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"Why Should I Dance?": Choral Self-Referentiality in Greek TragedyAuthor(s): Albert HenrichsReviewed work(s):Source: Arion, Third Series, Vol. 3, No. 1, The Chorus in Greek Tragedy and Culture, One(Fall, 1994 - Winter, 1995), pp. 56-111Published by: Trustees of Boston UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20163565 .Accessed: 18/05/2012 08:24

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"Why Should I Dance?": Choral Self-Referentiality in Greek Tragedy

ALBERT HENRICHS

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

?Yeats

An the beginning, there was the "chorus"?a collec

tive of khoreutai performing the dance-song {khoreia).1 Greek

musical culture is defined by khoroi whose performance combines

song and dance, a feature which characterizes numerous forms of

cultic poetry and which choral lyric, whether cultic or not, shares

with drama. The polymorphous Dionysiac chorus forms the

nucleus of Greek comedy and satyr-play, in historical as well as

structural terms. But what about tragedy? How strong are its Dio

nysiac credentials? Should we give credence to the anonymous Hel

lenistic wit who declared that tragedy had "nothing to do with

Dionysos" (ou??v jtq?? t?v Ai?vuoov)?2 On the contrary, Dionysos is very prominent in a large number

of extant tragedies, in Sophocles no less than in Aeschylus or

Euripides, but the complexity of his presence within the dramatic

and religious structures of these plays has only recently begun to

receive the attention it deserves. For the past two hundred years,

the vast majority of scholars interested in Attic tragedy and its

antecedents has proceeded on the plausible assumption that the

tragic chorus, like the chorus of comedy and satyr-play, originated in choral performances connected with the cult of Dionysos.3

Many scholars believed, with Aristotle and Nietzsche, that Dio

nysos had more to do with the question of origins and with the

primitive archetype of the tragic chorus than with the full-fledged

genre as we know it. In their quest for origins, they even con

structed hypothetical rituals, which they imposed on, or extrapo lated from, extant plays. Fortunately the study of the Dionysiac

dimension of tragedy has moved into an important new phase. In

recent years, the concept of ritual continuity and of a tragic chorus

defined as a replica of its remote ritual ancestors has been chal

lenged by a growing number of critics who prefer to situate trag

Albert Henrichs 57

edy and its chorus more concretely in the contemporary

framework of the polis religion and of actual Dionysiac cult. In an

influential article, Simon Goldhill in particular has emphasized the

complex social "context for performance"?the competing civic

identities of poet, performers, and audience; the conflict between

the political values encoded in the "preplay ceremonials" and their

problematization in the actual plays; and the polarity of Dionysos as reflected in the transgressive mood of the Dionysiac festivals,

which provided the cultic setting for dramatic contests in Athens.4

More relevant to my concerns is yet another approach, that

which explores the dramatic representation of Dionysos and his

worship within the actual plays, as distinct from their external set

ting in Dionysiac cult. Charles Segal, Froma Zeitlin, and Richard

Seaford have all emphasized the ambivalence of Dionysos as a fun

damental concept behind the tensions and ambiguities of certain

plays.5 In a series of related studies, Renate Schlesier has focused on the role of Dionysiac ritual and of maenadic identities in the

construction of dramatic character.6 Most recently, in the first

comprehensive treatment ever of the presence of Dionysos in

Greek tragedy, Anton Bierl has produced a cohesive synthesis inte

grating the tragic Dionysos with the Dionysos of Attic cult and of

theater.7 The combined work of these scholars represents a radical

reassessment of the ways Dionysos and his religion are brought into play by all three tragedians. From now on, students of tragedy

will have to reckon with the fact that in their efforts to connect

tragedy more directly with its cultic context (and to revitalize the

Dionysiac roots of Attic drama?), the tragic poets set individual

characters, entire plays, and indeed the tragic genre as a whole in a

distinct Dionysiac ambience. As Bierl has abundantly demon

strated, this tendency gained momentum in the course of the fifth

century. In Aeschylus, Dionysos is most prominent in plays that

dramatize Dionysiac myth.8 Sophocles expands the Dionysiac frame of reference, but tends to confine Dionysos to choral lyr ics?a reminder of the ritual connection between choral perfor

mance in tragedy and in Dionysiac cult.9 But it is not until the late

plays of Euripides that the tragic Dionysos emerges as a full

fledged symbol of tragic ambiguity and dramatic self-reflex -

iveness.10 Far from suppressing Dionysos, as Nietzsche claimed,

Euripides takes advantage of every conceivable dimension of the

god and deserves to rank as the most Dionysiac of the three

tragedians.

58 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

In this paper I propose to apply this new understanding of the

tragic Dionysos to a fundamental aspect of tragedy as performa

tive poetry which Bierl, Schlesier, and Segal have touched upon

only tangentially, namely the intricate interplay of choral dance, choral voice, and ritual performance. All tragic choruses sing as

well as dance. I am concerned with the relatively few choruses

who, in their song, refer to their own dancing. Choruses who draw

attention to their ritual role as collective performers of the choral

dance-song in the orchestra invariably locate their performance

self-reflexively within the concrete dramatic context and ritual

ambience of a given play. An integral aspect of this practice is the

pivotal role assigned to Dionysos in the articulation of choral

identity. For lack of a better term, I call this phenomenon choral self-ref

erentiality?the self-description of the tragic chorus as performer

of khoreia.11 According to Goldhill, dramatic "self-reflexiveness" or "self-reflexivity" takes place when tragedy?or, for that matter,

comedy?reflects on its own raison d'?tre as theater, something it

achieves most poignantly in Euripides.12 Whereas Goldhill does not apply this concept to the chorus, Bierl is fully aware that choral

self-referentiality is a central aspect of the larger picture of ritual,

as well as "metatheatrical," self-reflexivity in Attic drama.13

Choruses addressing their own performance as dancers can be

found in comedy and satyr-play14 as well as in tragedy. But self

reflexivity in its various forms, including that of choral self-refer

entiality, is more common, and more emphatic, in comedy than in

tragedy.15 As in tragedy, self-referential comic choruses often refer

to their dancing in the ritually marked context of divine invoca

tion, of Dionysiac cult, or of extra-dramatic khoreia on a ritual

occasion.16

Dramatic choruses who refer to their own dancing while invok

ing divinities associated with khoreia?such as Apollo, Artemis, and especially Dionysos?engage in the most explicit form of rit

ual self-referentiality available to them. Since some comic and

many tragic choruses perform other rituals such as prayer, lament,

supplication, and the conjuration of ghosts in the course of their

dance-songs, the concept of ritual self-referentiality in the choral

odes of Attic drama clearly possesses a much wider application than can be explored in this paper. Rites reenacted within the dra

matic framework of a particular play may be perceived as "ficti

tious rituals for mythical characters," but it is also the case that

Albert Henrichs 59

every ritual performed verbally by a tragic or comic chorus takes

place within the concrete ritual ambience of the dance-song.17

Choral dancing in ancient Greek culture always constitutes a form

of ritual performance, whether the dance is performed in the con

text of the dramatic festival or in other cultic and festive settings. The external setting in the sanctuary of Dionysos Eleuthereus and

in the distinctly cultic ambience of the City Dionysia reinforces the

ritual function of choral dances in tragedy. Choruses who comment self-referentially on their own

perfor mance as dancers do so not only in their capacity as characters in

the drama but also as performers: while emphasizing their choral

identity, they temporarily expand their role as dramatic characters.

In fact they acquire a more complex dramatic identity as they per

ceive their choral dance as an emotional reaction to the events

onstage and assume a ritual posture which functions as a link

between the cultic reality of the City Dionysia and the imaginary

religious world of the tragedies. Far from "breaking the dramatic

illusion" outright and unconditionally, as some scholars have sug

gested, such choruses invite the audience to participate in a more

integrated experience, one in which the choral performance in the

orchestra merges with the more imaginary performance of the rit

uals of polytheism that take place in the action of each play.18 Choral self-referentiality can be found in all three tragedians,

but the frequency with which they employ it varies a great deal, as

does their handling of it.19 Despite its relevance, it has not been

recognized as a defining aspect of the tragic chorus, and no sys

tematic treatment exists. To be sure, the term "hyporcheme" has

been widely used to characterize those self-referential choruses in

Sophocles who verbally recognize their choral performance while

being physically engaged in the dance.20 But as A. M. Dale has

shown, doing so is to perpetuate a misnomer from late antiquity,

when huporkh?ma was understood as an antonym of stasimon on

the mistaken assumption that stasimon implies a stationary

chorus.21 All tragic choruses dance, and if dancing alone were the

criterion, all choral odes could be described as huporkh?mata. It is

highly unlikely, however, that the choral odes of tragedy were ever

classified as huporkh?mata prior to late antiquity.22 Despite its

problems, the term huporkh?ma has the virtue of focusing atten

tion on choral dancing as an accompaniment to choral song and on

the unity of voice and movement as constitutive aspects of choral

identity and discourse.23 The huporkh?ma ascribed to Pratinas by

6o "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?:

Athenaios recreates an ambience of animated choral performance

(XOoevuxxTCt) characterized by shouting (xetax?e?v), stamping

(jiaTayeiv), and pipe-playing (ouX?c) that is closely related to the

prevailing mood and the Dionysiac associations of the "hypor chemes" found in tragedy and discussed in this paper.24 In the

absence of reliable information on the rhythmic movements of

tragic choruses as well as on the music that accompanied them,

choral odes that emphasize choral dancing, whether or not we

choose to call them huporkh?mata, are particularly revealing as

they dramatize a fundamental function of the tragic chorus that

remains otherwise inaccessible to us.

While extremely rare in the extant plays of Aeschylus, choral

self-referentiality in the specific sense that concerns us can be

found in four of the seven plays of Sophocles. This phenomenon becomes even more frequent, and grows more complex, in Euripi

des. For the purposes of the present paper, I must proceed selec

tively, with the main emphasis on Sophocles, who fully develops this choral convention. What is more, Sophocles invariably assigns

explicit Dionysiac identities to choruses who comment on their own performance.25 The god of the theater, of the mask, of ritual

madness, and of ecstatic dancing is thus represented as the divine

paragon of choral identity. In Euripides, too, choral self-referen

tiality is more prominently connected with Dionysos and his ritu

als than with any other deity, not only in the two plays that are

patently Dionysiac, Bakkhai and Kyklops, but also in plays whose

Dionysiac ambience is less obvious, such as Herakles, Ion, and

Phoinissai. A full discussion of Euripidean choruses who associate

their dancing with Dionysos will be presented elsewhere.26 By way of example, however, I will conclude with a chorus from the Elek

tra in order to show how Euripides experimented with the conven

tion of ritual self-referentiality in deliberate departure from his

predecessors.

I.

Aeschylus: The khorostasia of the Erinyes

Unlike Sophocles, Aeschylus invested some of his choruses with a ritual identity that is not predicated on the choral dance.27 In Per

sians, for instance, the Queen pours chthonian libations to conjure

up the ghost of Dareios, while the chorus assists her verbally by

chanting hymnic invocations addressed to the heroized king and

Albert Henrichs 61

the powers of the underworld (623-80). In Seven against Thebes

(265-70), Eteokles asks a disheartened female chorus to stop sup

plicating the statues of the gods, to adopt a more aggressive ritual stance and to raise "the sacred ololugm?s" (268 oko\vy\ibv leoov

ev\ievf\ Jiauovioov), the shrill triumphant cry that accompanied the sacrificial slaughter of animals, but the sacrifice never takes

place.28 The choruses of Suppliants and Libation Bearers sustain even more distinct ritual roles and enact them onstage, but they do so without making reference to their own dancing.

In the Eumenides, however, Aeschylus does make use of choral

self-referentiality to enhance the chthonian character and ritual

identity of the Erinyes who form the chorus. Orestes, still on the

run, has taken refuge in Athens and, as a suppliant, clasps the

image of Athena. When they finally catch up with him, the Erinyes make their move and declare that neither Apollo nor Athena can

save Orestes from becoming the victim of their devouring wrath.

Orestes, polluted and marginalized, is drawn into the polarization between Olympian and chthonian forces so that his ritual status is

defined in opposite terms by the two opposing groups of divini

ties: in the eyes of the Olympians, he is a suppliant fearing for his

life and desperately in need of divine assistance {Eum. 79f., 92,

242f., 409); for the Erinyes, however, he is a criminal who must die

as the ritual victim of a corrupted sacrifice, to be eaten alive rather than "slaughtered by the altar" {Eum. 304-05).29 It is at this point

that the Erinyes launch an intense verbal and physical attack on

Orestes, an attack combining the two basic modes of choral per

formance {khoros 307, mousa 308), the song {humnos 306, 331,

344) as well as the dance {orkh?smoi 370), in an agitated display of

ritualized violence.

In an anapestic prelude (307-20) to the first stasimon (321-96), the Erinyes begin their dance-song with an emphatic articulation

of choral self-referentiality, the earliest in extant tragedy (307-11):

aye ?f] xai %oqov ?i|>a)|i?v, ercei

\xovoav OTvyzQ?v

ajto(|>aiv??9ai ?e?oxnxev,

?i^ai te X?%r] xa xax' ?vGocojrov?

cb? ?mvcau? oxotoi? ?\xr\.

Come let us join in the dance {khoros), for we are ready to perform

62 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

our grisly song and to tell how our ensemble {stasis)

apportions lots among mortals.

The Erinyes initiate their provocative choral performance by

announcing their intention "to join in dance"; they do so emphati

cally, in a first person utterance that combines the performative

force of the hortatory subjunctive with the equally performative exhortation aye ?f|.30 By characterizing their song as \iovoav

oTuyep?v, they alert the audience to the intimidating, monstrous

nature of their dance-song, with its emphasis on the spilling of

blood, black magic, and the total otherness of the infernal realm

and its inhabitants.31

Two lines later, the Erinyes refer to their own choral ensemble as "our stasis" (oxao?? aur|). Exceptionally, the term stasis here

describes a collective of divinities represented by a group of choral

performers. Apart from a possible parallel in Pindar's third Dithy ramb, the closest analogues can be found in the Choephoroi.32

At Ch. 114 Elektra's xfj?e . . . ox?oei refers to the female chorus

who only moments before had entered the orchestra carrying

libations for the dead king and positioned themselves next to his

tomb to assist Elektra in her ritual chores; similarly, at Ch. 458

(choral) oxao?? ?? Jiayxoivo? ??e is "a collective self-reference" to the chorus performing the conjuration of Agamemnon's

ghost.33 In all three instances, most commentators render stasis

as "our band" or "our company."34 As an indicator of choral self

referentiality, however, the word is much more poignant. In the

Eumenides, the phrase oxcxot? ?\xr\ harks back to %oqov ch|KDU?V and has the same performative force. By emphasizing the here

and now of the choral performance, the first person possessive

auT|, much like the deictic rj?e in xfj?e . .. ox?oei and oxao??

...

??e, applies the chorocentric conventions of choral song to the

tragic chorus and reinforces the performative connotation of

oxao??. In choral lyric as well as in the choral odes of tragedy and comedy, choral self-referentiality is always expressed in the

first person.35 The term stasis specifically recalls the conventional

language of choral formation, in particular such expressions as

khorostatis ("she who sets up, or positions, the chorus") and

khorostasia ("the positioning of a chorus").36 Through their

words as well as their action, the Erinyes thus affirm the most

conspicuous ritual aspect of their dramatic identity?their role

Albert Henrichs 63

as performers of the khoreia in the orchestra. What follows is

the first stasimon, the dance-song signaled by the phrase oxao??

?uT| and performed by the Erinyes once "they had reached their

station (oxao??) in the orchestra."37

It appears from the phrase %oqov chpcouxv that the Erinyes

actually joined hands and may have formed a magical circle

around Orestes.38 Here as elsewhere in the lyrics of tragedy, the

explicit reference to choral dancing serves as a prelude to other

ritual activities performed verbally by the chorus in the course

of their stasimon. In this case the ritual takes the form of an

incantation designed to incapacitate Orestes before the murder

trial. The same type of destructive magic is attested for classical

Athens by dozens of curses known as "binding spells"

(xaxa?eouxn) inscribed on lead tablets and found in wells, tombs, and even private homes.39 How sinister the "musical skills" of

the Erinyes really are, and how destructive their power, becomes

manifest after their invocation of Nyx personified, "the mother

who gave birth to me, mother Night" (321f.). Thus fortified, their avenging power culminates in the sinister performance of

the "Binding Song" (306, 331f., 344f. iSfxvo? ??ouxo?) imbedded

in the first stasimon (328-33=341-46):

?m ?? xa> xeOuuivcp xo?e fx?Xo?, Jiaoaxojr?,

jtaoa(|)OQ? cj)Qevo?a?f|?,

i3|xvo? ?? 'Eqivikov

??ouxo? c|)Qev?)v, ck|)?q uxyxxo?, a?ov? ?ooxoic.

Over our victim

this is the chant {melos), striking him mad, out of his mind, harming his brain, a hymn {humnos) from the Erinyes,

binding the brain, lacking the lyre, withering to mortals.40

Combined here with the ritual dance is the theme of the perverted song, first introduced in the Agamemnon, where the choral func tion of the Erinyes is also anticipated.41 There the prophetess

Kassandra envisages the Erinyes as a cacophonous X0Q?? and

64 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

a bloodthirsty X(b|Lio? of revellers drunk on human blood and

occupying the royal palace while singing a baleful song {Ag. 1186-93, culminating in v\ivovoi ?' i5|ivov

... jto xaQXOV ?xrrv).

In the "Binding Song" of the Eumenides, that prophetic vision

becomes dramatic reality. As the Erinyes pronounce their curse,

they stamp the floor of the orchestra with their feet and claim that

the highest aspirations of men are destroyed "by the onslaught of our black raiment and the malicious dancing of our feet" (371

oqx^ou.o?? x' ?m(|)6ovoi? jio?o?). The feet of the Erinyes thus

epitomize their choral identity as performers of the dance; at the same time, their feet function as instruments of destruction that

physically perform the incantation in an act of sympathetic

magic.42 Ritual performance and choral self-referentiality thus go hand in hand, reinforcing each other. As we shall see, similar

patterns recur in Sophocles and Euripides, who tend to endow

their self-referential choruses with a distinct Dionysiac identity. The Aeschylean Erinyes seem to foreshadow this trend. As per formers of the binding song they exemplify the kind of frenzy? "a fury not of wine" {Eum. 860)?which they threaten to inflict on Orestes; like maenads, they dance wildly and carry snakes

{Ch. 1049E); and at Eum. 500, they even refer to themselves as

uxxiva?e?, "mad women," a word that connotes Dionysiac ritual

not only in tragedy, but already in Homeric epic.43 Still, the Erinyes ultimately dance and curse in vain. Their

binding song is followed by the stage epiphany of Athena at the

beginning of the next scene. Her intervention to save Orestes

persuades the Erinyes to transform their curses into blessings,

and, in the closing scene of the trilogy, magic is replaced by cult and bloodshed by the homicide court. Again, the pattern established by Aeschylus is paradigmatic. Invariably in tragedy, ritual remedies employed to gain undue advantage, to enhance

one's social status, or to redress one ill by the commission of

another ultimately prove ineffective and lead to a transformation

of those who turn to them.44 This applies not only to tragic characters who perform rituals but also to choruses who get

carried away and place excessive confidence in their dancing. The

Erinyes, although divinities, exemplify the pattern; Sophoclean choruses will develop many variations on it.

But, before leaving Aeschylus and turning to Sophocles, we

would do well to reexamine the ritual atmosphere that surrounds

the only case of choral self-referentiality in Aeschylus. In the

Albert Henrichs 65

Eumenides, the dramatic scenario that precedes the intervention

of Athena is designed to build the ritual momentum. The succes

sive rituals focus on Orestes qua matricide, who seeks refuge as

a suppliant first at Delphi, then in Athens. At Delphi, Apollo

purifies Orestes of his bloodguilt by means of animal blood. In

Athens, Athena responds to Orestes' prayer and rescues him from

the Erinyes' incantations and sacrificial violence. Against this

highly ritualized background, the dance-song of the Erinyes becomes the dramatic vehicle for choral self-definition. At the same time, their ritual remedies?including the choral dance?

fail, as the fate of the ritual victim is reversed and the status of

the victimizer is ritually redefined in the final scene of the play. The failure of ritual to effect remedy is an essential tragic motif, not only in the Oresteia, but also in post-Aeschylean tragedy. In

the Eumenides, however, this motif is used for the first time to

articulate the tragic ambivalence of choral performance.

II.

"Why Dance?": Choral Voice and Performance

I now come to what is arguably the best remembered and least

understood case of choral self-referentiality in all of tragedy? the second stasimon of Oidipous Tyrannos, which culminates,

significantly, in a formal prayer. In the preceding scene, Iokaste

has ridiculed and rejected Apollo's oracles concerning the murder

of Laios (707-25, 851-58). By discrediting the veracity of the

Delphic oracle and of its human ministrants, she precipitates a

ritual crisis at the very moment Thebes is threatened with extinc

tion and the voice of Apollo appears to be the city's only hope. The implications of the crisis are addressed by the chorus in terms

intimately linking the challenge to divine authority with their own dancing and choral identity.

The close correlation between polis religion and choral perfor mance is underscored by the parallel pattern of metrical respon

sion and verbal repetition that connects two startling

pronouncements of the chorus. In the closing lines of the second

strophe, the Theban elders, concerned about the ascendancy of

the impious, call their own dancing into question?"If such

actions are held in honor," ei y?o ai xoiai?e Jio?^eic x?uxai, the

chorus asks, "why should I dance?" xi ?e? (ie xooe?eiv; (895-96). In the corresponding lines of the antistrophe, the scope of their

66 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?^

concerns broadens as their sense of religious crisis intensifies. So

long as the oracles given to Laios are discredited and Apollo is "nowhere manifest in his cultic honors," xo??auxxu xuxa??

Ajt?Mxdv ?ux|)avf|?, the chorus fears the worst?"the divine order

has perished," ?ooei ?? x? Oe?a (909-10) .45

The laconic locution x? Oe?a epitomizes the sum total of poly theism, including the entire range of divine and human interaction

and reciprocity: the divine world order, the observance of cult, and the performance of ritual, down to the consultation of oracles

and to the very dance performed by the khoreutai in the orchestra

as they sing. Khoreia did not take place in a religious vacuum; it meant "to serve the gods through the medium of the dance."46

Divinities such as Dionysos, Apollo, and Artemis are integral to

choral dancing, in the choral songs of tragedy as well as in actual

cult. In the wake of an impiety that abrogates Apollo's oracles

and neglects his worship, the chorus worries that the entire poly

theistic system may be disintegrating. Still, it comes as a surprise that the Theban elders question

their status as performers of the choral dance?"Why should I

dance?" As Jeffrey Rusten puts it, this is "an odd question coming

from the old men of Thebes, who as characters in this play (rather than performers) are not really dancing at all."47 Nothing in the

play has prepared the audience for this question; only the dancing of the chorus in the orchestra gives it context. Generations of

interpreters have been intrigued by the implicit collapsing of past and present, of illusion and reality, of the choral voice echoing the distant past and the citizen chorus performing in and for

the present.48 Among recent commentators, Dawe is reluctant to

accept Sophocles' fusion of the dramatic character and performa tive function of the chorus: "Xope?eiv is precisely what the

Chorus who are acting in this play are doing, and there are some

who feel that at this moment Sophocles is in a sense breaking the dramatic illusion, like Aristophanes in a parabasis."49 Yet

scholars of the caliber of Wilamowitz and Dodds had no doubt

that this chorus is "dropping its mask" or "stepping out of the

play" by commenting self-referentially on its own performance

in the orchestra.50

As early as 1889, Wilamowitz observed that while modern

theatergoers lack imagination and expect the playwright not to

tamper with the "dramatic illusion," the Athenian audience was

more flexible and had no problem with O. T. 896 or other

Albert Henrichs 67

instances of choral self-reference: "They are completely involved,

accept the stage action as truth, yet are mindful of the real world?

that the chorus is their chorus and that the festive occasion belongs to their god."51 Thirty years ago, Dodds spelled out what this

means for the chorus in Oidipous Tyrannos: "If by this they mean merely 'Why should I, a Theban elder, dance?' the question

is irrelevant and even slightly ludicrous; the meaning is surely

'Why should I, an Athenian citizen, continue to serve in a chorus?'

In speaking of themselves as a chorus, they step out of the play into the contemporary world, as Aristophanes' choruses do in

the parabasis."52

Do they really? The matter is perhaps slightly more complex for the tragic chorus?whose identity is more integrated with the

dramatic action?than is the case in comedy, where the chorus

can function as the explicit mouthpiece and alter ego of the poet. Stinton insisted, opposing Dodds, that far from requiring "extra

dramatic reference," xi ?e? u.e xooe?eiv; "can be accommodated

within the dramatic convention: dancing is a normal part of

worship, so the phrase simply anticipates the other acts of worship mentioned in the following stanza."53 But it isn't quite so simple.

One could argue, against Stinton, that the specific "acts of wor

ship" envisaged by the chorus qua dramatic character consist

exclusively of oracular consultation and prayer (897ff.), neither of which requires ritual dances or choral performance. Further

more, one might ask why Stinton seems to think that the khoreu

ein in the orchestra was not an integral part of the dramatic

convention, or of this particular play's drama. It seems to me just

as narrow to confine the xi ?e? u.e x?QB^eiv; exclusively to the

mythical past as it is to insist that this chorus could be oblivious to the dramatic action, or even alienated from it.

Dodds and Stinton are both right, or, rather, half right?their

positions are not mutually exclusive, but each emphasizes one

side of the equation at the expense of the other. Dancing is indeed

"a normal act of worship," in the mythical as well as the real

world. But the dancing to which the Theban elders refer is more

properly, and more immediately, a function of their choral identity than it is of their dramatic character?it takes place in the concrete

space of the orchestra where they perform, yet it is simultaneously

projected into the imaginary past of the dramatic action, as if

this chorus were dancing in Thebes as well as in Athens.54 This is not an isolated instance of a chorus of Athenian citizens imagining

68 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

themselves to be singing and dancing in another time and place, while actually performing before an Athenian audience. As I

shall argue later, choral projection is a device frequently used by

Sophocles and Euripides to integrate choral performance in the

orchestra with the world of the drama onstage.55 It illuminates

the paradox of how the conditions threatening to undermine the

ritual status of this chorus can be located in mythical Thebes, while the festival of Dionysos, which provides the setting for

their dancing, is an integral part of the polis religion of fifth

century Athens.

Is it at all conceivable, as some critics believe,56 that the religious concerns expressed by the chorus qua character reflect the poet's

perception of the chorus qua performer? In other words, was the

ritual status of Athenian tragic choruses jeopardized by changes in the religious climate during the early years of the Peloponnesian

War? Only Sophocles and his audience would know the answer, but the very ambivalence that gives xi ?e? u,e xooeiieiv; its poi gnancy suggests that the boundaries between the realm of the

imagination and the realm of the polis were more fluid than we

might think. The Athenian audience was better equipped than we are to move easily without qualms between the two realms.

Much of the polis of the here and now was a construct of the

imagination, composed of the fictional fragments of the past, and

conversely, the mythical past was perceived as a primordial image

of the polis. Tragedy functioned as one of the most effective

mediators between the two realms, at least in Athens.

What does this mean for the tragic chorus? Choral performance takes place in both worlds. The dramatic role of the chorus is

acted out in the highly ritualized realm of myth, a world inhabited

by gods and mortals who interact through the medium of cult; at the same time, however, the dancing of the tragic chorus, its

ritual function, occurs in the contemporary world of Athens and

within a cultic framework rooted in Panhellenic as well as local

Athenian cult.57 Throughout tragedy, ritual and cult function as

common denominators which mediate between the dramatic past and the present.

The identity of this particular chorus, as presented by Sopho cles, is defined by their ability to perceive their performance as

an integral part of the polis religion, both past and present.58 If a central aspect of that religion is called into question, the ritual

identity of the tragic chorus becomes equally questionable, and

Albert Henrichs 69

its dramatic status doubtful. For a Greek audience, a world with

out ritual dancing would be an empty place indeed, and a tragedy without a khoros would be a trag?idia akhoros?a contradiction

in itself.59 Uvo H?lscher once suggested that the self-doubts of

the Theban elders stem from their innate fear of the ultimate sources of the pollution afflicting Thebes?parricide and incest?

and from their concern with ritual purity, that "revered purity in all words and deeds" (864f. e?oejrxov ayve?av X?ycov ?oy v

xe jr?vxoov).60 He argues that since ritual purity is the prerequisite for any ritual performance, including choral dancing, the Theban

elders are reluctant to dance because the mere thought of such

crimes has rendered them impure and thus ritually unfit for the

dance. According to H?lscher, this concern for ritual transcends

the dramatic action and collapses the distance between the dra

matic character and the ritual function of the chorus.

While doing justice to the uniqueness of the only chorus in

extant tragedy which questions its own status as performer of

the choral dance, H?lscher's interpretation fails to locate the

exceptional self-scrutiny of this chorus within the broader conven

tion of choral self-referentiality. Like the vast majority of inter

preters of xi ?e? u? xooe?eiv; before and after him, he too ignored the fact that the choruses of more than a dozen tragedies, from

Eumenides to Bakkhai, comment self-referentially on their own

dancing. Yet H?lscher was demonstrably on the right track when

he identified the concern for ritual expressed by the Theban elders as the conceptual link connecting their dramatic character with

their self-awareness as choral dancers. I propose that this connec

tion reflects a more general truth and that the entire range of

ritual performance, as dramatized by the tragedians, functions as

the common denominator that underlies all instances of choral

self-reference in extant tragedy.

Ritual takes many forms, such as sacrifice, libation, purification from pollution, suppliancy, divination, and dancing, including choral dancing in the orchestra. Regardless of the occasion, ritual

always provides continuity through repetition and the prescribed

rhythm of the ritual process, which follows its own immutable

timetable. Ritual as dramatized in tragedy thus creates its own

space, its own temporality, whether it is performed in the past or in the present.61 More than any character onstage, the tragic

chorus in the orchestra collectively embodies that continuity of

ritual performance; it does so not as a voice in the drama, nor

70 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?

as a citizen of the polis, but as a self-conscious performer of the

Dionysiac dance in the orchestra and as an active ritual participant in the festival of Dionysos. The convention of choral self-referen

tiality, which recognizes the performative role of the chorus, enables the audience to cross the boundaries between the chorus

qua tragic character and qua performer, between the drama acted

out in the theater and the polis religion that sustains it, and more specifically between the cults of the polis and the rituals

performed in the plays.62 This convergence of drama and ritual

in the context of role-playing, make-believe, and shifting identities

is epitomized by the mask, which transforms the self into the

Other and integrates the choral performance with the Attic cult

of the "mask god" Dionysos.63 As a performer of the ritual dance, the chorus exists simulta

neously inside the dramatic realm of the play and outside of it

in the political and cultic realm of the here and now. These two

roles are inseparable, and as we shall see, under certain conditions

they become one and the same. These conditions become much

clearer if we replace the question "Why should I dance?"?which carries a threat to abandon the choral performance?with a more

confident statement along the lines of "Let's join in the dance!"

{Eum. 307 XOQ?V ch|)CDU?v) .64 Affirmative choral self-reference of

this type is common in Sophocles and Euripides; the self-doubt

of the chorus in the Oidipous Tyrannos is the sole exception.65 The Salaminian sailors who form the chorus in Aias exclaim:

"Now I am bent upon dancing" (701 vi5v y?o e\i?i \x?Xei xooe?oai, the positive equivalent of xi ?e? [xe xoQe?eiv;), while, similarly, the chorus of old men in the Herakles insists: "We will not yet abandon the Muses, who set me dancing" (685f. oimo)

xaxajiaijoofxev Mouoa? a? \i9 ?xooeuaav). Invariably, perform ative choral utterances such as these underscore the fact that

tragic choruses, whether old or young, male or female, reluctant

or enthusiastic, are not only characters in the drama but also

khoreutai in the orchestra who are sometimes empowered by the

playwright to recognize their ritual role and identify with it.

It is no accident that the question xi ?e? u.e xooe?eiv; comes

at the end of a strophe and near the end of the dance-song as

well.66 The sudden pause of the chorus thus gives visual point to

their words. But even this chorus cannot and does not seriously

reject their role as khoreutai?they resume their choral dancing in the orchestra even as the dramatic crisis intensifies and their

Albert Henrichs 71

dancing is overtaken by the revelations onstage, which confirm

the validity of Apollo's oracles. Without the choral dance, the

play cannot go on. In the third stasimon in particular, the Theban

elders reflect once more on their ritual function and imagine

a choral role for themselves which allows them to escape the

confinement of the theater and the constraints of the dramatic

convention?they will dance on Mount Kithairon "tomorrow,"

that is outside the dramatic time, in an imaginary, hopeful future.67 At this moment of renewed self-reflection, the syntax

of the choral voice becomes uncommonly intricate, even by Sopho clean standards, as the chorus of elders address Mount Kithairon

and make the delicate journey from the orchestra, the locus of

their former ritual doubts, to the mountain, the place of their

future choral dance, in a truly performative utterance (O. T.

1086-97):

e?jteo ?yo) (x?vxi? ei ux xai xax? yvcouav ??qi?, ov xov "OXvujtov ajreiQoov,

cb KxOaiQobv, ovk eor\ x?v a?Qiov

jcava?^Tjvov urj ov o? ye xai Jiaxoicoxav O?o?jtou

xai xqo(|>?v xai fxax?o' au?eiv, xai xooei3eo0ai jtq?? f| \i?)v (b? ?mnoa (|>?QOvxa xo?? ?^xo?? xuo?vvoi?.

?f|ie Ooi?e, aoi ??

xa?jx' ?o?ax' e?r|.

If indeed I am a prophet and discerning in my judgment,

O Kithairon, I swear to you by Olympos, you will not be unaware that tomorrow's

full moon exalts you as fellow-countryman,

nurse and mother of Oidipous, and that you are honored by us in the dance {khoreuesthai), because you were of service to our kings.

Phoibos of the i?-cry,

may this be pleasing to you.68

The same chorus who, in the parodos, invoked Dionysos as "the

eponym of this land" (210) and "companion of the maenads"

(212) to make his epiphany and who raised the question xi ?e?

72 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?

(xe xooeveiv; now adopts

a dubious prophetic stance and promises

to dance in celebration of Kithairon, the personified Dionysiac mountain that came to the rescue of Oidipous and, we might

add, witnessed the deaths of Pentheus and Aktaion. The ritual

dancing will take place during a pannukhis, on the next full

moon, a favored occasion for major religious festivals.69 In looking to the immediate future, the Theban elders thus situate their

dancing in a cultic context that is, through its locale, connected

with the fate of Oidipous but is otherwise detached from the

dramatic action. At the same time, they self-consciously subordi

nate their dramatic character to their generic role as a group of

choral dancers, and reassert their identity as choral performers

by projecting themselves into another time and another place. Instead of asking "Why dance?" they are now saying, in effect, "tomorrow we will dance in your honor," a?oi?v ae

Xooeuaojxev?not here, in the orchestra, but elsewhere; not today,

but "tomorrow."70

Their promise is fraught with ambiguity. While supported by their choral performance in the here and now, their pledge is

completely discredited by the past and future events of which

they are ignorant. As they look back to the time when Oidipous was born, they envisage Kithairon erroneously as an idyllic moun

tain where gods like Pan and Apollo?two divine champions of

the choral dance?mate with "long-lived" females, one of whom

might be the mother of Oidipous, and where perhaps Hermes or

Dionysos received baby Oidipous from the nymphs who found

him (1098-1109) .71 But a dozen lines later the Theban shepherd arrives to reveal the truth about Oidipous' birth and his exposure on Kithairon. Instantly, the Dionysiac mountain appears in a

different light, as a place of grief rather than choral celebration, and reminds us of the polarities inherent in the tragic perception of Dionysos.72 Ironically, the chorus's choice of ill-fated Kithairon as the place for their future dancing is both flawed and eminently suitable. To complete the irony, the time chosen by the chorus

is even more ambiguous: as always in tragedy, "tomorrow" will

be too late.73 In reflecting on the conditions of their own perfor

mance, the members of this chorus thus transcend their own

ignorance and repeatedly allude to the truth of the dramatic

situation even though its full impact still eludes them.74

Aware of their place in the larger order of things, which includes

the gods and their cult, the chorus of Oidipous Tyrannos, more

Albert Henrichs 73

than any other chorus in tragedy, represents the close interconnec

tion among choral performance, choral projection, and dramatic

crisis.75 As witnesses to the unfolding drama, as well as performers

of the tragic dance-song, they move effortlessly, though not unerr

ingly, between past and present, hope and fear, the mythical and

the real world, and between their own multiple identities.

III.

Sophocles: Euphoric Choruses, Dionysos, and Choral Projection

It has long been recognized that the other Sophoclean choruses

who refer to their own dancing are more optimistic, and more

blind to the events onstage, than the chorus of Oidipous Tyr annos. Near the dramatic climax, the choruses of Aias, Antigone,

and Trakhiniai get their hopes up prematurely and are carried

away with joyful exultation. Their upbeat mood finds physical

expression in a particularly agitated form of dancing. It is here, at the climactic turning point of the action, that these choruses

comment self-referentially on their performance as dancers, and

compare their own exuberant dancing to the dancing associated

with Dionysiac ritual. In Aias and Trakhiniai in particular, the

dramatic climax is underscored by an increased ritual self-aware

ness of the chorus, whose choral aspirations are then deflated by the dramatic action. These odes have in common the tragic tension

between the exuberant self-expression of the chorus?epitomized

in the agitated dance?and the disillusionment and sense of

impending catastrophe felt by the audience. The dance as an

expression of joy, expectation, and hope is emotionally and factu

ally at odds with the characters and events onstage. These

choruses have been variously described as "cheerful choruses,"

"joy-before-disaster odes," or "euphoric odes," and although they

are often referred to as a group, they have not been examined

en bloc for their shared structural features.76

The basic pattern can be found in the Aias. In the opening stanza of the second stasimon, the chorus reacts enthusiastically

to Aias' "deception speech" (693-705):

?(f)Qi^' ?ocoxi, jteoixaofj? ?' ?vejrx?uxxv.

id) id) n?v n?v, ?a n?v n?v ?MjiXayxxe, KvX

Xavia? xtovoxximov

74 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

Jtexoaia? ?jr? ?eio??o? ^?vrjO', cb

Oe v xoQOJio?' ?va?, oj?goc uoi

M?aia Kvoboi' oq

Xf||xax' avxo?afj ?uvcbv l?aprjc* vf3v y?p ?uoi [x?Xei xooe?aai. Txaoi v ?' vt?eq ^neXayewf

jxoX,(bv ?va? Aji?Mxdv

? A??xo? evyv oxo?

?\ioi ^vve??] ?i? Jiavx?? ei5(|)Qa)v.

I thrill with excitement, I take wings for joy. I? i? Pan, Pan!

Oh Pan, Pan, sea-roamer,

appear from the rocky ridge of snow-struck Kyllene,

oh Lord, dance-master {khoropoios) of the gods, so that

you may be with me and set in motion

your self-taught Mysian, Knosian dances {orkh?mata): Now I am bent upon dancing {khoreusai). And coming over the Ikarian sea

as a god easy to recognize

may Apollo, the Lord of Delos, be with me always in kindness.77

The Salaminian sailors, overjoyed by what they perceive as

Aias' change of mind and salvation from himself, take wings, as

it were, and perform an enthusiastic dance in the orchestra. As

if to magnify their performance, they call upon Pan, the compan ion of Dionysos, to make his epiphany

as the "dance-master of

the gods" and to teach them his exotic dances. The transformative

power of the dance, here represented by Pan, thus becomes the

vehicle for choral performance. For once the separate worlds of

gods and mortals appear to be in perfect harmony, as Apollo too

is invoked to add his benevolent presence to that of Pan.78 But

the rejoicing of the chorus is premature. The second stasimon is

followed by the entrance of the messenger, who reveals the emerg

ing dramatic crisis and sets the stage for Aias' suicide speech.

As the khoreutai project their own performance

as dancers on

Pan, "the dancer {khoreut?s) most consummate,"79 the focus

shifts, significantly, from the performative to the epiphanic mode, from the chorus to their divine role model, and from the orchestra

Albert Henrichs 75

to a ritual setting at once more distant and imaginary. Similar

shifts in ritual emphasis can be found in other choral odes of

Sophocles, as well as in Euripides; I refer to them as choral

projection.80 Each time a tragic chorus emphasizes its own danc

ing, the tragedians go out of their way to incorporate the choral

self-reference into the imaginary setting of the drama. They do so by separating the choral dancing from the orchestra and pro

jecting it into a different time and place, as in Oidipous Tyrannos and Antigone, or by projecting it on another performer, whether

human or divine, as in Aias, Antigone, Trakhiniai, and Euripides' Elektra.81 Invariably, choral projection serves as the matrix for

choral self-referentiality and allows it to be given full rein in the

here and now of the actual performance?"now I am bent upon

dancing," vvv y?o ?uoi (x?Xei xooe?aai.82 At the height of their enthusiasm, the sailors simultaneously

realize their dramatic character as Salaminians as well as their

choral identity as performers of the choral dance. Their dual role

is reflected in the dual identity of their divine role model. The

Athenian cult of Pan commemorated his role in the victory at

Marathon; but the Arcadian Pan was also connected with Salamis:

in his description of the battle of Salamis, Aeschylus calls him

"lover of dances" ((j)iX,oxoQO?) and makes him a resident of the

island of Psyttaleia off Salamis.83 Apart from being a figure of local cult, the Pan of this stanza also represents the realm of

Dionysos and Dionysiac enthusiasm in the same way that Mount

Kithairon stands for the Dionysiac world and its tensions in the

third stasimon of the Oidipous Tyrannos.84 Here as elsewhere,

Sophocles locates the khoreuein of the chorus in a concrete Diony

siac ambience, thus recalling one of the most conspicuous features

of Dionysiac ritual?"to dance in the thiasos" (E. Ba. 379

Oiaoeueiv xe xoqo??)?and perhaps the distant origins of tragedy itself. This connection will be confirmed by a consideration of

equally self-referential and Dionysiac choruses in Antigone and

Trakhiniai.

In both plays, the structure of choral self-reference is more

complex than in Aias, while the Dionysiac associations are more

explicit. The Antigone is set in Thebes, the hometown of Dio

nysos, who figures prominently in the play as the pivot of tragic reversals and as a focus for the choral dance.85 At the very end

of the parodos, in a mood of victory and relief from recent civil

strife, the chorus pledges to approach the temples of all the gods

76 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?!

in nocturnal dancing, while giving pride of place to Dionysos

(152-54):

Oe v ?? vao?? %oqo??,

jravvijxoi? Jt?vxa? ?jt?X

O u.ev, ? 0f|?ac ?' ?XeXi

XOodv B?xxio? ?pxoi.

Let us approach all the temples of the gods with dances (khoroi) that last all night, and let him who shakes up Thebes, the Bacchic god, take the lead.

The choral performance, located in the orchestra and projected

simultaneously into the realm of dramatic illusion, is placed under

the authority of Dionysos, who "shakes up" his native city with

the enthusiasm he inspires and the dancing he requires. Dionysos thus functions as the initiator of the choral dance, as the divine

khor?gos, a role comparable to that of Pan in the Aias. But the device of choral projection is carried even further. Here, as in

the third stasimon of the Oidipous Tyrannos, the choral dancing is envisaged once again as a future performance, at a pannukhis,

while it is simultaneously enacted by the same chorus in the

orchestra. Thus the boundaries of chorus and citizen, divine and

mortal dancer, and of myth and cult begin to shift again in an

intricate pattern of changing ritual identities associated with the name of Dionysos.

Some eight hundred lines later, Dionysos appears again in the

fourth stasimon. This time, however, he does not preside over

festivities but punishes Lykourgos, who in his madness taunted

the god (955-61) and intruded on the ritual dancing of the mae

nads (963-65):

jia?eoxe uiv y?o ?vO?ou?

yuva?xa? em?v xe jujq,

(jn^auXovc x' f|Q?0i?e Mo?oac.

For he tried to stop the divinely inspired women and the Bacchic fire, and incited the pipe-loving Muses.

Albert Henrichs 77

The enthusiastic women associated with the "Bacchic fire" are

of course the torch-carrying maenads of myth and cult, who

dance for Dionysos in nocturnal rites synonymous with the x?Q?i

jr?vvDxoi of the parodos. Their dances are accompanied by the

pipe, an instrument often associated with Dionysos and with the

kind of choral dancing that is epitomized in the phrase

fyikavXov? . . . Mouoa?. Although the Muses ordinarily have no

place in the Lykourgos myth, Sophocles has incorporated them

metonymically as divine champions of musical and especially choral performance.86 By interfering with the dance-songs of the

maenads, Lykourgos incurred the wrath of both Dionysos and

the Muses. Mention of the Muses thus adds force to the portrayal of Lykourgos as an enemy of the gods.87 From the perspective of this chorus, Lykourgos did not merely persecute Dionysos and

his nurses, as he does in the Iliad. His attempt to put an end to

maenadic dances also threatened the very existence of Dionysiac

khoreia as such, including the "all-night dances" (152) envisaged earlier by the same chorus and the dancing of the khoreutai in

the orchestra.88 As an opponent of the Dionysiac dance, the figure

of Lykourgos thus serves as a subtle link between the mythical memory and the performative function of the chorus.

Choral dancing in the name of Dionysos is again in full swing in the fifth stasimon, which takes the form of a hymn to Dionysos,

one of the longest in surviving Greek or Latin poetry.89 Kreon

has just decided to bury Polyneikes and release Antigone. Their

hopes raised, the choral dancers invoke Dionysos "to come with

cathartic foot" (1142 fxo^e?v xaOaoo??) jto??) and save Thebes.90

But, ironically, Dionysos never appears. Instead, the suicides of

Antigone and Haimon are announced by the messenger just

moments after the ode comes to a close.91 As in the Oidipous

Tyrannos and in the Aias, where the call for a Dionysiac epiphany is equally premature (697f.), the chorus's ineffectual recourse to

Dionysos serves to intensify the dramatic tension, and to drama

tize the god's ambivalence. In the final stanza, however, the hopes of the chorus are still high and crystallize into a mythical vision

of divine epiphany and of Dionysiac dancing on a cosmic scale

(1146-52):

l(b JT?Q jtveovxcav

Xoo?y' ?oxQcov, vvxi v

(|)0ey[x?x(Dv ?moxojie,

78 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

jta? A?o? y?veOXov, jipo^avriO',

(bva?, aa?? ?fxa jteQur?Xoic 0maaiv, a? ae umv?u.evai jt?vvvxoi

Xooe?ovoi xov xauxav "Iaxxov.

I?, chorus-leader {khor?gos) of the

fire-breathing stars,

overseer of the voices of the night, child born of Zeus, make your epiphany,

Lord, together with your attendant

Thyiads, who in their madness dance {khoreuousi) all night for you, Iakkhos the Dispenser.92

The juxtaposition of tcvq Jtve?vxcov x?p?y' ?oxQi?v and vvx???v

(|)9ey|x?xG)v emoxorce recalls the xoQoi ji?vvvxoi of the parode and the eihov jtuq of the fourth stasimon, while Dionysos is again

recognized as the divine role model and archetypal khor?gos who

leads his khoreutai in the dance.93 In the closing lines of the

stanza, the god is asked to make his epiphany along with his

maenad-nymphs, the Thyiads, who "dance for you all night"

(jmvvuxoi xoQeiJODOi). Not only does the last chorus of the play

join hands here in dance with the first, but the stars of the sky

join the sacred women on the Delphic mountain, and the choral

performance becomes part of a much larger cultic endeavor, one

that takes place only in the imagination. In a cascade of choral

projection, Dionysos himself leads the astral chorus of stars, while

the mythical maenads perform their dances under the night sky and the tragic chorus of the here and now follows suit in the

orchestra.94 All of the projected dancing takes place at night, and

appropriately so. The nocturnal setting recalls the night with

which the play begins; the interplay of light and darkness in

particular reminded the Athenian audience of the sacred night of the Eleusinian Mysteries, of the light revealed and the hope

proclaimed in the Telesterion, and of the Eleusinian Iakkhos

Dionysos, who is invoked in the Frogs as "the fire-bearing star

of the nocturnal initiation rite" (342ff. "Iaxx' "Iaxxe, vuxx?oou

xeXexfj? ())tt>a<j)OQO? aaxf|o); and finally, the Dionysiac night also

evokes the darkness of the chthonian realm, to which Dionysos is no stranger, and which Antigone embraces progressively in the

course of the action, until she too ends her life in a dark tomb, to join her parents and brothers in the netherworld.95

Albert Henrichs 79

Although the members of this chorus verbally engage in Diony siac dancing in three of their six songs, they do not refer directly to their actual performance in the orchestra. Rather, they project

their own dancing into a cultic future (152ff.), into the remote

mythical past (963ff.), and finally into a distinct Delphic and

Eleusinian ambience which subsumes myth and cult in a vision

of a world transformed by Dionysos, the divine chorus leader

(1146ff.). As we turn to the Trakhiniai, we see that the connections

between choral self-definition and maenadic dancing are more

direct and more emphatic than in the Antigone. What is more, choral self-referentiality acquires a distinct polytheistic dimension as non-Dionysiac rituals, and divinities other than Dionysos, enter

to play subsidiary roles in defining choral performance. Herakles

returns home unexpectedly after a long absence, and an overjoyed

Deianeira invites all the womenfolk (yuva?xe?, here used generi

cally regardless of age or social status)?"those within the house

and those outside the courtyard"?to raise their voice in song

and to celebrate the news of her husband's victorious return

(202-04). Jubilant at the prospect of a happy reunion of Herakles

and Deianeira, the chorus of young Trachinian women, "those

outside," oblige her at once. In the first movement of an astrophic choral interlude, their jubilation finds a ritual outlet as they in turn invite the young men of Herakles' household, as well as the

young women {parthenoi), themselves included, to sing and dance

for Apollo and Artemis (205-15):

?voX,o^??xo) ?ojxo?

?4>eaxioi? ?XaXaya?? ? \ieIXovv\i<\)O? ?v ?? xoiv?? ?oa?v v

?xo) xXayy? x?v exi^ap?x?av Aji?Mxd JiQoox?xav,

?jio?j ?? Jtai?va Jtai

?v' ?v?yex', d> JtaoO?voi,

?o?xe x?v ?fxoajiooov Aoxeuxv 'Opxuy?av, etax^a?oXov, ?uxjnnruQov,

yeixov?? xe NuuxJ)a?.

Let the house raise a cry of exultation {anololuxat?) with shouts of alalai by the hearth, the house soon to be united in wedlock.

8o "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?

And therein let the collective

shout of the men go up to the one of the fair quiver,

Apollo the protector, while you, maidens, raise the paian,

the paian-cry and call upon his twin sister

Artemis the Ortygian, deer-shooter,

carrier of the double torch, and upon the neighboring Nymphs.96

The language of ritual performance is very marked in these lines

and those that follow. The imperative mood (205, 208, 211, 212) and the self-referential first person present combined with the

"performative future" (216f. aioouxxi ova' ?jrc?oouxxi x?v avX?v) constitute "action descriptions" typically found in ritual contexts

and in choral self-reference.97 At the same time, the conventional

boundaries between gods and mortals, males and females, and

between the individual and the group are drawn with paradigmatic

precision. Men and women are addressed separately, but their

separate choirs are expected to perform their ritual tasks in uni

son. Song seems to take precedence over the dance, which the

chorus will soon claim as their own province (216ff.). The shrill

sound of the ololug? and alalag?, here used as ritualized expres sions of collective cheer, gives way quickly to the paian-cry

(echoed at 221) and to the more measured rhythms of the paian

song in praise of Artemis.98

The alternation of Apollo and Artemis mirrors the separate

identities of the two sexes. Still, the female chorus appropriates the male paian, at least for the time being, and Artemis is included

in their song.99 Thus ritual finally mediates gender divisions, as

befits the reenactment of a wedding, and the choral voice tran

scends the imaginary cultic occasion by invoking an Artemis who

hunts, carries torches, and is joined by the Nymphs?the mythical

counterparts of the parthenoi. Once again, however, the note of

triumph and celebration suggested by the paian and the prospect of sexual harmony represented by the integrating function of

Apollo and Artemis turn out to be premature; these elements

merely set the stage for the tragic reversal associated with Dio

nysos, who is often represented in tragedy as the subverter of

marriage.100

This song has been recognized as a highly imaginative synthesis of different ritual forms, performative modes, and generic fea

Albert Henrichs 81

tures. Critics have noted the mixture of alalag? and ololug?, of

ololug? and paian, of paeanic and dithyrambic elements, of victory

song and wedding choir, and of an Apollonian and a Dionysiac

emphasis.101 This overall fluidity of ritual categories also affects

the status of the chorus and their relationship to the "women

within the house" (202). Most scholars recognize ob Jtao?evoi

(211) as a self-address of the chorus, although others hold that

the young women of the chorus outside are addressing their age

mates within the house.102 But, coming as it does shortly after a

reference to the ?ooeve? inside, the address cb JtaoO?voi is general

enough to include the young women of the household as well as

the chorus.103 By addressing this socially marked age group, the

female chorus in the orchestra projects its own dramatic gender and status on an imagined choir of parthenoi offstage. Once they have paid their respects to Artemis, the divine model of the age

group they represent, the khoreutai turn to Dionysos at the mid

point of their dance-song (216ff.) and assert their true ritual

identity as a Dionysiac chorus carried away in the dance. It is

this carefully orchestrated transition from Apollo and Artemis to

the realm of Dionysos, as well as the parallel progression from

choral projection to direct choral self-referentiality, that makes

this chorus so special.

The shift to Dionysos seems abrupt, but it is facilitated by

avoXoXv^axio, a word that accommodates Dionysiac associa

tions.104 As soon as the women of the chorus begin to emphasize

dance over song, they adopt a Dionysiac stance and perceive their

own dancing as a choral competition under the aegis of Dionysos

{Tra. 216-21):

allouai ov?' ajroaaouxxi

xov avX?v, (b x?oavve x?? ?ua? (|)Qevo?. l?ou [x' ?vaxaoaaaei,

euo?, ? xiao?? ?oxi Baxxiav

i)7tooxQ?(t)cov ?uxMtav.

i(b i(b Jiai?v.

I am lifted up {airomai), nor shall I reject the pipe {aulos), O master of my mind.

See, the ivy {kissos) shakes me up,

euoi!,

82 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?

whirling me round now

in the Bacchic contest {hamilla).

I?, i?, paian.

Nowhere else in Sophoclean tragedy does choral self-referentiality find such vivid and agitated expression. The khoreutai are literally

rising to the occasion?they feel "lifted up," in both their bodies

and their souls. Emphatically placed at the beginning of their

utterance, a?QOjxai describes the initial impetus of their rapid dance movement in self-referential terms while simultaneously

drawing attention to their ecstatic state of mind.105 Aiqouxxi thus

corresponds emotionally as well as structurally to the JteQixaofj? avejrx?uxxv of the equally euphoric and Dionysiac chorus in

Aias (693).

Apart from a?oofxai, the Dionysiac spirit of this chorus is

reflected more tangibly in the double-reed pipe {aulos), the ivy

{kissos) and the notion of a "Bacchic contest" {hamilla). All three

terms combine a Dionysiac reference with an emphasis on choral

performance. The reed pipe and wreaths of ivy characterize mae

nadic thiasoi in vase painting as well as literature.106 Intensely

excited women in tragedy are often portrayed as maenads; as the

chorus of Trachinian parthenoi reach the height of their frenzy,

they too adopt a quasi-maenadic identity by associating them

selves with two of the most conspicuous paraphernalia of the

Dionysiac thiasos.107 At the same time, however, the pipe and the

ivy function as visual tokens of choral performance that connect

this chorus with the agonistic here and now of the City Dionysia. Commentators from Jebb to Davies have tended to emphasize the broader Dionysiac and maenadic connotations of the pipe and the ivy over their choreutic function, but Sophocles clearly

meant his audience to appreciate both.108 Dithyrambic choruses wore ivy wreaths during their choral competitions, and their

dance-songs were accompanied by the pipe-player {aul?t?s) .109

Tragic choruses also danced to the tune of the aulos, but it is

unlikely that they were ivy-wreathed as a general rule.110 Yet the

khoreutai of this particular chorus claim to be wearing ivy while

dancing to the pipe, features assimilating them to the dithyrambic chorus as well as the maenadic thiasos. Along with the pipe and

the ivy, the exclamation euoi has both maenadic and choreutic

associations, thus reinforcing Sophocles' dual emphasis on Diony

Albert Henrichs 83

siac role-playing and choral performance.111 By exhibiting an

ambivalent Dionysiac identity that allows a female as well as a

male interpretation, the members of this chorus assert their

choreutic role as male dancers in the orchestra without abandon

ing their dramatic character as women of Trachis. The potential

conflict between their dramatic and their ritual identity is avoided

by integrating both in a shared Dionysiac ambience.

The anonymous "master of my mind" (217 (b x?oavve x??

?jx?? (|)Qevo?), or the mastermind who stirs up (218 avaxaoaooei) this chorus to the point of ecstasy, has been variously identified

with the pipe, with Dionysos, and with Apollo.112 Despite its

orgiastic connotations and its close association with Dionysos, the

aulos does not fit the apostrophe very well; its wording strongly

suggests an addressee who is both personal and divine.113 In

addition, the tragic use of xao?ooeiv for mental agitation implies

"supernatural interference" or, in other words, divine agency.114

Apollo is prominent in the earlier part of the same ode, but in

the present context of Dionysiac possession he is a less likely candidate than Dionysos himself, the god of ecstatic dancing and

"Lord of the maenads."115 In Greek and Roman poetry, no other

god invades the minds (cj)Q?ve?, mens) of mortals to more powerful effect; even the ravings of prophetic figures such as Kassandra

and the Sibyl, who owe their inspiration to Apollo, are described in Dionysiac terms.116 Although Dionysos is not mentioned by

name in this ode, he is represented indirectly by the pipe and the

ivy, while his role as the god of the City Dionysia and its choral contests is acknowledged in the phrase Baxxiav auxXAav.

The concept of choral competition has not been sufficiently

explored in connection with this chorus and its literary anteced

ents. The earliest poetic evocation of a chorus being "uplifted" can be found in Alcman's Partheneion?"the Doves/Pleiads com

pete (uxxxovxai) with us as they rise (?fnoofx?vai =

aeiQO^ievai) like the dog-star through the ambrosian night."117 Most interpret

ers now agree that jx?xovxai implies choral competition, not

between two choruses but between rival members of the same

chorus. The meaning of afnoouivai is more controversial, but I

suggest that Alem?n compared the exaltation of the competing maidens as they were dancing during a night-festival while holding torches in their hands to the rising of a brilliant star.118 On this

reading, the notion of an "uplifted" and exalted chorus appears

84 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

as early as Alem?n, and it does so, significantly, in the context

of choral competition and of choral toil (jt?voi). References to

hamilla occur not only in Pindar and in the context of athletic

competition but also in poetic as well as prose descriptions of

tragic and dithyrambic choruses.119 Yet most scholars commenting on Baxxiav ?uxMuxv in recent years have been inclined to recog nize a reference to speed rather than competition.120 Speed there

is, but there is also the collective toil of choruses competing with

each other in the "Bacchic contest"?the Jt?voi xoqcdv of Pindar's

third Dithyramb come to mind.121 The spirit of such a physical exertion on behalf of the god of the dance is well captured in

the self-referential opening statement of the first chorus in the

Bakkhai: "I move swiftly in my sweet labors for Bromios, in a toil

that is well toiled" (65ff. Oo??o) Bqouxco jtovov f|?i3v, x?uxxx?v x'

eiJx?fxaxov). The notion of a Bacchic hamilla can thus be seen

as an integral element of the strategy of choral self-reference

employed by this chorus. Like the ivy and the pipe, it articulates

the maenadic as well as the choreutic dimension of this

chorus's identity. The chorus of young women conclude the Dionysiac part of

their dance-song with the ritual exclamation id) id) Jtai?v (221), which recalls their initial role as performers of the paian and

reminds us of the principle of choral projection that has allowed

them to oscillate between Apollo and Dionysos, between their own khoreia in the orchestra and the more imaginary khoroi

offstage, and between their dramatic character and their choral

identity. In the Trakhiniai Sophocles chose to employ the device of

premature choral jubilation at a much earlier stage of the action

than in any of the other plays discussed so far, but the effect is

even more dramatic. Once again the upbeat Dionysiac note struck

by the chorus marks the tragic reversal, and so does their intona

tion of the paian with which they close their performance.122 Their exuberance serves as a reminder that such optimism is an

unmistakable sign of worse to come?it sets the stage, antiphrasti

cally, for the veiled revelations of Likhas and, more ominously, for the silent presence of Iole, who will soon be revealed as the source of the tragedy that is about to unfold.

The Dionysiac music itself suffers a complete reversal several

hundred lines later, in the second stasimon, where the pipe reap

pears in what is by now a familiar pattern of choral projection

Albert Henrichs 85

designed to mark a change in the dramatic mood by a shift in

ritual emphasis {Tra. 640-43):

? xaMx?oac x?x' vuxv a?X?? o?x avaoa?av

?%(bv xavax?v ?jx?veioiv, ??l? Oeia? ?vxiXuoov uxruaa?.

Soon will the lovely voice of the pipe {aulos) rise again for you,

not resonating with a dissonant shriek, but with the sound

of divine music responding to the lyre.123

The chorus awaits the imminent return of Herakles after his

victory over the city of Eurytos and looks forward to the joyous music of the pipe and the lyre, reminiscent of Dionysos and

Apollo, that will greet the hero at his arrival. But implicit in the

litotes and the language of denial is the fear of a tragic reversal

and the sinister foreboding that the music might turn into its

opposite, that the Dionysiac aulos might become an instrument

of mourning.124 Indeed, in the meantime the fate of Herakles has

been reversed offstage, where the victorious hero is dying a slow

and painful death. The description of the poison consuming his

body is couched in Dionysiac metaphor, and his demise is ritual

ized as a corrupted sacrifice.125 The circumstances of his death

thus subvert the efficacy of ritual performance and dampen the

exuberant spirit of the Dionysiac dance performed earlier by the

chorus; at the same time, however, the elaborate Dionysiac image,

which describes the destructive violence of the poison that marks

the moment of reversal, verbally dramatizes the dark side and the

ambivalence of the tragic Dionysos.126

The last choral song (947-70) is a lament for Herakles and a

wish for escape from a painful sight?the silent procession that

carries the poisoned Herakles onto the stage. Throughout the

final scene of the play, the pipe too is silent, muted by the shrieks

of pain which accompany the agony of the suffering hero. In its

silence, the pipe functions as a self-referential symbol of the

dramatic and emotional constraints that control choral perfor

mance. When the pipe falls silent at 970, the chorus stops dancing for good?a dozen lines before Herakles fills the stage with his

cries, and three hundred lines before the play ends.127

86 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?!

IV.

A Euripidean Chorus

Sophoclean choruses who define their choral identity self-refer

entially never act in a ritual vacuum. Rather, their choral perfor

mance, verbally supported by self-referential terms such as

khoros, khoreuein, or aulos, corresponds closely to other types

of ritual performance that are integral to the action but are also

projected on participants located outside the orchestra, in the

realm of the dramatic imagination. Comparable patterns of choral

self-definition through choral projection can be found in several

plays of Euripides, of whose work I choose the Elektra as a

particularly apt example.128 In this play the chorus of Argive women refer to their own choral performance in the first person?

"my dance" (865 euxp X00(p) and "our dancing" (874f. xo ?'

?fx?xeoov . . .

%?Qev\ia). The same chorus twice invites Elektra

to join in the dance; twice she declines (167-80; 859-79). Every time the members of this chorus refer to choral dancing, whether

Elektra's or their own, they relate it to imaginary ritual events

that are integral to the dramatic action?an Argive festival and

the celebration of Orestes' victory. While choral performance and

choral projection thus provide the context for the interaction

between the chorus and Elektra, they also prove instrumental in

blending the dramatic and performative identities of the chorus.

Closer scrutiny of El. 859ff. reveals the intricacies of this pattern, as well as some of the differences between Euripides and Sophocles in their dramatization of ritual performance.129

At the first dramatic climax of the play, a messenger reports how

Aigisthos is slaughtered by Orestes while the two are sacrificing a

young bull to the country Nymphs. In this graphic display of

ritual violence, the human victim is literally superimposed on the

sacrificial animal, and the Aeschylean metaphor of the perverted sacrifice becomes a ritual reality?its performance takes place

offstage and is verbally reenacted onstage. As Aigisthos lies in

his blood, Orestes reveals his own identity. The palace servants

are jubilant, raise the ritual cry of triumph and crown Orestes

with a wreath (854f. ox?fyovoi.. . xcxioovxe? ?taxXxx?ovxe?). The

wreath and the akakayr] have sacrificial as well as epinician connotations and mark the transition from the violence of the

contaminated sacrifice to the communal celebration of Orestes'

victory, in which the chorus is about to take an active part.130 As

Albert Henrichs 87

soon as the messenger has left the stage, the chorus performs a

victory dance and invites Elektra to join in their dancing and

singing (859-65, the strophe):

O?? ?? x?Qov> d) (j?a, ?xvo?, ob? ve?poc ouo?viov

jrf|?r||xa novtyiCovGa ovv ?yXa?a. vixa oxec()ava(()?Qa xoe?aaoo x?rv jrao' AXx|)eio?>

Qe?Ogoi? xeX?oa?

xaoiyvrjxo? a??ev ?Kk' im?ei?e

xaMxvixov (b??v ?^icp xoqcd.

Set your foot dancing {khoros), dear friend, fawn-like

nimbly leaping sky-high in festive joy! Your brother has won, has completed a crown-contest

surpassing those by Alpheios' stream. Come, accompany

my dance {khoros) with a song of glorious victory.131

The prevailing poetic mode of this chorus is epinician rather than Dionysiac, with emphasis on a victory song, wreaths, and

dancing in honor of Orestes. The invitation to celebrate Orestes'

"victory"?and what an ambivalent, costly victory that was?is

passed on like a torch from the messenger to the chorus, who in turn pass it to Elektra. But Elektra is less than fully cooperative: she will fetch a wreath for her brother but leaves the khoreia to

the chorus (866-72). The two ritual tasks, the dancing and the

wreathing, will be divided between Elektra and the chorus, so

that "the chorus' performance of the dance provides a ritual

context for the crowning."132 In the corresponding antistrophe,

the women of the chorus acquiesce in Elektra's choice to crown

Orestes (873f.) and to nobody's surprise claim the dance-song

for themselves (874f.): "Our dancing will proceed, dear to the

Muses," xo ?' ?fx?xeoov xcDof|aexai Mo?oaiai x?Qev\ia <|)?k)v. By using the performative future to signify their ritual intent, they reassert their own choral identity.133 In retrospect, the messenger's

invitation to celebrate Orestes' victory and Elektra's refusal to

dance prove to be patent vehicles for choral self-referentiality. At

the end of the antistrophe, after an approving nod to Orestes

and his victory, the khoreutai add the choreutic pipe and the ecstatic shout to their choral credentials: "Let shouts of joy be raised in unison with the pipe," oXV ?xco ?waiAo? ?oa %a.QQ (879). As soon as they have completed the process of choral self

88 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?!

definition, Euripides brings the performance of the chorus to an

abrupt end and moves on with the action.

But what about Dionysos? In two of the Sophoclean choruses

discussed earlier, Dionysos and Pan are invoked as "dance-mas

ters" {Aias 698 xoQOJioi?, Ant. 1147 xopay?) who lead and inspire the choral dance. In the Trakhiniai and the Oidipous Tyrannos as well, choral dancing is represented as Dionysiac dancing. Like

Sophocles, Euripides connects choral self-referentiality routinely with Dionysos, but his connections tend to be more allusive.134

The pattern of allusion in the Elektra involves both the use of

Dionysiac metaphor and the suppression of any direct reference to Dionysos. Instead of invoking Dionysos directly, the chorus

refers to its own dancing as "dear to the Muses." Outside tragedy,

in the poetry of the archaic period, the choral dances of the Muses are more often associated with Apollo than with Dionysos.135 In

the fourth stasimon of the Antigone and the second stasimon of

the Herakles, however, the Muses appear side by side with Dio

nysos as divinities in charge of maenadic as well as choral dancing. In both plays, the striking association of the Muses with Dionysos forms part of a more comprehensive pattern of choral self

referentiality.136

The choral dancing "dear to the Muses" in the Elektra is equally self-referential, and through a typically Euripidean combination

of metaphor and choral projection, it is ultimately also connected

with Dionysos. When, at the beginning of the strophe, the chorus

invites Elektra to join the dance, the khoreutai project their own

dancing on Elektra and compare her?and implicitly themselves?

to "a fawn lifted sky-high as it leaps in festive joy" (859-61). The fawn and the fawnskin belong in the realm of Dionysos, and

the metaphor of the leaping fawn recurs in one of the choral odes

of the Bakkhai as an image of maenadic freedom and escape from

oppression.137 The use of this maenadic metaphor as well as the

reference to the aulos (879) establish a distinct Dionysiac ambience

for the performance of this chorus and reinforce similar allusions

to the realm of Dionysos and to Dionysiac ritual in other parts of this play.138

In Sophocles we found the tendency to imbed choral self

referentiality in the structure of one ode and to echo it in

another.139 Such echoes are usually accompanied by shifts in

ritual emphasis?the nature of the ritual or the identity of those

performing it undergoes a significant transformation in the wake

Albert Henrichs 89

of choral projection. Euripides adopted this technique in the

Elektra. The two parallel references to choral dancing discussed so far complete a more complex pattern of choral projection set

up at the beginning of the play.140 In the lyric exchange that

replaces the parodos, the Argive women of the chorus invite

Elektra to participate in the Heraia, a local women's festival

whose rituals are "tragically negated" by the characters as well

as by the action of this play.141 Elektra not only declines but

expressly refuses to take part in choral dancing (175-80):

otjx ?jr' ?yXa?ai?, (|)?Xai, 0vu.?v oi)?' ?m XQ^o?oi?

OQfxoi? ?xjrejtoxafxai x?Xaiv', o??' iax?oa xoqo??

Aoyeiai? ?u<x vuux|)ai? eiXixx?v xqo?ooo jto?' ?uov.

Dear friends, not for shimmering robes, not for twisted bracelets of gold does my heart take wing in delight. I am too sad, I cannot set up choral dances {khoroi)

with the Argive maidens or beat the tune with my whirling foot.142

Elektra informs the chorus that she is not in the mood to adorn

herself with jewelry, or to preside as khor?gos over the dance,

activities incompatible with the rigor of her mourning. This

renunciation of one kind of ritual performance (dance) for the

sake of another (mourning) anticipates Elektra's later refusal to

perform the victory dance for Orestes, although she does crown

her brother; her attitude also recalls the Sophoclean Elektra who

stops Chrysothemis from carrying libations to the tomb of Aga memnon. Elektra's aversion to dancing locates the dance all the

more squarely within the ritual realm of the chorus. We recall

that later in the play the same khoreutai will lay claim to the

dance as their own province in a performative assertion of their

choral identity: "Our dance will proceed," x? ?' auixeoov

X?)of|aexai Mo?oaiax x?oeuuxx fyikov (874f.). The device of choral

self-referentiality thus serves to articulate the fragility of ritual

remedies, but also their centrality to the life of the drama and

the life of the audience. Ritual dancing in tragedy becomes a

90 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

crucial link between the religion of the polis expressed in cult

and the realm of the imagination embodied in myth made visi

ble onstage.143

A final point: closer study of other Euripidean choruses would

reveal an even greater complexity of choral self-referentiality and

of a technique characterized by highly imaginative recourse to

choral projection and the disruption of choral convention. In fact, because Attic drama privileged the choral voice over more action

oriented aspects of choral performance, the tragic chorus was

always in danger of losing its ritual identity. As dancers in the

orchestra, the khoreutai relied on their feet and their dancing to

assert their ritual role. But as actors in the drama and as "agents

of narrative," to adopt a phrase introduced by Claude Ca?ame,

tragic choruses were more prominently defined by their choral

voice and dramatic character than by their ritual role.144 This

dichotomy makes the rather rare instances in which they verbalize

their own dancing all the more precious. Each time it occurs, choral self-referentiality beneficially integrates the performance of the khoreutai with the performative power of the choral voice

and helps reduce the distance between the orchestra and the

imaginary space of the drama. By the same token, the very exis

tence of choral self-reference as a self-conscious performative

mode also acknowledges the fact that drama has come a long

way since its ritual beginnings, and that ritual as action and

reenactment is now controlled and systematically called into ques

tion by the dynamics of the spoken word, by performative utter

ance and verbal performance. Still, each time tragic choruses

relate their own dancing to Dionysos, they not only locate their

performance in the cultic setting of the Dionysiac festival but also

recall and reenact the distant origins of tragedy.145

NOTES

1. The Greek semantics of khoros include both elements, dance as well as

song. For lack of a more suitable word, I shall occasionally use "dance" as

shorthand for the choral performance of the "dance-song" ("Tanzlied," see n.

23). Recent studies of khoreia in Greek culture emphasize its broad performative

function, the interplay of dance and song, and the relationship of poetics to "song

culture"; see C. Ca?ame, Les ch urs de jeunes filles en Gr?ce archa?que, 2 vols.,

Rome 1977; W. Mullen, Choreia: Pindar and Dance, Princeton 1982; J. Herington,

Poetry into Drama: Early Tragedy and the Greek Poetic Tradition, Berkeley/Los

Albert Henrichs 91

Angeles/London 1985; A. P. Burnett, The Art of Bacchylides (Cambridge, Mass./

London 1985) 5-14; G. Nagy, Pindar's Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past (Baltimore/London 1990) 339-81; S. H. Lonsdale, Dance and Ritual Play in Greek Religion, Baltimore/London 1993. Earlier works tend to define the

chorus more one-dimensionally in dramatic, artistic, or cultural terms: A. W.

Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens (reissue of 2d ed., Oxford

1988) 246-57; H. Koller, Musik und Dichtung im alten Griechenland, Bern/

Munich 1963; G. Prudhommeau, La danse grecque antique, Paris 1965 (a choreo

graphic study of ancient images and texts); L. B. Lawler, The Dance in Ancient

Greece, London 1964; A. M. Dale, "Words, Music and Dance," in Collected

Papers (Cambridge 1969) 156-69; T. B. L. Webster, The Greek Chorus, London

1970; J. W. Fitton, "Greek Dance," C. Q. n. s. 23 (1973) 254-74.

2. See A. F. H. Bierl, Dionysos und die griechische Trag?die. Politische und

'metatheatralische' Aspekte im Text (Classica Monacensia 1, Munich 1991) 5-7.

3. On the question of the ritual origins of Greek drama, its current status as

well as its history, see A. W. Pickard-Cambridge and T. B. L. Webster, Dithyramb,

Tragedy and Comedy, 2d ed., Oxford 1962; B. Vickers, Towards Greek Tragedy:

Drama, Myth, Society (London 1973) 33-42; H. C. Payne, "Modernizing the

Ancients: The Reconstruction of Ritual Drama 1870-1920," Proc. Am. Philos.

Soc. 122 (1978) 182-92; M. S. Silk and J. P. Stern, Nietzsche on Tragedy (Cam

bridge 1981) 142-50; R. Friedrich, "Drama and Ritual," in J. Redmond (ed.), Drama and Religion (Themes in Drama 5, Cambridge 1983) 159-223; R. P.

Winnington-Ingram in P. E. Easterling and B. Knox (eds.), The Cambridge

History of Classical Literature, vol. 1: Greek Literature (Cambridge/New York

1985) 258-63; A. D. Napier, Masks, Transformation, and Paradox (Berkeley/ Los Angeles 1986) 30-44. The evolutionist ritual model has been applied para

digmatically to Attic drama by W. Burkert, "Greek Tragedy and Sacrificial Ritual," GRBS 7 (1966) 87-121, and R. Seaford, Euripides: Cyclops, Oxford 1984.

4. S. Goldhill, "The Great City Dionysia and Civic Ideology," JHS 107 (1987)

58-76, expanded version in J. J. Winkler and F. I. Zeitlin (eds.), Nothing to Do

with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context (Princeton 1990) 97-129.

More specialized explorations of the intersection of the festival setting, political

environment, and social meaning of tragedy include J. J. Winkler, "The Ephebes'

Song: Trag?idia and Polis," Representations 11 (1985) 26-62, revised version in

Nothing to Do with Dionysos? 20-62; W. R. Connor, "City Dionysia and Athenian

Democracy," Classica et Mediaevalia 40 (1989) 7-32, who takes issue with both

Winkler and Goldhill; D. C. Pozzi, "The Polis in Crisis," in D. C. Pozzi and J. M. Wickersham (eds.), Myth and the Polis (Ithaca/London 1991) 126-63; J.

Aronen, "Notes on Athenian Drama as Ritual Myth-Telling within the Cult of

Dionysos," Arctos. Acta Philologica Fennica 26 (1992) 19-37 (Attic tragedy as a

collective rite of passage organized by the male citizens of the polis). 5. C. Segal, Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides' Bacchae, Princeton 1982; F. I.

Zeitlin, "Mysteries of Identity and Designs of the Self in Euripides' Ion" PCPhS

35 (1989) 144-97, "Euripides' Hekabe and the Somatics of Dionysiac Drama," Ramus 20 (1991) 53-94, and "Staging Dionysos between Thebes and Athens," in C. A. Faraone and T. H. Carpenter (eds.), Masks of Dionysus (Ithaca/London

1993) 147-82; R. Seaford, "Dionysos as Destroyer of the Household: Homer,

Tragedy, and the Polis," in Masks of Dionysus 115-46, and Reciprocity and

Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State (Oxford 1994) 328-67.

92 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

6. R. Schlesier, Die tragischen Masken des Dionysos. Bakchische Metamor

phosen bei Euripides, unpublished Habilitationsschrift, Berlin 1987, with chapters on Hipp., Hek., SuppL, Herakles, Tro., and ?/.; "Die Bakchen des Hades. Dionys ische Aspekte von Euripides' Hekabe," Metis 3 (1988) 111-35; "Mixtures of

Masks: Maenads as Tragic Models," in Masks of Dionysus (n. 5) 89-114.

7. Bierl, Dionysos und die griechische Trag?die (n. 2), preceded by Vorkommen

und Funktion des Gottes Dionysos bei den griechischen Tragikern au?erhalb der

'Bakchen' des Euripides. Eine Stelleninterpretation unter Ber?cksichtigung der

Fragmente (unpublished master's thesis, Munich 1986). Bierl is keenly aware that

the most ambitious interpretations of the tragic Dionysos always entail a distinctly theoretical dimension; his own approach owes much to the work of H. Foley, S.

Goldhill, C. Segal, J.-P. Vernant, and F. I. Zeitlin.

8. Bierl (n. 2) llf., 24, 75-79, 119-24, 223f., 228-33.

9. Bierl (n. 2) 54-67; 100-03; 124-37, esp. 126f. and 129; 233-35, esp. 224.

10. Bierl (n. 2) 67-99, 103-10, 137-218, 224-26.

11. For the purpose of my argument, "choral" means specifically "relating to

the dance-song {khoreia)" in addition to its broader meaning "belonging to a

chorus" (as in "choral voice"). P. E. Easterling suggests "choric self-referentiality" as an alternative term that would resolve any ambiguity. As used by M. R.

Lefkowitz, First-Person Fictions: Pindar's Poetic T' (Oxford 1991) 11?25, "choral

self-description" covers all first person statements in which a chorus addresses

its own identity and performance (below, n. 35). 12. S. Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1986) 244-64, implicitly

modifying the conclusion of O. Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford

1977) 132f.: "Nowhere in Greek tragedy are there, in my view, specific references

to the theatre." More recently, however, Taplin has acknowledged the presence of "theatrical self-referentiality" in Greek tragedy (P. Wilson and O. Taplin, "The

'Aetiology' of Tragedy in the Oresteia," PCPhS 39, 1993, 169-80). 13. On metatheatrical "Selbstreferentialit?t" (123) in general and on Dionysos

as its "Referenzpunkt," see Bierl (n. 2) 20-25 and 111-226. Bierl draws attention

to particular instances of choral self-referentiality (below, n. 62), but he does not

discuss the overall pattern. 14. A. Prom. Pyrk. fr. 204b Radt and E. Kykl. 63ff.

15. On "metatheatrical" self-reflexivity in comedy, the matrix for choral self

referentiality, see most recently Bierl (n. 2) 27-44, 172-76 and "Dionysus, Wine,

and Tragic Poetry," GRBS 31 (1990) 353-91, esp. 358f., 370-76, 384-86; S.

Goldhill, The Poet's Voice: Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature (Cambridge

1991) 167-222, esp. 196-222; C. W. M?ller, "Aristophanes und Horaz. Zu einem

Verlaufsschema von Selbstbehauptung und Selbstgewi?heit zweier Klassiker,"

Hermes 120 (1992) 129-41, esp. 135-40; K. Dover, Aristophanes Frogs (Oxford

1993) 58-60. Some of the less obvious ways that comedy dramatizes the conditions

of its own performance self-referentially have now been explored by O. Taplin, Comic Angels and Other Approaches to Greek Drama through Vase-Painting

(Oxford 1993) 69-78 and 105-10.

16. Choral self-referentiality occurs in conjunction with all three modes at Ar.

Clouds 264-313 (below, n. 105), Lys. 1279-1321 (below, nn. 82, 105), Thesm.

947-1000 (see Ca?ame [n. 1], vol. 1, 245; Bierl [n. 2] 174f.; below, n. 38), and

Frogs 324?415. On dance-songs performed by comic choruses see Koller (n. 1) 17?20 and M. Kaimio, The Chorus of Greek Drama within the Light of the Person

Albert Henrichs 93

and Number Used (Societas Scientiarum Fennica, Commentationes Humanarum

Litterarum 46, Helsinki 1970) 127f.

17. C. Segal, in Part II of this double issue (forthcoming), concludes: "Because

of this distance from an actual ritual, the dramatist can use ritual forms with

greater freedom and even reflect on the nature of ritual. Hence at the end of the

second stasimon of the Tyrannus the chorus can raise the question of its ritual

performance of the ode: T? ?E? \ie XOQE?81V;" 18. On several occasions, P. E. Easterling has drawn attention to the ease with

which Greek tragedy moves between the "world of the theatre" and the "'here

and now' of the performance," and to the shifting boundaries that separate the

dramatic construct from the real world of the audience. See her "Women in Tragic

Space," B/C534 (1987) 15-26, at 17f.; "Constructing Character in Greek Tragedy," in C. B. R. Pelling, Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature (Oxford

1990) 83-99, esp. 84-87, and "Euripides in the Theatre," Pallas 37 (1991) 49-59, at 49f.

19. Contrast H. W. Smyth, Greek Melic Poets (London 1906) lxxiv n. 1:

"Sophokles is the only tragic poet who makes use of this form of choral." This

continues to be a widespread misconception. In the surviving plays, Sophocles uses self-referential choral dance-songs much more frequently than Aeschylus, and with greater structural consistency than does Euripides.

20. For instance by R. C. Jebb, Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments. Part V:

The Trachiniae (Cambridge 1892) 34 on Tra. 205ff. (discussed below); P. Vicaire,

"Place et figure de Dionysos dans la trag?die de Sophocle," REG 81 (1968) 351-73, at 354f., 358f., 361, 363-67; R. W. B. Burton, The Chorus in Sophocles' Tragedies

(Oxford 1980) 50, 59f.; T. C. W. Stinton, Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy

(Oxford 1990) 404 ("a short lyric outburst or hyporcheme," on S. Tra. 205ff.);

Zeitlin, "Staging Dionysus" (n. 5) 155, 160.

21. Dale (n. 1) 34-40 ("Stasimon and Hyporcheme"); Pickard-Cambridge (n.

1) 251f. and 255-57; M. di Marco, "Osservazioni sull'iporchema," Helikon 13-14

(1973/74) 326-48, esp. 344ff.; C. P. Gardiner, The Sophoclean Chorus: A Study

of Character and Function (Iowa City 1987) 6f. The ancient misconception that

stasima are stationary is well illustrated by the scholiast on S. Tra. 216 (one of

the Sophoclean huporkh?mata discussed below): x? y?g [leXibaQiov ovn ?cm

crc?au?ov, oXk' vno Tfj? fj?ovfj? ?oxo?vTai ("The songlet is not a stasimon, but rather they dance out of joy"). In his lecture on the Greek lyric poets (1878/ 79 version), Friedrich Nietzsche summarized the prevailing nineteenth-century definition of the term crt?oifAOV: "The designation OTO?ifia does not refer to

the standing [of the chorus]; the word means "standing songs," not standstill

songs, because the chorus has reached its station, where it may indeed dance.

Many ar?oi|ia were performed as a dance." (Nietzsche, Werke. Kritische Gesamt

ausgabe, part 2, vol. 2, Berlin/New York 1993, 378: "Die OTOtotfia dr?cken

dem Namen nach nicht das Stehen aus; der Name hei?t "Standlieder," nicht

Stillstandlieder, weil der Chor seinen Standort erreicht hat, auf dem er wohl

tanzen kann. Viele GTa?uxa wurden getanzt.") According to M. L. West, Studies

in Aeschylus (Stuttgart 1990) 21, the earliest tragic choruses "were going round

the demes performing at one site after another. Led by their aulete, they sang . . .

as they approached the waiting public, they sang as they departed, and the

ox?oi\iov uiXo? was the song they performed where they stopped." 22. Cf. A. M. Dale, The Lyric Metres of Greek Drama (2d ed., Cambridge

1968) 210; Pickard-Cambridge (n. 1) 256 n. 4. The term VJi?QXr\\ia is first attested

94 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

in Plato's Ion (534c) as part of a list of distinct modes of poetic composition that

includes the dithyramb and the enkomion as well as epic and iambic poetry. Plato

clearly did not associate the huporkh?ma with tragic choruses.

23. U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Euripides, Herakles (Berlin 1889 and

1895, repr. Darmstadt 1959), vol. 1, 77, recognized the interaction of dance and

song as the defining feature of several related forms of choral performance when

he described dithyrambs, huporkh?mata and dramatic choruses generically as

"Tanzlieder." On the semantics of huporkh?ma, see Nagy (n. 1) 351-53.

24. Pratinas fr. 3 Snell/Kannicht (TrGF vol. 1, 82) = fr. 1 Page (PMG 708).

Cf. R. Seaford, "The 'Hyporchema' of Pratinas," Maia 29 (1977/78) 81-94, esp. 87f. assigns the fragment to a satyr-play, defends the early date (ca. 500 B.C.)

implied by Athenaios, and notes the emphasis on choral identity; he is followed

by R. Kannicht et alii, Musa Tr?gica: Die griechische Trag?die von Thespis bis

Ezechiel (Studienhefte zur Altertumswissenschaft 16, G?ttingen 1991) 50-52 and

272 n. 9. Unlike Seaford, H. Lloyd-Jones, Greek Epic, Lyric and Tragedy: Aca

demic Papers I (Oxford 1990) 228f. as well as B. Zimmermann, Mus. Helv. 43

(1986) 145?54 and Dithyrambos. Geschichte einer Gattung (Hypomnemata 98,

G?ttingen 1992) 124?26 recognize the text as a specimen of the New Dithyramb

composed in the second half of the fifth century. Cf. M. J. H. van der Weiden,

The Dithyrambs of Pindar: Introduction, Text and Commentary (Amsterdam

1991), 5-7, who leaves both options open. 25. The Dionysiac tenor of the Sophoclean choruses discussed in this paper

was first emphasized by V. de Falco, "Osservazioni sull'iporchema in Sofocle," Rivista Indo-Greco-Italica 8 (1924) 23?46, repr. in his Studi sul teatro greco (2d

ed., Naples 1958) 56?88. De Falco was not interested, however, in choral self

reference as such, even though the phenomenon is inseparable from the Diony siac ambience.

26. A. Henrichs, "Dancing for Dionysos: Choral Performance and Dionysiac Ritual in Euripides" (presented at the APA panel on "Performance and Ritual

Context in Early Greek Poetry," New Orleans, December 29,1992), is in prepara tion for publication.

27. In general, see G. F. Else, "Ritual and Drama in Aischyleian Tragedy," ICS

2 (1977) 70-87, esp. 75ff. ; T. G. Rosenmeyer, The Art of Aeschylus (Berkeley/ Los Angeles/London 1982) 145-87, esp. 152ff.

28. L. Deubner, "Ololyge und Verwandtes," Abh. Preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. 1941.1,

reprinted in Kleine Schriften zur klassischen Altertumskunde (Beitr?ge zur klas

sischen Philologie 140, K?nigstein/Ts. 1982) 607-34, at 22f. = 628f.; F. I. Zeitlin,

Under the Sign of the Shield: Semiotics and Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes

(Rome 1982) 164-68; L. K?ppel, Paian. Studien zur Geschichte einer Gattung

(Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte 37, Berlin/New York 1992)

45, 81f. (on the ritual affinity of ololug? and paian), 301 test. 15.

29. Orestes as a suppliant: C. Macleod, Collected Essays (Oxford 1983) 36

(Orestes' suppliant status "distinguishes him from the other murderers of the

trilogy"); as a sacrificial victim: F. I. Zeitlin, "The Motif of the Corrupted Sacrifice

in Aeschylus' Oresteia" TAPA 96 (1965) 463-508, at 485-88; A. Lebeck, The

Oresteia: A Study in Language and Structure (Cambridge, Mass. 1971) 60-63,

146f.

30. On the grammar of performative utterances, see nn. 82, 97, and 133.

Albert Henrichs 95

31. Cf. Od. 2.135 oxvyeo?? . . . 'Eqiv??, 20.78 OTvy?QY\oiv 'Eqlvvoiv. On the

sinister chthonian connotations of words like oxvy?i?, oxvyeg??, and aruyvo?,

including the Styx herself, see my comments in ZPE 78 (1989) llf. Elsewhere in

the Oresteia, oxvyo? is associated with reciprocal violence and bloodshed (Ag.

1308L; Ch. 80-83, 386-92, 532f., 1028).

32. Pindar fr. 70c3 ]iTO \i?v crc?oic, followed by references to conventional

markers of the Dionysiac dance-song such as "foot" (4 jjto?a), "singing" (6

(lieX?Coi), "ivy wreaths" (7 o[TE()>?]va)V xi?oivoov; see nn. 109-10) and Jt?voi

XOQCov (line 16; see the discussion at n. 121). Zimmermann, Dithyrambos (n.

24) 50 and van der Weiden (n. 24) 113 dispute the choral connotation of oxao?? here on the grounds that it would be unparalleled in Pindar, and opt for the

common meaning "civil strife," which is difficult to reconcile with the context.

They do not mention the choral use of oxao?? in Aeschylus. On choral oxao?? in Aristophanes see n. 36.

33. A. F. Garvie, Aeschylus: Choephori (Oxford 1986) 168 on Ch. 458.

34. Most recently Garvie (n. 33) 73,168 on Ch. 114,458, and A. H. Sommerstein,

Aeschylus: Eumenides (Cambridge 1989) 137. N. Loraux, "Le m?taphore sans

m?taphore: A propos de VOrestie," Revue philosophique 180 (1990) 247-68 at

266f. translates oraai? ?\ir) more suitably as "ma position de ch ur" and com

ments: "nom technique de l'installation d'un ch ur dans Yorkhestra."

35. Cf. Lefkowitz (n. 11) 13: "The chorus's first-person statements deal only with choral activities, with dancing and singing (xoqeUe?Ocu), with communal

ritual, with the performance, but never with the composition of song, since that

is the concern of the poet." On the use of the first person and the pronoun o?e

as deictic markers in the "'chorocentric' reference system" of choral poetry see

J. Danielewicz, "Deixis in Greek Choral Lyric," QUCC n. s. 34 (1990) 7-17.

36. See Ca?ame (n. 1) vol. 1, 88f. n. 91, 94-99, and Nagy (n. 1) 361-69 on

XOQ?V ?oT?vca (A. fr. 204b 7=16 Radt; S. El. 280; E. Alk. 1155, El. 178 [discussed in the final section of this paper], ?. A. 676; Ar. Birds 220) and its derivatives

XOQO?Tcmic (IG XII 2, 645(a)36, honorary decree from Nesos, Aiolis, 4th c.

B.c.), xoQOordiTi? (attested as early as Alem?n fr. 1.84), xoq?dv xaTCtOTCt?iv (A.

Ag. 23; Ar. Thesm. 959, quoted below, n. 38), %OQOOXaoia (A. W. Bulloch, Callimachus: The Fifth Hymn, Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries

26, Cambridge 1985, 174f. on Callim. Lav. Pall. 66), and ornoixoooc (PMG fr.

adesp. 20c [938c] Page), as well as on the choral use of oxao?? (Ar. Frogs 1281,

Plutos 954). 37. For this definition of OT?oijiov, which assumes a mobile as opposed to a

stationary chorus (n. 21), see Pickard-Cambridge (n. 1) 251f., and Nagy (n. 1) 366 n. 145. Sommerstein (n. 34) 136f. does not connect ox?oic ?uT| with choral

formation, but he comments on Eum. 307-20: "Chanting in anapests, the chorus

regroup themselves in the formation in which they will dance and sing the

ensuing ode."

38. Pickard-Cambridge (n. 1) 239 n. 2 considers Eum. 307ff. "the likeliest place for a round dance in extant tragedy," and O. Taplin, Greek Tragedy in Action

(Berkeley/Los Angeles 1978) 188 n. 6 agrees. Sommerstein (n. 34) 136f. compares Ar. Thesm. 954f. xox)(|)a Jioaiv ?y' ?? x?xXov, %eiQ? a?vajtTE xs?oa. The

subsequent lines are equally relevant (956-59): qu9u.?v xoQE?a? vjcayE jt?aaV

?aivE KaQKa\?\iow jto?o?v./?maxojte?v ?? navxaxi] / hvkXovoclv ?\i\ia xqt)

96 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

XOQOiJ XdT?crcaaiv (see n. 36). Much has been made of the rectangular formation

of tragic choruses (Winkler [n. 4] 42-58), but in at least two tragedies female

choruses formed a circle around an altar while praying (A. fr. 379 Radt) or

dancing (E. /. A. 1480f., cf. 1467-72), in much the same way that the Erinyes surround their sacrificial victim. These instances suggest that circular dances in

tragedy were linked to sacrificial ritual and performed around the orchestral altar

(on which see R. Rehm, GRBS 29, 1988, 263-307, esp. 271f., 297f.). Circular

dances mentioned self-referentially by comic choruses tend to be connected with

the cult of Demeter (Ar. Frogs 445, Thesm. 954, 968). 39. The curse tablets from Attica range in date from the second half of the

fifth century B.c. to late antiquity; as many as two hundred tablets are estimated

to date to the fifth and fourth centuries (C. A. Faraone, TAPA 119 [1989] 155f.). For the most recent inventory of curse tablets from Attica, see D. R. Jordan, "A

Survey of Greek Defixiones Not Included in the Special Corpora," GRBS 26

(1985) 151-97, esp. 155-66, and Jordan, "New Archaeological Evidence for the

Practice of Magic in Classical Athens," in Praktika tou XII diethnous synedriou klassik?s archaiologias (Athens 1988) 273-77. On their format, mentality, and

relevance to the Eumenides, see C. A. Faraone, "Aeschylus' ftjivoc ??ajAio? {Eum.

306) and Attic Judicial Curses," JHS 105 (1985) 150-54 and "The Agonistic Context in Early Greek Binding Spells," in C. A. Faraone and D. Obbink (eds.),

Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (New York/Oxford 1991)

3-32, esp. 4-10. Cf. J. A. Gager (ed.), Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (New York/Oxford 1992) 116-50, a collection and discussion

of judicial curse tablets in translation.

40.1 have borrowed freely from the translations of H. Lloyd-Jones, Aeschylus: The Oresteia (Berkeley/Los Angeles 1993) 230, and Y. Prins, "The Power of the

Speech Act: Aeschylus' Furies and their Binding Song," Arethusa 24 (1991) 177-95, at 185.

41. Cf. Wilson/Taplin (n. 12) 171?74. The choral performance of the Erinyes has been discussed, with emphasis on perverted song rather than dance, by E.

Fraenkel, Aeschylus: Agamemnon (Oxford 1950), vol. 3, 543f.; Lebeck (n. 29)

56, 77,146f.; Macleod (n. 29) 33. On the inversion of normal choral and komastic

performance in Kassandra's characterization of the Erinyes see M. Heath, "Receiv

ing the x jxo?: The Context and Performance of Epinician," AJP 109 (1988)

180-95, esp. 186 and 194. The association of khoros and k?mos is conventional;

the shared performative elements include singing as well as dancing (Heath 182f.,

185f., who is overly concerned, however, with separating the k?mos from the

khoreia). 42. The interplay of dance and song, of physical coercion and performative

utterance, in this chorus has been fully and imaginatively treated by Prins (n. 40)

183-88. Sommerstein (n. 34) 146 comments on Eum. 372-76: "Here again the

words may indicate the dance-movements. First the dancers leap high (uxxXa . . .

aXouiva) and come down hard (?aptmeTTJ xaTa(j)?Q(0 jio??? axji?v) as if

stamping the life out of their victim. . . . After this they may perhaps extend a

leg as if to trip up a runner (o((>a?,?Q? xai TavD??ojAO?? xcotax)." 43. N. Loraux (n. 34) 265 recognizes in the maenadic self-description of the

Erinyes an allusive reference to "la pr?sence absente de Dionysos." On Erinyes

represented as maenads see W. Whallon, HSCP 68 (1964) 320-22; J.-P. Gu?pin, The Tragic Paradox: Myth and Ritual in Greek Tragedy (Amsterdam 1968) 21-23

Albert Henrichs 97

and 27-28; Bierl (n. 2) 90 n. 146, 120, and 122 n. 30; R. Seaford, "Destroyer of

the Household" (n. 5) 140f. and CQ n. s. 39 (1989) 303; Schlesier, "Mixtures of

Masks" (n. 6) 98 n. 38. On tragic articulations of the destructive madness embod

ied by the Erinyes see R. Padel, In and Out of the Mind: Greek Images of the

Tragic Self (Princeton 1992) 162-92. On uttiva? in Homer, see A. Henrichs,

"Der rasende Gott. Zur Psychologie des Dionysos und des Dionysischen in Mythos und Literatur" {Antike und Abendland 40, 1994, 31-58).

44. Rituals particularly susceptible to tragic redefinition, restructuring, or sub

version include animal sacrifice (e.g., in Ag., Aias, and Ant., E. El. and Ba.), rites involving ritual liquids (either libations as in Ch., Ion, and O. K., or rites

of purification by ablution as in the Aias and O. K.), wedding rites (e.g., Ant.

and /. A.) and maenadism (Hek., Tro., and Ba.). Their tragic ambivalence, includ

ing their ultimate failure as ritual remedies, has been explored in particular by P. E. Easterling, "Tragedy and Ritual," Metis 3 (1988) 87-109; H. P. Foley, Ritual

Irony: Poetry and Sacrifice in Euripides, Ithaca/London 1985; C. Segal, Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles (Cambridge, Mass. 1981), and

Dionysiac Poetics (n. 5); R. Seaford, "The Tragic Wedding," JHS 107 (1987)

106-30, and Reciprocity and Ritual (n. 5) xiv-xvi, 328-405; R. Schlesier (n. 6); F. I. Zeitlin, "The Argive Festival of Hera and Euripides' Electra," TAPA 101

(1970) 645-69, and especially "The Motif of the Corrupted Sacrifice" (n. 29),

with the postscript in TAPA 97 (1966) 645-53.

45. Cf. R. P. Winnington-Ingram, Sophocles: An Interpretation (Cambridge

1980) 197-200. Taplin (n. 38) 89 paraphrases poignantly "religion is dead." In

one of the most penetrating and provocative discussions of this stasimon, U.

H?lscher, "Wie soll ich noch tanzen? ?ber ein Wort des sophokleischen Chores," in E. K?hler (ed.), Sprachen der Lyrik. Festschrift f?r Hugo Friedrich (Frankfurt a. M. 1975) 376-93, translates eqqel ?? Ta GE?a as "divinity is distant" ("und fern ist die Gottheit," 380) and concludes that the very presence of the gods is

called into question by the chorus (389): "Der Tanz scheint fragw?rdig geworden, weil die G?tter sich entziehn." Sophoclean gods may be inscrutable, but they are

not beyond reach. The same chorus who enunciates EQQEi ?? Ta OE?a reaffirms

its basic belief in ritual remedies by invoking Zeus as an omnipotent god attentive

to the actions of mortals (903-05). 46. R. Dawe, Sophocles: Oedipus Rex (Cambridge 1982) 186, who is echoed

by Lefkowitz (n. 11) 206.

47. J. Rusten, Sophocles, Oidipous Tyrannos: Commentary (Bryn Mawr

1990) 46.

48. The modern discussion is summarized in J. Bollack, UOedipe roi de

Sophocle. Le texte et ses interpr?tations (Lille 1990), vol. 3, 582-84. Bollack does

not believe that T? ?E? \l? x?QE?Elv; connects the action of the play with the actual

dancing of the chorus (see n. 49). Among those critics who do are Wilamowitz (nn.

50-51), Knox (n. 58), Dodds (n. 52), Lesky (n. 52), H?lscher (n. 45), Segal (n.

57), Burkert (n. 66), and most recently Rusten (n. 47). 49. Dawe (n. 46) 186; similarly Bollack (n. 48), vol. 3, 584 ("Le "moi" du

Ch ur est celui du sujet lyrique, form? par les citoyens de Th?bes, et il ne quitte

pas son r?le."). Although he does not say so, Dawe's criticism is aimed at Dodds

(n. 52). 50. Wilamowitz (n. 23), vol. 3,148, on E. Herakles 685f. (ovjio) xaTajia?oojAEV

Mo/?oa? a? \i' ?xOQEuaav, a choral self-reference preceded in line 682 by an

98 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

evocation of Dionysos as the wine-god): "Da ist es der attische B?rgerchor, der

am Dionysosfeste zum Klange der Musik den Reigen tritt. Gerade wo so ernste

allgemeine Worte fallen, wird die Maske am ehesten fallengelassen." On Dodds

see below, at n. 52.

51. Wilamowitz (n. 23), vol. 3, 148 on O. T. 896: "Wir Modernen sind darauf

erpicht, im Theater immer in ?ngstlich geh?teter Illusion gehalten zu werden, nicht weil wir uns lieber und vollkommener in das Reich der Phantasie entr?cken

Hessen, im Gegenteil, wir tun das nie, sondern treiben ein Spiel des Verstandes

und stellen den Poeten auf die Probe, ob er die selbstgew?hlten Voraussetzungen festhalten kann. Davon ist in Athen keine Spur. Da sind sie bei der Sache, nehmen

die Handlung als Wahrheit und vergessen die Wirklichkeit nicht, da? der Chor

ihr Chor ist und das Fest ihrem Gotte geh?rt." In Griechische Verskunst (Berlin

1921) 527, Wilamowitz makes the same point in connection with S. Tra. 216ff.

(one of the choral odes discussed below). 52. E. R. Dodds, "On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex" (1964), published

in Greece & Rome 13 (1966) 37-49 (quotation at 46) and reprinted in The

Ancient Concept of Progress and Other Essays on Greek Literature and Belief

(Oxford 1973) 64-77 (at 75). Dodds continues: "And in effect the question they are asking seems to be this: 'If Athens loses faith in religion, if the views of the

Enlightenment prevail, what significance is there in tragic drama, which exists

as part of the service of the gods?'" He is echoed by A. Lesky in K. Gaiser (ed.), Das Altertum und jedes neue Gute. F?r Wolf gang Schadewaldt zum 15. M?rz

1970 (Stuttgart 1970) 93 and Die tragische Dichtung der Hellenen (3d ed., G?t

tingen 1972) 228.

53. Stinton (n. 20) 253f. n. 45. The tendency to reduce the xoqe?eiv in T? ?E?

U.E XOQETJEIV; to a general act of worship in the distant past of the Theban myth, and to separate it from the choral performance in the Athenian orchestra, has

been a staple of Sophoclean criticism for more than a century: F. Ellendt, Lexicon

Sophocleum (Berlin 1872) 785 s. v. xoqe??) ("tanquam pars cultus deorum to

XOQEiJEiv memoratur"); R. C. Jebb, Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments. Part

1: The Oedipus Tyrannus (3d ed., Cambridge 1893) 122 ("Why maintain the

solemn rites of public worship?"); G. M?ller, "Das zweite Stasimon des K?nig

?dipus," Hermes 95 (1967) 269-91, at 275 ("dann kann ich nicht mehr fromm

sein"); J. C. Kamerbeek, The Plays of Sophocles, Part 4: The Oedipus Tyrannus

(Leiden 1967), 179f. (who concedes, however, that "the ambiguity of the words

is possibly deliberate"); Fitton (n. 1) 263; H. Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus

(2d ed., Berkeley/Los Angeles/London 1983) 110; Taplin (n. 12) 133 n. 3 ("but

XOQEiJEiv carries the general association of observing religious ritual"); Burton

(n. 20) 167; Winnington-Ingram (n. 45) 196, 198 n. 58; Gardiner (n. 21) 104; Bollack (n. 48), vol. 3, 583 ("La danse figure ici l'acte religieux par excellence, incluant tous les autres rites dont l'observation incombe aux citoyens de Th?bes, selon les lois qui r?glent la vie des cit?s"). However, at O. T. 896 XOQE?EIV has

the same concrete meaning as everywhere else in tragedy, namely to "dance."

54. Cf. H?lscher (n. 45) 390: "Wir kommen nicht darum herum, dass die

Trag?die in ihren lyrischen Formen die M?glichkeit hat, die aller Chorlyrik eigen ist, n?mlich auf sich selber hinzuweisen, nicht indem sie die Mimesis aufhebt,

wohl aber transzendiert." For the opposite view, see M?ller (n. 53) 275 n. 1:

"Wir befinden uns im mythischen Theben, nicht im historischen Athen. Die

beiden Schaupl?tze sind nicht vertauschbar."

Albert Henrichs 99

55. Below, sections III and IV. Cf. J. F. Davidson, "The Circle and the Tragic

Chorus," Greece & Rome 33 (1986) 38-46, esp. 39f. and 42.

56. Especially W. Schadewaldt, "Zum zweiten Stasimon des 'K?nig ?dipus'," Studi italiani di filolog?a classica 27-28 (1956) 489-97 = Hellas und Hesperien. Gesammelte Schriften zur Antike und zur neueren Literatur (2d ed., Z?rich/

Stuttgart 1970), vol. 1, 476-83, Dodds (n. 52), and H?lscher (n. 45). M?ller (n.

54) denies that the words of this chorus had any Athenian reference whatsoever, but he fails to explain the relevance of T? ?E? pie xoqe?eiv; to the action of the

play and to its Theban setting. 57. Emphasized by Segal, Tragedy and Civilization (n. 44) 235f. on T? ?E? U.E

XOQE1JEIV; ("The ritual act of the choral dance in the orchestra includes and

symbolizes all the rituals performed in the play"), and Pozzi (n. 4) 131-33 ("The vehicle of the sacrality of drama was the chorus," 131).

58. Cf. B. M. W. Knox, Oedipus at Thebes (New Haven 1957) 47. Knox refers

to V. Ehrenberg, The People of Aristophanes (3d ed., New York 1962) 23 n. 7, who ingeniously recognized Phryn. Com. fr. 9 Kassel/Austin ovt)q X0Q?Uei KaL

Ta xov 0EO?3 xatax as a positive comic expression of the same ritual concerns

conveyed by the correlation of T? ?e? U.E xoqe?eiv; (O. T. 896) and eqqel ?? Ta

BE?a (910). 59. On the tragic connotations of axoQO? (A. Suppl. 681, S. O. K. 1222)

and axooEUTOC (S. El. 1069, E. Tro. 121) see C. Segal, "Song, Ritual, and

Commemoration in Early Greek Poetry and Tragedy," Oral Tradition 4 (1989)

330-59, at 343-46.

60. H?lscher (n. 45) 390f. Oidipous voices a similar concern for ritual purity in the immediately preceding scene (813-33).

61. Cf. Easterling, "Tragedy and Ritual" (n. 44) 90 and 100, and from a different

perspective, "Anachronism in Greek Tragedy," JHS 105 (1985) 1-10.

62. Segal (n. 5) 215-71, esp. 242-47; Bierl (n. 2) 1-25, 35f., 83f., 99 n. 179,

106f., 129, 142, 155 n. 131, 174, 190f., 224, and 242f. V. Turner, From Ritual

to Theatre (New York 1982) 112, observes that "ritual, unlike theatre, does not

distinguish between audience and performers." Greek ritual in particular invites

participation and tends to neutralize the individual identities of the performers. This explains why in Attic tragedy the boundaries between dramatic and civic

identities as well as between representation and reality are particularly fluid when

tragic choruses comment on their own performance as dancers or when rituals are dramatized onstage.

63. Cf. E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley/Los Angeles

1951) 94 n. 82: "It was, I take it, as Master of Illusions that Dionysos came to

be the patron of a new art, the art of the theatre. To put on a mask is the easiest

way of ceasing to be oneself." On the dramatic and cultic aspects of the mask, see most recently C. Ca?ame, "Facing Otherness: The Tragic Mask in Ancient

Greece," History of Religions 26 (1986) 125-42 (English version of Le r?cit en

Gr?ce ancienne, Paris 1986, 85-100), and "D?masquer par le masque. Effets

?nonciatifs dans la com?die ancienne" Revue de l'histoire des religions 206 (1989)

357-76; F. Frontisi-Ducroux, Le dieu-masque. Une figure du Dionysos d'Ath?nes

(Images ? l'appui 4, Paris/Rome 1991); A. Henrichs, "'He Has a God in Him':

Human and Divine in the Modern Perception of Dionysus," in Masks of Dionysus

(n. 5) 13-43, at 36-39.

64. Wilamowitz (n. 23), vol. 3, 148f., was the first scholar who interpreted T?

?E? jlE XOQE?EIV; against the background of the positive instances of choral self

100 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

referentiality discussed in this paper. He is followed by K.-D. Dorsch, G?tterhym nen in den Chorliedern der griechischen Tragiker: Form, Inhalt und Funktion

(diss. M?nster 1982) 225 n. 144, and Davidson (n. 55) 39.

65. Michael Haslam has remarked to me on the singularity of T? ?E? [AE XOQE?EIV; in comparison with the affirmative instances of choral self-reference: "In all the

other cases the reference to dancing is much more 'in character,' is quite intelligible/

plausible within the terms of the play's fictive 'here and now' (i.e. the dramatic

illusion), and so does not force the chorus's identity as theater-khoreutai to the

surface in quite the same way." 66. So W. Burkert, Oedipus, Oracles, and Meaning: From Sophocles to Umberto

Eco (The Samuel James Stubbs Lecture Series, University College, Toronto 1991)

22, who adds: "At this moment, all of a sudden, the chorus breaks out of the

world of illusion and makes the audience reflect on the chorus dancing in the

theatre, a chorus dancing in honor of Dionysus." 67. The close correlation between O. T. 896 T? ?e? [IE xoQE?Eiv; and 1092

XOOEiJEOOai JtQ?? fjficov has been noted before, most recently by Bollack (n. 48),

vol. 3, 711 and 713, who rightly emphasizes the ritual connotations of the dance

in both places while denying the choral self-reference (above, n. 53). 68. On the controversial syntax of this passage, see H. Lloyd-Jones and N.

G. Wilson, Sophoclea: Studies on the Text of Sophocles (Oxford 1990) 104, as

opposed to Bollack (n. 48), vol. 3, 698-714; the intricate use of negatives is

discussed by A. C. Moorhouse, The Syntax of Sophocles (Leiden 1982) 329

and 336. Lloyd-Jones and Wilson follow Wilamowitz, who replaced o? YE xai

jraTQiarcav with o? ye t?v JiaTQidrcav because he did not believe that Kithairon

could be described as "nurse and mother" of Oidipous {Hermes 34, 1899, 74-76,

repr. in Kleine Schriften VI, Berlin 1972, 227-29). But to introduce Oidipous' unknown mother at this point and to invent a putative wet-nurse for him would

thoroughly spoil the irony of the chorus's excessive praise of Kithairon.

69. On full-moon festivals and all-night dancing see Lloyd-Jones/Wilson (n.

68) 104. Both the time (night) and the setting (mountain) envisaged by the chorus

are distinctly Dionysiac (E. Ba. 116, 485f., 1105f.). 70. Most commentators and translators interpret axj^Eiv and xoQETJE?Oai in

a future sense (cf. Rusten [n. 47] 54, Bollack [n. 48], vol. 1, 265, and vol. 3,

705-11; below, n. 73).

71. My paraphrase is based on the highly plausible but heavily restored text

adopted by H. Lloyd-Jones and N. Wilson in their Oxford edition of 1992.

According to Bollack (n. 48), vol. 3,714-19, who defends the transmitted readings, the mother of Oidipous would be a daughter of Pan or Apollo. But it is more

likely that the chorus would speculate on Oidipous' parents than on his grandpar

ents, giving him a nymph for a mother and a god for a father.

72. Segal, Tragedy and Civilization (n. 44) 236, and his discussion of the third

stasimon in "The Chorus and the Gods in Oedipus Tyrannus" (forthcoming in

part II of this double issue). 73. Interpreters disagree on the meaning of auQlOV (see Bollack [n. 48], vol.

3, 702-04). Its use elsewhere in Sophocles suggests that it represents an ironic

application of the tragic time frame, which concentrates the crucial events in a

single day: tragedy will strike today (A. Th. 21-29; S. Aias 749-57, 778f., cf.

131f., O. T. 438, Tr. 740; E. Alk. 20f., 27, 320-22, Med. 340, 373-75, 1231,

Hipp. 22, 726, Andr. 803, Hek. 44, Or. 48f., 656, and Phoin. 1579; cf. Arist.

Albert Henrichs ioi

Poet. 5, 1449b12f.); tomorrow's remedies will be too late (cf. S. Tra. 710-13, O.

K. 567f.; E. Alk. 782-84). Despite their prophetic stance, this chorus cannot

predict the future because unlike Teiresias they don't even understand the tragic events of today (cf. S. Tra. 943-46). As soon as they focus on the present (1204 Ta v?v), they acknowledge the pivotal role of "all-seeing time" (1214).

74. Cf. D. Sansone, CP 70 (1975) 112-17.

75. The status of the chorus in Ba. is unique in that their dancing, wherever

emphasized (as in the parodos and again in the third and fifth stasimon), reflects

a complete fusion of their performative function as dancers in the orchestra and

their dramatic character as a maenadic thiasos. Unlike the chorus in O. T.,

however, the maenads of the chorus in Ba. never call their own dancing into

question. 76. Smyth (n. 19) lxxiiif.; V. de Falco, La t?cnica c?rale di Sofocle (Naples

1928) 148f., and Studi (n. 25) 56-88; W. Kranz, Stasimon. Untersuchungen zu

Form und Gehalt der griechischen Trag?die (Berlin 1933) 182-85 ("Kontrast zur

Szene"), 213 ("k?nstliche Retardierung"); Pickard-Cambridge (n. 1) 256; G. M.

Kirkwood, "The Dramatic Role of the Chorus in Sophocles," Phoenix 8 (1954)

1-22, esp. 8f. ("odes of suspense"), and A Study of Sophoclean Drama (Ithaca

1958) 199-201 ("contrastive-effect"); T. B. L. Webster, An Introduction to Sopho cles (2d ed., London 1969) 105 ("the cheerful choruses"); W. B. Stanford, Sopho

cles, Ajax (corr. repr. Bristol 1981) 150 (Sophocles' "technique of introducing a

sudden burst of hopeful rejoicing followed soon afterwards by sad disillusion

ment"); Burton (n. 20) 28 n. 42; T. C. W. Oudemans and A. P. M. H. Lardinois,

Tragic Ambiguity: Anthropology, Philosophy and Sophocles' Antigone (Leiden

1987) 159 ("songs of gladness which are counterpoints to the ensuing disaster");

Gardiner (n. 21) 66f., 95f., 143 n. 11 ("joy-before-disaster odes"); M. Hose,

Studien zum Chor bei Euripides, vol. 2 (Beitr?ge zur Altertumskunde 20, Stuttgart

1991) 41 n. 27 ("Freudenlieder"); Bierl (n. 2) 126f., 224, 242f. In an unpublished

study, J. S. Scullion refers to them as "euphoric odes," a tribute to their Dionysiac

spirit and emotional intensity. 77. The Greek text follows the edition of Lloyd-Jones/Wilson (n. 71); parts

of the translation are adapted from John Moore's (Chicago 1957). On the metrical

problem posed by JtEA,ay?cov, which otherwise makes excellent sense, see Lloyd

Jones/Wilson (n. 68) 23f. At line 699, the M?oia attested by POxy. 1615 and

echoed by the Suda seems slightly preferable to the manuscript reading N?aia

(L. Lehnus, L'inno a Pan di Pindaro, Milano 1979, 96f.). The "Mysian" dances

associate Pan with the Great Mother (n. 79), whereas "Nysian" (S. Ant. 1131,

fr. 959 Radt) would link Pan more explicitly to Dionysos (n. 84). On the hymnic and choric conventions of this stasimon see Dorsch (n. 64) 79-84, 222-28.

78. Stanford (n. 76) 152: "Presumably [Apollo] is invoked here as another god of dancing and of festive joy." He compares Pindar fr. 148 Snell/Maehler boyfyox'

?ytaxta? ?vaoocov, evqix^oqetq' 'AjioXXov for Apollo as dancer, and Ar. Frogs 230f. for the association of Pan and Apollo (cf. E. /. T. 1125-31). At S. Tra. 205-21

(discussed below) Apollo is more directly associated with choral performance, but

there too the dominant mood is Dionysiac. 79. Pindar fr. 99 Snell/Maehler xoqevttvv TEte?VcaTOV (cf. Lehnus [n. 77]

189-204). In Aristophanes' Birds, the chorus of birds performs "sacred songs for

Pan and solemn dances for the Mountain Mother" (745f. Ilavi vofAOU? Ieqov?

ava(|>a?v?) OEfXv? te [A^to? xoqe?juxxt' ?QE?a). On Pan as both khor?gos and

khoreut?s, see Lonsdale (n. 1) 261-75.

102 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

80. I discuss Euripides' complex use of choral projection in "Dancing for

Dionysos" (nn. 26 and 128). Similar patterns can be found in nondramatic lyric

poetry (e.g. Pindar J. 1.6-10, on which see E. L. Bundy, Studia Pindarica, repr.

Berkeley/Los Angeles 1986, 41, and Lefkowitz [n. 11] 206; Bacch. 11.10-12,

32, 110-12).

81. Recognized by Kranz (n. 76) 183. The interplay of choral voice and ritual

performance in Pindar, Aeschylus, and Euripides has been studied by C. Ca?ame,

"From Choral Poetry to Tragic Stasimon: The Enactment of Women's Song" (in

this issue, 136-154, see nn. 82 and 97). From a different perspective, he explores some of the same concerns that I have tried to articulate here?the fluid boundaries

of time and space in choral utterances whose emphasis is on ritual performance; ritual self-referentiality as a choral mode; and the related concept of ritual projec tion and its distancing effect in tragedy.

82. Cf. E. Hkld. 892f. (opening words of the fourth stasimon) ?fxoi X?Q??> M-8V

?)bv?, Herakles 763-65 (chorus) xopoi, xoQol xai Q?k?ai \iekovoi @r|?ac ?eqov xot' dorn, and Ar. Lys. 1304f. (b? ZjtaQTav v\iviu)\i??, x? oi v xopoi \iekovxi

(the first passage is self-referential, the other two are preceded by a choral self

reference). On the use of the self-referential present, reinforced by the deictic

v?v (Danielewicz [n. 35] llf.), in the context of choral performance see Ca?ame

(n. 81), section 2.2. Similar "markers of urgency" (Ca?ame) such as v?v, aiopa and the ritual imperative (n. 97) occur also in other ritual contexts, for instance

on the gold tablets from Pelinna, where they function as verbal indicators of

"funerary performance"; see C. Segal, GRBS 31 (1990) 414, and D. Obbink,

"Poetry and Performance in the Orphic Gold Leaves" (forthcoming). 83. A. Pers. 448f. On Pan in Attica and in Sophocles, see P. Borgeaud, The

Cult of Pan in Classical Greece (1979, English trans. Chicago/London 1988) 94f.

and 133-62, esp. 150f.; Lehnus (n. 77) 96f., 183f.

84. Sophocles' Pan serves as a choral substitute for Dionysos (Bierl, Vorkommen

und Funktion des Gottes Dionysos [n. 7] 53f.). On the affinity of Panic and

Dionysiac possession, see Borgeaud (n. 83) 111-13. In fifth-century Attic vase

painting, Pan is occasionally associated with maenadic dancing (Borgeaud 212 n.

102) and Dionysiac myth (as on the Boston bell-krater of ca. 470 B.c., the name

piece of the Pan Painter, which shows the death of Aktaion on one side and an

ithyphallic Pan on the other). On a red-figure volute krater (unknown to Bor

geaud), a dancing Pan and a stately Dionysos are shown in an Eleusinian context

(Stanford University Museum of Art 70.12, ca. 430 B.C.; published by A. E.

and I. K. Raubitschek, "The Mission of Triptolemus," in Studies in Athenian

Architecture, Sculpture and Topography Presented to Homer A. Thompson,

Hesperia Suppl. 20, Princeton 1982, 109-17, with pi. 15b = A. E. Raubitschek,

The School of Hellas: Essays on Greek History, Archaeology, and Literature,

New York/Oxford 1991, 229-38, with pi. 22; cf. K. Clinton, Myth and Cult: The

Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries, Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Institutet i

Athen, 8o, XI, Stockholm 1992, 26 and 166 fig. 11). 85. For a fuller discussion of the climactic sequence of Dionysiac references in

the choral odes of Ant. I refer to Zeitlin, "Staging Dionysos" (n. 5) 154?64 and

A. Bierl, "Was hat die Trag?die mit Dionysos zu tun? Rolle und Funktion des

Dionysos am Beispiel der 'Antigone' des Sophocles," W?rzburger Jahrb?cher f?r die Altertumswissenschaft 15 (1989) 43-58.

86. The Muses are commonly associated with Dionysos (Bierl [n. 2] 99 nn.

181-82) as well as choral dancing (below, nn. 93, 135-36). Yet many interpreters

Albert Henrichs 103

have been puzzled by their presence in the Sophoclean version of the Lykourgos

myth. C. Sourvinou-Inwood, BICS 36 (1989) 149 takes Mouoa? as a "metaphor" for the maenads, but Sophocles clearly differentiates between the two groups

here and elsewhere (O. K. 679f., 691f., on which see n. 136). 87. Some editors print Mouoa? with a small initial, but the verb eqeO?C?d

requires a personal object, as in E. Ba. 147f. xopo?oi JttaxvciTa? eqe9???)V (cf. Pindar fr. 140bl3 Snell/Maehler). In the parodos of Ba., however, the subject is

Dionysos, who, far from interfering with the ritual activities of his worshipers, incites them to dance.

88. The self-referential thrust of Ant. 965 is recognized by H. Rohdich, Anti

gone. Beitrag zu einer Theorie des sophokleischen Helden (Heidelberg 1980) 191;

Winnington-Ingram (n. 45) 103 n. 38 on O. K. 678ff. and Ant. 965 ("There may

well be a reference to the dramatic choruses at Athens."); Bierl (n. 85) 48.

89. Discussed by Dorsch (n. 64) 66-78, who ignores the choral self-reference,

and Bierl (n. 2) 127-32, who emphasizes it.

90. An emphasis on a god's ambulatory faculties is conventional in poetic accounts of divine epiphany (E. Fraenkel, Horace, Oxford 1957, 204f. n. 4; C.

Brown, GRBS 23, 1982, 306 n. 7); it is harder to see, however, why Sophocles invested the foot of Dionysos with the power to purify Thebes from pollution. Scullion (n. 76) has shown that the cathartic power is not a function of the divine

foot per se, but an effect produced by the dancing associated with Dionysos and

with the Dionysiac chorus.

91. Many interpreters have argued that it is precisely in the violence of the

final scene that Dionysos makes his epiphany, reveals his power, and cleanses the

city; see most recently Dorsch (n. 64) 78, Bierl (n. 2) 130f., and Bierl, "Antigone"

(n. 85). For a different perspective see A. Henrichs, "Between Country and City: Cultic Dimensions of Dionysos in Athens and Attica," in M. Griffith and D. J.

Mastronarde (eds.), Cabinet of the Muses. Essays on Classical and Comparative Literature in Honor of Thomas G. Rosenmeyer (Scholars Press 1990) 257-77, at

264-69; cf. Seaford, Reciprocity and Ritual (n. 5) 363-67.

92. At Ant. 1149 I reluctantly reproduce the text of the MSS (defended by

Jebb). Dawe's Teubner edition opts for Jia? Ztvvo? y?v?8?,ov to restore complete

responsion with 1140 xai v?v (b? ?iaiac. Lloyd-Jones and Wilson (n. 71) delete

Jta? as a gloss and print Zrrvo? y?vE6X,ov; their remedy necessitates an undesirable

change in the corresponding line of the strophe, where they replace xai v?v

(idiomatic in formal prayer, for instance Horn. //. 1.455, Sappho fr. 1.25, A. Eum.

30f., S. O. T. 167, E. Alk. 224, I. T. 1084, cf. Pindar P. 5.20) with the less

attractive v?v ?(?). 93. Here as well as at its only other occurrence in tragedy (E. Hel. 1454, a

conspicuous case of choral projection, see n. 128), XOP^YO? retains its pre-Attic literal meaning of "chorus leader," first attested in Alem?n, on which see Ca?ame

(n. 1) vol. 1, 92-94, and Taplin (n. 15) 58. Dionysos is invoked as'laxxE Gpiau?E, oi) tc?v?e xopay? in an anonymous lyric fragment (PMG fr. adesp. 109d [1027d]

Page); similarly, the Athenian in Plato's Laws (665a, cf. 653d-654a) characterizes

Apollo, the Muses, and Dionysos as cnjyxopEUTa? TE xai xopr]yoi)?. See Ca?ame

(n. 1) vol. 1, 102-08.

94. The homology between the imaginary choruses, maenadic as well as astral, led by Dionysos and the equally Dionysiac chorus of the dramatic performance is well emphasized by C. Segal, "Sophocles' Antigone: The House and the Cave,"

104 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

Rivista di cultura classica e medioevale 20 (1978) 1185-87 = Tragedy and Civiliza

tion (n. 44) 204?06 and Dionysiac Poetics (n. 5) 247, and more recently by Bierl

(n. 2) 129. On clusters of stars described poetically as khoroi dancing in the sky, as at E. El. 467, see J. Diggle, Euripides: Phaethon (Cambridge 1970) 99; for

other Dionysiac applications of this image see Zeitlin, "Mysteries of Identity"

(n. 5) 168 on E. Ion 1074-86 (choral projection), and Dover (n. 15) 238 on Frogs 342f. (quoted above).

95. On the Eleusinian connotations of the fifth stasimon see Henrichs (n. 91)

266f.; R. Seaford, JHS 110 (1990) 87f. and Reciprocity and Ritual (n. 5) 381f. The

invocation of Iakkhos-Dionysos at Frogs 343 is followed by 345 y?vu JtaXXETai

yEpovTOOV and 351/2 xopOJioi?v; both expressions are used self-referentially by the chorus of the Eleusinian initiates, thus confirming the shared tendency of

comedy and tragedy to connect choral self-referentiality with Dionysos, and to

locate it in a cultic setting. 96. I reproduce the text of Lloyd-Jones/Wilson (n. 71). On alternative restora

tions of lines 205-07 (including E(()EOT?oioiv aK?kalc, which some editors prefer), see Stinton (n. 20) 417-21; Lloyd-Jones/Wilson (n. 68) 156f. My translation here

and below is indebted to Stinton 404. *Ev ?? (207) means, exceptionally, "within

[the palace]" (Stinton, Easterling), not "and besides" (Davies). For commentary, see P. E. Easterling, Sophocles: Trachiniae (Cambridge 1982) 104ff.; M. Davies,

Sophocles: Trachiniae (Oxford 1991) lOlff.

97. Cf. Ca?ame (n. 81) section 2.2, whose terminology I employ. On ritual

imperatives used self-referentially by dramatic choruses, see Kaimio (n. 16) 121-29

and B. Zimmermann, Untersuchungen zur Form und dramatischen Technik der

Aristophanischen Kom?die. Band 2: Die anderen lyrischen Partien (Beitr?ge zur

klassischen Philologie 166, K?nigstein/Ts. 1985), 193-96, on Ar. Thesm. 947ff.

(cf. n. 38). Such imperatives are a standard feature of cult-hymns (N. Hopkinson, Callimachus: Hymn to Demeter, Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries

27, Cambridge 1984, 78 on Callim. Dem. 1). On the self-referential use of the

first person in choral poetry, see n. 35; for a discussion of the choral connotations

of aipojiai, see n. 105. Despite the future tense, ov?' ajic?oo^ai refers to the

present occupation of the chorus (Davies [n. 96] 104). First person futures of

this type are performative futures, which "describe an ongoing performance, be

it verbal or non-verbal," such as singing, dancing, and the casting of magical

spells (C. A. Faraone, "The 'Performative Future' in Three Hellenistic Incantations

and Theocritus' Second Idyll," forthcoming in CP 1995, with full bibliography; cf. K?ppel [n. 28] 95f.). This convention occurs in cult hymns, choral lyric, and

epinician as well as in ritual texts.

98. On the ritual cries, see A. Fairbanks, A Study of the Greek Paean (Ithaca

1900); L. Deubner, "Paian," Neue Jahrb?cher f?r das klassische Altertum 22

(1919) 385-406, at 406 n. 2, reprinted in Kleine Schriften (n. 28) 204-25, at 225

n. 2, and "Ololyge" (n. 28), esp. 10f.=616f. on S. Tra. 205ff. I benefited from

the systematic treatment of these ritual forms by Ian Rutherford in the introduction

to his forthcoming book Pindar's Paianes: A Study in the Fragments and Their

Generic Context (Oxford 1996). 99. K?ppel (n. 28) 81f., 147, 342f. test. 122. Cf. A. Th. 268, Ag. 245-47, Ch.

150f., E. Herakles 687ff., /. A. 1467f{., where tragic women are also associated

with the Jiai?v. Outside tragedy, however, the Jtaiav is performed by men, while

the oXoXvyr) is raised by women (so at the wedding of Hektor and Andromache in

Albert Henrichs 105

Sappho fr. 44.31ff.; cf. Deubner, "Paian" [n. 98] 390 = 209; D. E. Gerber, ZPE

49 [1982] 4f.; K?ppel 50, 8 If.); in contrast to the female oXoA.uyr|, the akakayr) is properly a male war-cry (Deubner, "Ololyge" [n. 28] 4 =

610; J. Diggle,

Euripidea: Collected Essays [Oxford 1994] 477-80). But ?XoXuyfj and oXaXay^ can be used interchangeably in tragedy to signal the reversal of gender roles (E. Ba. 23f. [n. 104] versus Ba. 1133 as discussed by R. Seaford, "The Eleventh Ode

of Bacchylides: Hera, Artemis, and the Absence of Dionysos," JHS 108 [1988]

118-36, at 134; cf. Reciprocity and Ritual [n. 5] 290f.); on the social status of

the chorus in Tra. 205ff., see Ca?ame (n. 1) vol. 1, 149f., Stinton (n. 20) 418-20

and especially Gardiner (n. 21) 120-22.

100. On the wedding theme in Tra., see R. Seaford, Hermes 114 (1986) 50-59

and "The Tragic Wedding" (n. 44) 119 and 128f.; on its Dionysiac subversion,

Seaford, "Destroyer of the Household" (n. 5) 126-28, who compares Euripides' characterization of Iole as a destructive maenad {Hipp. 548f.). Apart from its

association with the wedding (K?ppel [n. 28] 50f.), the tragic paean here and

elsewhere reflects the unresolved tension between inevitable catastrophe and hope

against hope. See C. Segal, "Time, Oracles, and Marriage in the Trachiniae," Lexis 9-10 (1992) 63-92, on Tra. 205ff.; K?ppel 46-49 on the tragic paian; I.

Rutherford, "Paeanic Ambiguity: A Study of the Representation of the Jiai?v in

Greek Literature," QUCC n. s. 44 (1993) 77-92, esp. 89f., and Pindar's Paianes

(n. 98) Introd. A12 on tragic paianes marking dramatic reversals and opposite emotional states; and "Apollo in Ivy: the Tragic Paean," in this issue, 112-135.

101. De Falco, Studi (n. 25) 69, 74-79; Easterling (n. 96) 104, 106; Davies (n.

96) 101-03; Rutherford (n. 98) Introd. A10; K?ppel (n. 28) 85f. on the contrast

between the Apollonian paean and the Dionysiac dithyramb. 102. Choral self-address: Jebb (n. 20) 35 on Tra. 205f.; Kranz (n. 76) 183, 305;

Kaimio (n. 16) 122; Stinton (n. 20) 420; Davies (n. 96) 103 on S. Tra. 211, 196

and 266 on 821 (D Jta??E?. Chorus addressing other parthenoi: Wilamowitz, Verskunst (n. 51) 527; Gardiner (n. 21) 120 n. 3. The second person plural ritual

imperative supports either interpretation. It is significant that the specific address

(0 Jiap?EVOL, with its emphasis on a socially marked age group, occurs only here, in the context of ritual performance under the aegis of Artemis; in several other

places the women of the chorus are addressed generically as yuva?XE? (202, 225,

385, 663, 673). IlapG?vE in the closing anapests (1275) must be addressed to the

chorus, but the identity of the speaker remains an open question (P. E. Easterling, 1CS 6, 1981, 71; Lloyd-Jones/Wilson [n. 68] 177f.; Davies [n. 96] 265f.).

103. Burton (n. 20) 50f. and, apparently, Easterling (n. 96) 104.

104. Deubner (n. 28) 23f. = 629f., who refers to A. P. 13. 28, 1-3 JioMaxi

?t] <$>v\r)? Axa^iavT??o? ?v xopo?oiv TQpai ?v(oXoX,x)?av xiaao<|)opoi? ?m

oi0Dpa|i?oic ai Aiovuaia?E? (an anonymous fifth-century epigram on a dithy rambic victory, ascribed to Antigenes by U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Sap

pho und Simonides: Untersuchungen ?ber griechische Lyriker, Berlin 1913,

218-23; D. L. Page, Further Greek Epigrams, Cambridge 1981, 11-15; D. F.

Sutton, Dithyrambographi Graeci, Hildesheim 1989, 19f.), E. Ba. 23f. (Dionysos

speaking) Jip Ta? ?? ?r|?ac Taa?E yf\? eEXX,T]vi?o? ?vcoXoXu?a (on which

see E. R. Dodds, Euripides: Bacchae, 2d edition, Oxford 1960, 66), and Ba. 689

(of Agaue) ?)X?Xu?;EV. On the juxtaposition of Apollo, Artemis, and Dionysos, De Falco, Studi (n. 25) 76, compares the prayer that concludes the parodos at O.

T. 203?15. In this instance, however, the three divinities are not explicitly associ

ated with the dance-song, but are invoked as potential helpers against the plague.

I06 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

105. A?poum refers to a flightlike elevation {Od. 8.375, Anacr. fr. 31 Page

[PMG 376], E. Hipp. 735f., Hel. 605f., Ba. 748) and uplifted spirits (A. Ag. 592

a?pEOOai x?ap; on the tragic metaphor of emotions that are "flying in the mind"

see Padel [n. 43] 96-98) rather than fancy footwork (a?pEiv ?fj^ia or Jto?a, as

at E. Tro. 342, Ba. 943f.). Cf. E. Tro. 325f. Ji?Xke jio?' a?G?piov, <?vay'>

?vayE x?p?v, E??v ev??, 545f. JiapG?voi ?' ?Eipov a\ia xp?TOV Jto?wv. For

atpOfiai used absolutely in choral self-referentiality, see Ar. Clouds 276/7

?p6(?fi?V (j)avEpa? (sung by the chorus of Clouds, and preceded by 266 ap0T]TE,

(|)?vr|TE), Lys. 539 a?pEoB' dv?) (followed by 541/2 oiJJtOTE x?uoux' ?v

?pxou^i?vri) and 1291-94 akaka?, If] Jtaic?v. aipEoG' ?vco, ?a?, cb? ejc? v?xt], ?a?. ?i)O? Ei)O?, E?ai ?i)a? (cf. S. Tra. 205f., 210f., 219, 221), Ekkl. 1180 al'pEo9'

?vco. tai eva?; cf. J. Henderson, Aristophanes' Lysistrata (Oxford 1987) 137.

On a red-figure astragalos signed by the Sotades Painter (British Museum E804, ca. 460 B.C.), three groups of young female dancers literally take wing, rise above

the ground and float like clouds across the surface of the vase (M. Robertson, A History of Greek Art, Cambridge 1975, vol. 2, plates 91a-d; Lonsdale [n. 1]

xxi, fig. 1(b)). 106. On the Dionysiac aulos as a passionate and "orgiastic" instrument (Arist.

Pol. 1341a21f.) whose sound "stirs up" (Pindar fr. 140bl7 Snell/Maehler ?x?VTjOE) and is "inducive of madness" (A. Edonians fr. 57.5 Radt jiav?ac EJiaywy?v), see M. Linforth, The Corybantic Rites in Plato, Univ. Calif. Publ. in Class.

Philol. 13 Nr. 5, 1946, 121-62 = Linforth, Studies in Herodotus and Plato (New

York/London 1987), 157-200; Dodds (n. 104) on E. Ba. 126-29 and 379f.; E.

Roos, Die tragische Orchestik im Zerrbild der altattischen Kom?die (Stockholm

1951), 216-18; R. Schlesier, "Das Fl?tenspiel der Gorgo," in R. Kapp (ed.),

Notizbuch 5/6: Musik (Berlin/Wien 1982) 11-57; J. Bremmer, ZPE 55 (1984)

278f.; Bierl (n. 2) 83 n. 121 On the Dionysiac status of the ivy, see Dodds on

Ba. 81; M. Blech, Studien zum Kranz bei den Griechen (RGW 38, Berlin/New

York 1982) 185-210; Segal (n. 82) 414f.; K?ppel (n. 28) 223 n. 68a, 246 and 270.

107. The quasi-maenadic identity of this chorus has been stressed by Jebb (n.

20) with regard to Tra. 218ff., as well as by Schlesier, "Mixtures of Masks" (n.

6), 105-08, who observes "that apart from Euripides' Bacchae, this passage is

the only one in extant tragedy in which the maenadism is actually performed

onstage and is not simply alluded to" (105). However, as Schlesier notes, the

most conspicuous maenadic implement, the thyrsos, is not mentioned. Unlike

the pipe and the ivy, the thyrsos had no place in the convention of choral

competition. Had Sophocles introduced the thyrsos here, he would have jeopard ized the delicate balance between the overall dramatic identity of this chorus and

their fleeting Dionysiac aspirations. 108. The choreutic function of the ivy and the pipe at Tra. 216ff. has been

emphasized by Wilamowitz (n. 23) vol. 3, 148f., considered by Jebb (n. 20) 37

on Tra. 218ff., and ignored by more recent commentators.

109. Pickard-Cambridge, Dramatic Festivals (n. 1) 75-77; above, n. 104. On

a bell-krater by the Kleophon Painter in Copenhagen (ca. 425 B.C.) four khoreutai

dance around a pole draped with ivy leaves while another man plays the pipe; all

five men wear tainiai and ivy wreaths (Beazley, ARV2 1145.35; CVA Copenhagen 8,

pis. 347-49; Pickard-Cambridge/Webster [n. 3] 35, 37f., 301 no. 4, with pi. lb; Blech [n. 106] 207f., fig. 29a). The dancers have been tentatively classified as a

dithyrambic chorus at the City Dionysia by M. Schmidt, "Dionysien," Antike

Albert Henrichs 107

Kunst 10 (1967) 80; H. Froning, Dithyrambos und Vasenmalerei in Athen, Beitr?ge zur Arch?ologie 2, W?rzburg 1971, 27f.; E. Simon, Festivals of Athens: An

Archaeological Commentary (Madison 1983) 98f.; and van der Weiden (n. 24)

27. Similarly, all but two of the satyric khoreutai as well as the aulos-plzyer Pronomos on the vase named after him wear ivy wreaths (Blech 311). Dionysiac

(dithyrambic or paeanic?) choruses wore ivy wreaths according to Philodamos of

Skarpheia, Delphic Paian to Dionysos 144-47 ?lX? ??xEoOE Baxx[ia]crc?v

Ai[?]vuo[ov, Ev ?' ?ym]a?? ?^ia ovv [xop]o?ai x[ixXt|oxete] xiaa[ox]a?Tai?

(ca. 340 B.C.; text and commentary in K?ppel [n. 28] 207-84, 375-80, and B.

L. Rainer, Philodamus' Paean to Dionysus: A Literary Expression of Delphic

Propaganda, diss. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1975).

110. The aulos "typifies choral celebration" (M. J. Cropp, Euripides: Electra,

Warminster 1988, 158), and so does the wreath (Plut. Nik. 3A?.). Tragic choruses

were wreathed for the proagon {Vita Eurip. 2 p. 3.1 Iff. Schwartz = Soph, testim.

54 Radt = DID C 20 in TrGF I 48 Snell/Kannicht), but the ivy wreaths referred

to by the chorus at Tra. 216-20, and E. Herakles 677, were hardly standard

equipment for tragic khoreutai performing in the orchestra (J. C. Kamerbeek,

The Plays of Sophocles, Part II: The Trachiniae, Leiden 1959, on 218-20). It is

impossible to tell, and hardly important, whether the members of this particular chorus actually "wreathed themselves at the start of the song" (so Kamerbeek) or whether the ivy wreaths existed merely in their imagination (as Jebb [n. 20] on Tra. 218ff. seems to think). Every dramatic chorus had its aulos-phyer (cf. nn. 108-09, 112-13), but here too the evidence, much of it from vase-painting, is more abundant for comedy (Taplin [n. 15] 69-78), the dithyramb (n. 109) and

satyr-play (n. 109) than for tragedy (Taplin [n. 15] 7, 71); see Pickard-Cambridge

(n. 1) 165-67,182-88. Still, the "official ??w/os-player" lurking behind the reference

to the aulos at Tr. 217 is the closest tragic analogue to the "metatheatrical pipers" of comedy discussed by Taplin 105-10. It may be relevant, given the importance of the sacrificial theme in Tra. (below, n. 125), that wreaths and pipes were also

among the regular paraphernalia of animal sacrifice; sacrifices X^P1? atuXxov xai

OTE(|)?v(DV were considered abnormal ([Apollod.] Bibl. 3.(210)15.7.4; R. Pfeiffer

on Callim. Aitia fr. 3). 111. The maenadic use of euoi is illustrated by E. Ba. 141 (exclamatory E150?),

157 (Dionysos as Emo? 9eo?), and 68 (eikx?co, cf. S. Ant. 1135). For its self

referential use by tragic and nontragic choruses, see above, n. 105, and Philodamos,

Paian (n. 109) 5, 18, 31, 57, etc., where EtJO? alternates with the paian-cry, as in

S. Tra. 218/221. Cf. Bierl (n. 2) 136 n. 71; K?ppel (n. 28) 223.

112. As Dionysos by T. Zielinski, Philologus 55 (1896) 504 n. 7 (with reference

to the parodos of E. Ba.), Vicaire (n. 20) 354, Stinton (n. 20) 404 ("an ecstatic

dance inspired by Dionysos"), and Schlesier, "Mixtures of Masks" (n. 6) 105; as

Dionysos or the Dionysiac aulos by Easterling (n. 96) on Tra. 217 and Bierl (n.

2) 135f. (the pipe "als Metonymie f?r die Gottheit"); as the aulos by the ancient

scholiast, who is followed by Ellendt (n. 53) 747, Jebb (n. 20) 37 on S. Tra. 217

and Segal (n. 59) 342 n. 24; as Apollo by A. Nauck and F. W. Schneidewin,

Sophokles, vol. 6 (6th ed., Berlin 1891) 52 on Tra. 216f., as well as by LSJ s.

v. TUpawo?. 113. The reed-pipes that accompany choral performances are described else

where as "faithful witnesses of the khoreutai" (Pindar P. 12.27 mOToi xopEUT?v

^lapTUpE?) and "attendant of the Muses" (E. El. 717 Movo?v 0Ep?jt?)v), descrip tions which assign a less dominant and more auxiliary role to the aulos.

I08 "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

114. Dodds (n. 63) 51 n. 3, cf. 95f. n. 89; K. Siers, Die lyrischen Partien

der Choephoren des Aischylos: Text, ?bersetzung, Kommentar (Palingenesia 23,

Stuttgart 1988) 114 on A. Ch. 331. The divine origin of the Tapayjio? is clearly indicated in passages such as S. fr. 684.3 Radt, E. Hipp. 969 and esp. A. Ag. 1215f. vjt' av \ie ?eiv?? ?p9op,avTE?a? jtovo? OTpo?Ei Tap?aocov (preceded

by 1084 ji?vEi t? 9e?ov ?ouAia JtEp ?v (()p?vi and 1140 4>pEVon,avr|? ti? e?

9EO(|)opT]TO?), on which see Lloyd-Jones (n. 24) 392.

115. Maiva?wv ?va occurs in a Hellenistic epigram on Dionysos from Thasos;

cf. Henrichs (n. 63) 40f. Regarding dance and trance on the tragic stage and in

the cult of Dionysos see the contributions by A. B?lis and M.-H. Delavaud-Roux

in P. Ghiron-Bistagne (ed.), Transe et th??tre (Cahiers du GITA 4, Montpellier

1989) 9-53.

116. E. Tro. 408 ei \ki\ o' ?JioXXcov E^E?axxEV?EV (|)p?va?, of Kassandra,

who is also characterized as a "maenad" (172, 307 and 349); Vergil Aen. 6.78

bacchatur vates (the Sibyl). Apart from ecstatic states of mind induced by rapid

dancing and Dionysiac instruments such as the pipe (n. 106) and the tympanon,

other means by which Dionysos was believed to affect or transform the human

psyche include wine (Archil, fr. 120.2 West o?vo) ouyxEpauv?)0E?c 4>p?va?, in

connection with the performance of dithyrambs for Dionysos), ritual "madness"

(E. Ba. 33 Jtap?xojioi (|>pEV<?>v, cf. 1122-24, 1269L, 1295), divine epiphany

(Horace, Odes 2.19.5-8, esp. recenti mens tr?pid?t metu), and poetic inspiration

(Horace, Odes 3.25.1-3, esp. velox mente nova). See E. Rohde, Psyche: The Cult

of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks (trans, by W. B. Hillis,

London 1925) 259f., 273-76.

117. Alem?n fr. 1.60-63 Tai IlE?,T]a??? y?p ?ujv . . . v?xTa ?i' aji?pooiav ote Zripiov ?oTpov ?fTjpouivai jAaxovrai. On the agonistic connotations of

^axovrai, see M. Puelma, Mus. Helv. 34 (1977) 36 n. 66; C. Segal, Mnemosyne 36 (1983) 268 ("a mock-contest... including the toil [line 88 Jt?vcov] of nocturnal

dancing"); Herington (n. 1) 21 (a "lyric contest"); G. Dunkel, "Fighting Words:

Alem?n Partheneion 63 ??axovrai," Journal of Indo-European Studies 7 (1979) 249-72 (who argues for poetic rather than choral competition); D. Clay, QUCC n.s. 39 (1991) 58-63. C. Ca?ame, Alem?n (Rome 1983) 332, suggests an athletic

or erotic contest, in other words, a footrace or a beauty contest.

118. Cf. E. Alk. 450f. ?eiQO\i?va? Jtavv?xou OEXava?. Lonsdale (n. 1) 202

too connects ?pr|pOjA?vai with the "superior movement of the chor?gos and her

assistant" and notes "the indirect language of the dance."

119. Pindar O. 5.6, N. 9.12, cf. 10.31L, /. 5.6. Choral ?uiMa: [A.] Prom. 129f.

jiTEpijywv 9oa?? ?\iiXkai?; E. /. T. 1143/1147 xopo?? ?' ioTa?Tyv . /. ?? ?\i\Xka?

Xap?TCDV (cf. Lonsdale [n. 1] 194); Philodamos, Paian (n. 109) 132-34 (Apollo)

ETa^E B?xxou Oua?av xopcov te Ko[Xk(bv] xvxXiav ?\iik\av; Plat. Leg. 834e

?oai ?v ?opTa?? ?fw??ai xop v ?vayxa?ai yiyvE?Gai; schol. Ar. Clouds 311b

(p. 77.20 Koster) oi Aiovuaiaxoi ?ycovE?, ?v o?? ai ?\i\Xkai tujv xopwv; Xen.

Mem. 3.3.12 xop?? . . . tovt?? (se. T?) xop?J) ?c))a^dXo?. 120. Easterling (n. 96) 107; Lloyd-Jones (n. 24) 396; Lloyd-Jones/Wilson (n.

68) 157. Nauck/Schneidewin (n. 112) 52 as well as Jebb (n. 20) 37 rightly insisted on

having it both ways, but they too privileged speed: "die im Tanz geschwungenen,

gleichsam mit einander in Raschheit wetteifernden F??e," and "the Bacchic compe

tition of eager dancers, i.e. the swift dance itself." Kranz (n. 76) 183 fully acknowl

edged the choral and agonistic connotation when he rendered Baxxiav ?fAiXXav

Albert Henrichs 109

as "den bakchischen Wettanz der F??e." While recognizing the reference to choral

dancing, Bierl (n. 2) 136 regards the phrase as a mere "metaphor" for the dance, as if choral competition had no place in tragedy. Schlesier, "Mixtures of Masks"

(n. 6) 106f., connects Baxxiav au.iXX.av both with competitive choral dancing and with the "competition" between Deianeira and Iole for the love of Herakles; she compares E. Hipp. 1140f. vvu^toia

. . . AixTpcov auiM,a xoupai?.

121. Pindar fr. 70cl6 ]av Jt?voi xopc?v. Cf. Zimmermann, Dithyrambos (n.

24) 50f. and 62f.

122. Schlesier, "Mixtures of Masks" (n. 6) 107f.; cf. Bierl (n. 2) 136f. On

"paeanic ambiguity" in tragedy see above, n. 100.

123. The phrase avapo?av . . . xavax?v refers "to the use of the aulos on

sad occasions" (Easterling [n. 96] 153). Most interpreters connect ?vapoio? ("not

fitting") either with war ("hostile," the Homeric usage) or with mourning (as

suggested by the scholiast, who comments otJX ?xGp?v ot>?? 9pr|V(DV ?ofjv). 124. G. Markantonatos, "'Tragic Irony' in the Trachiniae of Sophocles," Platon

26 (1974) 73-79, at 78; Segal, Tragedy and Civilization (n. 44) 68, 71f., 93, and

"Time, Oracles and Marriage" (n. 100); Stinton (n. 20) 404, 409.

125. In the scene which follows the celebration of Herakles' victory by the

chorus, Deianeira compares the foaming "love potion" turned poison to must

spuming "from the Bacchic vine" (701-04, an allusion to the grape harvest rather

than to libations of wine). As Hyllos reports fifty lines later, Herakles is consumed

by the poisoned robe while sacrificing a hecatomb of oxen and sheep to Zeus

Kenaios; the slaughter of animals thus functions as the anomalous ritual beginning

(xaTapxeo?at) of the violent death of a human victim, and the sacrificer is in

turn sacrificed (see W. Burkert, GRBS 7, 1966, 116-21, and "Opferritual bei

Sophocles. Pragmatik?Symbolik?Theater," Der altsprachliche Unterricht 18,

1985, 5-20, at 15-17; Segal, Tragedy and Civilization [n. 44] 65-73). 126. A point made by Schlesier, "Mixtures of Masks" [n. 6] 108.

127. The choral performance proper ends at 970; the chorus continues to

intervene twice in the dialogue (1044L, 1112f.; on the closing anapests see Lloyd

Jones/Wilson [n. 68] 177f.). In the Aias (see above) and Herakles, plays in which

choral self-referentiality marks the dramatic crisis, the "choral silence" in the

final scene is even more pronounced (Foley [n. 44] 187). 128. Cf. E. Herakles 673-95, 761-89, 871-98, 1025-28, cf. 925-27, 1303-04;

Tro. 544-59, cf. 325-42, 1071-76; /. T. 427-29, 1143-52; Ion 463, 492-502,

1074-86; Hel. 381-83, 1312-14, 1338-68, 1451-70; Ph. 226-38, 649-56, 784-92, cf. 1265; and the choral odes of Ba. In all of these choruses, which I have treated

as a group in a related study (n. 26), choral self-referentiality and choral projection occur in an explicitly Dionysiac context.

129. For a more detailed discussion of the choral dance as a ritual that defines

Elektra's ambivalent status throughout this play, see my "Dancing for Dionysos"

(n. 26). 130. On the "violent contrast" between the sacrifice of Aigisthos and the ritual

crowning of Orestes, see Easterling (n. 44) 101-08.

131. I adopt Diggle's Oxford text, which incorporates the emendations of

Henri Weil and F. H. M. Blaydes. As an alternative, Diggle considers vix?i

OTE(|>ava<|)op?av xpE?oooo Jtap' AX.(()Eio?> pE?Gpoi? teXec?vc?ov, "your brother

has won a crown-winning victory greater than those who have performed crown

winnings by the Alpheios" {PCPhS n. s. 15, 1969, 52f.). The translation follows

IIO "WHY SHOULD I DANCE?"

Cropp (n. 110) 63, except for vnaei?e (Blaydes: EJt- codd.), which he renders

as "sing with my dance." But the connotation of VJtaE??Eiv in epic and choral

poetry is more specific (Ca?ame [n. 1], vol. 1, 154-56; J. Diggle, Studies on the

Text of Euripides, Oxford 1981, 39f.; Nagy [n. 1] 351-53). The chorus invites

Elektra to "sing in support" or "in accompaniment" to its dance-song; ?JiaEiOE

differentiates the supporting role assigned to Elektra from the dominant perfor mance of the chorus.

132. P. E. Easterling {per litt.). 133. On the performative future, see n. 97.

134. Above, n. 128.

135. For instance, at h. Herrn. 450-52, h. Ap. 188-206. See W. F. Otto, Die

Musen und der g?ttliche Ursprung des Singens und Sagens (Darmstadt 1954)

55f.; Koller (n. 1) 25-35, 58-78; Ca?ame (n. 1), vol. 1, 102-08.

136. S. Ant. 955-65 (discussed above); E. Herakles 673-86 (n. 50); cf. O. K.

668-93 (Kolonos visited by Dionysos and his "divine nurses," and by the "khoroi

of the Muses"), Ba. 409-15, 560-66. On the association of Dionysos and the

Muses, see W. F. Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult (1933, English transi. Blooming ton/London 1965) 144; Dodds (n. 104) 126 on Ba. 409ff.; Winnington-Ingram

(n. 45) 103 n. 38; K?ppel (n. 28) 243-49, esp. 246 n. 157.

137. E. Ba. 862-76; R. P. Winnington-Ingram, Euripides and Dionysos: An

Interpretation of the Bacchae (Cambridge 1948) 106-08; Segal (n. 5) 34f.

138. E. El. 167-70, 323-31, 494-99, 509-15, and 573f. The Dionysiac associa

tions of most of these passages are discussed by Schlesier, Die tragischen Masken

des Dionysos (n. 6), final chapter. 139. S. O. T. 896~1086ff., Ant. 152ff.~963ff.~1146ff., and Tra. 216ff.~640ff.,

all of which are treated above.

140. The projection of choral dancing continues in the first and second stasimon

with choral dancing of the Nereids (434 xopE?uxrca Nr|pr|t?u)v), choruses of the

stars (467 ?oTpcov t' aiG?pioi X?P??> Qf- l?n 1078-80, S. Ant. 1146f., ), and

dances at Mycenae (712 xopoi). 141. Seaford, "The Eleventh Ode of Bacchylides" (n. 99) 135f. and Reciprocity

and Ritual (n. 5) 384f. Elektra suffers from a fatal lack of ritual remedies?she

is, in her own words, "missing the sacred festivals and deprived of choral dances"

(310 ?v?opTO? LEp v xai xop v TTrccou.?vr|). At the end of the play, she asks:

"Where shall I go, to what choral dance (T?v' e? xop?v), what wedding? What

husband will take me to his marriage bed?" (1198ff.). Her questions suggest that

her isolation from the social roles incumbent upon her age and sex is now

complete; it will take divine intervention to remedy her situation and to find her

a more suitable husband (1249, 1340ff.). Cf. Zeitlin (n. 44) 658f.

142. Translation (adapted) by Emily T. Vermeule, in the Chicago series.

143. Cf. Connor (n. 4) 21 on the self-referential mode of E. El. 859ff., 873ff.

and Herakles 763t?., 781ff.: "In passages such as these Greek tragedy may adapt and reflect its festival setting."

144. Ca?ame (n. 81) 142.

145. I am grateful to Claude Ca?ame, Eric Csapo, Patricia Easterling, Herbert

Golder, Gregory Nagy, Michael Haslam, Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Hayden Pelliccia, Renate Schlesier, Stephen Scully, Richard Seaford, Charles Segal, Bernd Seiden

sticker, Florence Verducci, and Froma Zeitlin for numerous suggestions, of which

I have made ample use; to Anton Bierl, C. A. Faraone, and Scott Scullion for

Albert Henrichs 111

sharing their unpublished work with me; and to Carolyn Dewald for generous

criticism and support throughout the writing of this paper.