by Aeschylus
KERKYÔN
A satyric play dealing with the story of Cercyon, son of Poseidon and king of Eleusis, who forced all passers-by to wrestle with him. Bacchylides 17. 26 says that Theseus “closed his wrestling-school.”
FRAGMENT 52
Pollux, Vocabulary 10. 175.
Ear-coverings close to his ear-rings.
amphôtides were worn to protect the ears of wrestlers.
KÊRYKES
The Heralds or The Messengers was a satyric play on an unknown subject; possibly connected with Heracles.
See Fragments 168, 170, 171, 178.
FRAGMENT 53
Pollux, Vocabulary 10. 186.
Down over the skin-coat of lion’s hide.
KRÊSSAI
The seer Polyidus of Corinth discovered the dead body of Glaucus, the lost son of Minos, and restored it to life by his skill in interpreting Apollo’s oracle that had been made known to the father. The power to bring the child back alive – so the god declared – was to be given him who could find the most appropriate object to be compared to Minos’ marvellous cow, which each day became in turn white, red, and black (cp. Frag. 54). The legend of Polyidus was the theme of Sophocles’ Seers.
To The Women of Crete have been ascribed Fragments 165, 173.
FRAGMENT 54
Athenaeus, Deipnosophists ii. 36. p. 51D; cp. Eustathius on Iliad 1254. 25.
For at the same season [the branch] is weighed down by mulberries, white and black and red.
LEÔN
The Lion was a satyric play of unknown subject. The title may be derived from the Nemean lion overcome by Heracles.
Stephen of Byzantium, Lexicon 699. 13.
The bane of wayfarers, the serpent that haunts the place.
LYKOURGOS
The satyric play of the Lycurgean trilogy.
FRAGMENT 56
Athenaeus, Deipnosophists x. 67. p. 447C.
And after this he drank beer thinned by age, and made thereof loud boast in the banquet-hall (?).
MEMNÔN
According to the story in the Aethiopis of the Cyclic poet Arctinus of Miletus, as summarized by Proclus in his Chrestomathy 458, Achilles is informed by his mother Thetis that Memnon, the son of Eos, clad in full armour fashioned by Hephaestus, has come to the aid of the Trojans. Antilochus, the son of Nestor, is slain in battle by the Ethiopian prince, who in turn is slain by Achilles, whose mother begs of Zeus the boon of immortality for her son. Achilles routs the Trojans, bursts into the city, is killed by Paris and Apollo; his body is borne to the ships by Ajax, while Odysseus keeps the Trojans at bay. Thetis, attended by the Muses and her sister Nereïds, arrives on the scene bewails her son, whose body she takes from the funeral pyre and carries to the island of Leuce.
The trilogy consisted of The Memnôn, Psychostasia, The Weighing of Souls (the order is disputed), and a third play unknown, but probably dealing with the death of Achilles. In the Psychostasia Zeus was represented as holding aloft the balance, in the scales of which were the souls of Achilles and Memnon, while beneath each stood Thetis and Eos, praying each for the life of her son. Comparing the passage in the Iliad (X 210), in which Zeus weighs the fates of Achilles and Hector, Plutarch (How a Young Man ought to hear Poems 2. p. 17A) says that Aeschylus accommodated a whole play to this fable.
Fragments 155, 161, 181, 183 have been referred to the Memnon.
FRAGMENT 57
Eustathius on Iliad 1156. 18, Bekker, Anecdota Gracea 445. 18 (kai . .. arkios); cp. Hesychius, Lexicon.
And lo, he draws near and his advance fills us with chilling fear, like a blast from the North that falls on sailors unprepared.
FRAGMENT 58
Bekker, Anecdota Graeca 353. 11 (Aischulos Agamemnoni: Memnoni Wellaeuer), Photius, Lexicon 42. 16 (Reitzenstein).
Bronze, unshorn (?) and stretched over the shield.
Restoration and translation are wholly uncertain. The ancients were hopelessly confused between the words athêrês, atheirês, ateirês, atêrês, atherêtos, atheritos. Possibly the bronze of a shield may be said to be “unshorn,” “unconquered,” since a weapon “shears off” what it strikes (cp. Euripides, Suppliants 716).
MYRMIDONES
The Achilles-trilogy, the “tragic Iliad,” consisting of the Myrmidones, Nêreïdes, Phruges ê Hektoros lutra, dramatized (so far as this was appropriate by visible action or reported description) the chief events of the Homeric story of the death of Patroclus, the slaying of Hector, and Priam’s ransom of the body of his son.
See Fragments 155, 240, 263, 266.
FRAGMENT 59
Harpocration, Glossary of the Ten Attic Orators 259. 11, explaining propepôkôs as having the meaning of prodedôkôs; l. 1 Aristophanes, Frogs with Scholiast.
Beholdest thou this, glorious Achilles, beholdest thou the distress wrought by the destructive lance upon the Danaans, whom thou hast betrayed, yet sittest idle within thy tent?
From the parodus of the Chorus of Myrmidons.
FRAGMENT 60
Aristophanes, Frogs 1264 with Scholiast.
Lord of Phthia, Achilles! Why, oh, why, when thou hearest the man-slaying (Ah woe!) buffetings of war, dost thou not draw night to our rescue?
By the repetition of l. 2 in Frogs 1266, 1271, 1275, 1277, after other high-sounding dactylic measures, Aristophanes is here seeker (inter alia) to ridicule Aeschylus for his iteration of the refrain and his strange use of interjections. In the present instance kopon yields an intelligible sense with androdaïkton; in the other cases the word (and the entire verse) has no connexion with what precedes, being solely designed to mark the obscurity of Aeschylus’ choral lyrics.
A later Scholiast on Frogs 1264 and on Prom. 441 ascribes the two verses to envoys, whose pleadings that Achilles enter the battle were received with inflexible silence.
FRAGMENT 61
Scholiast Venetus on Aristophanes, Peace 1177; l. 1 Scholiast Ravennus on Frogs 932.
The buff horse-cock fastened thereon, the laborious work of outpoured paints, is dripping.
When the Trojans set fire to a ship of the Greeks (in O 7171 Hector attempts to burn that of Protesilaüs), the heat caused the melting of the paint of the figure (or picture of a horse-cock, the emblem of the vessel. A horse-cock is pictured in Harrison and MacColl, Greek Vase-Paintings pl. viii.
FRAGMENT 62
Aristophanes, Women in Parliament 392 with Scholiast. The Scholiast ends the quotation with mallon, but, since Gataker, the following words are also generally ascribed to Aeschylus.
Antilochus, bewail me, the living, rather than him, the dead; for I have lost my all.
FRAGMENT 63
Scholiast on Aristophanes, Birds 807, 808, Suidas, Lexicon s.v. tauti men; l. 1 Pseudo-Diogenianus, Proverbs (Paroemiographi Graeci i. 180); ll. 4-5 Birds 808 and often in late writers: Dionysius of Halicarnassus, On the Power of the Style of Demosthenes 7, Philo of Alexandria, On the Incorruptibility of the World 14. 49 (Cohn and Reiter vi. 88), Galen, On the Opinions of Hippocrates and Plato iv (vol. v. 395), Aristeides, On Rhetoric 15 (ii. 17), Athenaeus, Deipnosophists xi. 86. p. 494B. Eustathius on Iliad 632. 35.
Even so is the Libyan fable famed abroad: the eagle, pierced by the bow-sped shaft, looked at the feathered device, and said, “Thus, not by others, but by means of our own plumage, are we slain.”
Achilles has lost his friend Patroclus, who, by his consent and clad in his armour, fought to rescue the Greeks only to lose his life.
FRAGMENT 64
Athenaeus, Deipnosophists xiii. 79. p. 602E, cp. Plutarch, On Love 5. p. 751C; 1.2 Plutarch, How to know a Flatterer from a Friend, 19. 61A.
No reverence hadst thou for the unsullied holiness of thy limbs, oh thou most ungrateful for my many kisses!
Fragments 64-66 are from the address of Achilles in the presence of the corpse of Patroclus, who had been slain by Hector (P 821) and lay with his lower limbs uncovered. Achilles here mournfully urges against him the reproach that, in his forbidden advance against
the Trojans, he had been heedless of the affection of his friend.
FRAGMENT 65
[Lucian], The Loves 54.
And the chaste nearness of thy limbs.
The Fragment was ascribed to Aeschylus by Porson.
FRAGMENT 66
Bekker, Anecdota Graeca 321. 22, Suidas, Lexicon s.v. abdelukta, etc.
And yet – for that I love him – they are not repuslive to my sight.
MYSOI
According to the common version of the legend, Telephus, son of Heracles and Auge, daughter of Aleüs of Tegea, being ignorance of his parents, was directed by an oracle to seek for them in Mysia, of which country Teuthras was ruler. Aristotle (Poetics 1460 a 32), however, referring to the fault that improbably incidents are sometimes set forth within a play (whereas they ought, if possible, to be external, as part of the fable) alludes to Telephus as having come speechless all the way from Tegea to Mysia, a taboo explicable only if he had incurred blood-guiltiness (cp. Eumenides 448). Telephus had, in fact, killed his maternal uncles.
Fragment 208 has been referred to The Mysians.
FRAGMENT 67
Strabo, Geography xiii. 1. 70. p. 616 (wrongly ascribing the verse to the prologue of The Myrmidones, an error corrected by Pauw), Macrobius, Saturnalia v. 20. 16.
Hail, Caïcus and ye streams of Mysia!
FRAGMENT 68
Photius, Lexicon 344, 19, Suidas, Lexicon s.v. orgeônes.
Hail, thou first priest of Caïcus’ stream, by thy healing prayers mayest thou preserve thy lords!
FRAGMENT 69
Photius, Lexicon 113. 15 (Reitzenstein).
I saw them trotting (?) amid the spears.
NEANISKOI
The Youths, the third play of the Lycurgus-trilogy, apparently has its name form the Edonians who celebrated the worship of Dionysus that had gained admission into the kingdom of Lycurgus despite the opposition of that prince.
See Fragments 179, 187, 193, 210, 256.
FRAGMENT 70
Athenaeus, Deipnosophists xi. 109. p. 503C.
Breezes in cool, shady places
FRAGMENT 71
Photius, Lexicon 102. 13 (Reitzenstein).
Besides, in addition to these, having the plenteous woes of the immortals.
NÊREÏDES
Thetis, accompanied by her sister Nereïds, comes from the depths of the sea to enquire the cause of the lamentations of her son (cp. S 53 ff.). She finds Achilles by the dead body of Patroclus and promises to procure from Hephaestus new armour that he may take vengeance on Hector, who has been exulting over the death of Patroclus. The play probably contained a description of Achilles’ new armour, his reconciliation with Agamemnon, and his combat with Hector, whose corpse was dragged in at the close.
See Fragments 158, 189.
FRAGMENT 72
Scholiast on Euripides, Women of Phoenicia 209.
Having crossed the plain of the sea, that bears dolphins
FRAGMENT 73
Herodianus Technicus, Excerpts 22. 31 (Hilgard).
Let fine linen be cast about his body.
FRAGMENT 74
Hesychius, Lexicon s.v. enarophoros, states that ancient commentators compared X 412: “for it is unholy to boast over slain men,” and gives the meaning of the much mangled words as follows:
Death, the spoiler and slayer, angry at boastings, will quit the company of the immortals on high (?).
FRAGMENT 75
Scholiast on Pindar, Nemean 6. 85 (53).
Hurling the shaft with forked point
NIOBÊ
The place and progress of the action of this famous drama cannot be determined with any certainty. Apart from the title-heroine, the only person know to participate in the action is Tantalus, the father of Niobe – himself, like his daughter, destroyed because of evil pride engendered by great good fortune. Niobe, according to Homer (Ô 602 ff.), had vaunted herself a more prolific mother than Leto, whose two children, Apollo and Artemis, therefore slew her seven sons and seven daughters. From Fragment 81 it has been inferred that he scene remained Thebes throughout the play. Since it is expressly reported that Sophocles in his Niobe made the mother return to her native Lydia after the destruction of her children in Thebes, it is likely that this transference of the place of action from Thebes to Lydia was not anticipated by Aeschylus. – The older poet gives no hint as to the reason for the calamity visited by Zeus upon Amphion, Niobe’s husband and his own son.
Sources other than the text inform us that Aeschylus gave Niobe fourteen children, a number adopted by Euripides and Aristophanes; whereas, apart from other variations in the tradition, Homer states that they were twelve, Hesiod twenty, equally divided as to sex. – Until the third part of the play Niobe sat speechless upon the tomb of her dead offspring, apparently the most celebrated instance of the dramatic device of silence often employed by Aeschylus, and for which he is ridiculed by Euripides in Aristophanes, Frogs 911.
It has been disputed whether the title refers only to the one play Niobe, or whether, like Prometheus, it was both a collective designation of an entire trilogy and also the name of a single drama; in any case, as to the dramas presented at the same time we have no information. Welcker sought to establish the group Trophoi (distinct from Dionysos trophoi), Niobê, Propompoi. R. J. Walker finds a trilogy in Kallistô, Atalantê, Niobê on the ground that all the persons thus named suffered metamorphosis, and that Artemis was prominent in each member of the group. From Aristotle (Poetics 18. 1456 a 16) it would seem that Aeschylus did not, like some playwrights, deal with the whole story of Niobe. There is no indication whether or not Aeschylus adopted the legend that Niobe was turned to stone.
Fragments 197, 227, 240 have been ascribed to the Niobe.
FRAGMENT 76
Choeroboscus (41. 10) on Hephaestion’s Handbook of Metres 7 (Consbruch 3. 15).
Maidens such as these Ister and pure Phasis claim to breed.
FRAGMENT 77
Plato, Republic ii. 380A, whence Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel xiii. 3. 643C; without mention of the poet’s name: Plutarch, How a Young Man ought to hear Poems 2. 17B, On Common Conceptions against the Stoics 14. 1065E.
God planteth in mortal men the cause of sin whensoever he wills utterly to destroy a house.
FRAGMENT 78
Hesychius, Lexicon s.v. epôzein (he took the passage to mean that Niobe sat over her dead children as a hen sits on her eggs – an interpretation still current).
Seated on their tomb she made lament over her dead children.
FRAGMENT 79
Strabo, Geography xii. 7. 18. p. 580; speirô . . . chôron Plutarch, On Banishment 10. 603A, That a Philosopher ought chiefly to converse with Great Men 3. 778B.
I sow a field twelve days’ journey wide, even the Berecynthian land, where Adrastea’s seat and Ida resound with lowing oxen and bleating sheep, and the whole plain roars.
Spoken by Tantalus. The words of Fragment 80 have regard to the overthrow of his house and followed close upon those of Fragment 79.
FRAGMENT 80
Plutarch, On Banishment 10. 603A.
My fate, that dwelt aloft in Heaven, now falleth to earth and saith to me “Learn not to esteem human things overmuch.”
FRAGMENT 81
Stobaeus, Anthology iv. 51. 1 (Hense v. 1066) in cod. Sambuci; ll. 1-3 Scholiasts AB on Iliad I 158 (cp. Eustathius on Iliad 744. 3); l. 1 Aristophanes, Frogs 1392, Scholiast on Sophocles, Electra 139, and on Euripides, Alcestis 55, Suidas, Lexicon s.v. thanatôn, monos theôn, pagkoinos.
For, alone of gods, Death loves not gifts; no, not by sacrifice, nor by libation, canst thou aught avail with him; he hath no altar nor hath he hymn of praise; from him, alone of gods, Persuasion stands aloof.
FRAGMENT 83
Plato, Republic iii. 391E; cp. Strabo, Geography xii. 8. 21. p. 580.
The kindred of the gods, men near to Zeus, whose is the altar of Zeus, their sire, high in clear air on Ida’s hill, and in their veins not yet hath ce
ased to flow the blood divine.
Spoken by Niobe, says Strabo.
XANTRIAI
The subject of this play is the rejection of the newly instituted worship of Dionysus either by Pentheus or by the daughters of Minyas. The Scholiast on Eumenides 24 states that the death of Pentheus took place, in the Xantriai, on Mt. Cithaeron; and Philostratus (Images 3. 18) describes a picture in which the mother and aunts of Pentheus rend asunder (xainousi) the body of the unbelieving prince. On the other hand, Aelian (Historical Miscellanies 3. 42, cp. Ovid, Metamorphoses 14. 32 ff.) relates that Leucippe, Arsippe, and Alcithoë, the daughters of Minyas, out of love for their husbands, held themselves aloof from the orgiastic rites of Dionysus and attended to their weaving (in which case Xantriai might yield the meaning “Wool-Carders”) and to punish their obstinacy, the god brought madness upon the sisters, so that they tore to pieces the son of Leucippe; in consequence of which deed of blood they were pursued by the Maenads. – Hera appeared in the play in the guise of a priestess begging alms (Fragment 84); and Bacchic frenzy was incorporated as Lyssa (Fragment 85). By some the drama is regarded as satyric.
FRAGMENT 84
Scholiast on Aristophanes, Frogs 1344, Diogenes, Letters 34. 2; l. 3 Plato, Republic ii. 381D.
For the nymphs of the springs, the glorious goddesses mountain-born, I beg a dole, even for the life-giving children of Inachus, the Argive river.
FRAGMENT 85
Photius, Lexicon 326. 22, Suidas, Lexicon s.v oktôpoun.
From the feet up the corwn of the head steals the spasm, the stab of Frenzy, aye, the scorpion’s sting.
FRAGMENT 86
Pollux, Vocabulary 10. 117.
Shafts of pine tree ablaze with fire.
FRAGMENT 87
Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates’ Epidemics vi, vol xvli. 1. 880.
[Women] upon whom looketh neither the sun’s flashing ray nor the starry eye of Leto’s child.
Possibly from a description of the Maenads, whose appearance is represented as equally strange with that of the daughters of Phorcys, upon whom “neither doth the sun with his beams look down, nor ever the nightly moon” (Prom. 796). Hecate, a moon-goddess, is here identified with Artemis.