chases young men and easy living. He believes she has flouted her obligations to Polemon, and he certainly identifies with his master’s point of view, but he does not mistake her actual position in the house.94 He does not speak of her as a “wife,” nor does he question her freedom to leave. It is clear from his choice of “forcible detention” (of a free woman, 375–7) as a pretext for attacking the house that he sees no real sexual offense. If Moschion were really an “adulterer” ( ) numerous forms of selfhelp would be legally available.95 Sosias means (357, 370, 390) only in the general sense “womanizer” (a was any man who had relations 94 95
I see a more limited identification than Konstan 1995: 111. On self-help against adulterers see Harrison 1998 I: 35, MacDowell 1978: 124–5, Todd 1993: 277, Carey 1995, Kapparis 1996, and Scafuro 1997: 196–201 (including 197 n. 13 on as “comic katakhresis here”).
112
Misperception of character
with women from protected classes – or simply looked like the sort who would). If Sosias actually witnessed the compromising embrace (the text has a gap at line 157, but a reference to Sosias seems likely), it would explain how he convinces himself of her passion for the young man, whom he calls her “care” ( 404, a word from lyric monody, perhaps ironic here).96 When Glykera’s maid challenges him (“she isn’t doing any of the things you think” 405), he calls her a liar (G'[-] 406). Although the text breaks off here, in the missing lines – about 60 by Sandbach’s estimate – Sosias must have dismissed Doris’ protests, perhaps by elaborating on the accusation in 399 (“You’re most at fault (-) for this”) and charging her with ulterior motives (e.g., the taste for the good life he noted earlier, “Look at her [sc. the maid] – she’s thriving!” 182 – a hint of romantic interest on his part?). There was evidently abuse on both sides because Sosias is leading an angry attack when we next see him in Act III. In the Misoumenos, it is the slave Getas who judges Krateia most critically, voicing the kind of suspicion that lovers entertain only in despair. Thrasonides is simply frustrated and confused by her rejection. He takes her silence to signify dislike (he feels “hated” 43, “wretchedly ill-used” 37, and perhaps “ignored,” if he is, in fact, the speaker at line 86) but he admits that her motivation is still a mystery. Getas is the one who thinks in terms of types and topoi, who speaks in proverbs (“not even a dog should be out in this weather” 15), and who sees things in conventional ways. When confronted with his master’s “strange problem” ( 90), he cites common wisdom about women: '( $ ' N #[]- &': k , & [ &[] 3 -3 [>>. &[] ;G L (Mis. 90–3) After all, you’re not completely unpleasant, in a manner of speaking. Never mind that your low soldier’s pay hurts you. But you’re very chic to look at.
Women in New Comedy typically find soldiers offensive (“A civilized soldier? Not if a god made him,” runs an unattributed fragment, 777 K-A, cf. Ter. Hec. 85–7, Pl. Mil. 125–8), a possibility which Getas dismisses, although the three modifiers and double negative suggest that he has not altogether ruled it out. Poverty might be a problem, he concedes, but good looks should compensate. By attributing to Krateia the preferences of women who pick their own lovers, Getas effectively classes her with hetairai 96
Arnott 1995: 11–12 (identifying Sosias as the witness), Lamagna 1994: 234 ad 214 ().
Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos
113
(implying, incidentally, that she is incapable of acting like a wife, even a nominal one) and subsumes her identity under that of her sex (women are “a foul species” 97, cf. fr. 508 K-A). Thrasonides is less of a misogynist.97 He considers kind expressions of concern, for example, what “any woman would say” (55) and accordingly rejects his slave’s facile explanation, telling him to “Go to hell!” (95) and giving Krateia credit for a motivation that cannot be simply assumed or guessed. “We need to find out what it is, show some compelling cause” (95–7. An unattributed fragment may also fit here: “find out from her for what cause . . .” 653 K-A). A curt order to change tactics (“if you don’t give it up . . . !” 98) only elicits an even more cynical theory from Getas: “She’s getting [you] horny for [some purpose]” ( [] O [ ], 99–100). When the text breaks off, the slave appears to be challenging the theory of a “compelling cause” by arguing that women can act for no reason at all (“not always [some] rational . . .” 100). Getas is quick to detect disloyalty in a fellow slave and appears resentful of privileges he does not share, such as the “excess luxury” he mentions in line 84 and the domestic authority he grumbles about in line 45 (“She’s not in charge [%]”). Later he suspects a lover, perhaps the “foreigner” mentioned in line 424 (he refers to Demeas as “this fellow we’ve been looking for” (619) when he catches him embracing Krateia), and worries about “an ill turn” behind a dinner invitation (570, some attempt to get at her perhaps?). Like others who misjudge, he sees people with disillusioned eyes. Getas has an excuse for misunderstanding Krateia. He arrived only yesterday (31–2) and knows her simply as “the captive” (37). Of course, he does not know the truth: charm, money, and looks mean nothing to a woman who believes her lover killed her brother. But when her father arrives to put an end to the enslavement, Getas realizes she is not simply a capricious female or a slave who does not know her place. Since the father is hardly more communicative than the daughter, Getas and Thrasonides are left to speculate about Krateia’s reasons. Again each judges her differently. Getas mentions first and last her failure to answer the soldier’s pleas: “but she turns away from him while he speaks” (705–6), “[and there is] no answer” (711). Her insensitivity puts her outside the civilized world, even outside humanity: he calls her “savage” (>>) and “a she-lion” (712–13).98 A proverbial image of cruelty (cf. Men. Mon. 374 “a woman’s savagery is 97 98
On traditional notions of a “race” of women see Lape 2004: 244 and nn. 2, 4. Long 1986: 153. “By imagining supplications rejected in silence, tragic poets touch upon an almost inconceivable behavior, one that epic poetry attributes exclusively to a brute who lives at the margins of the civilized world” (Montiglio 2000: 250–1).
114
Misperception of character
like a she-lion’s”), “she-lion” acknowledges that Krateia negotiates from a position of strength. l> implies that she is not a true Greek in a moral sense and therefore not entitled to courtesies Greeks extend to one another. 9 ( [0], W - %, * &[] . c ^ [3] [] K . & , F 2 &[]3 . A '( ' L,[ ], '( L ' $: 2 -. (Mis. 715–19)
By Apollo here, I wouldn’t have ransomed her! We know it’s the Greek way and done everywhere, but it’s proper to pity someone who shows pity in return. I don’t have either consideration or concern for you when you don’t have any for me.
Athenians no doubt appreciated the irony that a slave from one of the notoriously violent tribes of Thrace should hold up “Greekness” as the standard of civilized conduct.99 Getas does not fault Krateia for failing to return the soldier’s affection or repay his kindness (the argument Thrasonides makes) but for failing to show pity. Taking advantage of the “Greek” custom that forces the soldier to agree to ransom shows a lack of “concern” that should make Krateia and her father forfeit any right to be treated as Greeks. Getas is shifting his moral parameters, pretending that the only constraints on Krateia’s behavior are those of ethnicity, rather than gender. It is no longer a question of money, looks, or a woman’s whims; it is about behaving like a human being and a proper Greek. Despite this ostensibly general standard, he is still making an ad hominem argument. Her “failure” to show pity is simply a new excuse to blame her for his master’s misery. As he admits, he is taking an unconventional view in suggesting that ransom, as an act of pity, is “proper” only when the pity is returned. This places the onus on Krateia to rise to a “Greek” standard and deserve her ransom, paradoxically, by declining it. The captive has a moral obligation to refuse her family for her captor! It is hard to imagine a more subjective argument. Getas takes no account of her age and sex, which both obligate her to choose a father over a lover.100 Instead, he speaks of Greek versus barbarian (“everywhere” means everywhere in the Greek-speaking world) and holds her to a standard applicable to all Greeks. This is not just an oversight or 99 100
Lape 2004: 195. On the ethical sense of >> here and elsewhere in Menander see Long 1986: 152–4. Cf. Lape 2004: 195–6.
Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos
115
rhetorical sleight of hand. Getas thought Demeas also failed to respond “like a human being” (&-%- 703) when he answered Thrasonides’ pleas with the same silence as his daughter (“not a peep from him” 692), only to ask “one thing” when he finally spoke. For Getas, the daughter’s silence and the father’s request convey the same message and he treats the two as a common enemy (“you” plural, 718). In order to claim the moral high ground and justify refusing ransom, he needs to find a fault common to both (if it were only a matter of repaying kindness, Demeas would have done nothing wrong). Both father and daughter can, however, be charged with the “barbarous” inhumanity of failing to show pity. Although Getas’ criticisms of Krateia’s moral character still stem from ignorance of her identity (no one could argue that a sister should feel “pity” for her brother’s killer), he is no longer judging her in gendered terms. Now that her father supports her decision to reject Thrasonides, he must hold her to the standards of a group which includes Demeas. Whereas Getas blames the two equally, Thrasonides seems to have minimized Demeas’ role and held Krateia primarily responsible. He knows no more than Getas about her relationship to the man he killed, but he draws rather different conclusions from her silent rejection. Thrasonides situates her behavior within a different set of role-based expectations. He insists on evaluating it in the context of their relationship, discounting her filial obligations and holding her only to those of a wife. In what survives of a speech delivered after the interview, Thrasonides also recognizes the force of custom, reiterating Getas’ “it’s that way everywhere” (at 795–6). He does not, however, consider refusing ransom. Instead, he comforts himself by imagining the vindication of posterity: ;[]' 1 3 , ', &. e 3 -0 & 1 ' . (Mis. 804–6) You must leave this immortal shame to her: although well treated she took vengeance on the man who gave her the good things.
Tellingly, he makes her the sole subject of this crucial sentence.101 Thrasonides does not regard the issue as a matter of filial obedience, ransom protocol or conformity with civilized customs any more than Getas did. 101
Not only does he recognize her as a moral agent but he also rejects a tradition which objectified the spear-prize (Lape 2004: 197, “Thrasonides assumes that Krateia has decisional autonomy, that she is an agent whose actions are subject to moral evaluation [praise and blame] rather than an object whose purpose is to augment masculine honor”).
116
Misperception of character
He also invokes an ethics of reciprocation: “good things” and “good treatment” deserve a good return. This is a rhetorical commonplace. Aristotle cites “having gratitude ( ) to a benefactor and rewarding a benefactor in turn (&, e 0 )” as a just action according to unwritten laws, and the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum likewise states: “as it is just to take vengeance (-, ) on those who do us harm . . . so it is also proper to do good in return to those who do us good (" 0 . . . & ,).”102 Thrasonides uses -, to imply deliberate intent and to suggest an unprovoked act of aggression: Krateia took “vengeance” – in return for good treatment – by imposing a life of misery upon him (803). He is, in effect, trying to hold her responsible for harm he intends to do himself (“live in poverty, in pain, in weakness” 803), the same sort of emotional blackmail he used on the stormy night and during the interview (“You’ll learn I’m dead, if you abandon me” 710– 11). Thrasonides’ moral outrage is baseless: simply knowing his intentions does not make Krateia responsible for the consequences and it is absurd to describe a fifteen-year-old girl as an agent of revenge. It is not even clear that he means what he says. Getas is worried enough to remove the swords after the interview (“He’ll yell and decide to kill himself,” he predicts 721–2), but the soldier seems to be proposing some kind of pretence at the end of this speech ( [ “pretend,” 807). Thrasonides pretends to apply universal standards of reciprocity – returning good treatment in kind – but he wants a specific kind of return. The “good things” he has given her (clothing, jewelry, servants) are what a man gave his wife.103 In later Greek marriage contracts from Egypt, a husband could actually be required to “provide everything appropriate for a free woman” (P. Eleph. i.4f ).104 Thrasonides has certainly done this. Moreover he has “loved” Krateia, he insists, with the verbs $ and & (694, 708, 709, 770). Right after claiming that she “is loved” (770), however, he concedes a problem: Y [ (771, Arnott “we didn’t fix it”). I O-, “join together, accommodate” can mean “fit, suit” when used intransitively and is natural metaphor for marriage (in the middle voice, it 102 103
104
Arist. Rhet. 1374a23–4, Rhet. ad Alex. 1422a36–8. For Giacomoni 2000, the issue is the reciprocity of the erotic bond (although she sees a tragic model here, e.g., Medea’s situation). For Lape 2004: 197 “gave her the good things” is the language of euergetism, refiguring the romantic relationship as a liturgical one (Krateia represents the Greek city and Thrasonides, the Hellenistic ruler). His argument is a topos, however, and Rhet. ad Alex. 1422a38 shows that even , could be used of relationships between private individuals. Cf. Men. Mon. 243–4. Williams 1961: 45.
P. Ghˆoran II and Theophoroumen¯e (The Girl Possessed)
117
can mean betroth).105 The sense here is not clear, but some kind of incompatibility is clearly implied. Thrasonides is not talking about a master-slave relationship. His arguments all presume a voluntary relationship based on goodwill. Krateia owes him a return for being a good husband, not for being a good master. She, of course, does not agree that he has conferred only benefits and the problem is compounded by his insistence on treating the relationship like a marriage. Master and slave alike are victims of # and the inferences they draw about Krateia’s character are false. She is not cruel or thankless, just loyal to her family. The problem in the Misoumenos is a gap in their knowledge of her social identity. The Perikeiromen¯e exploits a similar gap; the Samia, an outright pretence. In all three plays, cynical characters interpret the women’s ingratitude as a sign of their fundamentally corrupt natures, which the men attribute to their ostensible class. Thus their low status – as a hetaira, an ex-hetaira, and a captive, respectively – leaves them open to accusations spared women of more privileged classes. Unlike the wife, the mistress held only a tenuous position in a household and, thanks in part to the stereotype of the whore, suspicions about her moral character were always plausible. The misogynistic commonplaces that attached to hetairai could even be extended to a slave-mistress like Krateia, even though she was in no position to reject Thrasonides for low pay or disagreeable manners.
t h e o p h o r o u m e n e¯ (the girl possessed) Whereas the “whore” stereotype might be broadly applied to socially marginal women, there were taboos against using it to interpret the actions of high-status women. Two brief counterexamples will illustrate what happens when the suspicious behavior occurs in free women with respectable families. In a scene preserved on a papyrus scrap from Ghˆoran, Egypt, a lover finds himself in a situation similar to Sostratos’ (P. Ghˆor. ii = P. Sorbonne 72). His beloved is freeborn, however. The disappointed young man heaps accusations on his supposedly false friend but spares the girl, even though she has been far from passive (she seems to have left her father’s house for that of the friend).106 Far from holding her responsible, he continues to assume she is entirely at her father’s disposal (“Since her father planned to deprive me of her, you thought, I’m sure, that you ought to marry her” 148–9). It is not that elite women could never be accused of 105 106
On I O-, of marriage, see Zeitlin 1996: 229 and n. 24. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 730–1. The authorship of these fragments is disputed (Arnott 2000a: 418–19 excludes them from his edition of Menander).
118
Misperception of character
hetaira-like behavior, but there were limits on who could make the charge, in what circumstances, and how far they could press it. In a 16-line fragment of the Theophoroumen¯e, a character reports an off-stage argument in which a man blames a girl for accepting gifts: “& ' ”, &8; Y “ '” $ “& 4% ”. C '( “% ' 2>, < ; '( ' [ N 3; % '( % . [ ; / " % >3 $ 24- ,; %; % e 2' %;” (Theoph. 17–23) “My gifts” – are you listening? The girl said, “They took away my gifts.” Then he said, “What did you accept, you great whore? The man who gave them to you – how do you know him? What [or why] [does?] a young man . . . ? And why are you wandering around outside wearing a garland? You’re mad, are you? Why can’t you be mad shut up inside?”
The “possessed” girl of the title is evidently of good birth. (“girl”) is used exclusively of freeborn girls in Menander and the angry off-stage speaker demands the conduct of a respectable woman: remaining indoors and not consorting with men.107 He evidently holds some authority over the girl and may well be her father, since his language is too presumptuous for a slave and too rude for a suitor.108 A jealous ex-lover might speak in such terms, but the girl would not be a if she had one. Irascibility and lack of self-control, however, are stock traits of comic fathers. This play may have paired a comparatively sympathetic daughter with a cranky father – perhaps the “Craton” of a misanthropic speech preserved in Stobaeus – as Menander does in the Dyskolos and Epitrepontes.109 A Sosias or a Getas might freely criticize women of dubious status but only close kin had the authority to reproach a freeborn . 107
108
109
The mentioned in Asp., Georg., Dysk., Epitr., Kar., Kith., Sam., Sik., and Phas. are legitimate daughters; those in Her., Sik., and Perik. are lost daughters. See N¨unlist 1993: 262 ad A12 for a full list of examples. Theophoroumen¯e citations are from Sandbach 1990. < is less coarse than a primary obscenity like (Perik. 485, cited by Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 402 ad 19 as a comparison): the root of refers only to sale. It can be used without apology (e.g., at Perik. 340, unlike at Phasm. 42), even in front of a respectable woman (Epitr. 794). < is harsh (Alciphron uses it of particularly greedy hetairai, Pagliardini 1982: 117) but if a father could beat a girl for merely leaving the house (Dysk. 205–6), one who suspected worse might well use strong language. See further K¨orte 1935: 432 and Handley 1969: 95. Stob. Ecl. iv. 42.3 = fr. 1 Sandbach. A reference to a deus ex machina (fr. 5 Sandbach) suggests that Craton, if he was the girl’s father, appeared late in the play (Webster 1973: 200). But the girl need not have been a lost citizen; possession, real or fake, surely posed a sufficient obstacle to marriage.
Roman adaptations
119
Like Sostratos and Demeas, this speaker immediately leaps to the worst conclusions. It may seem surprising that he invokes the “whore” as a model of feminine immorality even though the girl is clearly not a prostitute of any kind. His questions are insinuating: the word “gifts” (often euphemistic for “payment” to hetairai) implies an understanding with the giver; “garland,” associated with the symposium, suggests she flaunts herself in public; and the demand that she “rave inside” presumes a degree of control possible only if she is faking.110 He does not really believe she is a prostitute, since he holds her to higher standards. His epithet “great whore” expresses a fear that her actions will endanger her social position. Like the outraged speaker of fr. 450 K-A (“Get out of this house: a decent woman shouldn’t dye her hair blonde”), this man is trying to shock, bully, and threaten the young woman into behaving in a way that will preserve her status and marriageability. He has an interest in protecting her reputation. Unlike Demeas, who broadcasts his quarrel by kicking Chrysis out of the house, or Nikeratos, who fantasizes about publicizing her behavior in the barber shops, this speaker makes the charge in private. He also spares her the accusation that such behavior is natural or normal for her. The misconduct, or apparent misconduct, does not change his basic view of her identity. In fact, a youth who hears this speech takes the man’s frustration as proof that her possession is genuine (“She’s not faking” 23–4). Evidently there has been some suspicion, since he and a friend have arranged to test her by playing korybantic music (if she really is “possessed,” she will have to respond to the call of the god). His faith in her suggests he is in love (it would be in his interest to see her vindicated, if he hoped to marry her), while his unaccountable enthusiasm (“By Zeus, this is great, Lysias, absolutely great” 29–30) suggests that he, like so many Menandrian lovers, sees what he wants to see. Despite the obvious advantages to classing her with approachable women, he still chooses to see someone marriageable. with fathers are not potential hetairai, even in a comic fiction. roman adaptations The figure of the hetaira may have been more central to errors concerning moral character than the extant Menander corpus would suggest. Three Roman adaptations of Menander’s plays show the same pattern of scrutinizing the behavior of women who are already marginalized as prostitutes. 110
See Davidson 1997: 120–7 on the hetaira’s “gifts” (“Such language labels the girl immediately as a Hippoporne, a Mega-whore” 123).
120
Misperception of character
In two cases, the woman’s status is further lowered through confusion with her dramatic double: a lost daughter about to enter the profession is mistaken for a veteran. It is unfortunate that so few of Menander’s hetaira plays have survived, as he seems to have used the type imaginatively in misperception plots. His most famous hetaira, Thais, is attacked in the prologue of the Thais (“brash . . . doing them wrong, shutting them out, making frequent requests”). Presumably these complaints were developed, since the monostich “bad company corrupts good morals (@)” suggests that her moral influence was a recurring theme. One lover even mutters about tolerating a few harsh epithets (“intemperate, imbecile, disaster”), so long as he has “her.” Were the “good morals” his? Unfortunately, we know very little about this play. Her reception by the Roman elegists who made Thais an icon of sophisticated refinement suggests that the portrait was not entirely negative.111 Plautus’ Cistellaria, which is based on Menander’s Synarist¯osai (“The Women who Breakfast Together”), has a false accusation scene, similar to those in the Samia and Dis Exapat¯on, in which an angry father upbraids a meretrix (the usual Latin translation of “hetaira”) for ruining his son. This short scene shows the license permitted where low-status women were concerned. Not only does this man freely address a woman he has never met (and in a public street, something she admits is degrading: “standing alone in the street is for streetwalkers” 331), but he is tactless and rude. “I want something at your house” (323). “Haven’t you got any other lover besides my son alone?” (368–9). Like Demeas and Sostratos, he readily scapegoats the woman in order to excuse the young man. “Why do you mark out me, and my son, and his mother, and our property for ruin and robbery (perditui et praedatui)?” (365–6, 369). In good Roman fashion, this father concerns himself primarily with the financial damages (he greets the young woman as “you incentive to Trouble and Loss” 321, after complaining privately that she is keeping the young man from “a sumptuous, fattened-up dowry” 305), but he also believes she is “corrupting” his son (corrumpit filium 317). What he does not realize is that he is speaking to the wrong meretrix. The woman in front of him is simply house-sitting for a few days as a favor to the actual girlfriend, who will of course prove a marriageable lost daughter. Attacking her through a surrogate is a more vivid way of dramatizing an alternative possibility than the hostile speculations we have seen in other plays: the quick-talking floozy who mocks the old man is literally what the respectable lost daughter might become. It also allows the playwright to 111
See further Traill 2001.
Roman adaptations
121
stage a direct confrontation without subjecting a well-born woman to the indignity of having a stranger make insulting accusations to her face. Her status entitles her to a proxy. The father’s moral censures are grounded in an identity mistake that results from misinterpreting ambiguous signs – the young woman’s appearance, her words, the house. Emotions play a large role in the process. He came on stage spoiling for a fight (“She’s keeping him from enormous wealth” 305) but was sidetracked by a rather Menandrian emotional ambivalence. Like Demeas, he is worried about drawing false conclusions and – unlike Demeas – a little reluctant to condemn a woman he finds attractive (“I may be an old nag, but I could still whinny at a fine filly like her if I had her alone” 307–8). When he lays out his case, as if appealing to us to judge it, he speaks with hesitation and uncertainty: sed cum dicta huius interpretor, haec herclest, ut ego opinor, meum quae corrumpit filium. suspicatiost eam esse, utpote quam nunquam viderim; de opinione credo. nam hasce aedis conductas habet meus gnatus, haec ubi astat: hoc hanc eam esse opiniost; nam haec illum nominavit. (316–20)112
When I interpret her words – Hercules! – she’s the one, if I’m not mistaken, who’s corrupting my son. It’s a guess it’s her, since I’ve never seen her; going by conjecture, I believe so. Because my son has rented the house where she’s standing. It’s my belief that this woman is the one; also, she just named him.
The parataxis, parenthetic phrases and general disorganization of this speech create an effect of spontaneity. There are ample markers of the subjective nature of his argument, e.g., the first person verbs interpretor, opinor, and credo, or the postponement of his last piece of evidence (“She just named him”) until after his summation (“This woman is the one”), as if he does not need it to convince himself but believes his audience might. Although we are not allowed to forget that it is an argument from probability (suspicatio est, opinio est), there is nothing really wrong with his reasoning. He knows that his son has been keeping a meretrix and the woman in front of him is “a decked-out hussy” (mulierculam exornatulam 306) – the sort who probably corrupts young men regularly. Moreover, she has just stepped out of his son’s house and her comments are misleading – innocently at first (she praises the house and the young man without making her own identity clear), and later by design (“The wretch has it 112
Text of Leo 1895. Terence citations are from Kauer and Lindsay 1961.
122
Misperception of character
wrong . . . I’ll fool him” 366–7). He has typed her correctly but has confused her with another meretrix, that is, perceived her accurately per se but inaccurately per accidens, as discussed in the previous chapter. The result is an amusing situation of dramatic irony: she can truthfully claim to be innocens (368) of the specific charges, particularly when he accuses her of limiting herself to a single lover (“She gets married daily,” brags her mother, “got married today and will get married tonight” 43–4). At the same time she is guilty of everything else he insinuates. Indeed, her last preserved line sounds like a proposition (“You old fellows usually provide a thoroughly charming bit of business” 373–4). As we will also see in the Epitrepontes, a prostitute was a useful stand-in for a high-status woman, and not just for reasons of decorum. A performer by definition, she was expected to be willing and able to embody someone else’s fantasy – or nightmare – adapting her “mutable and fluid identity” to any role.113 There is a similar confusion in Terence’s Heauton Timoroumenos. In this play a young man briefly mistakes a ruinously expensive meretrix for the demure lost daughter he once loved and launches into a string of false accusations. The evidence is purely circumstantial: he is told that his beloved is approaching with a retinue of servants (she is, but they belong to the meretrix), all “weighed down” with gold and clothing (245–8) and ready to bring the house to ruin (“What they’ll eat! What they’ll drink!” 255). The youth is quick to identify the marks of the meretrix avara: greed, infidelity, ingratitude. “While I was wandering far from home because of you, out of my mind, you made yourself rich meanwhile and deserted me in my misfortune. It’s because of you that I’m in utter disgrace” (258–60). The slaves and gold, however, only confirm a suspicion he had formed on much slighter grounds. He was already speculating about his girlfriend’s “corruption” from the most trivial of infractions: she was late (“If my love affair were going well, I know they would already have arrived” 230). His suspicions are easily traced to emotional causes. Having risked his father’s affection and his own reputation, he is understandably nervous about her fidelity. A friend reproves his hasty judgment (“Do you insist on judging (diiudicare) this before you know the truth?” 236) but he justifies his pessimism (“My mind foresees some sort of mishap”) by pointing to her social situation: “many factors fit together . . . the circumstances, the place, her age, the evil mother under whose power she was, a woman who valued nothing but payment” (231–4). In other words, she was already suspect before she took up the profession: simply being a poor woman 113
Quotation from McClure 2003: 26.
Roman adaptations
123
without male relatives was enough to make prostitution a possibility. Later he makes it clear that the character of the individual counts for little against the norm. “It’s standard procedure,” he remarks, “to bribe the maids first, for those who are trying to get to the mistresses” (300–1). The mere signs of wealth are sufficiently damning. This youth was in a sense preprogrammed to expect the worst. His father was constantly “harping on the morals of these women” (260) and upbraiding him for keeping a girlfriend “in the position of a wife.” The young man’s suspicions balloon in proportion to his anxieties. Indeed, they are strong enough to persist even after the identity mistake is cleared up. He still demands proof of chastity in the form of an unannounced visit by his slave. When this goes well, he concedes a degree of uncertainty about his fears (“There’s nothing I would prefer than to suspect this falsely” 267–8), but does not question that moral character can be inferred from external signs. “Do you know what this ‘dirty and badly dressed maid’ means? It’s a huge sign that the mistress is blameless” (297–8).114 The slave calls this what it is: an “inference” (coniectura 266). In addition to the ambiguities surrounding the youth’s suspicions, there are further cues to set us straight about the girl. The woman who “was called her mother” held “power” (imperium) over her, a more appropriate word for an owner/slave relationship. Typed as a bawd with a single word (“payment” 234), this ostensible mother evidently hoped to profit from the girl but died prematurely. Thus Terence foreshadows the girl’s recognition and reassures us that she would never have embraced prostitution of her own accord. Like Glykera, she is at most a victim of “corruption” (corrupta 231) in the eyes of her lover, not responsible for her own potential fall. Of course, she will prove innocent of even the semblance of misconduct (the tardiness is the fault of the real meretrix). Again a prostitute serves as a potential alter ego for a lost daughter, brought on stage so that the two may be confused. A final example from Terence’s Eunuchus shows the same interplay of status-based preconceptions and emotional biases in fostering misperceptions of a prostitute. In this play, the high-priced meretrix Thais offers ample grounds for suspicion: she does in fact spurn an earnest youth for a rich soldier, at least for a few days. Like Chrysis, she is trying to do a favor and counting on her lover’s tolerance. She may be guilty of a little overconfidence but she is not actually playing him false. The young man, however, disbelieves her claims of wanting to return an enslaved Athenian 114
The description of poverty was in the original ( ! % | M 8$ m ' fr. 80, cf. Heauton 293); perhaps the inferences drawn from it were as well.
124
Misperception of character
to her family. The whole scheme to wheedle the slave from the soldier looks like business as usual to him, “the outrageous behavior of prostitutes” (meretricum contumelias 48). Again we see a young man predisposed by his socialization to demonize a prostitute. His complaints prompt a disquisition from his jaded slave on the psychology of human sexual behavior, all calculated to reinforce the image of the whore. Thais is manipulative (“She’ll end this blather with one fake tear, which she can barely squeeze out” 67–8), rapacious (“You were never satisfied with one man” 122) and dishonest (“Anything false, empty or fake becomes public knowledge immediately . . . if you want it kept quiet, tell the truth” 104–6). Outside the young man’s hearing he calls her a gold-digger (meretrix avara 927) and even congratulates himself on showing him “the character and habits of prostitutes” (meretricum ingenia et mores 932). Despite appearances, these women are really “disgusting . . . and greedy for food,” devouring “black bread dipped in yesterday’s broth” (935–40).115 In the Greek original, the young man’s father also cast a vote against Thais. According to Donatus “Menander shows more openly that the old man has hitherto been hostile to the prostitute since [the youth] was corrupted by her” (Don. ad Eun. 1000, p. 477, 18). A relatively trivial offense is enough to class Thais as a despised type and invite charges of more serious misconduct. Her disgruntled lover recites all of the stock accusations: “You didn’t see my generosity being shut off, did you?” 163–4); “For this (sc. the gift of an Ethiopian girl and a eunuch) I’m spurned?” (171). She is corrupt (scelestam 71), dishonest (“If only you were speaking truly and from the heart” 175), incapable of returning honest love (“Would that I had a share of love equal to yours, so that either this hurt you as it hurts me or I didn’t care that you had done it!” 91–4) and possibly even jealous (“You’re afraid that this girl . . . will steal such a fine fellow from you” 161–2). Bitterness and resentment cause him to see a world of vices in one small rebuff, and yet, like other despairing lovers, he is not quite ready to surrender his illusions: “If I believed this were true, I could put up with anything” (176–7). The satirist Persius, who cites the opening scene in the Greek play as a moral example (Schol. ad 5.161), has him ask hopefully, “Do you think she’ll be upset, because she’s been left?”. There is no mistake about Thais’ identity here, or even, broadly speaking, about her moral character. She is neither a lost daughter nor a reluctant professional like Chrysis, eager to retire into a quiet domestic life. Thais 115
This description hardly fits the elegant Thais, but see Rosivach 1998: 117, 137 on the ideological importance of proving the “poverty” of hetairai, even successful ones.
Conclusion
125
fully expects to work for a living and can offer her young lover only a brief period of exclusivity, despite her affection for him. If anything, she treats the soldier as she is accused of treating the young man, pretending to love him only for his gifts. She is still in a sense vindicated (or at least absolved of the worst vices of her type) and allowed the protection of a grateful family. She is also allowed to challenge the basis of virtually every false accusation against a Menandrian hetaira: “He . . . judges me now by the character of other women” (ex aliarum ingeniis 197–8). This young man is not the only one to assimilate an individual to a larger group on tenuous grounds: Demeas openly spoke to Chrysis of “women like you,” while the Heauton youth’s father used to denounce “the morals of these women.” The shameless whores of their anxious speculations, however, never materialize. It seems that the type was of more interest to Menander as a conceptual tool than a dramatic reality, a figure more useful to “think with” than to dramatize. Donatus believed Terence was innovating by making a meretrix like Thais “good,” but he was simply making explicit what was already in Menander. conclusion With the limited scope of high-status women’s roles, it is no surprise that many of the most active and visible female characters in Menander are drawn from the lower echelons of Greek society. Women of low status generally and hetairai in particular suit plots involving misperception well because their social position was fluid and could be misconstrued. As one recent scholar has noted, “As foreigners and outsiders who belonged to no one and yet made themselves available to all, the courtesan’s visual and textual signification could more readily be multiplied, manipulated, and continually mediated than that of citizen wives.”116 The category of “hetaira” was loosely defined. Any woman without a solid claim to a more privileged status (a suitable father was usually sufficient) might be accused of being a hetaira, a kind of default category that was much harder to stay out of than to fall into. Even poor citizens and metic women from good families were not immune. The woman who lived as a man’s mistress was not quite part of the demimonde (although the threat always hung over her), but she was not part of a citizen family either. Since status was often hard to pin down, mistaken ideas about it were easily made to seem plausible. Because women at the social periphery were presumed to envy 116
McClure 2003: 108.
126
Misperception of character
the privileges of higher-status women, suspicions of social climbing, like Demeas’ in the Samia or Smikrines’ in the Epitrepontes (discussed in chapter 5), always had a certain credibility, regardless of past behavior. Hetairai were the women with the liberty to live lives that made interesting drama – quarreling with lovers, breaking up families, managing significant sums of money and property, traveling and socializing with the wealthy and prominent. They had a degree of mobility and independence denied to women with family networks. Their connection to any household was informal and voluntary, and thus easily broken. In Menander, misunderstandings give rise to sudden, dramatic ruptures, with all the emotions but few of the social and financial repercussions of divorce. The ease with which Demeas terminates his affair is out of proportion to its emotional cost, Glykera can leave Polemon at a moment’s notice, and even a captive like Krateia is eventually given the chance to leave Thrasonides. In these plays Menander takes advantage of the soluble ties which marginal women had to a citizen oikos. As a flexible symbol, the hetaira in particular served as an ideal locus of # : an ambiguous figure in whom other characters could credibly see an image of their own creation, a reflection of their hopes or fears. An optimist like Moschion in the Perikeiromen¯e sees a woman who is attractive and available; angry and disillusioned characters see only shameless profiteers. High-status women, on the other hand, are given the same protection they enjoyed in the courts: they are hardly seen, much less scrutinized, by outsiders. Questioning the moral character of a marriageable girl was so unthinkable that one Menandrian father makes a joke about it, complaining that prospective grooms haul the dowry onto the table “so an assayer can test whether the silver – which won’t last five months – is good, but they do not test the woman who will live inside for life” (fr. 804). The (character) of freeborn girls, like the legal status of citizen men, was simply not acceptable material for comic misunderstanding. Comparatively few plays, accordingly, involve mistakes about a woman’s moral character although almost every play involves some confusion about her status. When women are easily accessible the playwright looks elsewhere for obstacles, creating problems from perceived (or real) faults of character. High-status men, however, face plenty of ethical scrutiny. Indeed, the central problem of the genre is the difficulty of learning the true worth of one’s $%. Their character is what really matters, a bias consistent with the norms of public discourse. Propertied citizen men could expect personal attacks in the courts and the assembly if they took any significant part in public life. Their female relatives were mentioned only when questions of
Conclusion
127
status came up, and even then their names were kept private. Accordingly, in Menander women of good birth – the legitimate daughters of freeborn propertied men – must be demoted before they may be suspected, and the harshest accusations come from the least authoritative characters. The lower down the social scale, the fewer the restrictions on what might be said against them. Mistakes about character thus start with mistakes about social identity. Sostratos in the Dis Exapat¯on, the young man in the Heauton Timoroumenos, and the Cistellaria father simply have the wrong woman; Demeas misidentifies the mother of the child; Getas and Thrasonides are unaware of Krateia’s relationship to the soldier’s alleged victim; Sosias and Polemon do not know that the young rake next door happens to be Glykera’s brother. The false inferences these men draw about the women’s moral character result from reading ambiguous behavior against the norms of a particular status category. These norms vary; there is no single standard of conduct by which all women are judged. As Helene Foley has shown, judgments about women’s moral behavior are socially conditioned.117 A baby mean something quite different for a hetaira than for a married wife, but a hetaira had liberties a wife did not. Opinions about the appropriateness of a particular action can take account of sex, age, class, juridical status, nationality and all the other factors that determined a person’s place in Athenian society; these opinions may also be influenced by subjective factors, such as emotions. This is why mistaken identity is so often a moral issue, with considerable room for disagreement. If there is already a subjective element in assessments of a woman’s status, there is even more room for bias and emotional distortion in interpretations of her behavior. Menander’s plays reflect moral standards that we know many Athenians held, but they also have rules and conventions of their own (e.g., that rapist-victim marriages are always desirable to both parties) and we cannot assume a strict correlation between what is presented as acceptable on stage and what was considered acceptable in real life. Character types come with their own normative standards. Some are quite subjective: an angry father wants a hetaira to spread her costs over dozens of clients; her infatuated lover wants her to reject everyone but him. I have tried to draw attention to the dramatic irony of these misperceptions and to show how the playwright invites us to sympathize with the characters’ emotions, while at the same time cuing us to mistrust their understanding and judgment. Sostratos’ portrait of his hetaira is not to be 117
Foley 2001: 112–44, esp. 119–20.
128
Misperception of character
taken at face value any more than Demeas’ picture of Chrysis (which we know to be false) or Getas’ cynical remarks about Krateia. Their misperceptions are plausible within the dramatic context, however. They fit what characters have observed and they are formed under the influence of emotions that proverbially distorted judgment. “No one deliberates soundly in anger” runs one fragment (Mon. 564), “We’re all crazy, when we’re angry” runs another (Mon. 503), while a fragment from the Naukl¯eros claims that “Every man in love is by nature easily led” (fr. 250 K-A). Aristotle recognized anger and love as emotions that could prevent people from perceiving accurately, and Demeas and Sostratos offer textbook examples of “springing to take revenge” after a kind of preliminary reasoning (“reasoning as it were,” k NE 1149a33) convinces them that they have been injured.118 They use techniques familiar to Athenians from public life: arguments from probability, invention of motives, the “proof” of consistency with past behavior. The Athenian legal system encouraged this kind of argument, but it was comedy that showed people using it to fool themselves. Techniques for influencing others have become techniques for controlling unwelcome information. As Davus exclaims in the Andria, “Now the old man is duping himself!” (495). Menander’s most interesting characters are all irrational judges of the truth. Do these apparent victims of emotional thinking have ulterior motives? It is not hard to see in these harsh portraits an attempt to preserve a core community by expelling a marginal figure. “A good father does not hold anger against his son” runs one monostich (635). He certainly does not do so because of a hetaira. The outsider status of the hetaira offered special dramatic possibilities. She could be punished without the repercussions that would ensue from punishing central, permanent members of the community. Accordingly, characters try to shift responsibility down the social scale and outside the oikos. Demeas, Sostratos, and the old man in the Cistellaria quarrel with the women directly, blaming them and excusing the young men, hoping their problems will vanish if the women are removed. Demeas will hide the matter from Nikeratos; Sostratos will not be angry with Moschos. Even Getas condones Thrasonides’ obsession, blaming Krateia for all his distress. This sense of shared victimization at the hands of a woman brings the men closer together, offering an image of male solidarity and showing how even a “corrupt” woman may serve as an instrument of homosocial bonding. Demeas and Sostratos view their faithless mistresses as everything the young men should not be – disloyal, 118
Rhet. 1377b31–1378a5, De Somn. 460b1–15, EN 1149a24–35 (discussed in ch. 2).
Conclusion
129
dishonest, intemperate and thankless – even as they suppress nagging suspicions that this may not be quite true. Nikeratos blames Chrysis for the disobedience of his wife and daughter and even Thais is blamed for spoiling a youth who was once serious and self-restrained (severus, continens, Ter. Eun. 227). These angry men readily cast the women as whores, even supplementing their accusations with scenarios they invent, as if by burdening them with additional faults they could make the young men less guilty. As one recent scholar has argued, “Menander’s realism and humanity come . . . at the expense of sublimating our desires, of suppressing our rage at our friends, forgetting who we are, finding a pleasing image for ourselves, and finding convenient scapegoats on the periphery of society.”119 As a rhetorical strategy, the position these characters take is consistent with the advice of handbooks. To turn an audience against someone, speakers were advised to show that he belonged to a “hated” class, like thieves or sycophants. Semonides’ catalogue notwithstanding, for women there was only one such class (although comedy was freer than other genres to criticize rich wives), which is why Demeas, Sostratos, Parmeno in the Eunuchus, the father in the Cistellaria, and even the Theophoroumen¯e speaker all draw upon the figure of the corrupt whore. As the embodiment of virtually every misogynistic trope, she typifies the “radical other,” a role Froma Zeitlin has applied to all women in tragedy.120 In Menander, she can serve as an “antimodel” for both men and women, embodying qualities that are unthinkable in the well born. Indeed, her utility as a worst-case scenario may be one reason she does not actually appear on stage. There is more than just rhetorical technique here, however. These men are not deliberately or cynically manipulating evidence. Low status left women vulnerable both to errors about their identity and to speculation about their morals. A long cultural tradition, shaped by Old Comedy, invective and oratory and inculcated by moralizing fathers and cynical slaves, created a ready-made villain in the hetaira and exerted pressure to scapegoat her, rather than higher-status members of the community. Psychology and enculturation thus combine in creating comic misperception. When Menandrian men look at the women they love, paradoxically, a whore is what they actually see. 119
Batstone 2005: 26.
120
Zeitlin 1996: 347.
chap t e r 4
Informing the audience
The preceding chapters explored how and why characters in Menander make fundamental mistakes about those closest to them. Much of the genre’s appeal lies in watching people “wander in ignorance,” as Chance says at the beginning of the Aspis, and for this, an audience needs to know the truth. Status questions are easily resolved simply by situating the disputed individual within the correct kinship group. In these cases, Menander generally uses the prologue to set us straight. For example, “Misapprehension” in the Perikeiromen¯e explains Glykera’s relationship to Moschion, Moschion in the Samia confesses that the baby is his, Chance explains that Kleostratos is not really dead, and an unidentified prologue speaker in the Phasma tells us that the apparition is a real girl. It was not so easy, however, to enlighten an audience about more complex aspects of identity such as personality and moral character, particularly in ambiguous cases. Chance succinctly types Smikrines as “rotten,” (140), and Chairestratos as “good,” (125), but most characters fall in between. The debate over whether Menander created a “good hetaira” reflects the moral complexity of his low-status women, many of whom engage in problematic behaviors – good by one standard, bad by another. This chapter focuses on techniques Menander uses to win sympathy for women of compromised status who are the objects of mistakes about their moral character (Glykera, Krateia, and Chrysis), in order to persuade us that they deserve the social elevation they receive at the end of the play. In all three cases confusion comes about largely because they are caught between conflicting obligations from different social roles. The playwright gives us a unique understanding of their moral character through a variety of dramatic techniques, from significant choices to reasoned defenses and – in one case – a visual symbol, as he tries to persuade us gradually, steering us, like a good orator, toward the right conclusions but leaving us to draw them ourselves. By giving us a unique frame of reference, Menander invites 130
Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos
131
us to judge the women by a different standard than characters within the play. Behavior that appears irrational to the other characters is revealed to us as the product of reasoning, showing qualities the resolutions suggest we ought to approve. Not everyone in an ancient audience would necessarily have agreed with the final distribution of rewards and punishments but dissenters would at least have been able to judge the women from a more balanced perspective and could thus appreciate the errors of those who cannot. Whether or not these techniques convince us that the women have behaved properly, they do clearly establish who is “wandering in ignorance.”
p e r i k e i r o m e n e¯ and m i s o u m e n o s In both the Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos lost daughters are restored to fathers who arrange legitimate marriages for them (the Siky¯onioi will not be discussed here because so little of Philoumene’s part remains). Accounts of low-status women who end up with plush marriages are essentially stories of upward mobility. There was nothing surprising about this story pattern; it was familiar from myth and folktale. The problem was to justify the promotion legally, socially, and morally. As the prosecution of Neaira illustrates (a notorious Corinthian hetaira who was tried in Athens between 343 and 340), marriage to an unqualified woman was a sensitive topic at Athens. In order to excuse the crossing of boundaries which Athenians – and Greeks generally – were committed to defending (legitimacy, citizenship, freedom), New Comic playwrights make heavy use of the fiction that an original “lost” status is being restored, a solution that appears in many of Menander’s plays. Questions of social and moral suitability required subtler treatment. To address these, Menander makes a point of emphasizing that this original status, far from being forgotten, remains at the core of the woman’s sense of identity and reveals itself in the internalized values she expresses when she makes major decisions. Her values are of course at odds with the position in which the she finds herself. When faced with a dilemma that tests their priorities – for example, being forced to choose between claims of natal and “marital” families – these characters think and act like the legitimate daughters they really are. Menander thus invites us to judge them by their former status, overlooking their ingratitude to the soldiers, for example, because they remain loyal to their unacknowledged brothers. In the case of Glykera and Chrysis (who will be discussed later), he also affirms their place in a legitimate oikos by showing that they are socially accepted by other married women.
132
Informing the audience
Glykera actually makes four significant choices in the course of the play. The first draws on a familiar tradition.1 In the prologue to the Perikeiromen¯e, the goddess Agnoia (variously translated as “ignorance,” “misperception,” “misapprehension,” and even “mistaken identity”) narrates Glykera’s decision to let her brother embrace her, an incident which was reported to Polemon, thus sparking the quarrel. It is not unusual to attach dramatic weight to a “choice” we do not see on stage. Philoumene’s supplication, narrated by a witness in Act IV (and probably discussed earlier by at least one principal character), is not dramatized either. Given the importance of misperception here, the narrative format is useful for limiting what we see and how we interpret it. It allows the playwright to exonerate Glykera in the eyes of the audience while leaving her reasonably suspect to the other characters. And Menander takes some trouble to shape our response. Agnoia, the one figure who cannot be mistaken, uses her divine authority and considerable rhetorical skills to convince us of Glykera’s innocence, perhaps correcting or supplementing a less sympathetic account in the lost opening scene (she mentions a man who “[has said] the rest” 158), like the nonce-god Auxilium (“aid”) in the Cistellaria. She hints that Glykera was a reluctant accomplice in Moschion’s unwitting imposture: she would have preferred to act “openly” ( -, also suggesting the “frankness” associated with free birth). Moschion only saw her “by accident,” as she stood in the doorway to send her maid on an errand, and her role was entirely passive (“she didn’t run away” but “wept, standing”).2 Like any good speaker, Agnoia recognizes the importance of proper motivation: Glykera acted for perfectly suitable reasons, reasons so important that Agnoia mentions them before describing her reaction (“because she knew he was her brother, she didn’t run away”). At the same time the goddess discredits Moschion as a “rather impudent” young man with a disreputable habit of watching the house (“always deliberately hanging around”), who “swooped in” unexpectedly. Admittedly, the wailing about “not being able to do these things openly” (161) could suggest duplicity, but there is an innocent explanation: she means she cannot embrace her brother openly, for fear of revealing his secret – not her lover (as the witness must have assumed), for fear of Polemon. 1
2
See the Eurpidean examples discussed below and cf. Poen. 1301–25. Aristotle mentions another variant at Rhet. 1400a25–6. There is a (humorously?) misunderstood embrace at Eur. Ion 519–24 and a misrepresented one in Plautus’ Miles 288–9. Only prostitutes let themselves be seen on the threshold (e.g., Athen. 13.586a, implicit at Theophr. Char. 28.3), a boundary respectable women were not supposed to cross (Men. fr. 815 K-A, Ar. Thesm. 792, but see Cohen 1991: 148, McClure 1999: 24 and n. 90, Blok 2001: 109–10, 116).
Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos
133
Euripides had already exploited the dramatic irony of the compromising embrace – an intimate gesture from an apparent stranger, a sister failing to recognize her own brother – in the Electra (220–4) and the Iphigeneia in Tauris (795–7). He also recognized the possibility for humorous misunderstanding. Electra is later “caught” by an angry husband who complains “It’s disgraceful for a woman to stand around with young men” (El. 343–4).3 In the Perikeiromen¯e, Menander minimizes the sister’s resistance and defers the recognition scene in order to instigate a quarrel that will test Glykera’s loyalty. He turns this tragic gesture into a declaration of allegiance and a demonstration of character intelligible only to the audience. But he can also develop its comic potential. The Misoumenos uses the same gesture for its humor and spectacle value. In the otherwise serious reunion between Krateia and Deme