Trustees of Boston University

Apollo in Ivy: The Tragic Paean

Author(s): Ian Rutherford
Source: Arion, Third Series, Vol. 3, No. 1, The Chorus in Greek Tragedy and Culture, One
(Fall, 1994 - Winter, 1995), pp. 112-135
Published by: Trustees of Boston University
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Apollo in Ivy:The Tragic Paean
IAN RUTHERFORD

A
tragedy was influenced heavily by the
-?1.THENIAN
traditions of choral lyric poetry as well as by its own contemporary
environment of The extent to which we
song-dance performance.1
can chart this influence is limited by our comparatively poor state
of knowledge about choral lyric outside of drama. One thing we
do know, however, is that extra-dramatic choral was catego
lyric
rized by genres, chief among them the paean, the dithyramb, the
threnos, the hyporchema, the partheneion, and the prosodion.
Choral odes in tragedy sometimes resemble these genres, but the
is rarely exact?more often than not, distorts
relationship tragedy
and subverts the conventions of choral lyric for literary effect.
Apollo's genre, the paean, is a favorite of the tragedians, and it is

possible to document its exploitation in tragedy in considerable

detail. Iwill begin by giving a short sketch of the genre itself (I),
and follow that with discussions of two further introductory
issues: the implications of confrontation between Apolline song
and Dionysiac environment (II); and methodological issues relat
ing to the generic characterization of choral odes (III).Then Imove
on to a number of more the
specific questions: relationship
between the paean and themes relating to death (IV); the use of the
paean to highlight patterns of disappointed expectations (V); its
use as an instrument of deception (VI); and issues to com
relating

munity (VII).What I hope to show is that it is pre

and isolation
cisely the difference between the ethos of the paean and that of
tragedy which lends richness and depth to the former's appropria
tion by the latter.

I.
The Morphology of the Genre

The paean was one of the most widely used genres of lyric
poetry in the song-dance culture of archaic and classical Greece.2

The great age for paeans was the late archaic

composing period.
 Ian Rutherford 113

Simonides and Pindar, who were celebrated composers of paeans

in the classical period, came at the tail end of a tradition which had
begun many centuries earlier. Key players in the development of
the genre were Thaletas, a semihistorical poet from in
Gortyn
Crete, of the seventh century B.c., who is supposed to have
perhaps
introduced the paean into Sparta, and Tynnichus of Chalcis, the
author of paean to Apollo famous even in the time of Aeschylus.3
a
But even in the fifth century, the paean was very much a flour
ishing genre. We know of numerous examples by the great poets
Pindar, Bacchylides, and Simonides. Moreover, we know that
Sophocles was involved with paeans: there is a tradition that at six
teen he led the victory paean in celebration of the Greek victory at
Salamis in 480, and he himself composed a paean to Asclepius,
which survives in part.4

Thepaean thought of as a song-dance

is best in honor of
"Paian," "The Healer," who is usually identified with Apollo. Pae
ans in honor of Apollo were performed all over the Greek world:
the major centers of Apolline cult, Delos and Delphi, were the
scenes of elaborate performances of paeans by khoroi from differ
ent poleis; Thebes and Sparta were also important centers. That
they were performed significantly less in Athens may have been
because the Athenian avant-garde were ahead of their time in
rejecting the traditional lyric genres like the paean, in favor of the
more fashionable narrative and citharodic nomos?but
dithyramb
I will say more about this later. Another common addressee was

often denoted by the name "Paian." "Paian," earlier

Asclepius,
"Paieon" or "Paiawon," seems to have been the name of
originally
an attested as early as Linear B, and mentioned
independent god,
inHomer as a healing god (Iliad 5. 401, 899-10). It seems likely
that the genre derived its name from him?perhaps that deity was
the same as Apollo, or perhaps the two deities were syncretized at
some point between theMycenean age and the classical period.5
In the classical was
period, paeanic song-dance performance

primarily associated with healing (e.g. to cure plagues, see Homer,

Iliad, I), and with celebration (weddings and victories), but it did
have other functions. Paeans were sung as songs to
apotropaic
avert or disaster, and were also sung in a number of
danger they
sacred or semisacred contexts: sang the paean to
symposiasts
accompany libations, and religious cult members sang it as a form
of ritual utterance (or e?K^Tju?a)to accompany sacrifice. In both of
these cases, the paean had no specific link to Apollo. The crucial
 114 APOLLO IN IVY:THE TRAGIC PAEAN

element in each case is the paean-cry, i? paian, an exclamation

which was usually chanted by groups of men, in contrast to the

female ritual cry, the ?XvXvyi].6 With the exception of this special
type of refrain?"the do not
paean-refrain"?paeans generally
have distinctive formal properties.7 There seems to have been a
special association with a type of metrical foot called the paion,
but most extant paeans are not in this meter.

More important is the issue of performance. In almost all cases

paeans seem to have been a group of males?either
performed by
young or adolescents
adults (called epheboi or neoi) or boys
(paides). Several extant paeans include self-invocations by the per
formers as young men, and we should perhaps think of these as
designed for organizations of epheboi or neoi* There is a resem
blance between the singers and the deity invoked, who is generally
a young male, a model for both epheboi and paides.
The group the song-dance could be said to consti
performing
tute a khoros. As a reference to an army
performing
a paean dur

ing battle, the word khoros might seem strange, but the
was the same, the component of
phenomenon essentially although
dance was absent. There were some cases of solo performance too.

On other occasions, in antiphonal fashion, the khoros sang only

the refrain and the rest of the song was sung a soloist or leader.9
by
Such choral was
performance usually accompanied by dance, par
a form foot
ticularly special involving vigorous stamping.10
Sometimes to a group which
performers belonged special
marked them out as singers. A well-attested group from the classi

cal period was that of theMilesian Molpoi, whom we learn about

from an important fifth-century inscription.11 The Molpoi were
religious officials who may once have enjoyed a measure of politi
cal power, but whose duties were probably purely ceremonial by
the period from which our records date.12 Paeans were also per
formed by other sacred guilds associated with cults of Apollo. At
Athens there were the Puthaistai and Deliastai, associated with the
two major Apolline centers, and the Orkhestai, who are known to
have taken part in ritual dances around the temple of Delian
Apollo at the Athenian Thargelia and to have held sumposia
(Euripides is reported to have acted as a wine pourer for them in
his youth).13 From much later we know of paean singers called pai
aniai in Sparta,14 and of others called paianistai from Attica (asso
ciated with Asclepius) and Hellenistic and Roman Egypt
(associated with Sarapis).15
 Ian Rutherford 115

In the classical period such groups, and their performances, had

a political significance, because the cult of Apollo played a special
part in the life of the polis. This is best documented in Sparta,
where the festive calendar was dominated the great festivals of
by

Apollo?the Karneia and the Gumnopaidia and the Amyclean

Huakinthia.16 In Ionian cities, as Fritz Graf has shown, an
impor
tant role was played by the cult of Apollo Delphinios. His temple,
the Delphinion, was the center for activities that defined male
the transition from adolescence to manhood
identity, particularly
and the concomitant incorporation into the citizen-body. At

Miletus the Delphinion served as a headquarters for the paean

singing Molpoi, and it is easy to think of their paean performances
as an of the social and values that the institu
expression practices
tion stood for.17 Insofar as the members of such groups repre
sented the male citizenry of the polis, they had the integrative
function of a sense of among the mem
articulating community

bers, and of expressing this sense before the polis as a whole. Such
are also a useful for hoplite warfare?itself
performances training
a scenario for the paean. And insofar as the members
performance
of such groups were the guardians of citizenship, and presided
over the initiation of adolescent males as new citizens, such perfor
mances had the function of its values from one gener
transmitting
ation to another. It was the of the
discipline performance?the
music, the dance, and the regular movements that are part of it?

which a sense of order.

expressed general
Thus, there turns out to be a connection between the perfor
mance of the paean and the mechanism of initiation. There is a

precise to the initiatory function of the as

analogy partheneion,
elucidated by Ca?ame; song-dance performance by khoroi of
young men and women coded moral messages about the
conveyed
standards of behavior expected of the members.18 Sometimes
paean singing was part of a broader initiatory framework inwhich
a group of young men took part in an expedition to a local sanctu

ary such as the one at Asine for Argos. Or it could be a pilgrimage

(theoria) to a more distant national sanctuary, a sanctuary
usually
of Apollo. Such expeditions or pilgrimages by young men can be
interpreted as spatial encoding of the idea of transition from one
19
age group to another via from the community.
separation
Therefore paeanic song-dance represents the organization and
exhibition of the collective strength of adult males, particularly
those of military age, them in such a way as to
presenting empha
 116 APOLLO IN IVY:THE TRAGIC PAEAN

size their relationship with the deity Paian/Apollo, who was a

and icon for this group. Paeanic was per
guardian song-dance
ceived as promoting the safety and stability of the polis, which had
a special dependence on this group. The security of the polis is
always the ultimate consideration, whether the immediate func
tion is galvanizing an army for battle, invoking divine help for
healing or averting catastrophe, worshiping Apollo on a pilgrim
age to one of his sanctuaries, great victo
commemorating military
ries of the past, or celebrating the wedding of one of the young
men of the The invocation of Paian/Apollo concomi
community.
tant with of paeanic can be construed as
performance song-dance
an external projection of the strong, youthful male?the ideal
citizen.

II.

Paeans in a Dionysiac Environment

Since a central feature of the paean is that it is Apollo's song,

there is an inevitable incongruity between the paean and tragedy,
which takes within the frame of Dionysiac cult, and to some
place
extent preserves vestiges of Dionysiac religion.
The best commentary on this generic discord is a dithyramb by
Bacchylides, the so-called Ode 16, which incorporates paean-like
elements within it. The presents the song as
speaking subject

being performed during the period before Apollo returns to Del

phi to be greeted by paeans. In the opening (the first few lines are
badly damaged, and clear sense cannot be made of them), Apollo
is pictured enjoying himself in one of his favorite locations, proba
bly among the Hyperboreans, until he returns to partake in "flow
ers of
paeans":

...
]?' ?xn Jtain?vcov

?vOea Jie?oixve?v,
II?Oi' ?jioXXov,
x?aa xoQoi Aekty?bv
a?v xeX?onoav jiao' va?v.
?yaxX?a

jTQivye xX?ojiev Xute?v

Oix?k?av jivq? ?ajrcouivav
AuxJHTQVcovi?oav Ooaauu/n??a c()co6',?xexo ?'
au<|)ix?[xov' axt?v...
 Ian Rutherford 117

[... you come to seek flowers of paeans, Pythian Apollo, such

as the khoroi of Delphians sang beside your glorious temple.

But before that, we sing how the son of Amphitryon, the bold
mortal, left blazing Oechalia, and came to a beach washed
.
by waves ..]

A short narrative relates the story of Heracles and Deianeira in a

somewhat elliptical manner: after the sack of Oechalia, Heracles

went toMount Kenaion, where he offered sacrifice (antistrophe),
and Deianeira, in jealousy over Iole, sent him a robe dipped in the
poison of Nessus (epode). The death itself is not described in this
narrative; the climax thus withheld reflects the khoroi %sense of
their of Apollo's return.
waiting, anticipation
The of the present song with a paean sung at
point contrasting

Delphi in honor of Apollo's return is that the song, as a dithyramb,

is associated with Dionysos, who was thought to occupy Delphi in
the winter months during Apollo's absence.20 This text is a vital
piece of evidence for a general contrast between paeans and dithy
rambs in the fifth century. Signs of overlap between them, where
they occur in the fourth century, should thus be considered inno
vation or of the norm. For when the fourth
adaptation example,

century poet Philodamus of Scarpheia composed a paean to

Dionysos for dedication at Delphi, he was stretching the scope of
the paean to include Dionysos.21
How this distinction between genres would have been interpre
ted in antiquity is not certain. Musicological sources contrast the
calm singing of the paean with the disorderly dithyramb. This con
trast can be traced back as far as Philochorus (fr. 172), who said
that libations were originally accompanied by drunken songs in
honor of Dionysos and calm singing in honor of Apollo. Plutarch
also noted the calmness of the paean in comparison to the dithy
ramb (de E ap. Delphos, Mor.389a-b)22 although he may have
been inspired by a traditional association of the paean with the
idea of political orderliness, and with social institutions such as
the Ionian Delphinion (as we saw in section I).
The associations of the dithyramb are harder to track, because
there are two types: the Dionysiac dithyramb, with an overt con
nection to the cult of Dionysos, and the narrative dithyramb.23 The
Dionysiac form derives its character from Dionysos, whom mod
ern scholars see as a of reversal, and transgression.
god paradox,
Thus, tended to represent
dithyrambic song-dance performances
 118 APOLLO IN IVY:THE TRAGIC PAEAN

the subversion of social and norms, or at least their relax

political
ation.24 They are linked with emotional disorder because of the
association of Dionysos with wine and ecstasy, and with political
subversion insofar as the Dionysiac group was taken as a threat to

political authority (as dramatized in Euripides' Bacchae). Hence

the dithyramb's distinction from the paean which corroborated
social and political norms. Gender may also be a consideration,
since Dionysos tends to be associated with women, whereas the
paean is almost a male form.
exclusively
The Dionysiac affiliation of the narrative dithyramb, like that of
Athenian is usually not so overt. However, one still
tragedy, might
argue that the implied Dionysiac context of the genre accommo
dates the use of the themes of transgression and disaster (like the
story of Deianeira summarized in Bacchylides, Ode 16, or the story
of Perseus in Pindar, fr.70c, or almost all Athenian tragedies).
Scholars have come to apppreciate that
only recently typical tragic
themes involving crisis, subversion of social norms, and the chal

lenging of hierarchies and distinctions reflect the character of Dio

nysos.25 Even death and the chthonic in general can be seen as
Dionysiac themes, while paeans tend to be about healing and the

Olympian sphere.26
Hence the that when makes use of the
expectation tragedy
paean, either merely referring
to it or modeling whole choral odes
on it, the between the two genres will not be
relationship simple.
And that iswhat happens. The calm, joyful, healing paean tends
to run into conflict with the general thrust of the tragedy toward
disruption, disorder, and death. Paeans in tragedy rarely have their
proper force, and are almost never what seem. Paeans in
they they
are often a calm appearance sets the stage for a
tragedy deceptive;
disaster. To analyze this complex relationship will be the task of
the following sections.

III.
Identifying Genres in Tragic Choral Lyric

When we turn to consider the of the paean in tragedy,

reception
the first thing to emphasize is that the relationship between a cho
ral ode in tragedy and the traditional model of the paean is usually
fairly loose?it is a matter of adaptation
or extension of the
model or even to it. To
existing just allusion articulate the relation

between dramatic and nondramatic choral odes, we need

badly
 Ian Rutherford 119

methodological tools. In the following pages I outline five such

tools: generic allusions and signatures; framing; generic deforma
tion or extension; of genres and mutation; and cho
mixing generic
ral projection.

1. Generic allusions and signatures. Some odes contain formal

clues that suggest paeanicity. The parodos of the Oedipus Tyran

nus (151ff.) purports to be an apotropaic prayer to avert a plague,
so that it can be considered a paean in virtue of its function.
Although it lacks the refrain that would be expected in a paean, it
has two telling allusions to the genre.27 The first is a quasi refrain
in the first strophe (154): trjieA?kie Ilai?v [i?ieDelian Paian]; the
second is a generic signature in the second antistrophe (185):
jraicbv ?? taiujtei axovoeaaa xe yfJQU? ouxxuXo? [the paean
flashes, and the mournful cry in concert], which seems to refer to
apotropaic utterances of the Apolline cry i? paian, mixed with out
bursts of mourning.28 Even these close ties to the conventional

form of the paean are unusual in tragedy.

2. Framing. It is possible to set up a choral song as a paean with

a frame. For example, early in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes,
Eteocles asks the khoros of girls to utter a sacrificial cry in reply to
his prayer (268ff.):

axou?a?' ejteixa ov
x?^i?rv euyi^axoov,
O^oXdYM^?V L8Q?V ?l)U?Vf) jtaiobvi?ov,
eEX,X/nvix?vv?uiauxx Gvoxa?o? ?ofjc

my prayer, utter a paean, a mild cry of ololug?,

[Hearing holy,
the Greek token of a sacrificial cry]

The unique phraseology combines the female ololug? with the

paean-cry which we associate with men. The choral ode
usually
that follows after a few lines (287ff.) can be seen as an expansion
of the and so a paean-song. This pattern suggests the anti
reply,

phonal mode of performance attested in paean outside drama.

There are at least three other introductory frames of this sort in

extant one of them somewhat more
tragedy (every problematic
than this one).29

3. Generic deformation or extension. Some choral odes in trag

are like paeans in some respects, but unlike them in others.
edy
 120 APOLLO IN IVY:THE TRAGIC PAEAN

Thus, can be of as a deformation or

they thought representing
extension of the basic generic model. The paean-like song sung by
women in tragedy is one such example. For instance, in the
Choephoroi Electra instructs the khoros of slave women to sing a
paean over the tomb of Agamemnon. In the Iphigeneia at Aulis,
Iphigeneia calls on the khoros of Chalcian women to sing a paean
as she is sacrificed (a peculiar inversion of the sacrificial paean)
(1474ff.). In the Trakhiniai, the khoros of Trachinian women
anticipates the return of Heracles with an excited ode which is at
least in a
part paean (see IV). A gender shift is also evident in the
Agamemnon where the khoros call on the manly Clytemnestra to
become the "healer" (jkxixdv) of their anxiety (98).
Another form of generic extension to which the paean is subject
in tragedy involves its connection with the chthonic (studied more
fully in section IV).

4. Mixing of genres and generic mutation. This is a special case

of number 3 above. In the Laws Plato castigated modern poets for
transgressing inherited generic models?mixing dirges with
hymns and paeans with dithyrambs, for example.30 Plato may well
have been thinking of choral odes in tragedy. A good example here
is the celebratory ode in Sophocles' Trakhiniai (205ff.). The
khoros celebrates the news that Heracles is on his way home with
an ecstatic ode. Two allusions to the paean: the quasi
generic point
refrain in line 220 (id) IcoIlai?v) and the generic signature or quasi
refrain in lines 210-11 (o\iov ?? jrat?va jtat?v' ?vaioex' 5)
JtaoO?voi) .31But only the first half of the song is about Apollo; the
second half is about Dionysos: the khoros shouts the Dionysiac cry
EV?? (219), and talk about the ivy twisting a Bacchic contest
(219-20 toot) fi' ?vaxarjaooei ... ? xiaa?? ?oxi Bax/iav /
tJjioaxo?cjxDV ?uiXXav), which suggests the dithyramb (the ivy
indicates the divine inspiration of Dionysos, and it symbolizes the
circular dance itself). The ode is a generic mixture, and in fact it is
a mutation since it opens with a section and ends with a
paeanic

dithyrambic section,32 a similar breaking down of the distinction

between Dionysiac and Apolline genres as we saw in Ode 16 of
Bacchy lides.33

5. Choral projection. Sometimes a khoros describes another

choral performance, which seems to be an indirect description of
themselves; Albert Henrichs analyzes such patterns as projections
 Ian Rutherford 121

by the khoros of their own performance onto the imaginary one,

the term "choral For in the sec
suggesting projection."34 example,
ond stasimon of Euripides' Alcestis (445ff.) the khoros imagines
poets singing songs in honor of the dead Alcestis at the Spartan
Karneia:

jioXM oe uxyuoojtoXoi
lieXtyovoi xa0' ?jtx?xov?v x' ?oeiav
%?\VV 6V X'aMjQOl? xX?OVX?Cv\ivoi??
Zrc?oxa xuxX?? ?v?xa Kaove?ou rceoiv?oexai a>oa
u/nv?c, ?eioouivac
...
nawvxov oeX?vac

[The attendants of the Muses will often sing of you on the

seven-string mountain lyre and in lyreless hymns when the
circling time of the Karneian month comes round at Sparta,
while the moon hovers above all night]

These lines could reflect actual singing of paeans in honor of

heroes at the Karneia, as we know that were sung in honor of
they
heroes at the Gumnopaidia; the point would presumably be that
Alcestis isworthy ?f being honored as a man in death, unlike her
cowardly husband.35 The khoros does not say that they are singing
such paeans, but they make the allusion.36

IV.

Chthonic Confrontations

In Greek a clear watershed exists between the upper

mentality,
world of the living and divine, the Olympian sphere, and the lower
world of the dead, the chthonic sphere.37 I have already noted that
the paean was associated with the Olympian sphere while the dirge
and the dithyramb were associated with the chthonic. Athenian
tragedians frequently exploited the antitheses between Olympian
and chthonic by means of their associated genres, the paean and
the dirge. Sometimes the categories are rigorously distinguished,
as in a fragment of Aeschylus' Niobe (fr.161), which says that
Death cannot be supplicated by any means, even by addressing
paeans to it:
 122 APOLLO IN IVY:THE TRAGIC PAEAN

uovo? Oec?v y?o Oavaxo? ov ?coqcov ?oa

oi>?' ?v xi O?oov ov?' ?mojt?v?oov ?voi?,
oi>?' 8?xi ?(?[x?c ov?? jtaioviCexai/
u?vou ?? Ile?OcD?auxovoav ?jroaxaxe?.

[Alone of the gods Death does not desire gifts, nor would you
accomplish anything by sacrificing or pouring libations.
There is no altar and paeans are not addressed to it. Only

from this god does Persuasion stand away.]

This seems pretty clear-cut: death is implacable, healing is no

longer a possibility. The same degree of antithesis is attested in a
fragment from the Polyxena of Sophocles (fr.523), where the ghost
of Achilles announces his arrival by saying that he has left the
"paeanless shores" (?xx?? ?jraicova?) of Hades;38 and in Euripi
des' Iphigeneia among the Taurians (line 172), inwhich a dirge is
described as "without paeans" (b?%ajrai?vcov) ,39
However, do not observe a clear distinction
tragedians always
between categories, and they tend to juxtapose them for complex
literary effects. Take, for example, the topos of "death the healer,"
first attested in a fragment of Aeschylus' Philoctetes (fr.255),
where the hero appealed to death to relieve him of his suffering:

(b O?vaxe jiaicov, |?t| fx'?xiuxxanc [xoXe?v

(i?voc <y?g> et ov xcov ?vnx?oxcov xax v
taxQO?, ?Xyo? ?' o???v ?jrxexai vexooi)

[O healer death, do not deprive me of the honor of your com

ing; when ills are beyond healing, you alone are a doctor, and
no touches a corpse.]
pain

In this rich paradox, living means to live with unhealable ills and
death is a healer of life.
A drama inwhich the antithesis between paean and dirge plays
itself out in a particularly interesting way is the Choephori of
Aeschylus. The movement toward vengeance is articulated by the
of modulation from to paean, as we see from an ana
symbol dirge

pestic section of the kommos, delivered by the khoros (340-44):

?A?' ex' ?v ex x v?e Oe?? xqth?cw

08?T]xeXa?ou? e?(|)0OYYOx?Qou?
 Ian Rutherford 123

?vxi ?? 6qt|v?)v ejtnruu?ioioav

jraubv u^X?Oooic ?v ?aaileioic
veoxoaxa xouxoetev
fyikov

[But a god if he desires in this situation could make the cries

more melodious. Instead of dirges at the tomb may the paean
in the royal halls usher-in the welcome newly-mixed bowl of
wine]

The present kommos between Electra, Orestes, and the khoros is

conceived as a dirge, but the khoros anticipates a happier time
characterized by the sumposion-paean. It has been suggested that
the paean they look forward to is the ecstatic choral ode at 936ff.40
there had been a of the same modula
Interestingly, premonition
tion earlier in a short ode near the start of the play. In a frame

introducing it, Electra had instructed the khoros to sing an anti

to the dead man" in response to her own prayer
phonal "paean
(149-51): v\xa?, ?? x xuxo?? ?jtavOi^eiv vouo? / Jtai?va xov
Gavovxo? ?^au?oofi?va? [and it is the custom for you to decorate
them with the flowers of laments, uttering a paean to the dead
man]. The frame is ambiguous: does it imply that the following
ode is a dirge (explaining away the word Jtatava as a trope) ?or a
paean (taking it literally)? or something in between? The ode itself
(152ff.) begins mournfully, like a dirge, but it modulates into a
prayer that the murder of Agamemnon be avenged. Although there
are no allusions, it functions as a paean (it could either be
generic
a paean prayer, or even an of a victory But if
anticipation paean).
it is a paean, it is a strange one, since it is grounded in the chthonic,

being addressed to the dead man, and sung on his behalf. Iwould
suggest that we have here another of the mixtures of theoretically
distinct genres described by Plato.41
References to the paean in chthonic contexts have tended to be
away as oxymoronic for But I
explained periphrases "dirge."
believe this is an oversimplification. In the Helena, to take an
example from Euripides, the antiphonal parodos is introduced by
Helen, who, having been informed by Teucer that members of her
family in Sparta have died, and thatMenelaos ismissing, prays to
Persephone to send singers from Hades, and she will reciprocate
by sending a paean back down to Hades (174ff.).

uouoeia
0onvr|uxx
01 ?uvcp?? Jt?u/ijjeie
 124 APOLLO IN IVY:THE TRAGIC PAEAN

Oeoae^aooa
(j)?via, xctQtxa? ?v' ?jtl ?axovai
Jtap' 8(i80<8v> ijjt? uiXaOoa vv^icl Jtai?va
v?xvoiv ?tau?voi? Xa?n.

[May Persephone send deadly singers to accompany dirges, so

that she receives a paean from me into her chamber of night
for the perished dead as tearful recompense.]

Kannicht takes "jtauxva" as an for

oxymoronic periphrasis

"dirge," which suits the fact that Helen's song is welcomed in

Hades, and is inspired by Persephone.42 Although on one level that
may be true, itwould be amistake to erase the whole of the specific
meaning of Jtai?va. Having just heard the news of the deaths,
Helen has perhaps not entirely adjusted to the situation and sub
consciously still believes that a paean-prayer will be of avail.43 Hel
en's song resembles a paean at least insofar as it starts from the

upper, Olympian world, whereas the singers that Persephone

sends start from Hades. Lower world invades upper, and then
the upper invades the lower. The resulting song imagined by Helen
is a generic hybrid, implausible in real life, but this is tragedy,
fantastic at that, and the rules of genre are
unusually tragedy

suspended.

V.

False Dawn: Disappointed Expectations

A happy paean is often followed by a disaster. This is typical of
tragedy, in which nothing is what it seems and no celebration is
immune from irony. We find it, for example, in the parodos of the
Oedipus Tyrannus (despite the wishes of the khoros, the situation
in Thebes gets worse in the short term, although in the long term
the plague vanishes). Another example is the celebra
presumably
tory ode near the start of the Trakhiniai: the return of Heracles
turns out to be far from a cause for celebration. A simpler example
comes in the fragmentary Erechtheus of Euripides, in which the
khoros launches into a paean after the news of
celebratory victory
the victory, and then finds out that Erechtheus himself has died.
One of the best examples of this pattern is a modulation to the
a
paean in the second stasimon of theHeracles, which is joyful ode
occasioned by the return of the hero (687ff.).44 In the first strophe
 Ian Rutherford 125

the khoros of old men expresses the wish that they might enjoy a
second youth; in the first antistrophe they suggest that the gods
should arrange that the virtuous should live twice; in the second
talk about their role as of Heracles'
strophe they singers praises;

finally in the second antistrophe, by what I earlier called "choral

compare themselves to Delian
projection," they paean-singing
maidens and announce that are themselves paeans,
they singing

implying that Heracles is as worthy of having paeans addressed to

him as is. This section contrasts with the earlier stanzas,
Apollo
which concentrate on mortality, both of the singers and of
Heracles.

Soon after the second stasimon of the Heracles comes a reversal

with the appearance of Iris and Lyssa, and the onset of Heracles'
madness. Perhaps Euripides meant for a sense of foreboding to be
triggered by the reflection that in comparing themselves to the
Delian maidens, the khoros clearly implies that they are treating
Heracles like a god, which may have appeared impious and hy
bristic, a of the convention that paeans should be
trangression
addressed only to gods.45 And it is perhaps interesting that at the
moment of peripeteia (815ff.) the khoros cries out in terror, and
invokes Paean, as if to recall the paeans mentioned in the last
stanza of the second stasimon.

In some passages in tragedy, a paean sung in the past can sym

bolize lost One comes from the of

happiness. example parodos
(246-47), an ode that narrates the story
Aeschylus' Agamemnon
of the events at Aulis before the Trojan War, culminating in the
sacrifice of Iphigeneia. Just when she is about to be sacrificed,
there is a flashback to the scene of her father's sumposion?which
took place long before?where she answered his paean:

?jtei JioXtaxxi?
jraxQ?? xax' ?v?pcova? e?xocut??ou?
?u^X/ipev,?yv? ?' ?xauo xo? om?a jraxo??
?i\ov XQixoojrov?ov eimoxuov jtaicova cj>iX.(o?
?xijia.

[For she sang many times in the well-furnished quarters of her

father, and with a meek face and a holy voice she honored in
a kindly manner her dear father's propitious paean sung at
the third libation.]

This is another case where an auspicious past is symbolized by the

of a paean at a Is there also a later, less aus
performance banquet.
 126 APOLLO IN IVY:THE TRAGIC PAEAN

of a Yes, because a paean would have

picious performance paean?
been performed at the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, of course?in fact
such a paean is mentioned in Euripides' Iphigeneia in Aulis
(1474ff.), as we have seen.

A model for this pattern here may have been provided by Sap
whose poem on the marriage of Hector and Andromache fin
pho,
ishes with a celebratory paean sung by the guests (fr.44. 33ff.). A
contrast suggests itself between this paean and one of two paeans
mentioned Iliad?the one at Iliad 22. 39Iff.?which
inHomer's is
a victory paean sung by Achilles and his companions when they
carry the dead body of Hector back to camp.46 There may be
another echo of this pattern at Euripides, Troades (577ff.), where
Andromache is being led off by Greeks, like a bride being led from
her family's home to her husband, and says to the grieving Hecuba:
xi Jtaicxv' e\ibv oxevct?ei?; [Why do you sing in lamentation my
paean?]. This is a particular allusion to the paean sung at the wed

ding of Andromache, recorded, for example, in Sappho 44.

A more complex instance of the same pattern is found in the par
odos of Sophocles' Antigone (lOOff.). This ode celebrates a vic
tory, and in view of its function I believe that Greeks would have
thought of it as a victory paean. It starts with an invocation to a

ray of the sun, which is pictured following the Argive army as it

flees.

?xxl? ?zkiov, x? x?XAioxov ?jtxajnjXtp c|)av?v

0r|?a xcov jtQox?o v fy?o?
?(|>av0T]? jiox' coXQUtf?a?
?fx?pa? ?Xicjxxoov, ?iqxc?cov ?>jt8QQ880qcov \io\ovoa,
X?V fX,8lJXa?JtLV ?QYO08V
c|)c?xa?avxa jrav?ayiat
(jyuyaoa JtQ?OQOfxovo^ux?oto
xivr|oaaa xaXivto.

[Ray of the sun, light that appears to Thebes the fairest ever
light, o eyelid of the golden day, you have revealed yourself,
moving over the streams of Dirke, making the man from
Argos, fully armored with a white shield(?), run headlong
away with a sharp bridle.]

The opening words seem to be an allusion to a paean

by Pindar,
the one we know as Paian IX, which commemorates an of
eclipse
 Ian Rutherford 127

the sun and was for at the Ismenion at

composed performance
Thebes, perhaps in 467.

?xxi? ?eXiov, xi tioXvokojie ?ur|aao,

cou?xeo ou^?xcov, ?axgov ?jt?oxaxov
8V?fx?QOtxX,8Jtx?u?vov; <x? ?'> ?Onxa? ?jiaxavov io%vv x'
?v?oaoi
xai oofyia?, o?ov, ?moxoxov ?xoajtov ?oovfx?va;

[Ray of the sun!What have you contrived, observant mother

of eyes, highest star, stolen in broad daylight? Why have you
made helpless men's strength and the path of wisdom, rush
ing down a dark path?]

This is particularly striking coming at the start of an

allusion
overtly celebratory ode. Perhaps Sophocles intends to suggest that
the first sunrise after the defeat of the Seven seems to be an occa

sion for celebration by the Thebans, but in reality (from the per
of someone who knows the future) it is as ominous as a
spective
solar eclipse, in view of the personal and political crisis that this
day will bring to Thebes. The Theban setting of Paian IX makes
it an appropriate model. One could see thematic relevance
perhaps
also: while Pindar calls the ray of the sun a swift driver of horses
(line 7), so Sophocles has the sun drive the enemy away like a
horse-rider in flight. Again, in the second triad of the Paian Pindar
moves away from the and focuses on and his son,
eclipse Apollo
the seer Tenerus, and it may be observed that one of the major fig
ures in Sophocles' Antigone is another Theban seer?Teiresias.

Furthermore in lines 13ff. of the Paian, Pindar mentions a series of

calamities portended by the eclipse, some of which are comparable

to events in the Antigone, particularly ?xcxoiv o?Xouivav [deadly
faction] in line 15.What would otherwise be a fairly straightfor
ward dark allusion is complicated by the fact that the parodos of
the Antigone can itself be thought of as a paean, although this
would be a celebratory victory paean, contrasting with the fearful
and apotropaic song of Pindar.47

VI.

Paeanic Deception: Sophocles, P hilo et ?tes 827ff.

We have seen numerous effects paeans in

complex involving

tragedy: sometimes a paean is adapted to an unusual purpose (IV);

 128 APOLLO IN IVY:THE TRAGIC PAEAN

sometimes a paean fails in its purpose (V). A related use of the

paean is to deceive. Thus, in a fragment of Aeschylus (fr.350) from
an unknown play, Thetis, apparently mourning the death of
Achilles, meditates on her wedding to Peleus, and how Apollo had
sung there, predicting a prosperous future for her offspring and
adding a paean-cry at the end as if to guarantee the prediction
(line 4).
Only in one case is a paean deliberately misused by a character
in the drama. This is in Sophocles' Philoctetes, a drama which
invites the use of the paean, in view of its thematic connection

with illness (we saw earlier that Aeschylus' Philoctetes contained

an to "Death, the healer"). as the tortured
oxymoronic prayer Just
Philoctetes falls asleep, the khoros appeals to Sleep to come and
protect him. The short ode consists of a single triad, with a brief
dactylic interruption by Neoptolemus between strophe and anti
strophe (839-40). It begins like this (827ff.):

e'Yjiv' obvva? ??af|?, "Yjtve ?' ?Xy?cov,

e?ari? r|u?v ?XOoi?, evaicov,
evaicov, tova?* ?ujiaai ?' ?vxioxoi?
xtxv?' a x?xaxai xavDv.
aiy^av,
?0i i'0i uoi, Ilaic?v.

unversed in pain, unversed in anguish, may you come

[Sleep,
to us blowing fair, you of the good life, good life, lord. May
you continue to hold up to his eyes this light of healing, which
now extends before him. Come, come to me, healer.]

Haldane and other commentators have taken this as a realistic

of a cult features to are the

impression paean: paeanic pointed

quasi refrain, as well as the epithet euaion (which occurs in a num

ber of paeanic contexts)48 and the noun aigla (the latter has a spe
cial association with the cult of Asclepius).49
Of course, this paeanic effect is sustained only to a point half
way through the strophe. In the second half of the strophe, with
Philoctetes now the khoros advises Neoptol
satisfactorily asleep,
emus to steal the bow (833-38). So the purpose of singing the
paean to Sleep, even ifwas partly to ease the pain of Philoctetes,
turns out to have been to steal his most possession. In a
precious
brief interjection four dactylic hexameters, Neoptolemus
of
objects that the oracle required the presence of Philoctetes also,
 Ian Rutherford 129

but in the antistrophe the khoros insists that he should take the
bow. In the antistrophe (844-46) the khoros appeals anxiously to
Neoptolemus to answer their request rapidly, since Philoctetes
may not stay for The contrast with the pious
asleep long. strophe
is unsettling.50

This mood continues in the epode, which begins with a refer

ence to the wind that wafts them back to Troy:

OVQO? XOl, X8XVOV, ovqo? ?

vtjq ?' ?vou^axo?, ov?' ?xcov ??coyav,

?xx?xaxat vuxio?

[There is a wind, child, a wind. The man iswithout eyes and

lies stretched out in darkness without anyone to help him.]

This wind is reminiscent of "Sleep blowing fair" in the paeanic

introduction to the strophe. And there is a stark contrast between
the helpless state of Philoctetes, a man "without eyes," which the
khoros invites to and their earlier request to
Neoptolemus exploit,

Sleep to "hold up to his eyes this light of healing." The hypocrisy

of the "Paean to Sleep" is exposed.

VII.
Community and Isolation: Solo Paeans in the Ion

As I said in the first section, paeans were usually sung by khoroi;

and the relationship with choral performance is neither superficial
nor accidental. The essence of the paean is the exuberant exhibi

tion of collective male solidarity, and a khoros is needed for the full
effect. Some solo are known?for kithar
performances example,
odic paeans that are supposed to have been performed in competi
tions at Delphi?but they are rare and should probably be
considered exceptional.51 Choral performance of paeans is also the
norm in Greek tragedy. Even when tragedy defies convention by
having women sing paeans, they still sing together.
However, one of the best examples of the tragic paean, in the Ion
of Euripides, is a monody. Ion makes his entrance an aria
singing

celebrating his position as temple servant at Delphi (82ff.). Most

of it is in anapestic meter, but there is a central section consisting
 130 APOLLO IN IVY:THE TRAGIC PAEAN

of a strophe and antistrophe in aeolic meter, each ending with a

= lines
spondaic refrain (lines 125-27 141-43):

co Ilaicxv co riaicxv,

8?CX?C0V SVCX?COV
co
ei/n?, Aaxo?? Jtat

[O Paean, o Paean, may you be fortunate, fortunate, o son

of Leto]

This is the closest that extant comes to a

tragedy paean-refrain.
The strophe is a cheerful description of the branch of laurel with
which Ion sweeps the temple (one is reminded, perhaps, of the lau
rel-bearing ritual in the Delphic Septerion, which would have been
accompanied by the singing of paeans) .52 Most of the antistrophe
is a celebration of Ion's sacred labors in the temple (128ff.), a
theme that can be paralleled in nondramatic paeans.53
The solo performance is particularly striking because the
khoros, composed of Athenian women accompanying Creusa to
does not a paean when it seems the most dra
Delphi, sing likely
matic choice?as admire the on the while
they sculptures temple
singing the parodos (184ff.). In this play the paean seems to be a
symbol for isolation and alienation from the community of Ath
ens. This idea might have found a resonance with an Athenian
audience, for whom paeans were linked less with the major festi

vals of the polis than with pilgrimages, often by young people, to

distant Apolline sanctuaries.54

There is an echo of Ion's solo paean later on in the play in Creu

sa's monody, where she laments the son she believes has been lost
while Apollo indulges himself in paean singing (897ff.):

xixxco ?' ? ?uoxavo? ooi

XO?JQOV,X?V (j)QLXa[XaXQ??
8i? evv?v ?aMxo x?v o?v,
iva \ie X?xeo? \x?Xea uiXeo?
??eu^co x?v o?axavov
OlJXOl\lOVXal V?V 8QQ8L
jrxavo?? [xoixal a?? xX?uxov,
ov ?? xiO?oa xtax?ei?
jtauxva? [x?fotcov
 Ian Rutherford 131

[Poor wretch that I am, I bore you a child, and, in fear of my

mother, I exposed him on your bed, where you had put the
yoke on me. And now, alas, he is gone, carried off by birds as
dinner, my child and yours, wretched child. But meanwhile
you screech on the kith ara, singing paeans.]

Apollo's solo paean singing has a different meaning from that of

Ion. Ion's solo paean symbolizes his isolation from community,

Apollo's symbolizes the choice he has made to evade his responsi

bilities to Creusa and to honor himself with his own song. While
Ion's isolation is a temporary stage which he has transcended by
the end of the play, Apollo's evasion is a deliberate strategy, which
is reinforced in the final scene, where he declines even to show up
to sort out the situation, Athena as a substitute. Neverthe
sending
less, there is a parallel between the solo paeans of Ion and Apollo:
when Ion sings his solo paean, he represents Apollo, and when
Creusa describes Apollo as singing paeans alone, she may be pro
jecting onto him an image of Ion. Worshiper and deity resemble
each other, as is so often the case inGreek religion. Ion, in his iso
lation from humanity, appears to imitate one of the less admirable
characteristics of Apollo in this play.

VIII.
Conclusion

If the impious deceptive paean in the Philoctetes represents a

crisis in the religious significance of the paean in tragedy, the solo
paean in the Ion could suggest a diminution of the choral pres
ence?an example of Euripides' well-established tendency to be
transgressive in his representations of musical categories, and of

religious conventions in general. While Sophocles, in most cases,

faithfully reproduced the convention of choral performance,

Euripides shifted the musical and emotional center of the drama
from the chorus to the individual singer. Beyond an artistic level,
this development may indicate a deeper meaning. Perhaps this
marginalization of the chorus reflects a corresponding breakdown
of the traditional community. We saw earlier that the paean's flo
ruit was the archaic period; by the late fifth century itwas out of
date, except in conservative centers, and with it had gone the inti
mate of song and social fabric. The was
exchange change particu
at Athens, where the the
larly conspicuous avant-garde rejected
 132 APOLLO IN IVY:THE TRAGIC PAEAN

canonical form of the traditional song-dance culture in favor of

modern artistic virtuosity. The paean was not forgotten, but it
survived only as a formal allusion, an isolated literary motif, ostra
cized from its earlier functional role in the community. Iwould
suggest that this marginalization, which intensified over the
course of the fifth century, is, in an uncanny way, symbolized by
the isolated paean sung by Euripides' Ion.

NOTES

This paper arose from research that I undertook for my forthcoming book,
Pindar's Paianes: A Reading of the Fragments with a Survey of Their Generic Con
texts. I have discussed some of the same issues from a different point of view in
"Paeanic Ambiguity: A Study of the Representation of the Ilai?v inGreek Litera
ture," Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica n.s. 44, 77ff. I thank Charles Segal
and Stephen Scully, who organized the conference; various participants who con
tributed to the question and answer session; and Herb Golder and Julie Seeger, who
oversaw the follow-up publication.
1. C. J. Herington, Poetry into Drama (California 1985).
2. The paean genre is discussed by A. Fairbanks, A Study of the Greek Paean
(Cornell 1900); L. Deubner, "Paian," NJKA 22 (1919), 385ff.; A. von Blumenthal,
"Paian" RE 36,2340ff.; G. A. Privitera, "II peana sacro ad Apollo," Cultura e Scu
ola 41 (1972), 41ff.; C. Ca?ame, ed., Rito e Poes?a C?rale in Grecia: Guida Storica e
Critica (Roma 1977), 17ff.; L. K?ppel, Paian. Studien zur Geschichte einer Gattung

[Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte, Bd. 37] (Berlin 1992).
3. Thaletas: Pratinas, PMG 713(iii), cited in Ps. Plutarch, De mus. 42 (1142b-c);
Pausanias, 1. 14. 4 {Qakq?); Tynnichus: Plato, Ion 534d =PMG 707.
4. Paean sources in TrGF 4, T67, 68, 69; see A. Henrichs,
to Asclepius: "'Der
Glaube der Hellenen':Religionsgeschichte als Glaubenbekenntnis und Kul
turkritik," Wilamowitz Nach 50 Jahren, ed. W. Calder III, H. Flashar, T. Lindken
(Darmstadt 1985), 298ff.; Salamis: Vita. Soph.3 (TGrF 4. 31).
5. The name is found on two Knossos tablets: KN V 52; KN C 394.3; also per

haps KN Fp 354.
6. On the oXoXvyr], see L. Deubner, "Ololug? und Verwandtes," APAW 1941.
1,1-28.
7. Of the Pindar Paians, only Paian II, Paian IV, and Paian V have regular refrains,
while Paian I, Paian VI, Paian VHd, and Paian VIII do not.
8. The Erythraean Paian to Apollo (CA 140) 10; the Erythraean Paian to Asclep
ius {CA 136) 2 (= 137.1)), and Macedonicus' Paian 4; Pindar, (Paian VI), 122.
9. For antiphonal performance, see Archilochus, IEG 121; Aeschines,

F*/s.Li?g.l62-63.
10. For dance, see HomericHymn to Apollo 516; Pindar, Paian VI. 18.
11. The Molpoi inscription is in Lois sacr?es de l'Asie Mineur, ed. F. Sokolowski
(Paris 1955) n. 50. F. Graf, "Das Kollegium der Molpoi von Olbia," Mus.Helv.31

(1974), 209ff.; id., "Apollon Delphinios," Mus.Helv.35 (1979), 2ff. N. Robertson,

"Government and Society atMiletus, 525-442 B.C.," Phoenix 41 (1987), 356ff.; N.
 Ian Rutherford 133

Ehrhardt, Milet und seine Kolonien: vergleichende Untersuchung der kultischen

und politischen Einrichtungen (Frankfurt 1983), 142ff.
12. See Robertson (n. 11) 359; Graf, "Apollo Delphinios" (n. 11); Ehrhardt (n.
11) 202. The antiquity of the guild is indicated by the fact that similar ones are
known from the Milesian colonies of Olbia on the Black Sea and Aegiale on

Amorgos {IG 12. 7. 418), both founded in the seventh century; perhaps also in

Sinope (Ehrhardt, 136).

13. Theophrastus, fr.119 = Athenaeus 10. 424.
14. IG 5. 1. 209. 1; Jiai?va? inHesychius, 3. 253(Schmidt).
15. Athens: IG 2(2) 2481 (late second century CE.), and the list on the left-hand
side of the Sarapion monument. Piraeus: SIG 1110; IG 2(2) 2963. Eleusis: SEG 32,
232. Egypt: SGUA 1. 5803; SGUA 3. 7090 (= 1. 1743) (Panopolis); POxy.3018; IG
14. 1059.
16. For the Gumnopaidia and Karneia, see 121.
17. For Apollo and the Delphinion, see Graf, "Apollo Delphinios" (n. 11).
18. See C. Ca?ame, Les choeurs des jeunes filles en Gr?ce archa?que (Rome 1977).
19. F. de Polignac, La Naissance de la cit? grecque (Paris 1984). I hope to discuss
theoria in a separate study.
20. On this song, see B. Zimmermann, Dithyrambos. Geschichte einer Gattung

[Hypomnemata 98], 70ff.; A. P. Burnett, The Art of Bacchylides (Harvard 1985),

123ff.
21. On the Paian to Dionysos of Philodamus of Scarpheia, see A. Stewart, "Dio
nysus at Delphi: The Pediments of the Sixth Temple of Apollo and Religious
Reform in the Age of Alexander," inMacedonia and Greece in Late Classical and

Early Hellenistic Times, eds. Beryl Barr-Sharrar and Eugene N. Borza [Studies in
the History of Art, 10] (Washington 1982), 205ff.
22. xai cx?cruai xt?) \itv oi?uQau?ixa \i?h) jiaBcov ^leoi? xai nexa?oX/nc
jiX,?vr|v xtv?xal ?ia^OQTjaiv ?xovorj?- ?ux^o?oav? y??> AaxjxvXo? <J>tjoI
?JiQ?Jiei oi6i)Qau?ov ?jxaQxe?v ouyxcou-ov Aiov?aa)? xcp ?? Jtai?va,
xai oc?)(|)QOva uxr?oav ... [To the one songs
xexayuivriv they sing dithyrambic
full of emotions and meandering variation?with mixed shouts, as Aeschylus says
{TrGF 3.355), the dithyramb with the revel should accompany Dionysos?while to
the other they sing the paean, ordered and temperate].
23. Sources for the Dionysian dithyramb are Archilochus IEG120, Aeschylus,
TrGF 3.355, Pindar, 0/.13.18, Plato, Laws 3.700f; for the narrative dithyramb, see

Plato, Rep.394c; Ps. Plutarch, de Mus. 1134e; Scholia inDionysium Thracem, 451.
21 (ed. Hilgard [1901]). On the dithyramb in general, see Zimmermann (n. 20), A.
W. Pickard-Cambridge, Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy, second edition (revised
T. B. L. Webster) (Oxford 1962).
24. Modern perceptions of Dionysos are well summarized by S. Goldhill, "The
Great Dionysia and Civic
Ideology," JHS 107 (1987), 76.
25. Goldhill (n. 24), 74-76, with bibliography.
26. Dionysos and death: W. F. Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult, tr. R. B. Palmer
(Dallas 1981), 137-42; Heraclitus, fr.B15 (... (bux?? ??Ai?Tj? xai Atovuao?... ),
C. H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus: An edition of the Fragments with
Translation and Commentary (Cambridge 1979), 264-65; Herodotus, 2.123. 1; S.
G. Cole, "Voices from Beyond the Grave: Dionysus and the Dead," inMasks of
Dionysus, eds. T. H. Carpenter and C. A. Faraone (Cornell 1993); A. Henrichs,
"He Has God in Him: Human and Divine inModern Perception of Dionysus,"
 134 APOLLO IN IVY:THE TRAGIC PAEAN

ibid. 26ff. Pindar fr.70b is connected with Pindar fr.346 (initiation of Heracles in

underworld) by Maria van de Weiden, The Dithyrambs of Pindar: Introduction,

Text and Commentary (Amsterdam 1991), 94ff.
27. See W. Ax, "Die Parodos der Oedipus Tyrannos," Hermes 67 (1932), pp.
413ff.
28. By "quasi refrain" Imean something which looks like a refrain, but is not

repeated, as one would expect a true refrain to be.

29. Aeschylus, Choephori 149-51; Euripides, Alcestis 422?24; Euripides, Iphi
geneia at Aulis 1474ff.
30. Plato, Laws 3. 700d: \iex? ?? xa?xa jiqo?ovxo? xo?j c?qxovxe? u.?v xfj?

?\iovoov Jiapavofxia? jroiTjxai ?y?YVovxo fyvoei u.?v jtoiTjxixoi, ?yv?\iovz? ??

J?8Q? x? ?ixaiov xfj? Movotj? xai x? v?uxuov, ?axxEUovxEc xai jiaAAov xov

??ovxo? xaxexo^Evoi ?(|)' r|?ovfj?, xEQavv?vxE? ?? OQrrvov? xe uuvoi? xai

. . . [After this with the passage of time the poets became
Jiaic?va? oiBvoau?oic
rulers of muse-less illegality, poetic by nature, but ignorant of the justice of the
Muse and her law, indulging in Bacchic revelry and possessed by pleasure more
than is right, mixing threnoi with humnoi and paeans with dithyrambs ...].
31. avoXoXv^axo).. . in 205-6 also suggests the paean in virtue of
?Xo?/uya??
the close association between paean-cry and oXoX-uyri (see p. 119).
32. This ode has been called a huporkhema (because the language suggests that
the khoros is dancing: A. M. Dale, "Stasimon and Hyporcheme," Collected papers
34ff. (= ?ranos 48,1960,14ff.); R. W. B. Burton, The Chorus in Sophocles' Trage
dies (Oxford 1980), 50, comparing schol. Sophocles, Trach. 216 (= Elmsley, 157.1);
it has been called an ololug? (because of the cry it contains): P. E. Easterling, Sopho
cles' Trachiniae (Cambridge 1982), 104; and it has been called a dithyramb
(because of the Dionysiac element): O. Vox, "Prima del trionfo: i ditirambi 17 e 18
di Bacchilide," AC 53 (1984), 209ff. The ode is discussed by Henrichs, "Why
Should IDance?" in this issue, 79-83. Similar in tone is the third stasimon of the
OT (1088ff.), in which the khoros speculates excitedly on the parentage of
Oedipus.
33. That this rapprochement was not unparalleled in tragedy is shown by two
isolated fragments preserved by ancient scholars to make this very point: Aeschy
lus, fr.341Radt: ? xiooe?? Ajt?AAcov, ? ?axxEiouxxvxic ["Apollo in ivy, Bacchic
prophet"] and Euripides, fr. 477 Nauck (from the Licymnius): ??ojioxa

(|)d?oa(|>VE B?xxiE, Ilai?v ?jtoMov euX?qe ["Master, fond of laurel, Bacchic

one, Paean Apollo, of the fair lyre"]. The hypothesis of D. C. Pozzi, "Un Pean

Ignorado en la "Ant?gona" de S?focles," Argos 3 (1979), 21ff., that the final stasi
mon of the Antigone should be thought of as a paean to Dionysos would provide
another example.
34. Henrichs, "Why Should IDance?" (n. 32) 68,73-90.
35. For the Gumnopaidia, Athenaeus, 15. 678c; Strabo, 10. 4. 18, 481.
36. For another example of choral projection, see my remarks on Euripides,
Her
acles, 687ff.; (see p. 124). This is analogous to certain effects in extra-dramatic lyric
poetry. In Pindar, Paian II (97ff.) an Abderite khoros describes khoroi of parthenoi
singing at Delos and Delphi. In Paian VI (15ff.) the singer describes khoroi per
forming at Delphi.
37. On the distinction between chthonic and Olympian, see S.Wide, "Chthon
ische und himmlische G?tter," ARW 10 (1907), 237ff.
38. One could also analyze the word ?ji-aiOMX?, which would mean "lacking
life."
 Ian Rutherford 135

39. See also Euripides, Suppliants, 976, where the same contrast is implied,

although without use of the word Jtatav. On this, see C. Collard, Euripides: Sup
plices (Groningen 1975), 2. 352.
40. See A. F. Garvie, Aeschylus: Choephori (Oxford 1986), 135. See J. A. Hal
dane, "Musical Themes and Imagery in Aeschylus," JHS 85 (1965), 37.
41. On this ode, see T. B. L. Webster, The Greek Chorus (London 1970), 127;
Garvie (n. 40), 81. Paeans in honor of heroes: see von Blumenthal (n. 2) 2353-4.
42. R. Kannicht, Euripides. Helena (Heidelberg 1969), 2. 70. See in general W.
Kranz, Stasimon: Untersuchungen zum Form und Gehalt des griechischen Trag?
die (Berlin 1933), 135ff.

43.K?ppel(n.2),48-49.
44. This is the stasimon that H. Parry, "The Second Stasimon of Euripides' Her
acles (637-700)," AJPh 86 (1965), pp. 363ff., analyzed as an enkomion (in the sense
of a song of praise addressed to a mortal). On the eyxcbiuov, see A. E. Harvey,
"The Classification of Greek Lyric Poetry," CQ 5 (1955), 163-64.
45. In exceptional cases paeans may have been sung to heroes in the fifth century,
but the normal addressee was Apollo, as the ode itself shows. The Hellenistic prac
tice of addressing paeans to reigning potentates is unattested in the classical period.
46. G. Nagy, Comparative Studies in Greek and Indie Metre (Cambridge, Mass.
1974), 137-38.
47. There may also be an echo of Paean
IX in the parodos of the Oedipus Tyran
nus, particularly xt u.oi f\ veov / f| JtEQiXE>.Xou,?vai? (o?ai?, n?kw
in 155-56:

E^avuoEi? XQ?O? ["What new thing will you accomplish, or what will you repeat
as the seasons circle?"].
48. For example, Evaicovi ovv ?X?cp in the refrain to Philodamus' Paian, 13; con
trast ?ura?cov (?ji-aicov rather than ?-Jtai v?) in Sophocles, TrGF 4. 523 {Polyx
ena); also repeated in the refrain in Euripides, Ion 126,142.
49. cdyXa at Erythraean Paian to Asclepius, line 13, as the name of a daughter of
Asclepius; at Isyllus, Paian {CA134), 46, as the mother of Asclepius and the etymon
of his name. See J. A. Haldane, "A Paean in the Philoctetes," CQ 13 (1967), 53ff.
According to Hesychius aiytaxriQ (1. 62 [Latte]) was an epithet of Asclepius.
50. An audience might have been reminded of the Dios Apate scene in the Iliad,
where Hera summons Sleep from Lemnos in order to lull Zeus to sleep so that she
can advance the cause of the Trojans. See Haldane (n. 49), 54; Burton (n. 32); D. M.
Jones, "The Sleep of Philoctetes," CR 63 (1949), 83ff.
51. Strabo 9. 3.10,421; on kitharodoi, H. Abert, RE s.v, 21. 530-34; Herington

(n.l), Appendix III, 177ff.

52. On Plutarch, Mor. 417c-418d
the Septerion: {de def. or.); Mor. 293c {qu.gr.);
Ephorus, FGrH70F311 (= Strabo, 9. 3. 12, 422); Theopompus, FGrH115G80 (=
Aelian, VH 3. 1);W. Burkert, Homo Necans, tr. P. Bing (London 1983), 127-30.
53. Simonides, PMG519, fr. 35(b), 6 (from a Paean); Pindar, Paean Vllb, 21-22.
54. Involvement or noninvolvement in choral song also symbolizes isolation in

Euripides' Electra, in which Electra refuses the invitation of the khoros of Argive
women to take part in the Heraia at Argos, a gesture which, as F. Zeitlin showed
in "The Argive festival of Hera and Euripides' Electra;' TAPA 101 (1970), 659ff.,
indicates her own disillusionment with the sphere of Hera.