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Deianeira’s ‘Deception Speech’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

D. A. Hester
D. A. Hester*
Affiliation:
University of Adelaide
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Extract

In the Ajax of Sophocles Ajax, deprived of his intended revenge over the Greek leaders who deprived him of the arms of Achilles, has resolved on suicide. Tecmessa has sought to dissuade him, appealing to the need to care for their baby son; Ajax has rejected her, saying that he is too old to be taught lessons. But suddenly all is apparently changed. He re-enters and talks of the changes brought by time and seasons; he himself has learnt his lesson, and will purify himself, bury his sword, and seek reconciliation with his enemies. The speech is a very vexed problem in the interpretation of the Ajax, especially since, when he next appears, Ajax seems to have forgotton all about it, and proceeds with his suicide without any reference to his previous change of mind, if such it was. But this is a complex problem, requiring full discussion elsewhere.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 14 , 1980 , pp. 1 - 8
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1980

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References

1 See my ‘Heroic Distemper’, Prometheus 5 (1979), 241–55.

2 Text of scholia edited by Papageorgius, P.N. (Leipzig 1888).Google Scholar

3 Jebb, R.C. edition (Cambridge 1892), p. 71Google Scholar: Bowra, CM., Sophoclean Tragedy (Oxford 1965), 124–34.Google Scholar The passages which they cite (Lysias 1. 31, Isaeus 3. 39, Eur. Andromache 222-7) to prove the social acceptability of keeping mistresses in the home imply the reverse; Lysias and Isaeus are both arguing a fortiori that if one has some regard for mistresses, one must have more for wives; Andromache’s willingness to accept Hector’s mistress into her house is clearly intended as the extreme example of tolerance to which the most devoted wife could go.

4 E.g.Adams, S.M., Sophocles the Playwright (Toronto 1957), 118;Google ScholarBeck, A., Hermes 81 (1953), 20–1;Google ScholarBignone, E., Poeti Apollinei (1931), 26–31;Google Scholar Bowra, op. cit. 133–4; Bremer, J.M., Hamartia (Amsterdam 1968), 458–9;Google ScholarDickerson, J.W., The structure and interpretation… (diss. Princeton 1972), 250–65, 523–4;Google ScholarEasterling, P., BICS 15 (1968), 62–3;Google ScholarEicken-Iseling, E., Interpretationen… (diss. Basel 1942), 154–6;Google ScholarGardiner, M.M., Physis and nomos … (diss. Harvard 1973), 143–4;Google ScholarGellie, G.H., Sophocles (Melbourne 1972), 61–2;Google Scholar Jebb, op. cit. xxxii–iii and 71; Kane, R.L., Hoia an genoito (diss. Berkeley 1965), 53–4;Google ScholarKirkwood, G.M., A study… (Ithaca 1958), 113–4;Google ScholarKitto, H.D.F., Poiesis (=SCL 36 (1966]), 167;Google ScholarLetters, F.J.H., The Life and Work… (London 1953), 199;Google ScholarMason, H.A., Arion 2.2. (1963), 113–15;Google ScholarMéautis, G., Sophocles (Paris 1957), 267–9;Google ScholarMusurillo, H., The Light… (Leiden 1967), 63;Google ScholarParlavantza-Friedrich, U., Tàuschungszenen… (Berlin 1969), 22–4;Google ScholarPerrotta, G., Sofocle (Messina 1935), 497–502;Google ScholarRose, H.J., Aberystwyth Studies 8 (1926), 3–5;Google Scholar G. Schiassi, edition (Firenze 1953), on 436;Sorum, CE. Monsters … (diss. Brown University 1975), 32, 46–8;Google ScholarUntersteiner, M., Sofocle (Firenze 1935), 1. 238–40;Google ScholarWebster, T.B.L., Essays G. Murray (Oxford 1936), 169;Google ScholarWhitman, CH., Sophocles (Cambridge, Mass. 1966), 117–18;Google Scholarvon Wilamowitz, T., Die dramatische Technik … (Zurich 1917), 150–4.Google Scholar

5 E.g. L. Campbell, edition (Oxford 1881), 285; Collins, C.W., Sophocles (Edinburgh 1897), 129;Google ScholarEhrenberg, V., DUJ 4 (1942/3), 51–62;Google ScholarHarsh, P.W., A handbook… (Stanford 1944), 130–1;Google ScholarHowald, E., Diegriechische Tragödie (München 1930), 127;Google ScholarKamerbeek, J.C., Mnemosyne ser. 4. 1 (1948), 275–6Google Scholar (an even milder view in his commentary [Leiden 1959], 15-16 and 109-10); Lesky, A., Greek Tragedy, trans. H.A. Frankfort3 (London 1967), 109Google Scholar and Die tragische Dichtung 3 (Gôttingen 1972), 211; Macgregor, M., Studies and Diversions … (London 1937), 164–5;Google ScholarMaddalena, A., Sofocle (Torino 1956), 142–3;Google Scholar S. Radermacher, edition (Berlin 1914), 19–20; Reinhardt, K., Sophocles, (Paris 1969), 102–3;Google ScholarSchmid, W. / Stahlin, O., Geschichte der griechischen Literatur (München 1934), 1. ii. 378;Google ScholarSolmsen, F., Philologus 87(1932), 10–12;Google ScholarWaldock, A.J.A., Sophocles the Dramatist (Cambridge 1966), 97–8.Google Scholar Agnostic is Pohlenz, M., Die griechische Tragodie (Göttingen 1930), 205.Google Scholar

6 Lines 470–4.

7 Albini, U., Parola del Passato 27 (1968), 212–70;Google ScholarErrandonea, F., Sófocles (Madrid 1958),165–232;Google Scholar see also Mnemosyne 55 (1927), 145–64 and Actas 1. Congr. Esp. de Estui Clas. (Madrid 1958), 472–8; Houghton, H.P., Pallas 11 (1962), 69–102;CrossRefGoogle ScholarLa Rue, J.A., Sophocles’Deianeira (diss. Berkeley 1965), esp. 216–33;Google ScholarWellein, L.T., Time past and the hero (diss. Washington/Seattle 1959), esp. 54–9;Google ScholarZielinski, T., Iresione (Lwow 1931), 260–391, esp. 293–320;Google Scholar compare also Philologus 55 (1896), 491–540 and 577–633.

8 C. Schmelzer, edition (Berlin 1888); Schlegel, A.W., Lectures on Dramatic Art …, trans. Black (Leiden 1815), 1. 135.Google Scholar

9 On the relationship of plot and character in Sophocles see especially Easterling, P.E., G & R 24 (1977), 121–9Google Scholar and Gellie, G.H., AUMLA 20 (1963), 241–55.Google Scholar

10 For the comparison in detail see Kapsomenos, G.,Sophokles’ Trachinierinnen… (Athens 1963), 39–107.Google Scholar

11 Reinhardt, op. cit. 46–7; I owe this reference toΚ. Rigsby.

12 See especially Stoessl, F., Der Tod des Herakles (Zurich 1945),Google Scholar who ascribes this version to the epic Capture of Oechalia; see also Kapsomenos op. cit.. [Hesiod], Catalogue of Women frag. 25 (ed. Merkelbach, R. & West, M.L. [Oxford 1967])Google Scholar is too fragmentary to enable us to be sure which version is intended.

13 De placitis philosophorum, Moralia 881 D (but the authorship is uncertain).

14 Hercules Oetaeus 256–582, 706–1024.

15 That Bacchylides followed Sophocles is (pace Stoessl) unlikely, even if the Women of Trachis is (as I believe) among Sophocles’ earliest extant plays.

16 490–6; so also La Rue and Wellein (n. 7 above).

17 553–77; see Wellein 67; of course, after the event it is easy to judge (707–18).

18 586–93.

19 596–7.

20 604–9.

21 680–704.

22 803–6; note that Hyllus is not sure of this.

23 1107–11.

24 1123, 1136–42 (contrast 734–40, 806–20).

25 Compare e.g. 65–6, 550–1, 720–2.

26 See Gellie (n. 4 above) 65–6, Kamerbeek 138, Whitman 115, 266.

27 680–4.

28 727–30.

29 In the Oedipus Rex; he has second thoughts in the Oedipus at Colonus.

30 719–22, 739–40, 899–931.

31 See Albini (n. 7 above).

32 E.g. Linforth, A.M., University of California publications in Classical Philology 14.7 (1952), 255–67;Google Scholar von Wilamowitz (n. 4 above) 155–64.

33 1058–63 (compare A ntigone 678–80) and 1070–5 (compare Prometheus Bound 10026)