The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth

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OXFORD CLASSICAL MONOGRAPHS
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The Chorus of Drama
in the Fourth
Century BCE
Presence and Representation

LUCY C. M. M. JACKSON

1
 3
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 Acknowledgements

This book began as an Oxford DPhil dissertation and found its final
form during a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at King’s College
London. I am so grateful for the space and resources awarded to me
by the Leverhulme Trust, by King’s College London, and by a panoply
of colleagues—especially at Corpus Christi College and the Archive of
Performances of Greek and Roman Drama—based at the University
of Oxford. It has been a privilege to be part of the research life of both
cities. An offshoot of the research that forms the basis of Chapter 7
appeared in the volume Emotion and Persuasion in Classical
Antiquity, edited by Ed Sanders and Matthew Johncock and pub-
lished by Steiner Verlag, and I also want to thank them for the
encouragement I received at the conference on which the volume
was based, and for their inviting me to be part of that publication.
Coming to the end of this process, this thinking up, writing,
re-writing, re-shaping, editing, re-writing-again process that has
stretched from the autumn of 2010 to the summer of 2019, I am left
with very little to say about this book’s subject, its genesis, my hopes
for the conversations it might prompt, or its deficiencies (the ones
I am aware of at any rate). Rather, I have a whole lot to say (well, at
least an appropriate amount for an Acknowledgements page) about
the people I’ve met and conversed with along the way, all of whom
have been joyously generous with their time and attention and to
whom I owe a great and happy debt.
My thesis supervisor, Felix Budelmann, has been a constant steady-
ing hand, a sounding-board and critic of the most useful sort
throughout the whole enterprise. He allowed this work to be utterly
my own, whilst still supporting me every step of the way, a magnifi-
cent feat that I am still only just beginning fully to appreciate. Edith
Hall was an effulgent and exacting external examiner, and her con-
tinued support has been the single most important factor in allowing
me to complete this project. Her example of how scholarship can and
must connect with the world around us is one that I shall be chasing
for years to come. The precise and discriminating eye of Scott Scul-
lion has improved the text of this book immeasurably. His boldness in
challenging dogma was an inspiration, too, from the very beginning
vi Acknowledgements
of my graduate work. Oliver Taplin, who steered my choral focus
towards the fourth century (and whose lectures on Greek tragedy
I still remember with a kind of quiet elation), has cheered and
encouraged me on, especially in these latter years.
Eric Csapo has been exceptionally generous in sharing unpublished
and forthcoming material, and taking the time to respond to some
wilder choral theories during my visit to the University of Sydney in
2013, and later in London and Vancouver. Peter Wilson, one of the
kindest scholars I’ve been fortunate to meet and talk to, read and
commented on the material in chapter one. It was with his encour-
agement that I managed to get the final text of this book over the
finish-line, and I want to thank him especially for his support. What I
owe to both of these scholars will be blindingly obvious in all that
follows.
Readers and interlocutors in Exeter, Oxford, Pisa, Princeton,
New York, Sydney, and London shaped and sharpened my ideas
and, at the same time, afforded all the friendship, humour, and
grace one so keenly needs during wobblier times: Rosa Andújar,
Claire Catenaccio, Jaś Elsner, Marco Fantuzzi, Patrick Finglass,
Almut Fries, Andrew Ford, Johanna Hanink, Adrian Kelly, Fiona
Macintosh, Toph Marshall, Sebastian Matzner, Justine McConnell,
Sara Monoson, Glenn Most, Victoria Moul, Sebastiana Nervegna,
Tim Rood, Richard Seaford, Matt Shipton, Helen Slaney, Henry
Stead, Lucy VanEssen-Fishman, Tim Whitmarsh, Matthew Wright,
Flo Yoon. Thank you, all.
To friends fortunate enough to have escaped my requests for
proofreading, and to my brilliant family (here, and there), you’ve
made all the difference in buoying me up and reminding me of a
bigger, wider, world—but I’ll tell you that in person. Rory, who keeps
me fierce, who read the whole of this book and really didn’t need to,
and who won the game of book dedications pretty much from day
one, thank you, and I love you.
Writing this book has taken place over such a rich, sad, and
wonderful nine years, and connected with so many parts of my life,
that a dedication to one single entity doesn’t seem quite right. And so
my last thanks are to all the sunchoreutai, the people, places, and ideas
with whom I’ve danced along the way.
 List of Figures

1.1. Fragments of a base of a choregic monument, from two sides,

Athens Agora Museum S 1025 + S 1586 + S 2586. 41
6.1. Relief found near the theatre of Dionysus in Athens, dated
to 375 350, Athens, National Museum 1750 VS. 196
6.2. Imagined reconstruction of a choregic monument
commemorating a comic victory. 197
6.3. Fragment of choregic pinax in ‘pentelic’ marble. Agora S 2098. 198
6.4. Choregic dedication, dated to c.350 25, Athens National
Museum 2400. 199
 Abbreviations, Citations, and Transliteration

Names of ancient authors and titles of their works are abbreviated as

in the Oxford Classical Dictionary. Other abbreviated titles are as
follows.
CGFPR Austin, C. (1973), Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta in Papyris
Reperta. Berlin and New York.
DK Diels, H., and Kranz, W. (1951 2), Die Fragmente
der Vorsokratiker, 3. vols. Berlin.
FGrH Jacoby, F., et al. (eds) (1923 ) Die Fragmente der griechischen
Historiker. Berlin and Leiden.
KA Kassel, R., and Austin, C. (eds) (1983 ), Poetae Comici Graeci.
Berlin and New York.
MMC Webster, T. B. L. (1978), Monuments Illustrating Old and Middle
Comedy, 3rd edn, rev. J. Green, BICS Supp. 39, London.
MO Millis, B. W., and Olson, S. D. (2012), Inscriptional Records for the
Dramatic Festivals in Athens. Leiden.
MTS Webster, T. B. L. (1967), Monuments Illustrating Tragedy and
Satyr Play, 2nd edn, BICS Supp. 20, London.
PMG Page, D. L. (1962), Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford.
TrGF Snell, B., et al. (eds) (1971 ), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta.
Göttingen.
Wehrli Wehrli, F. (1967 9), Die Schule des Aristoteles: Texte und
Kommentar. 10. vols. Basel.
Citations are from the Oxford Classical Text where possible, from
TrGF for tragic fragments and K-A for comic. For names of people,
places, and literary works, I have used the more familiar Latinate
spellings—Aeschylus not Aischylos, Telephus not Telephos. An
exception are the names of the Attic demes. Words that exist in
English are not italicized (‘chorus’ and ‘coryphaeus’, ‘parodos’ and
‘parabasis’). For other Greek words, I have transliterated and placed
these in italics (choregos, didaskalos, demos, etc.)
I construe the chorus as both a singular and plural entity, and so
my verb usage in relation to the chorus also shifts between the two,
depending on whether I mean the chorus as a single element in a
play’s make-up or feature of drama, or a group of people.
All dates are BCE unless otherwise stated.
All translations are my own except where noted.
 Introduction

In the fourth century , theatre was a vital and growing industry
across the Greek-speaking world.1 Dramatic performances, usually as
part of a festival celebration, were being added to the line up of events
in more and more places far from the epicentre of Athens.2 New
engineering techniques were being adopted in the building of stone
theatres, permanent and lasting homes for all kinds of performance
including drama.3 Extensive and elaborate institutional and financial
provisions were in place to support dramatic performances in Athens
and in the demes of Attica, and similar or modified institutions for
the funding of theatrical productions were being deployed in Sicily,
Boeotia, and Macedonia.4 The celebrity of actors and aulos-players
(auletes) saw them commanding outrageously large fees for perform-
ances, and allowed them to travel the length and breadth of the
ancient Mediterranean and beyond.5 Statues of dramatic poets were
set up in theatres.6 By the time of Alexander’s campaigns as far as the
Indus valley in the mid 320s, the performance of drama had come to
signify a shared language across multiple geographies and cultures,
such was its popularity and proliferation.7

1
Recent important studies affirming drama’s vitality in the fourth century are
Easterling 1993 and 1997, Taplin 2009, Csapo 2010a: 38 82 and 83 7, Csapo, Götte,
Green, and Wilson 2014, Hanink 2014a: 191 220, Lamari 2015: 181 5.
2
Easterling 1994: 73 80, Dearden 1999, Revermann 2000: 451 67, Taplin 1999:
33 57 and 2007a: 5 15, Allan 2001: 67 86, Wilson 2007c: 351 77, Bosher 2006 and
2012, Braund and Hall 2014a, Vahtikari 2014, Csapo and Wilson 2015, Stewart 2017.
3
Csapo 2007, Götte 2014, Moretti 2014, Papastamati von Moock 2014.
4
Wilson 2000, 2007c and 2007e, 2010.
5
Easterling and Hall 2002, Csapo 2004, Duncan 2005, Hall 2006, Csapo 2004:
53 76 and 2010a, Junker 2010: 131 48, Power 2010, Slater 2010.
6
Plut. Mor.841f and IG II2 2320.20 2 (M O) with Hanink 2014a: 90 9 and 183 8.
7
Hall 2007: 285 6.

The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE: Presence and Representation.
Lucy C. M. M. Jackson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Lucy C. M. M. Jackson.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198844532.001.0001
2 Introduction
Yet, amid the recent scholarly appreciation of the fourth century’s
vigorous theatre industry, no study has focused on one particular
element in Attic drama, its defining element, in fact—the chorus. This
is all the more notable in light of the many studies of contiguous
choral genres or time-periods in the past two decades. 2013 saw the
publication of two volumes dedicated to the chorus of drama in the
fifth century.8 Peter Wilson’s comprehensive survey and continued
examination of the institution of the choregia (a quasi-voluntary
secular office that facilitated the funding and organization of many
of the city’s choruses—dramatic and non-dramatic) has illuminated
the historical presence and political role of those choruses that were
produced within the choregic system.9 The dithyramb, the paean, the
pyrrhic, and the theoric chorus, too, have all had recent analysis.10
Also relevant is the renewed and recent appreciation for fourth-
century lyric poetry.11 One of the most influential theorizers about
the chorus, Plato, and his Laws, have also been the subject of no fewer
than three volumes published since 2010.12 And yet, despite all this
related research, the activity and immediate reception of the fourth-
century dramatic chorus remains entirely unexamined.
There are some real challenges to performing such a study. The
evidence for the text, music, and movement that the chorus per-
formed is mostly in fragments, and some of these can only tentatively
be attributed to the chorus (or the fourth century) in the first place.
Although there is some evidence for choral performers becoming
increasingly professional throughout the fourth century, there are
only a very few that are named or that we know anything about.13

8
Billings, Budelmann, and Macintosh 2013, Gagné and Hopman 2013. We can
also add Calame 2017 to the list of volumes focusing on fifth century dramatic
choruses.
9
Wilson 2000. See also Wilson 2007a: 351 77, 2007b: 125 32 and 2011a: 19 44.
While the tragic chorus is sometimes discussed specifically (e.g. 2000: 4 6, 77 80 cf.
also 194 7), it is the circular chorus and its workings that are most thoroughly
illuminated in Wilson’s work.
10
Dithyramb Sutton 1989, Ieranò 1997, Kowalzig and Wilson 2013. Paean
Rutherford 2001. Pyrrhic Ceccarelli 1998 and 2004: 91 117. Theoria (including
choruses) Rutherford 2013.
11
Neumann Hartman 2004, Vamvouri Ruffy 2004, Schröder 2006, Kolde 2003
and 2010, Power 2010, Ford 2011, and LeVen 2014.
12
Peponi 2013a, Prauscello 2014, Folch 2015.
13
For professional choral performers in the third century and later, see Slater 1993,
Wilson 2000: 289 90, 292 3, and Le Guen 2001:108 14. The naming of choral
performers is rare, and debate surrounds what these names might actually be able
 Introduction 3
The venues for and times when the choruses of drama would have
performed can be identified, but the qualities of those performances,
and the impact of the choral component of the drama in particular,
have left little trace in our extant sources. All kinds of performance
have an impact that is ephemeral and contingent on the various
vantage points, both literal and in terms of the previous experience,
of individual audience members. The chorus in drama, for whom
song and movement were so crucial, suffers acutely in this. Those
of us who have been lucky enough to have witnessed powerful
choral groups performing on stage in our own time have only our
own experiences as a guide to what might have been possible in
Attic drama.
There is one fourth-century testimonium that may also have dis-
couraged scholars from facing these not inconsiderable challenges.
A famous passage in Aristotle’s Poetics seems to indicate a definite
change in choral practice, at least as far as tragedy is concerned,
beginning in the final decades of the fifth century.
καὶ τὸν χορὸν δὲ ἕνα δεῖ ὑπολαμβάνειν τῶν ὑποκριτῶν, καὶ μόριον εἶναι
τοῦ ὅλου καὶ συναγωνίζεσθαι μὴ ὥσπερ Εὐριπίδῃ ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ Σοφοκλεῖ.
τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς τὰ ᾀδόμενα οὐδὲν μᾶλλον τοῦ μύθου ἢ ἄλλης τραγῳδίας
ἐστίν διὸ ἐμβόλιμα ᾄδουσιν πρώτου ἄρξαντος Ἀγάθωνος τοῦ τοιούτου.
καίτοι τί διαφέρει ἢ ἐμβόλιμα ᾄδειν ἢ εἰ ῥῆσιν ἐξ ἄλλου εἰς ἄλλο ἁρμόττοι
ἢ ἐπεισόδιον ὅλον; 1456a25 32
The chorus should be treated as one of the actors; it should be a part of
the whole and should participate [sc. ‘in the action’], not as in Euripides
but as in Sophocles. With the other poets, the songs are no more integral
to the plot than to another tragedy hence the practice, started by
Agathon, of singing interlude odes. Yet what is the difference between
singing interlude odes and transferring a speech or whole episode from
one work to another? (Trans. Halliwell 1995)
These few lines have provided the foundation for the idea that the
choruses of Aristotle’s day were of a lesser quality than those of the
earlier fifth century.14 And yet, so much is unclear in this oft-cited

to tell us, see IG I3 969, the ‘Pronomos’ Vase (c.400, Naples NM 81673) with
discussion in Osborne 2010, and an Attic red figure bell krater depicting (?) a circular
chorus (Copenhagen 13817, see Wilson 2000: 76 fig. 4).
14
Mastronarde (2010: 88) provides a carefully worded gloss of what it is usually
thought this passage means: ‘In some fourth century tragedies the choral parts had
apparently become mere interludes dividing the “acts” (eventually the canonical “five
4 Introduction
passage, from the meaning of specific words (e.g. συναγωνίζεσθαι,
‘have a share in the contest’/ ‘help win the contest’), phrases (e.g.
μόριον εἶναι τοῦ ὅλου, ‘part of the whole’), to who, precisely, οἱ
λοιποί are (usually translated, as here, as ‘the other poets’), and
what ἐμβόλιμα might be.15 Despite the fact that it is the genre of
tragedy that is being specifically discussed, this passage forms the
foundation for the idea that the chorus not just of tragedy but also of
comedy entered into a decline at the end of the fifth century.16
A paucity of source material in our written record for what the
chorus said and sang is made even more conspicuous by a scribal
habit, found in our earliest papyri and continued on in some manu-
script traditions. When a chorus is approaching the stage or is due to
perform an ode, or when one section of the drama seems to be
coming to a close, instead of a choral ode we often find the words
χοροῦ or χοροῦ μέλος—‘song of the chorus’.17 The tendency among
scholars has been to read these words not as indicating something
about scribes’ practices (as with, for example, the practice in these
early manuscripts of using letters rather than the names of characters,
or a paragraphos—a mark that looks like a dash—to indicate a change
of speaker), but rather as an indicator of the quality of the choral text;
that the odes were ‘perceived as being dispensable by those preserving
the plays on papyrus’.18 On some quite slight grounds, then, the
inference has widely been made from the insertion of χοροῦ that the
quality of the choral song and dance in these dramas was manifestly
poor, and it is similarly assumed that if the quality of the choral song
had been good (say, as good as every single one of the choral odes of
Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, and fifth-century Aristophanes),
then they would have been preserved for us in textual form.
The testimony from Aristotle, and the scribal habit of writing
χοροῦ in place of the text of a choral ode, are two data points worth

acts”) in which the named characters performed their scenes without any interaction
with a chorus, and such unrelated songs or embolima (as Aristotle termed them) had,
so far as we know, no relation in content to the actors’ scenes.’
15
See detailed discussions in Else 1957, Halliwell 1986 and 1987, and Scattolin 2011.
16
For a recent example of how easily scholars cite Aristotle, inappositely, to
support claims made about the comic chorus, see Hunter 2017: 213 18.
17
Pöhlmann 1977: 69 70.
18
The communis opinio as articulated by Marshall 2002: 4. We find a similar
reading in Capps (1895: 320) ‘probably an indication of the loss of the original odes
of an intermezzic character’.
 Introduction 5
confronting, and they will be discussed in full in Chapter 5 of this
book. However, various other circumstances have shaped how these
two phenomena have been interpreted, and at the same time, may
have served as subtle (or not so subtle) deterrents to any further
scholarly curiosity about the fourth-century dramatic chorus. The
notion that there is next to no evidence for the development of
the fourth-century dramatic chorus is not helped by an imbalance
in the kinds of source material that have been preserved. The belief in
a fifth-century Athenian ‘Golden Age’, an idea that was, as Johanna
Hanink has recently demonstrated,19 consciously created and curated
by Athens in the latter part of the fourth century, seems to have led
directly to the preservation of thirty-one (more or less) complete
tragedies, one satyr play, and nine complete comedies, all first per-
formed during that fifth-century ‘Golden Age’.20 It seems that if the
Rhesus had not been attributed to Euripides, we would have no
complete plays from the fourth century at all.21 The preservation
(or not) of text that can tell us about what the dramatic chorus sang
and spoke is, then, thoroughly tied up with a much larger question of
periodization. The historical ‘Classical’ period may run from c.500 to
323, but the phenomenon of Attic drama is still mostly spoken of as
ending its hey-day in 401 with Sophocles’ (posthumously performed)
Oedipus at Colonus.22 This is slightly disconcerting when the majority
of our evidence for the organization and immediate reception of Attic
drama comes, in fact, from fourth-century sources.23 Drama that was
performed in the mid fourth century is not uncommonly labelled
‘Hellenistic’.24

19
‘ . . . it was the Athenians themselves who, especially in the latter part of the
fourth century, began constructing the pedestal upon which their drama still stands in
the modern imagination’, Hanink 2014a: 6.
20
Aristophanes’ Women at the Assembly and Wealth are nearly complete, but
some of their choral odes have been excised, see below p. 142 for signs of excision in
Wealth.
21
On the almost certain fourth century date for the Rhesus, see p. 53 n. 7 below.
22
See Wright 2016: 117 20 for a discussion of this problematic periodization of
tragedy.
23
E.g. looking through The Context of Ancient Drama section 3Ai (Festival
Organization), only nine out of the sixty three testimonia from the Classical period
come from before 400. For an excellent demonstration of how fourth century evi
dence has been applied to fifth century historical practice, and the distortions that can
come of doing so, see Bosher 2009.
24
Sifakis 1963 and 1967, Xanthakis Karamanos 1993, Kotlińska Toma 2015.
6 Introduction
A notion that the artists in the fourth century were, in general, not
what they once were (morally and technically) has had a long and
variegated life.25 The alleged political and economic exhaustion of
Athens after the city’s defeat at Arginusae in 406 and its capitulation
to Spartan hegemony, the innovations in musico-poetic technology
and practice, the shifting tastes of the audiences and the increase in
the number of those audiences, experimentation with dramaturgical
convention—all of these have encouraged some scholars to dismiss
whole swathes of poetic production in the fourth century, including
the dramatic chorus. Diachronic development has been an important
framework for structuring how we talk about all sorts of classical
cultural phenomena, encouraged perhaps by the Aristotelian pen-
chant for similar kinds of biologically-informed narratives of growth,
acme, and decline, and drama has been no exception. But in recent
years, scholars have sought to demonstrate that the political
upheavals in Athens around the end of the fifth century, while
significant, were not the epoch-ending events that some (including
Aristophanes, as well as later authors) presented them as.26 We are
now in a position to proclaim more strongly the aspects of continuity
within the historical Classical period.
Despite the slim evidence for its quality and activity, some very
definite and unequivocal ideas about the fourth-century dramatic
chorus continue to underpin scholarly conceptions of Attic drama
and its development. Rooted explicitly or implicitly in the passage of
Aristotle quoted above, there is a clear sense that ‘decline’ continues,
in general, to be a good one-size-fits-all term for the way the dramatic
chorus developed, whether it be with regard to the activity of the
chorus, the number of performers, the interaction with actors and
plot, melic quality, or thematic importance.27 This has been most

25
‘I’m in need of a skilful poet./ Some of them are no more, and those that are alive
are degenerates’, δέομαι ποιητοῦ δεξιοῦ./ οἱ μὲν γὰρ οὐκέτ’ εἰσίν, οἱ δ’ ὄντες κακοί, Ar.
Ran. 71 2. ‘Nach dreihundert Jahren . . . steigt die Muse . . . vom Wagen und geht
fortan zu Fuß. Die Prosa tritt ihren Siegeszug an’, Seidensticker 1995: 175. See also
Croiset 1929: 390 403, Rose 1934: 71 2, Hadas 1950: 108 9, Lesky 1971: 630 40,
Beye 1975: 175, Dihle 1994: 223 8.
26
‘This melodrama of the poet, the city, and the genre, all sitting together on the
stoop of the fourth century blubbering over lost glory, has had surprising appeal’
Csapo 2000: 124, see also Hall 2007: 264 88 and LeVen 2014: 81 3 on the debate
around lyric poetry’s ‘decline’ beginning in the sixth century.
27
‘Zurücktreten’ (Flashar 1967: 154), ‘reduzierte’ (Nesselrath 1990: 52), ‘quantita
tivamente e qualitativamente ristretta’ (Perusino 1986: 64). There are a growing
 Introduction 7
clearly asserted for the comic chorus: ‘It is well known that in the
fourth century the comic chorus went through a period of decline,
which ended with its standardisation into a group of drunk youths,
who invariably appeared in all plays of New Comedy.’28 There has been
significantly less discussion about the fourth-century tragic chorus,
although its development is usually still traced along similar lines as
that of comedy.29 The satyr play is rarely included in such discussions,
as even less is known about this genre of performance, although we do
know it continued to have a place in the festival line up.30
At the outset, we should confront how unhelpful a term like
‘decline’ is. It does both too much and not enough work. It encour-
ages a monolithic view of an area where the only thing that we can be
certain of is that there was a variety of practice (just as is true for the
choral techniques of our extant fifth-century playwrights). The term
is, also, extraordinarily imprecise, admitting all manner of qualitative
(and some quantitative) definitions that can vary from scholar to
scholar without any scrutiny. In some older scholarly works we see
the suggestion that choral odes in the fourth century consisted of
purely musical performances31 or a dance without singing or words32
or even that there was a total absence of a choral component in
drama33—all of which fail to account for the certain and positive
evidence for song and dance being regarded as essential components
of drama and its chorus in the fourth century.34 More recently,

number of scholars sceptical of such decline e.g. Wilson 2000: 241 2, 265, and 267,
LeVen 2014: 59, and Wright 2016: 200.
28
Sifakis 1971: 416. See also Maidment 1935: 8 ‘a growing incongruity between
chorus and actors’; Arnott 1972: 65 ‘a dim shadow . . . who have no function what
ever in the plot’; Perusino 1986: 71 ‘una progressive esautorazione del coro’; Ireland
2010: 352 ‘no more than the provider of interludes’.
29
Capps 1895: 288 (giving ‘the prevailing view’), Flickinger 1918: 148 9, Csapo
and Slater 1995: 349, Scattolin 2010: 176, Storey 2011: xxxi ii, Taplin 2012: 241,
Hunter 2017: 228 9.
30
IG II2 2320 Col. II.18 19, 32 3 with M O: 61. Shaw 2014: 141 2 and Cohn 2015:
568 9.
31
No doubt projecting Roman theatre practice back onto the fourth century, see
Haigh 1889: 261. See Maidment 1935: 11 nn. 2 and 4 for older bibliography stating
this view.
32
Holzinger 1940: 125, Beare 1955: 51, Russo 1994: 232 3 (contra Laws 654b3 7)
and Gelzer 1993: 95.
33
Ussher 1969: 29 30 and Ireland 2010: 352. Flashar 1967: 155 n. 5 prefers to
profess ignorance.
34
E.g. e.g. Aristotle Poetics 1456a27 9 τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς τὰ ᾀδόμενα οὐδὲν μᾶλλον
τοῦ μύθου ἢ ἄλλης τραγῳδίας ἐστίν and Ar.Plut. 760 1 ἀλλ’ εἶ’, ἁπαξάπαντες ἐξ ἑνὸς
8 Introduction
decline has been quantified by identifying a reduction in the percentage
of choral lines in tragedy and comedy, but for both these genres the
numbers presented do not tell the whole story and are open for
debate.35 The suggestion that fourth-century odes were not written
by the poet himself is another favoured feature of the decline narra-
tive,36 but one, it should be noted early (and often), with absolutely no
evidence to support it.37
Decline has also been located in the perceived decrease in inter-
action between actors and chorus in both tragedy and comedy,38 or in
the suggestion that the content of the chorus’ odes was irrelevant to
the plot (implicit when odes are labelled ‘intermezzic’). This last
judgement is particularly fraught as the charge of irrelevance has
been and must always be made on highly subjective grounds. As
shown by the rehabilitation of Euripides’ later choral odes, once
also deemed ‘irrelevant’, irrelevance is itself a term that relies on
one’s view of drama and how it works.39 More often than not, it is
the reputation of the poet, or the tastes of the time and individual
preference of the reader that has shaped these judgements of irrele-
vance. By contrast, we can fully appreciate a choral song like Sopho-
cles’ ‘Ode to Man’ in the Antigone, which makes no direct reference to

λόγου/ ὀρχεῖσθε καὶ σκιρτᾶτε καὶ χορεύετε, or 1209 δεῖ γὰρ κατόπιν τούτοις ᾄδοντας
ἕπεσθαι.
35
Csapo and Slater 1995: 349 in their statistical account of declining choral
presence in the fifth century note the exceptions to this suggested trend Bacchae
has 27 per cent choral lines and Oedipus at Colonus has 22 per cent. If we add the
Iphigenia at Aulis (21.7 per cent) which, incidentally, had choral lines actually added
to the script at some point for a performance, and the Rhesus which has 28.5 per cent,
it is Euripides’ Orestes with 10.5 per cent choral lines that looks like the exception.
Csapo 1999 2000: 399 426 gives a more detailed analysis including percentages of
choral and actor’s song, but the import of such statistics remains open for discussion.
For comedy, any guesses at what percentage of The Assemblywomen and Wealth were
choral must rest on guesswork regarding the length of the odes that have not been
transmitted with the rest of the text.
36
Flickinger 1912: 33 4, Webster 1953: 59 n. 1, Sifakis 1963: 31, Arnott 1972: 65,
Handley 1985: 400, Sutton 1990: 92, Rothwell 1992: 219, Zimmerman 1998: 187,
Sidwell 2001: 78 84, Slater 2002: 316n.30.
37
N.B. Aristotle Poetics 1456a27 32 contains no clear indication about who is
responsible for writing the sung parts (τὰ ᾀδόμενα). See pp. 150 62 for a full
discussion of this passage.
38
E.g. in comedy: Flickinger 1918: 148 9, Kranz 1933: 262, Ferrari 1948: 177 87,
Sifakis 1967: 113, Dover 1972: 194 5, Rothwell 1992: 209, Zimmerman 1998: 173 89.
In tragedy: Xanthakis Karamanos 1980: 8 and Mastronarde 2010: 88 152.
39
Mastronarde 2010: 126 45. See also Swift 2009.
 Introduction 9
the plot, nor moves the action forward in any way, yet is undoubtedly
a valuable and formative part of the play. Finally, decline might be
applied to the supposed incapability of fourth-century poets to com-
pose ‘good’ lyric poetry for the chorus to sing, despite the variety of
lyric metres found in those fragments of choral text that we do have,
and a culture of sophisticated and highly competitive lyric compos-
ition running strong throughout the fourth century.40
The imprecision that is encouraged by continuing to use the word
‘decline’ is but one reason why a focused study of the dramatic chorus
in fourth-century Attic drama is worthwhile. There is a clear tension
between the traditional interpretation of Aristotle Poetics 1456a25–32
and the general picture of choral vigour that is indicated even in the
relatively limited evidence we do have. Fragments of fourth-century
tragedy show that choruses not only had a part in the drama, but that
they could also have varied fictional identities (Cyprians, slave
women, Minyans, bacchants, Trojans or ‘chosen men’ of Aetolia in
tragedy, Scythians, women, young men, hunters, companions of
Odysseus, cities, Furies, and builders in comedy) and dialogue with
characters.41 The continued performance of satyr play at the Dionysia
too would hardly have been possible without its chorus in all its
integrated and active glory. The revived productions of tragedy,
instituted at the Dionysia in 386, would have included choruses,
and the choral parts in some of the revived fifth-century plays even
seem to have been enlarged.42 In light of the number of choral
performers that will have taken part in even a single year’s choral
calendar (the Deme Dionysia, the Lenaea, the City Dionysia, the
Thargelia, and the Panathenaea for certain), the idea that dramatic
choral performances could not be supported in terms of teaching,
talent, or manpower is likewise far-fetched. In fact, Lycurgus in the
330s was responsible for increasing the number of annual choral
performances as part of what seems to have been a cogent program
of re-invigorating a post-Chaeronea Athens, demonstrating the
continuity of valued choral performance in general in Athens after

40
LeVen 2014 (focusing on the earlier part of the fourth century) and Ford 2011
on Aristotle’s ‘Hymn to Hermias’.
41
On choral identities see pp. 69 70 below.
42
See pp. 95 102 on additions made to the Iphigenia at Aulis in reperformance (cf.
Kovacs 2003: 77 103) including an enlargement of the choral parts and the addition
of a second chorus at lines 590 7.
10 Introduction
the fifth century.43 The potential for high-quality choral lyric, too, is
evidenced in the lyric compositions that have recently been re-appraised
in modern scholarship, including one poem by Aristotle himself.44 This
tension between the usual interpretation of Aristotle (and χοροῦ) and
our other evidence has not been addressed in any substantial way and
this book seeks to do just that.
However, there is more to be done than simply providing an
alternative narrative of dramatic choral development. As is currently
being demonstrated in various recent studies of fragmentary material,
looking beyond the canonical plays and/or authors allows us to gain a
much richer understanding of how diverse the genres of tragedy,
comedy, and satyr play really were in the Classical period.45 What is
common to many of these studies is the way they note a ‘co-existence’
of different forms and techniques at any and every point in the
Classical period.46 On the basis of currently available evidence, it is
simply not possible to make firm general suggestions concerning how
the dramatic chorus changed over the course of eighty years or so
between 401 and the late 320s. Rather, the foregrounding (and valid-
ation) of the choral speech and song we do have will provide a means
of enriching our understanding of dramatic choral practice more
generally. The rambunctious character of the chorus in the Rhesus
need not be an indication of a particular tendency in fourth-century
dramatic technique, but another example of the kinds of things an
audience might appreciate, or a poet might look to his chorus for
when writing his plays. By looking at the fourth-century chorus, our
knowledge of what the dramatic chorus is and does is challenged and
enhanced.
The relevance of this study to our understanding of fifth-century
drama in particular can be stated a little more strongly. The trad-
itional acceptance of choral decline in the fourth century begs an

43
Plut. Mor.842a. See Humphreys 2004: 77 110 for further details of Lycurgan
measures at this time.
44
Ford 2011, LeVen 2014.
45
E.g. Harvey and Wilkins 2000, and more recently see Chronopoulos and Orth
2015 and Wright 2016.
46
Zimmerman 2015: 14 notes ‘die Koexistenz verschiedener komischer Spielfor
men schon im 5 Jahrhundert, die man nach der communis opinio erst später ansetzte,
sowie das Vorhandensein von Charakteristika, die man als auf eine frühere Phase
beschränkt ansah, in späteren Phasen der Gattungsgeschichte.’ See also Henderson
2015: 146 58 on variety in fifth century comedy and Konstantakos 2015: 159 98 on
the prudence of abandoning the term ‘Middle’ comedy.
 Introduction 11
important question. If all that has been said, particularly recently, of
the potential of the dramatic chorus to act as a mediating force, a
powerful means of shaping myth and cultural identity, as a balance in
a pivotal dyad between individual and collective, etc. is to be taken
seriously, how is it the case that this defining element in Attic drama
apparently faded to inconsequence so swiftly in the fourth century?
How intrinsic is the choral contribution (according to how we read
the dramas, at any rate) if this was the case? There is more at stake in
an elucidation of the fourth-century dramatic chorus than just filling
in a long-neglected chapter in the history of theatre; to confront the
alleged swift decline of the dramatic chorus is to confront our own
current models for evaluating Attic drama and its choruses.
The recent studies of the development of theatre and the material
circumstances of its industry have noted its professionalization and
proliferation across the ancient Mediterranean.47 The question of
how the chorus fits into these newly noted developments in theatre
practice is a fascinating one and provides yet another spur for the
writing of this book. How far did choral performers follow the actors
and auletes in becoming professional and occupying the majority of
their time with choral song and dance? In terms of the spread of
drama throughout the ancient Mediterranean, how would choral
performers be found and cast for these ‘touring’ productions?
When and how did the choral performers learn their parts? The
same kind of provocation occurs when thinking about the chorus
within the growing habit of reviving past productions. Were the same
performers used when multiple revivals occurred within a short space
of time? Was the same choreography and music performed or was
this a chance for a producer to put their own stamp on an ‘old’
drama? The pressure on practical arrangements that come with a
‘cast’ of eighteen or nineteen (larger in the case of comedy) as
opposed to a group of three or four compels us to ask further
questions about the profession of theatre and its personnel during
this era.
There is a tendency to focus on individuals when writing history.
The anecdote of the actor, the antics of a wealthy and prominent
choregos, the witticisms of an acclaimed aulete—all of these kinds of
history are readily available to read about and interpret. It is in this

47
See nn. 2 and 6 above on internationalization and professionalization,
respectively.
12 Introduction
tendency, too, that we might, perhaps, understand how easy it is for
us to miss the massed choral performers that were the unique feature
of Attic drama. It is for this reason that my focus in discussion will
adhere with a dogged determination to the chorus itself and those in
it, with the hope of highlighting the role of choral performers within
our picture of the popularity, professionalization, and spread of Attic
drama across the Hellenic world in the fourth century.

*
This book gathers in one place, for the first time, all relevant sources
that speak to the presence and activity of the chorus in Attic drama
in the fourth century. The relevant evidence is not at all straightfor-
ward to interpret (one further reason, perhaps, why such an assem-
blage has not been undertaken so far) but there is a considerable
collection in need of careful contextualization and reading. Many
scholars approach this evidence with the testimony of Aristotle,
noted above, firmly in mind. It is hoped my fairly unapologetic stance
of remaining open to continuity, rather than decline, will be under-
stood not as wilful naïveté, but as a sound methodological challenge
to the status quo. The case underpinning the narrative of decline of
the dramatic chorus is cumulative, and the challenges made to vari-
ous aspects of that narrative will, likewise, have their greatest force
when taken together. Such is the diffuse nature of the evidence; much
must remain provisional.
We begin in Chapter 1 with an account of when and where the
dramatic choruses of the fourth century danced, and as much as we
can gather about the material circumstances of these choral perform-
ers. In Chapters 2, 3, and 4, we turn our attention to the major and
minor examples of choral song and dance in fourth-century drama,
including the choral text I argue was added for fourth-century revivals
of fifth-century plays.48 Having considered the positive evidence for
what the chorus said and did, and where and how frequently they said
and did it, we can then turn in Chapter 5 to the more familiar passage
of Aristotle and the habit of χοροῦ, pieces of evidence that have
traditionally been read as indicating a decline in dramatic choral
activity. In this chapter, I show how they might be re-read in light of
the positive evidence already analysed in Chapters 1 to 4.

48
For my choice of the term ‘revival’ as opposed to ‘reperformance’ see p.17
n.7 below.
 Introduction 13
In the final two chapters, we broaden the scope of discussion to
include non-dramatic choruses. This is partly for practical reasons as
the vast majority of references to choruses in fourth-century literature
do not specify a particular genre of choral performance. Under the
twin headings of ‘Chorus and Festival’ and ‘The Chorus and Society’
we can examine how the idea of the chorus was rendered (and
manipulated) in the writing and thought of fourth-century authors
and artists. In doing so we can identify something about the ancient
reception of the chorus more generally (within which we might
expect the dramatic chorus to form a dynamic part). We can also
identify what associations we have been encouraged to make with all
choruses, some of which are not appropriate to a specific discussion
of the dramatic chorus. This double aim in the final two chapters will,
it is hoped, contribute to the precision and clarity with which we view
the chorus of drama and choral culture more generally.
 1

The Material Circumstances

In this first chapter we will survey what evidence there is (with

particular but not exclusive focus on the immediate, contemporary
evidence) for the historical activity of dramatic choruses in the fourth
century. We already know a good deal about the institutional frame-
work for choral performance and the activities of the choregoi, the
wealthy individuals who undertook the financing of all competitive
choruses in Athens, thanks to the superlative study of the institution of
the choregia by Peter Wilson.1 When narrowing our focus to the
activity of the choral performers themselves, as opposed to the wealthy
and often high-profile men who funded them and, even more pre-
cisely, the performers in dramatic as opposed to circular choruses, the
evidence becomes significantly more scattered and slight.
Looking to both the circular and dramatic chorus for information
on choral culture, as well as drawing on diverse geographical loca-
tions, has allowed meaningful and significant strides forward in our
appreciation of choral performance in Attica and the ancient Medi-
terranean.2 The conflation of chorus and choregos, too, is something
that is especially encouraged in fourth-century prose writers and can
provide a powerful frame of reference in our conception of the idea of
choral sponsorship and its political weight. But in going along too
readily with such a conflation there is a danger of losing sight of the
choral performers and the practicalities of performance that are just
as important as the idealized image of choral ‘service’. In the wake of
Wilson’s thorough exposition of the institution of choregia, we are

1
Wilson 2000 and especially pp. 50 103.
2
E.g. Calame 1977, Nagy 1990, Henrichs 1994/5, Gould and Goldhill 1996:
217 56, Wilson 2000, and Kowalzig 2007.

The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE: Presence and Representation.
Lucy C. M. M. Jackson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Lucy C. M. M. Jackson.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198844532.001.0001
16 The Material Circumstances
now in a stronger position to pare down the evidence and apply a
greater specificity of focus when talking about dramatic choral cul-
ture. In doing so our understanding of the place of all kinds of choral
performance in Athens and the wider Greek-speaking world can gain
greater definition and clarity.
First, I give an initial account of where and when dramatic per-
formances took place in the fourth century, answering the question of
when and how frequently dramatic choruses performed, and simul-
taneously highlighting the sheer volume of dramatic choral perform-
ances taking place every year during the fourth century. I then pose
two further, general questions of ‘who’ and ‘how’ as a means of
structuring a fairly diffuse set of literary, iconographic, and epigraphic
testimonia. After this examination and a discussion of some ramifi-
cations, it will be possible to propose some conclusions about how we
might construe this ‘historical’ presence of the fourth-century dra-
matic chorus, and why it matters for our understanding of ancient
Greek drama more generally.

1.1. WHEN AND WHERE DID THE CHORUSES

OF DRAMA DANCE?

The further we move from Athens, the less confident we can be in

precise numbers of dramatic productions. In line with this trend,
I have opted to move outwards from Athens in setting out what we
know of when and how frequently dramatic choruses performed.

1.1.1. City Festivals

The City Dionysia took place in late March (in the middle of the Attic
month Elaphebolion) and consisted of over six days of processions,
sacrifices, feasts, and at least four days of drama. In the fourth
century, this festival would continue to be the place where one
could see the greatest number of dramatic choruses at any one time.
Three separate groups of fifteen men3 would take on the various

3
Sansone (2016: 233 54) has raised a question mark over the traditional figure of
fifteen for the chorus after Aeschylus. There is a practical likelihood that there was
 The Material Circumstances 17
choral identities in the tragic tetralogies/trilogies and, very occasionally,
pairs of plays.4 From at least as early as 340, the satyr play could be a
stand-alone production, quite possibly presented first in the festival
line up, which could also require a further chorus of fifteen performers.5
Five groups of twenty-four men would compete in the comic chorus
competitions.6 In the year 386 a precedent was set for mounting
revivals of an ‘old’ (palaion) tragedy as part of the festival pro-
gramme, possibly adding a further set of fifteen performers to those
in the festival’s choruses; and from 339 (or 311) the possible revival of
an ‘old’ comedy, adding a further twenty-four.7 ‘Secondary’ choruses
are well known from our extant and fragmentary fifth-century plays,
and it is likely this continued to be a dramatic technique for fourth-
century playwrights too, adding the possibility for further choruses in
performance.8
The Lenaea took place two months earlier in mid-Gamelion (late
January). Far less is known about this festival, but we do know that
the only formal contests were dramatic ones. The straitened circum-
stances of Athens during the Peloponnesian War in the last quarter of
the fifth century seem to have necessitated fewer productions—only
two pairs of tragedies and three comedies.9 Our evidence for the

some flexibility in precisely how many choral performers took part in tragedy,
especially when one takes into consideration the overlap of status between chorus
man, coryphaeus, and actor, and evidence for such variation is clear in our sources.
However, S.’s reading of IG I3 969 (2016: 244 5) is unconvincing. Even though actors
and choral performers share some skills, equal or unmarked commemoration of the
‘acting corps’ (as opposed to actors and chorus) has no place in Attica’s epigraphic
habit. His attempt to read the fifteen figures on the votive relief from Sphettos (Fig.6.3
Athens, Agora S 2098, Agelidis 2009 pl.10a, see Csapo 2010b: 86 8) as commemor
ating a circular choral victory is, likewise, strained. The presence of πέντε και[. . . on
IG I3 254.16 17 also strongly suggests that the number fifteen is explicitly given in this
deme decree for the number of choral performers in tragedy.
4
IG II2 2320 Col. II.22 30 M O. 5
IG II2 2320 Col. II.18 19, 32 3 M O.
6
Σ.Ar. Av.297 and Csapo and Wilson forthcoming on the Choregic Relief with
Comic Stick Wielders, and Agelidis 2009 no. 94 pl. 9a d.
7
Tragedy: IG II2 2318.201 3 fr.d, M O: 16 17. See also Wilson 2000: 319 n. 83.
Comedy: IG II2 2318.316 18 frr.g+h, M O: 21 4. On the alleged revival of competi
tive comic performances at the Chutroi festival, see Plut. Mor.841f. I have chosen to
use ‘revival’ to describe these performances as a more precise term than ‘reperfor
mance’; ‘reperformance’, as recognized most recently in Hunter and Uhlig 2017, can
exist in a multitude of media and occasions. Here I use ‘revival’ to denote new
productions using the basic components (the ‘text’) of a play already performed.
8
See below pp. 99 100 on the secondary chorus that seems to have been added for
a revival of Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis.
9
IG II2 2319 Col. III.5 8, 12 15 M O.
18 The Material Circumstances
fourth century, however, shows a higher number of ‘slots’ for plays at
this festival—three pairs of tragedies and, by the third century, five
comedies.10 At the two main dramatic festivals, then, there would
have been a minimum of sixteen different choral groups (some
performing in multiple identities), and by the 330s more like nineteen
groups of choral performers performing every year.

1.1.2. Deme Dionysia

The various so-called ‘Rural’ or Deme Dionysia took place through-
out the month of Posideion (mid-December to mid-January). The
spreading out of the festivals seems to have allowed those who were
avid theatre-goers, like Plato’s philotheamones (‘theatre-lovers’), to
‘run to every Dionysia and not to miss one of the city festivals or those
in the demes’.11 Plato’s Socrates may be happy to equate deme
festivals and those in other cities, but we should note that the evidence
for the deme Dionysia suggests that they had their own character and
variety in terms of the programme of competitive performances.
Our understanding of these smaller festivals (which, like the
Lenaea, seem to have featured mostly dramatic contests)12 has fun-
damentally altered in the past few decades, following a renewed focus
on inscriptions found in the demes and fresh archaeological excava-
tions uncovering new stone theatres (often with earlier phases iden-
tifiable). Together with a reassessment of the literary testimonia
regarding the theatre scene in the demes, a picture has emerged of a
well-financed and growing industry of drama at these smaller Dionysia
festivals, particularly active in the fourth century.13 Even if one
adheres to the most conservative reading of the evidence, the number
of dramas—both new plays and revivals of already-performed plays—
regularly being performed in the demes is considerable and compels

10
Tragedy: in 364/3 there were three tragic pairs (SEG XXVI 203 [= Hesperia
40 (1971) 302 5, no.8], Col. II.7 16 M O). Comedy: Five comedies are part of the
festival line up in the year 284 (IG II2 2319 Col I.3 M O).
11
οἵ τε γὰρ φιλοθεάμονες . . . ὥσπερ δὲ ἀπομεμισθωκότες τὰ ὦτα ἐπακοῦσαι
πάντων χορῶν περιθέουσι τοῖς Διονυσίοις οὔτε τῶν κατὰ πόλεις οὔτε τῶν κατὰ
κώμας ἀπολειπόμενοι. Pl. Resp.475d5 8. The inclusion of ‘cities’ indicates travel
beyond Attica, too, as noted by Henrichs 1990: 272 n. 8 and Taplin 1999: 39.
12
For the few indications of circular choruses being produced at deme Dionysia
see Wilson 2000: 305 7.
13
See Wilson 2010.
 The Material Circumstances 19
us to adjust our conception of how much drama (and dramatic choral
performance) was available, when, and to whom. I leave for a little
later any further discussion of the impact that the dramatic culture of
the deme Dionysia must have had on choral competency (in audi-
ences and performers). The deme Dionysia are considered below in
order of proximity to the centre of Athens (and in fact the first deme
Dionysia to consider would have taken place inside the city of Athens
itself) moving outwards in a (roughly) clockwise spiral.
The acrimonious relationship between the orator Demosthenes
and actor-turned-politician Aeschines provides a rare literary refer-
ence to the performance of tragedy at the Dionysia of the deme of
Kollytos, part of the Aigeian tribe and located within the city walls.
Demosthenes in his speech On the Crown taunts Aeschines about his
past performances, mentioning the role of Oenomaeus in which,
according to Demosthenes, Aeschines had (allegedly) ‘chewed the
scenery’ (κακῶς ἐπέτριψας), and specifying for the benefit of his
audience where this performance had taken place: Kollytos.14 From
what we know of Aeschines’ acting career, this performance (in what
could quite possibly have been a protagonist’s role) would have taken
place between 380 and 370. A more casual reference is made in
Aeschines’ own Against Timarchus to the famous actor Parmenon
performing in a comedy in Kollytos in 346.15 Both tragedy and
comedy, then, are attested at this deme Dionysia by the mid fourth
century (with the involvement of the chorus explicitly attested). It is
noteworthy that the most likely location for this Dionysia was the
theatre of Dionysus in Athens itself and, as such, could have attracted
a similar demographic to the ‘City’ festivals.
We know from Plato that a walk from Athens to its important port
and the deme of Peiraieus was easily undertaken from the city.16 Here,
the Dionysia seems to have been particularly well supported finan-
cially and is said by the second-century CE author Aelian to have been
the venue for productions of Euripides.17 Although the source for this
is late, there is corroborating evidence for drama at the Peiraieus
Dionysia from a fragmentary relief (c.400) that features tragic choral
performers holding masks in the company of a reclining Dionysus.18
The deme of Euonymon was about the same distance walk from the

14 15
Dem. 18.180. Cf. also 242. Aeschin. In Tim.157.
16 17
Pl. Resp.327A. Ael. VH 2.13.41 5.
18
The so called ‘Piraeus Relief ’, Athens NM 1500 (Fig. 1.7 Csapo 2010a: 15).
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Com devoção os frequentam
Mil sujeitos femininos,
E tambem muitos barbados,
Que se prezam de Narcisos.
Ventura dizem que buscam
(Não se viu maior delirio!)
Eu que os ouço e vejo, calo
Por não poder diverti-los.
O que sei é que em taes danças
Satanaz anda mettido,
E que só tal padre mestre
Póde ensinar taes delirios.
Não ha mulher desprezada,
Galan desfavorecido,
Que deixe de ir ao quilombo
Dançar o seu bocadinho.
E gastam bellas patacas
Com os mestres da Cachimbo,
Que são todos jubilados
Em depennar taes patinhos.
E quando vão confessar-se,
Encobrem aos padres isto,
Porque o tem por passatempo,
Por costume ou por estylo.
Em cumprir as penitencias
Rebeldes são e remissos,
E muito peior si as taes
São de jejuns ou cilicios.
A muitos ouço gemer
Com pezar muito excessivo,
Não pelo horror do peccado,
Mas sim por não consegui-lo.

PRECEITO II

No que toca aos juramentos

 De mim para mim me admiro,
Por ver a facilidade
Com que os vão dar a juizo,
Ou porque ganham dinheiro,
Por vingança, ou pelo amigo,
E sempre juram conformes
Sem discreparem do artigo.
Dizem que fallam verdade,
Mas eu, pelo que imagino,
Nenhum creio que a conhece,
Nem sabe seus aphorismos.
Até nos confessionarios
Se justificam mentindo
Com pretextos enganosos
E com rodeios fingidos.
Tambem aquelles a quem
Dão cargos, e dão officios,
Supponho que juram falso,
Por consequencias que hei visto.
Promettem guardar direito,
Mas nenhum segue este fio,
E por seus rodeios tortos
São confusos labyrinthos.
Honras, vidas e fazendas
Vejo perder de continuo,
Por terem como em viveiro
Estes falsarios mettidos.

PRECEITO III

Pois no que toca a guardar

Dias sanctos e domingos,
Ninguem vejo em mim que os guarde,
Si tem em que ganhar gimbo.
Nem aos míseros escravos
Dão taes dias de vazio,
 Porque nas leis do interesse
É preceito prohibido.
Quem os vê ir para o templo
Com as contas e os livrinhos
De devoção, julgará
Que vão por ver a Deus Trino;
Porém tudo é mero engano,
Porque si alguns escolhidos
Ouvem missa é perturbados
D’esses, que vão por ser vistos.
E para que não pareça
Aos que escutam o que digo
Que ha mentira no que fallo,
Com a verdade me explico:
Entra um d’estes pela egreja,
Sabe Deus com que sentido,
E faz um signal da cruz
Contrario ao do catechismo.
Logo se põe de joelhos,
Não como servo rendido,
Mas em fórma de bésteiro,
C’um pé no chão, outro erguido.
Para os altares não olha,
Nem para os Sanctos no nicho,
Mas para quantas pessoas
Vão entrando e vão saindo.
Gastam nisso o mais do tempo,
E o que resta, divertidos
Se põem em conversação
Com os que estão mais propinquos.
Não contam vidas de Sanctos,
Nem exemplos do Divino,
Mas sim muita patarata
Do que não ha, nem tem sido.
Pois si ha sermão, nunca o ouvem,
Porque ou se põem de improviso
A cuchilar como negros,
 Ou se vão escapulindo.
As tardes passam nos jogos,
Ou no campo divertidos
Em murmurar dos governos,
Dando leis e dando arbitrios.
As mulheres são peiores,
Porque si lhes faltam brincos,
Manga avola, broche, troco,
Ou saia de labyrintho:
Não querem ir para a egreja,
Seja o dia mais festivo,
Mas em tendo estas alfaias,
Saltam mais do que cabritos.
E si no Carmo repica,
Ei-las lá vão rebolindo,
O mesmo para São Bento,
Ou Collegio, ou São Francisco.
Quem as vir muito devotas,
Julgará, sincero e liso,
Que vão na missa e sermão
A louvar a Deus com hymnos.
Não quero dizer que vão
Por dizer mal dos maridos,
Dos amantes, ou talvez
Cair em erros indignos.
Debaixo do parentesco,
Que fingem pelo appellido,
Mandando-lhes com dinheiro
Muitos e custosos mimos.

PRECEITO IV

Vejo que morrem de fome

Os paes d’aquelles e os tios,
Ou porque os veem lavradores,
Ou porque tractam de officios.
Pois que direi dos respeitos
Com que os taes meus mancebinhos
Tractam esses paes depois
Que deixam de ser meninos?
Digam-no quantos o veem,
Que eu não quero repeti-lo,
A seu tempo direi como
Criam estes morgadinhos.
Si algum em seu testamento
Cerrado ou nuncupativo,
A algum parente encarrega
Sua alma ou legados pios:
Tracta logo de enterra-lo
Com demonstrações de amigo,
Mas passando o requiescat,
Tudo se mette no olvido.
Da fazenda tomam posse,
Até do menor caquinho,
Mas para cumprir as deixas
Adoece de fastio.
E d’esta omissão não fazem
Escrupulo pequenino,
Nem se lhes dá que o defuncto
Arda ou pene em fogo activo.
E quando chega a apertal-os
O Tribunal dos residuos,
Ou mostram quitações falsas,
Ou movem pleitos renhidos.
Contados são os que dão
A seus escravos ensino,
E muitos nem de comer,
Sem lhe perdoar o serviço.
Oh quantas e quantos ha
De bigode fernandino,
Que até de noite ás escravas
Pedem salarios indignos!
Pois no modo de criar
 Aos filhos, parecem simios,
Causa porque os não respeitam
Depois que se veem crescidos.
Criam-nos com liberdade
Nos jogos, como nos vicios,
Persuadindo-lhes que saibam
Tanger guitarra e machinho.
As mães por sua imprudencia
São das filhas desperdicio,
Por não haver refestella,
Onde as não levem comsigo.
E como os meus ares são
Muito coados e finos,
Si não ha grande recato
Têm as donzellas perigo.
Ou as quebranta de amores
O ar de algum recadinho,
Ou pelo frio da barra
Sahem co’ o ventre crescido.
Então vendo-se opiladas,
Si não é do sancto vinclo,
Para livrarem do achaque
Buscam certos abortivos.
Cada dia o estou vendo,
E com ser isto sabido,
Contadas são as que deixam
De amar estes precipicios.
Com o dedo a todas mostro
Quanto indica o vaticinio,
E si não querem guarda-lo.
Não culpem meu domicilio.

PRECEITO V

Vamos ao quinto preceito,

Sancto Antonio vá commigo,
 E me depare algum meio
Para livrar do seu risco.
Porque, supposto que sejam
Quietos, mansos e benignos
Quantos pizam meus oiteiros,
Montes, valles, e sombrios:
Póde succeder que esteja
Algum aspide escondido
Entre as flores, como diz
Aquelle proverbio antigo.
Faltar não quero à verdade,
Nem dar ao mentir ouvidos,
O de Cezar dê-se a Cezar,
O de Deus à Jesu-Christo.
Não tenho brigas, nem mortes,
Pendencias, nem arruidos,
Tudo é paz, tranquillidade,
Cortejo com regosijo.
Era dourada parece,
Mas não é como eu a pinto,
Porque debaixo d’este ouro
Tem as fezes escondido.
Que importa não dar aos corpos
Golpes, catanadas, tiros,
E que só sirvam de ornato
Espadas e cotós limpos?
Que importa que não se enforquem
Nem ladrões, nem assassinos,
Falsarios e maldizentes,
E outros a este tonilho;
Si debaixo d’esta paz,
D’este amor falso e fingido,
Ha fezes tão venenosas
Que o ouro é chumbo mofino?
É o amor um mortal odio,
Sendo todo o incentivo
A cobiça do dinheiro
 Ou a inveja dos officios.
Todos peccam no desejo
De querer ver seus patricios,
Ou da pobreza arrastados,
Ou do credito abatidos.
E sem outra causa mais
Se dão a dextra e sinistra,
Pela honra e pela fama
Golpes crueis e infinitos.
Nem ao sagrado perdoam,
Seja rei ou seja bispo,
Ou sacerdote ou donzella
Mettida no seu retiro.
A todos em fim dão golpes
De enredos e mexericos,
Tão crueis e tão nefandos,
Que os despedaçam em cisco.
Pelas mãos nada: porque
Não sabem obrar no quinto;
Mas pelas linguas não ha
Leões mais enfurecidos.
E d’estes valentes fracos
Nasce todo o meu martyrio,
Digam todos os que me ouvem
Si fallo verdade ou minto.

PRECEITO VI

Entremos pelos devotos

Do nefando rei Cupido,
Que tambem ésta semente
Não deixa logar vazio.
Não posso dizer quaes são
Por seu numero infinito,
Mas só digo que são mais
Do que as formigas que crio.
Seja solteiro ou casado,
É questão, é já sabido,
Não estar sem ter borracha,
Seja de bom ou mau vinho.
Em chegando a embebedar-se
De sorte perde os sentidos,
Que deixa a mulher em couros,
E traz os filhos famintos.
Mas a sua concubina
Ha de andar como um palmito,
Para cujo effeito empenham
As botas com seus atilhos.
Ellas, por não se occuparem
Com costuras, nem com bilros,
Antes de chegar aos doze
Vendem o signo de Virgo.
Ouço dizer vulgarmente
(Não sei si é certo este dicto)
Que fazem pouco reparo
Em ser caro ou baratinho.
O que sei é que em magotes
De duas, trez, quatro e cinco,
As vejo todas as noites
Sair de seus encondrijos.
E como ha tal abundancia
D’esta fruita no meu sitio,
Para ver si ha quem a compre
Dão pelas ruas mil gyros.
E é para sentir o quanto
Se dá Deus por offendido,
Não só por este peccado,
Mas pelos seus conjunctivos;
Como são cantigas torpes,
Bailes e toques lascivos,
Venturas e fervedouros,
Pau de forca e pucarinhos:
Quero entregar ao silencio
 Outros excessos maldictos,
Como do pae Cazumbá,
Ambrosio e outros pretinhos.
Com os quaes estas formosas
Vão fazer infames brincos,
Governados por aquelles
Que as trazem num cabrestilho.

PRECEITO VII

Já pelo septimo entrando

Sem alterar o tonilho,
Digo que quantos o tocam
Sempre o tiveram por critico.
Eu sou a que mais padeço
De seus effeitos malignos,
Porque todos meus desdouros
Pelo septimo tem vindo.
Não fallo, como lá dizem,
Ao ar, ou libere dicto,
Pois diz o mundo loquaz
Que encubro mil latrocinios.
Si é verdade, eu o não sei,
Pois acho implicancias nisto,
Porque o furtar tem dous verbos,
Um furor, outro surripio.
Eu não vejo cortar bolsas,
Nem sair pelos caminhos,
Como fazem nas mais partes,
Salvo alguns negros fugidos.
Vejo que a forca ou picota
Paga os altos de vazio,
E que o carrasco não ganha
Nem dous réis para cominhos.
Vejo que nos tribunaes
Ha vigilantes ministros,
 E si houvera em mim tal gente,
Andára a soga em continuo.
Porém si d’isto não ha,
Com que razão ou motivo
Dizem por ahi que sou
Um covil de latrocinios?
Será por verem que em mim
É venerado e querido
Sancto Unhate, irmão de Caco,
Porque faz muitos prodigios?
Sem questão deve de ser,
Porque este Unhate maldicto
Faz uns milagres que eu mesma
Não sei como tenho tino.
Póde haver maior milagre
(Ouça bem quem tem ouvidos)
Do que chegar um Reinol,
Por Lisboa, ou pelo Minho;
Ou degradado por crimes,
Ou por moço ao pae fugido,
Ou por não ter que comer
No logar onde é nascido:
E saltando no meu caes,
Descalso, roto e despido,
Sem trazer mais cabedal
Que piolhos e assobios;
Apenas se offerece a Unhate
De guardar seu compromisso,
Tomando com devoção
Sua regra e seu bentinho,
Quando umas casas aluga
De preço e valor subido,
E se põe em tempo breve
Com dinheiro, e com navios!
Póde haver maior portento,
Nem milagre encarecido,
Como de ver um mazombo
 D’estes cá do meu pavio;
Que sem ter eira, nem beira,
Engenho ou juro sabido,
Tem amiga e joga largo,
Veste sedas, põe polvilhos:
D’onde lhe vem isto tudo?
Cahe do céu?—tal não affirmo:
Ou Sancto Unhate lh’o dá,
Ou do Calvario é prodigio.
Consultem agora os sabios,
Que de mim fazem corrilhos,
Si estou illesa da culpa,
Que me dão sobre este artigo.
Mas não quero repetir
A dor e o pezar que sinto,
Por dar mais um passo ávante
Para o oitavo supplicio.

PRECEITO VIII

As culpas que me dão nelle,

São que em tudo quanto digo
Do verdadeiro me aparto
Com animo fementido.
Muito mais é do que fallo,
Mas é grande barbarismo
Quer erem que pague a albarda
O que commette o burrinho.
Si por minha desventura
Estou cheia de preceitos,
Como querem que haja em mim
Fé, verdade, ou fallar liso?
Si, como atraz declarei,
Se puzera cobro nisto,
Apparecêra a verdade
Cruzando os braços comigo.
Mas como dos tribunaes
Proveito nenhum se ha visto,
A mentira está na terra,
A verdade vai fugindo.
O certo é que os mais d’elles
Têm por gala e por capricho,
Não abrir a boca nunca
Sem mentir de ficto a ficto.
Deixar quero as pataratas,
E tornando a meu caminho,
Quem quizer mentir o faça,
Que me não toca impedi-lo.

PRECEITO IX E X

Do nono não digo nada,

Porque para mim é vidro,
E quem o quizer tocar
Vá com o olho sobre aviso.
Eu bem sei que tambem trazem
O meu credito perdido,
Mas valha sem sêllo ex causa,
Ou lh’os ponham seus maridos.
Confesso que tenho culpas,
Porém humilde confio,
Mais que em riquezas do mundo,
Da virtude num raminho.
Graças a Deus que cheguei
A coroar meus delictos
Com o decimo preceito
No qual tenho delinquido.
Desejo que todos amem,
Seja pobre ou seja rico,
E se contentem com a sorte
Que têm e estão possuindo.
Quero finalmente que
Todos quantos têm ouvido,
Pelas obras que fizerem
Vão para o céu direitinhos.
 Á GENTE DA BAHIA

Não sei para que é nascer

Neste Brazil impestado
Um homem branco e honrado
Sem outra raça.

Terra tão grosseira e crassa,

Que a ninguem se tem respeito,
Salvo si mostra algum geito
De ser mulato.

Aqui o cão arranha ao gato,

Não por ser mais valentão,
Sinão porque sempre a um cão
Outros acodem.

Os brancos aqui não podem

Mais que soffrer e calar,
E si um negro vão matar
Chovem despezas.

Não lhe valem as defezas

Do atrevimento de um cão,
Porque acorda a Relação
Sempre faminta.

Logo a fazenda e a quinta

Vão com tudo o mais á praça,
Onde se vendem de graça,
Ou de fiado.
Que aguardas, homem honrado,
Vendo tantas sem razões,
Que não vais para as nações
Da Barbaria?

Porque lá se te faria
Com essa barbaridade
Mais razão e mais verdade
Do que aqui fazem.

Por que esperas? que te engrazem

E exgotem os cabedaes
Os que têm por naturaes,
Sendo extrangeiros?

Ao cheiro dos teus dinheiros

Vem c’um cabedal tão fraco,
Que tudo cabe num sacco
Que anda ás costas.

Os pés são duas lagostas,

De andar montes, passar vaus,
E as mãos são dous .... ....
Já bem ardidos.

Sendo dous annos corridos,

Na loja estão recostados
Mais doces e afidalgados
Que os mesmos Godos.

A mim me faltam apodos

Para apodar estes taes,
Maganos de tres canaes,
Té a ponta.
Ha outros de peior conta,
Que entre estes e entre aquelles
Vêm cheios de pez, e elles
Atraz do hombro.

De nada d’isto me assombro,

Pois os bota aqui o Senhor
Outros de marca maior,
Gualde e tostada.

Perguntae á gente honrada

Porque causa se desterra?
Diz que tem quem lá na terra
Lhe queime o sangue.

Vem viver ao pé de um mangue,

E já vos veda um mangal,
Porque tem mais cabedal
Que Porto Rico.

Si algum vem de agudo bico,

Lá vão prende-lo ao sertão,
E ei-lo bugio em grilhão
Entre galfarros.

A terra é para os bizarros,

Que vêm da sua terrinha
Com mais gorda camizinha
Que um traquete.

Que me dizeis do clerguete

Que mandaram degradado
Por dar o oleo sagrado
Á sua ..?
E a velhaca dissoluta,
Déxtra em todo o artificio,
Fez co’oleo um maleficio
Ao mesmo zote.

Folgo de ver tão asnote

O que com risinho nos labios
Anda zombando dos sabios
E entendidos.

E porque são applaudidos

De outros da sua facção,
Se fazem co’a descripção
Como com terra.

E dizendo ferra ferra,

Quando vão a pôr o pé
Conhecem que em boa fé
São uns asninhos.

Porque com quatro ditinhos,

De conceitos estudados,
Não podem ser graduados
Em as sciencias.

Então suas negligencias

As vão conhecendo alli,
Porque de si para si
Ninguem se engana.

Mas em vindo outra semana,

Já cahem no peccado velho,
E presumem dar conselho
A um Catão.
Aqui frizava o Frizão
Que foi o heresiarca
Porque os mais da sua alparca
O aprenderam.

As mulatas me esqueceram,
A quem com veneração
Darei o meu beliscão
Pelo amoroso.

Geralmente é mui custoso

O conchego das mulatas,
Que se foram mais baratas
Não ha mais Flandes.

As que presumem de grandes

Porque têm casa e são forras,
Têm, e chamam de cachorras
Ás mais do trato.

Angelinha do Sapato
Valeria um pipo de ouro,
Porém tem o ... ...
Muito abaixo.

Traz o amigo cabisbaixo

Com muitas aleivosias,
Sendo que ás Ave-Marias
Lhe fecha a porta.

Mas isso em fim que lhe importa,

Si ao fechar o põe na rua,
E sobre a ver ficar nua
Ainda a veste.
Fica dentro quem a investe,
E o de fóra suspirando
Lhe grita de quando em quando:
Ora isso basta.

Ha gente de tão má casta,

E de tão vil catadura,
Que até esta ...
Bebe e vérte.

Todos a Agrella converte,

Porque si com tão ruim ....
A alma ha de ser dissoluta,
Antes mui sancta.

Quem encontra ossada tanta,

Dos beijos de uma caveira
Vai fugindo de carreira,
E a Deus busca.

Em uma cova se offusca,

Como eu estou offuscado,
Chorando o magro peccado
Que fiz com ella.

É mui similhante a Agrella

Á Mingota do Negreiros,
Que me mammou os dinheiros,
E poz-se á orça.

A Manga, com ser de alcorça,

Dá-se a um pardo vaganau,
Que a Cunha do mesmo pau
Melhor atocha.