A WORD IN THE PERSAE

b y R. P. Winnington-Ingram

Aeschylus, for some reason which we cannot determine, opened his Persae with a reminiscence of the first line of Phrynichus’ Phoenissae. TGV ndrhai P E ~ ~ K ~ T W V to TGV oixo&wv - a change for which the difference of metre could sufficiently account. It has, however, been suggested1 that oixopivwv was “chosen instead of the colourless ~ E ~ ~ K ~ T W V . . . in order to sound the first note of disaster heard so clearly in O’I’XWKE at line 13”. convey a sinister sense i s shown by Persae 1002f.: add the adverb ndrhai to it, with Phrynichus, and it certainly does not. The case for believing so must stand on i t s own Aeschylean legs without help from Phrynichus. is purely factual, so that it would be out of place to anticipate there the forebodings expressed in lines 8-11”. and in order; and light may be thrown on the verbal art of Aeschylus.

In doing so, he changed

That the perfect of paivw could itself

But i s the TGV oixoclkvwv of Aeschylus sinister?

It may not be enough to say with Broadhead2 that “the opening sentence

The occurrences of this word must be considered together

1. The hint, if it i s seizable at all, i s of the vaguest description: it would go for nothing, if it were not followed up.

12-13. nEua y&p ia& ’Aaia-royEviS O’~XWKE. The hint is slightly stronger, just by reason of the fact that the subject is not plural, but a singular abstract noun (used collectively). rather more strongly than to say that men have gone suggests that they are dead.

To say that strength has gone suggests that it has perished

59ff. T O ~ O V G ’ n ~ p d 6 0 ~ a’ias o’iXE-rai ErvGpGv. With characteristic ring- composition, Aeschylus rounds off the anapaests with a return to the subject-matter and language of line 1, nEpai6aS a’ias corresponding to ~ E P U ~ V , diXETaI to o i x o ~ i v w v . As in 12-13, the subject of the verb i s a singular abstract noun; and what was said on that passage applies here also. But there is more to follow. ’AaikiS 8piyaua n68y UTkVETai pahEp+. absence and death, though it i s used, with i ts cognates, about the dead; U T ~ V W , aTkvopai, are extremely common in tragedy of lamenting the dead (cf. 548, to which we shall return). The ensuing use of words proper to lamentation thus strengthens the potential suggestive force of O’iXETal.

03s &pi nEua x8&v Of these words n68os i s neutral a s between

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Taking these passages by themselves and together, we can, I think, say with some plausibility that the use of o’ixeoeal in 1 i s hardly a hint at death, in 13 a faint hint, in 60 a clear hint. o’iXETai T T E U ~ V (which i s the first tidings of the loss of life) would seem to recall 59, but now the word T T E O ~ V puts the meaning of o’iXETai beyond a m b i g ~ i t y . ~ i s clearly sinister. words from the earlier part of the play;4 and this may be one of them, deliberately recalling 1, 13, and 60. passage i s 546ff. the first half of the play - TGV O ’ I X O ~ ~ V O V i s immediately followed by vJv 64 np6naaa pzv ( T T ~ ya?”Aais ~ K K E V O U P ~ V ~ . ~

with 59-62 in mind.

But we must look at other occurrences also. In 252 ~b I l ~ p a G v 6’avBos

At 916 TGV oixopkvwv There are many reminiscences in the closing scene of themes and

But the most interesting - and to my mind the conclusive - Here, in a context of lamentation - the lamentations which round off

It i s surely hard to believe that this was not written

If this line of interpretation i s correct, Aeschylus has gradually - and deliberately - . unfolded the implications of diXEaea1. One might compare a similar but l e s s elaborate instance of the same technique in this play.6 n~podv (1, 15, 23) and n ~ p o i 6 0 ~ (59) are followed by T I E ~ U ~ T T T O ~ I S (651, on which I quote from Broadhead’ s note: “That Aeschylus . . .hints at a connexion between nipaai and nkpeo, i s not unlikely. Here, at the beginning of the play, the Persians are the ‘destroyers of cities’ ( d a s Zers torer - volk), but they end by destroying themselves (Pohlenz, p. 47; cf. 6ianEn6peqTai T&

I l ~poGv np&ypaTa, 714).”

That proper nouns may be significant and that events may disclose the implications of a name i s a familiar Greek n ~ t i o n . ~ It seems that something of the sort may be true of any word. The word has a life and a potency of i ts own; and it could well be this power of the word a s such that accounts, partly, for that repetitive verbal technique in Aeschylus which i s so alien to our mental habits that some crit ics have been reluctant to acknowledge i t s importance.

Humps tead

NOTES

1 J . T . Sheppard, C R 29 (1915) 34.

2 H. D. Broadhead, The Persae of Aeschylus, n. on 1-2.

3 Cf. E. B. Holtsmark, SO 45 (1970) 15.

4 I give some examples in J H S 93 (1973) 210-19.

5 There are some uncertainties about the text (see Broadhead ad loc.) which do not affect the point.

6 Simpler sti l l , at 73 eobpios, of Xerxes, is *a common epithet of ‘dashing’, ‘impetuous’ warriors” (Broadhead); when it recurs in 718 and 754, “the context suggests something of Xerxes’ rash impetuosity”.

7 Cf. E. Fraenkel, Aeschylus Agamemnon I1 331 (with references); W . J . Verdenius Maia 15 (1963) 125.

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