Shakespeare's Ear

by Tim Rayborn

  Aeschylus was born in Eleusis, a town north of Athens, and it seems that he was destined for greatness as a playwright from a young age. At least this is what the Greek writer and geographer Pausanias (ca. 110–ca. 180 CE) wrote when he recorded that as a young man, Aeschylus worked in a vineyard. He attracted the attention of none other than the wine god Dionysus, who visited him in a dream and told him that he should, instead of toiling among the vines, turn his attentions to writing dramatic tragedies, which were soon to become all the rage. Aeschylus obeyed the god’s suggestion (really, how could he refuse?) and did just that.

  He served in the wars against the Persians, which informed his earliest-surviving play, titled, appropriately enough, The Persians. His penchant for writing what he knew eventually led him into trouble, however. It seems that he may have been devoted to the Eleusinian Mysteries, which had nothing to do with gumshoes and murder, but was a cult based on the myth of Demeter and Persephone. The devotees of this secretive religious sect were required to keep mum about its ritual activities. Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, suggests that Aeschylus may have spilled the beans on at least some of these secrets in a play or two:

  But of what he is doing a man might be ignorant, as for instance people say “it slipped out of their mouths as they were speaking,” or “they did not know it was a secret,” as Aeschylus said of the mysteries …

  Yep, the old “it just slipped out” defense.

  Apparently on one occasion, some audience members who heard such a confession were not pleased with this little faux pas, and attempted to kill Aeschylus. Some sources say that he took refuge at the altar in the theater of Dionysus; it would make sense to appeal to the god that got him into this whole business to begin with. He was brought to trial but eventually acquitted, in part because of his war service. Thereafter, he went on to achieve great acclaim, winning prizes in drama competitions and generally being cheered all around.

  The Roman writer Pliny the Elder (23 CE–79 CE) claimed that a shadow hung over him, however, in the form of a prophecy that he would die from a falling object. Because of this, Aeschylus preferred to be outside to avoid any heavy objects, such as statues, falling on him while indoors. And sure enough, for a man who devoted his life to tragedies, he met his end (so legend says) in an astonishingly tragi-comic way. Pliny faithfully (or not) recorded in his Natural History:

  [The eagle] has a clever device for breaking tortoiseshells that it has carried off, by dropping them from a height; this accident caused the death of the poet Aeschylus, who was trying to avoid a disaster of this nature that had been foretold by the fates, as the story goes, by trustfully relying on the open sky.

  Apparently, the bird was confused by his bald head and saw it as a nice shiny rock on which to bash out the innards of the unfortunate tortoise. The hapless reptile fell to its doom, and took Aeschylus with it. Presumably, the bird had a lovely feast afterward, with a place setting of dead Greek dramatist. Ah well, the best-laid plans and all that.

  Sophocles (ca. 497/96–406/05 BCE)

  Out of breath, all choked up, or just plain happy

  Sophocles is most remembered for the disturbing family goings-on in his three Theban plays: Oedipus the King (or Oedipus Rex), Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. These days, people are vaguely familiar with the plot, which kept Freud and friends busy for quite some time, but the details are still quite shocking: when Oedipus is an infant, it is prophesized that he will kill his father and marry his mother, so his parents, King Laius and Queen Jocasta, plan to murder him. However, the servant they entrust with doing the appalling deed (not being willing to do it themselves, of course) cannot go through with it, and the baby ends up with a childless couple. Oedipus grows up not knowing his heritage, but one day he learns of the prophecy and flees from his adopted parents, thinking them to be his biological ones and wanting to spare them.

  He eventually meets and quarrels with—you guessed it—Laius, kills him (check box one), solves the riddle of the Sphinx (as you do), becomes the new ruler of Thebes, and marries—you guessed it—Jocasta (check box two). When the truth emerges, Jocasta kills herself out of shame, and Oedipus blinds himself and goes into self-imposed exile. However, the two had children—ew—and the legacy of the family’s curse lives on in them.

  Oedipus goes to the town of Colonus. He dies and his sons, Polyneices and Eteocles, quarrel, as you may remember from Aeschylus’s Seven against Thebes. Polyneices dies, and Oedipus’s daughter Antigone wants to bury him in Thebes, but because he was declared a traitor, she cannot. She resolves to do so anyway, and King Creon (brother of Jocasta) sentences her to death. Eventually, he is convinced to change his mind and spare her, but Antigone has already committed suicide. Creon’s son, Haemon (Antigone’s fiancé), kills himself after unsuccessfully attempting to stab Creon in revenge. Learning of Haemon’s suicide, Creon’s wife, Eurydice, kills herself in grief and curses her husband. Creon is left alone and distraught, but hopefully wiser. Cheery stuff.

  Sophocles was born into wealth and became the most acclaimed playwright of his time. He is credited with the innovation of adding a third player to the stage (which allowed for more realistic interactions; previously only one or two actors performed onstage together) and of giving his characters more emotional depth. He allegedly lived a very long life; some sources say as long as ninety-one years. As you might expect, different accounts of his life circulated, and there are no fewer than three versions of his death, two of them quite silly and the third rather charming. One story relates that he choked on grapes at the Anthesteria festival in Athens, held each January or February in honor of Dionysus; maybe the god wasn’t as impressed with Sophocles as he had been with Aeschylus. A second tale relates that he expired from trying to read aloud a long passage from his play Antigone; he wanted to do it in one breath for dramatic effect, but couldn’t manage and died. The third story says simply that he died of happiness at winning a victory in a competition. A eulogy composed some time afterward noted that “he ended his life well without suffering any misfortune,” so there may be some truth to the peaceful death story, but let’s be honest, it’s not as much fun as the other two.

  Euripides (ca. 480–ca. 406 BC)

  Gone to the dogs

  Euripides was the third of the great ancient Athenian Greek dramatists, along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, yet more of his plays have survived than those of the other two combined—as many as nineteen out of more than ninety that he wrote, still a tragically small number (slight pun intended). This may have been due to the later Romans considering him to be the superior playwright and so taking care to preserve more of his works.

  His tragedies are retellings of ancient myths and often focus on the dark side of human nature. They include The Trojan Women (which tells the sad fates of the women after the fall of Troy), Bacchae (an account of Dionysus and his wild and frenzied worshippers), Electra (the daughter of Agamemnon who plots revenge for his murder), and Medea (a spurned wife takes revenge on her former husband, Jason).

  His plays often dealt more with everyday concerns than mythic ones, despite the use of such myths to tell the stories. Women feature as strong individuals, another unconventional representation, and a controversial one to his male Athenian audiences, who were not used to seeing women portrayed in such a way. For many, his characters were too realistic for the time, and his tendency to represent various gods less reverently than custom dictated led some to accuse him of atheism.

  There is one amusing plot device that has long been associated with Euripides. He was especially fond of the literary solution of bringing in a god to solve problems. During the performance, this was commonly done by having said god lowered by a crane (mechane) from the roof down onto the playing area, to the amazement and wonder of all. The appearance of such a divinity gave rise to the Latin expression deus ex machina, “god from the machine,” and became associated with using a contrived plot device to get one out of a narrative problem that couldn’t o
therwise be resolved. While certainly useful, this approach was considered lazy by some. The comic playwright Antiphanes (ca. 408–334 BCE) was an early critic of its use: “When they don’t know what to say and have completely given up on the play, just like a finger they lift the machine and the spectators are satisfied.” Some have defended Euripides’s use of this solution, since in his plays, the gods cause many of the problems to begin with, so it’s only right that they should clean up their own messes.

  Biographies of Euripides are conflicting, and his end is no exception. He may have been invited to settle in Macedonia by King Archelaus I in 408 BCE. If so, he doesn’t seem to have lasted there long. Various versions of his death have circulated over the centuries. One states that he simply succumbed to the effects of a harsh Macedonian winter, which was considerably colder than those of Athens and took its toll on his old body. The more interesting account says that a woman seeking revenge, perhaps his wife, let loose a pack of dogs on him, who tore him apart. Another account says that a group of women did it, perhaps the frenzied followers of Bacchus that he had written about, which would be an ironic end, to be sure!

  Philemon (ca. 362 BCE–ca. 262 BCE)

  He made an ass of himself

  Not to be confused with the Philemon of the New Testament, this fellow hailed from either Cilicia on the south coast of Turkey or the island of Sicily; the records are a little unsure about his origins because those place names sound pretty similar. Regardless, by about 330–328 BCE he made his way to Athens, where he showed a talent for writing comedies. He is said to have written ninety-seven dramas, of which some fifty-seven are known to us by title or at least in some surviving fragments. He won competitions and made quite a name for himself, as his brand of comedy was all the rage.

  He is said to have died at the ripe old age of a hundred and one—other sources say between ninety-six and ninety-nine; if true, this was quite an accomplishment, surpassing even Sophocles. This longevity was attributed to his temperance, frugality, and desire for a simple and happy life, but in all likelihood it’s just a literary fiction. Perhaps befitting one who lived so long, there is more than one version of his death. The best comes from the Roman historian Valerius Maximus (ca. 20 BCE–ca. 50 CE) and involves a donkey, fruit, and alcohol. It is retold here in a splendid account by the English dramatist Richard Cumberland (1732–1811). It sounds like a Monty Python skit. The odd letter that looks like an “f” with no crossbeam is an old form of “s.” But if you want to pronounce it as an “f” just for laughs, feel free. “Fuffocated by a fudden fit” does sound pretty sunny, er, funny:

  [Maximus] tells us Philemon was ſuffocated by a ſudden fit of laughter upon ſeeing an aſs, who had found his way into the houſe, devour a plate of figs, which his page had provided for him; that he called out the boy to drive away the aſs, but when this order was not executed before the animal had emptied the plate, he bade his page pour out a goblet of wine and preſent it to the plunderer to complete his entertainment; tickled with the pleaſantry of this conceit, and no leſs with the groteſque attitude and adventure of the animal, Philemon was ſeized with a fit of laughing and in that fit expired.

  There is probably a lesson to be learned in all of this, but exactly what that might be is not clear; maybe all will be revealed after drinking a bit more wine.

  Seneca the Younger (ca. 4 BCE–65 CE)

  To bleed or not to bleed

  Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman philosopher, statesman, and dramatist during the turbulent decades of the first century, when Rome seemed to be ruled by one crazy, incompetent emperor after another—seriously: Tiberius, Caligula, Nero; what the hell? Even if you’ve only seen the TV production of I, Claudius, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how nutty and scary these guys were (at least according to their biographers).

  Born in Córdoba, Spain, but raised in Rome, Seneca later had the less-than-enviable responsibility of being tutor and then advisor to Nero, the famously tyrannical ruler who fancied himself a master musician (let’s just say he wasn’t) and who may or may not have had a hand in the fire that devastated the city in 64 CE.

  Seneca was a gifted writer of tragedies, and his surviving plays had great influence during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. His style, especially in the form of the revenge tragedy, was quite popular in Elizabethan England, when such blood-soaked tales were in great demand. His plays may or may not have been acted in his own lifetime. Some have argued that they were merely intended for private recitation, since public theaters at the time didn’t usually stage “serious” tragedies. But they do work well onstage and have been successfully presented in modern times, so perhaps he did hope for them to be performed.

  In his role as an advisor to Nero, Seneca may have had some success in limiting the young man’s excesses in the first year of his reign, but he was later criticized as being a hypocrite for denouncing tyrants while remaining in the service of one. He seemed to enjoy his life of extravagance as well, as historian Cassius Dio (ca. 155–235 CE) wrote:

  Though finding fault with the rich, he himself acquired a fortune of 300,000,000 sesterces; and though he censured the extravagances of others, he had five hundred tables of citrus wood with legs of ivory, all identically alike, and he served banquets on them.

  Undoubtedly, living amid luxury tainted him over time, and Nero’s insane activities probably bothered him less than they should have. But realistically, what choice did he have? He couldn’t just denounce the young man, hand in his two weeks’ notice, and apply for the position of advisor to another emperor somewhere else. He walked a fine line in the service of a dangerous and unstable youth, and it ultimately came back to haunt him.

  At first, it seemed like he would escape this precarious situation intact. The one thing he could and did do when he wanted out was offer to go into retirement. Surprisingly, Nero agreed, and they apparently parted on good terms. This post-tyrant life went well for a few years, but in 65 CE, a certain statesman named Gaius Calpurnius Piso hatched a plot to assassinate Nero (who by now really was getting out of hand) and have himself declared emperor. The plan was foiled, but Seneca was implicated as a conspirator; whether he had actually been involved is unknown.

  Of the more than forty people accused, nearly half were ordered by Nero to commit suicide, a clever form of execution that saved him the time and effort. Besides, refusing to do so would mean being arrested and executed anyway; at least with a suicide, the victim could choose how they would die. Seneca was one of those ordered to die by his own hand, and he complied with the imperial command. He had his veins opened and prepared to bleed to death. However, according to the historian Tacitus, Seneca’s age and poor diet meant that he did not bleed quickly, and that the process was painful. He ingested poison, but this likewise failed to do the trick. He then had himself immersed in a bath, which allowed the blood to flow more freely and was considered a painless way to pass on. Ultimately, he probably suffocated on the thick steam from the bathwater.

  Seneca’s reputation as a philosopher was such that he was brought into the Christian fold. Some early Christian writers believed that he had converted to Christianity before his death; some even held that his death in the bath was a kind of baptism. This clever interpretation of the facts allowed for his works to be preserved and exert great influence in Western Europe over the next 1,500 years and more. Nero wasn’t so lucky, being seen as a crazy monster.

  Atellan farces and Roman mimes (ca. 391 BCE–third century CE and later)

  A mad extravagance

  Atellan farces, or fabulae Atellanae, were rustic comedies imported to Rome from southern Italy around 391 BCE, though the writer Livy (ca. 59 BCE–ca. 17 CE) records that they were first performed in Rome in 363 BCE as a means of appeasing the gods and combating a pestilence that was ravaging the area. I guess that makes sense; there’s a terrible disease, so let’s make the gods laugh and maybe they’ll do something about it.

  These farces were vulgar plays with low-
brow humor that poked fun at everything—politics, myths, contemporary issues—and contained a good amount of improvised humor and off-the-cuff remarks, so that no two shows were ever quite the same. The players (most often from the lowest classes of society) wore masks and portrayed a series of stock characters: the mean and sneaky Macchus, the obese and simple Bucco, the greedy and arrogant Manducus, the elderly and foolish Pappus, and the agile, clown-like Samnio. The similarity between some of these fellows and those in the later Italian Commedia dell’Arte has long been recognized, and the Commedia may represent a survival in folk tradition of these earlier Roman originals, though not all scholars accept this lineage. Essentially, the farces presented the lower classes in comical and even insulting ways, which was a reflection of how the upper classes viewed them.

  By the early first century BCE, two Roman dramatists, Lucius Pomponius and Quintus Novius, created written plots for the Atellan farces, giving them a literary format and more respectability. Special actors were hired to perform these new comedies, which were presented at the end of tragedies, presumably to give the audience something lighter before they went home. It was rather like the cartoons shown at the beginning of movies back in the day, only in reverse.

  Despite this respectable new incarnation, the plays were controversial and had detractors among older, more conservative Roman citizens and those who held power. According to Tacitus, Emperor Tiberius, who was lampooned by one such farce for his legendary lechery, responded to complaints with the following proclamation, a classic pot-kettle-black situation: