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SOMETHING TO DO WITH DEMETER: RITUAL AND PERFORMANCE IN ARISTOPHANES WOMEN AT THE THESMOPHORIA
ANGELIKI TZANETOU

LIKE HIS CHARACTER THE KINSMAN, Aristophanes invades Athenian womens religious space. He puts onstage for the whole city a religious festival restricted to women. He suggests that women use this occasion to drink and plot against men, and he portrays them as carrying on adulterous affairs and duping their husbands. As a result of this negative portrayal of women, scholars have concluded that the play undermines womens position in the festival and in the city. Elizabeth Bobrick (1997), for example, argues that the play misrepresents womens experience in ritual. Lauren Taaffe (1993) insists the play shows that women are only men in disguise, that it is not really about women at all but rather uses them to highlight male concerns. And Angus Bowie (1993, 227) concludes that in this play Aristophanes demonstrates that comedy, not tragedy, has the right to give an accurate and fulsome picture of female villainy. On the face of it, Women at the Thesmophoria satirizes womens real ritual experience and does not respectfully depict the Thesmophoria a very important festival celebrated throughout Greece, which promoted agricultural and human fertility. And yet, despite the Kinsmans invasion and his mockery of women, the role of women in ritual is not really undercut in this play. The female characters who inhabit the comic stage and protest their portrayal in drama do not aim to redene their social roles as wives and mothers. Instead, they use the authority of their roles to mount a successful attack against Euripides because he undermines these functions. In fact, the play acknowledges and validates womens contribution to the fertility of the polis in two different ways. After the Kinsman is unmasked and taken captive by the women, four different strategies for rescuing him are staged. After all these strategies, derived from plays by Euripides, fail, a fth strategy succeeds. As scholars have noted, the Kinsmans captivity and rescue parallel the founding myth of the Thesmophoria festival, the story of Persephones
American Journal of Philology 123 (2002) 329367 2002 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

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abduction and imprisonment by Hades and her rescue by her mother Demeter.1 My reading of Women at the Thesmophoria builds on this analysis by demonstrating how each of the Euripidean parodies moves closer to the myth of Demeter and Persephone. Moreover, with each of the parodies the actors become increasingly feminized. In the nal scene of the play every character onstage but one is wearing female dress. Ironically, structurally and theatrically, Aristophanes play celebrates womens power, as it is demonstrated in Demeters rescue of her daughter and the rebirth of human and agricultural fertility. Moreover, the play afrms the centrality of women to the fertility of Athenian drama. Earlier studies have seen Women at the Thesmophoria as a competition between Euripides and Aristophanes and between tragedy and comedy (e.g., Hubbard 1991, Henderson 1996, Zeitlin 1996b, Gibert 19992000). The plays movement from male to female, especially in the arrangement of the parodies, is also a move from Dionysus to Demeter. The captivity/rescue plot is associated with not only Demeter and Persephone but also Dionysus, the presiding deity of Athenian theater. The stories of Dionysus captivity and rescue are different, however; in these the god rescues himself and punishes his captors (e.g., Pentheus and Lycurgus). As the rescue strategies in Women at the Thesmophoria
1 Zeitlin offers a masterful analysis of the play and the Euripidean parodies (1996b, 375416). She points out the parallelisms between Persephones myth and the plot of the parodies as a starting point for her analysis of mimesis and its association with the feminine. This discussion is also based on the same premise but focuses instead on the internal theatrical competition between tragedy and comedy and the topic of composing dramas about women. Moreover, in tracing the relationship between narrative patterns of religious experiencethe captivity/rescue pattern, which is related to Dionysus and Demeter and underlies plots of dramaand by seeking their theatrical equivalents, my approach is closer to Lada-Richards 1998, 1999, and to a certain extent to Bierl 2001. Bierl draws heavily upon J. L. Austins and J. R. Searles theory of speech-acts (5161) in analyzing performance. His analysis offers a complex and novel treatment of the relationship between ritual and theater by examining the following interrelated aspects (although it is not limited to them): a) the initiatory function of the chorus of comedy, whose choral performance retains its autonomy and remains distinct from the action of the play; b) the choruss civic performative function as choreuts and their dramatic role as female participants at the Thesmophoria; c) the metatheatrical aspect (males disguised as females) in connection with initiatory patterns in the Kinsmans performance of his role as female initiand. More specically, the Kinsmans liminality as female performer, namely, as female participant of the Thesmophoria and as Helen and Andromeda is also examined in reference to male initiatory transitions. My own analysis focuses upon the common mythical and dramatic motifs in order to illustrate how spectators may have decoded Aristophanes play, based on their knowledge of the myth of Persephone and Demeter. Text and translation from Henderson 2000b.

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unfold, they move from the Dionysian pattern of self-liberation and punishment of opponents to a Demetrian one of cooperation and reconciliation. This is also a movement from tragedy to comedy, in which tragedy fails to liberate while comedy succeeds. The four parodies and the nal scenario move from explicitly tragic situations, including the threat of human sacrice, to love/marriage plots and nally to men dressing as women to deceive a parodically hypermasculine male, thereby achieving a return to normality. By the end of the play, male crossdressing does not show how easy it is to become female, but how essential women are to comedynot only to creating laughter but also to the basic function of comedy: afrming and celebrating the continuity of human life. THE THESMOPHORIA The Thesmophoria, one of the major festivals in honor of Demeter and Kore/Persephone, was widely celebrated by women in Greece, Sicily, and Asia Minor.2 In Athens it took place on 11 to 13 of Pyanopsion, according to the Attic calendar,3 the time for fall sowing in late October.4 The evidence suggests that only citizen-wives were allowed to participate,5 while men, who were strictly excluded (115051), undertook the nancial costs of the festival on behalf of their wives.6 The festival lasted three days; its calendar followed a prescribed ritual program and was intended to recall womens ancient way of life (Diod. Sic. 5.4.7), as illustrated in Table 1.

2 On the Thesmophoria festival, see Farnell 1907, vol. 3, 75112, 32628; Deubner 1932, 5060; Dahl 1976 with comprehensive list of testimonia (10447); Brumeld 1981, 71 103; Simon 1983, 1722; Burkert 1985, 24246; Detienne 1989, 12947; Dillon 2002, 11020; Sfameni Gasparro 1986, 22383; Versnel 1992, 3155; Zeitlin 1982, 12957. On the sanctuaries of Demeter and the cults of Demeter and Kore, see also Clinton 1992; 1993, 11024; Cole 1994, 199216; Kron 1992, 61150; Nixon 1995, 7596. On the name of the festival, see Brumeld 1981, 7079. 3 As attested in IG II2 674 (Brumeld 1981, 96 n. 2 and 99 n. 41). 4 Kron (1992, 616 n. 22) notes that in Delos and Thebes, for example, the Thesmophoria took place during the summer and was associated with the harvest. 5 For the exclusion of unmarried women (Callim. fr. 63 Pfeiffer), slaves (Ar. Thesm. 294), and prostitutes (Isae. 6. 4950), see Brumeld 1981, 8687; Burkert 1985, 242 and 442, nn. 6, 7, who discounts the evidence in Lucian Dial. meret. 2.1. 6 Ar. Thesm. 115051. Athenian men, however, undertook the costs of the festival (Men. Epit. 74950, Isae. 3.80). On the Thesmophoric liturgy, the only one supporting an exclusively female activity, see Wilson 2000, 4041.

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TABLE 1. The Thesmophoria

Festival calendar Program Ritual myth

Anodos (Ascent)

Election of archousai, setting up of makeshift tents and festival preparations Fasting, sitting on the ground on anaphrodisiac plants, ritual obscenity Celebration, sacrice, feasting, prayers for offspring

Demeters withdrawal

Nesteia (Fasting)

Demeters mourning

Kalligeneia (Fair Offspring)

Reunion of Demeter and Persephone

The Thesmophoria may have commemorated the mourning of Demeter over the loss of her daughter, Kore (Persephone/Pherrephatta; Clinton 1993, 11316). The myth itself was recounted in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and was also known to Athenian audiences from the Eleusinian Mysteries.7 The rst day was called Anodos (Ascent); women

7 It is necessary to state at the outset that we do not know the exact details of the ritual myth of the Thesmophoria. In Women at the Thesmophoria, the myth of Persephone is re-enacted as a captivity/rescue plot and takes the place of the ritual myth, which the women performed in the context of the actual festival. Ignorant of the specic rituals of the Thesmophoria, Aristophanes adapts the myth of Persephones descent and ascent into a captivity/rescue story, which his male audience could understand. The myth of Persephones abduction and descent into the Underworld was recounted in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. The narrative motifs of Persephones story in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter most relevant to the interpretation of the play and the dramatic parodies embedded within it are as follows: a) Persephones violent abduction by Hades (Aidoneus/Pluto), the god of the Underworld (Hom. Hymn Dem. 13); b) Demeters disguise and quest for Persephone (ibid. 9394); c) Iambes jesting (ibid. 2005), which the mythographer Apollodorus assumes as the explanation for the ritual jesting at the festival of the Thesmophoria (1.5.1); d) the mother-daughter reunion (Hom. Hymn Dem. 38489); e) Persephones captivity; f) the mythical association between Persephones death and rescue and agricultural renewal (Hom. Hymn Dem. 47073).

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on that day ascended to the Thesmophorion8 and made preparations for the festival. Two women, who were elected as the ofcial magistrates (archousai) presided over the festival as ofcials (Isae. 8. 19). Women set up makeshift tents in which they spent the next couple of nights away from their homes, a unique experience in womens religious life.9 On the second day, Nesteia (Fasting), women imitated the mourning of Demeter, by sitting on the ground on seats made of anaphrodisiac plants, fasting; they also practiced ritual obscenity.10 All these elements are found both in fertility and funereal contexts. The presence of anaphrodisiac plants symbolized womens chastity during the festival, because women reverted symbolically to their prior status as virgins (Versnel 1992, 3155), while ritual obscenity was associated with the promotion of fertility. On the third day, Kalligeneia (Fair Offspring), the women offered sacrices (see n. 16 below), feasted and celebrated the return of Persephone as a symbolic renewal of their own fertility. The last day celebrated Demeters role as promoter of human and agricultural fertility.11 Neither the specic religious rituals and procedures associated with the festival nor their precise order can be accurately reconstructed based on the existing evidence. The most detailed account of the rituals pertaining to the Thesmophoria survives in a scholiasts account of the festival (Schol. Lucian Dial. meret. 2.1. [275. 2376.28 Rabe]).12 According to the scholion, when Persephone was abducted by Pluto, a swineherd named Eubouleus and his pigs also disappeared under the earth. The central ritual act, which apparently recalls Eubouleus story, is described as follows: at some previous time, sacriced piglets are thrown into underground

8 We do not have sufcient evidence to determine exactly where in Athens the Thesmophorion was located. On the representation of the community of citizen-wives according to the model of the male assembly and its location on the Pnyx, see Henderson 1996, 9294. Clinton (1996, 11125) offers the most up-to-date survey of the evidence; he argues, moreover, that the Thesmophoria in Attica was probably held in the demes on the basis of inscriptions from demes (Peiraeus, IG II2 1177 [= SEG XXXVII 101]; Cholargos, IG II2 1184 [SEG XXXV 239], and Melite [see Broneer 1942, 25064]). 9 At 79596 we hear that women occasionally spent the night at a friends house. 10 Plut. Mor. 378 de, Diod. Sic. 5.4, 57, Plin. HN 24.59. On sexual abstinence, see Parker 1983, 8183; Versnel 1992, 3941. On ritual obscenity, see Fluck 1931; Brumeld 1996, 6973; McClure 1999, 4752. 11 Schol. Lucian Dial. meret. 2.1.: per tw tn karpn gensevw ka tw tn nyrpvn sporw. 12 See further Brumeld 1981, 7379. The source is late (2d century A.D.), and Lowe (1998, 14973) raises a number of objections concerning its accuracy.

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passages (megara).13 During the festival, women known as bailers (antle\triai), having observed ritual purity for three days, undertake the mission of descending in these passages to recover the piglets remains.14 Once they retrieve them, they place them upon the altars of Demeter and Persephone along with cakes in the mold of snakes and male genitalia, also symbols of fertility. These remains, mixed with seeds, were thought to guarantee a good crop (Price 1999, 99100). Finally, the scholiast describes the bailers journey to and from the underground shrines as imitating ritually the story of Persephones mythical descent and ascent. The Thesmophoria contains a number of important features that set it apart from both the norms of womens daily lives and the requirements for womens other religious rituals. In Athens, women stayed at home and had no say in political matters, while men dominated public space and carried out the important business of the city at the assembly. In the Thesmophoria women left men behind at home during their threeday sojourn. The exclusive admission of citizen-wives15 at the festival and the election of ofcial magistrates offered a rare opportunity to envision womenwho otherwise lacked a political share in the cityas members of a religio-political association. In addition, ritual obscenity marks a complete reversal of the model of the modesty and silence expected of Athenian wives. Moreover, the requirement for chastity and the use of anaphrodisiac plants suggest a symbolic reversal of womens social status from wives to virgins for the sake of promoting fertility. The meaning of the festival has been interpreted variously. Structuralist interpretations emphasize the marked inversion of gender roles: Froma Zeitlin concentrates on the representation of womens empowerment within the Thesmophoria, while Marcel Detienne concentrates on womens uncommon involvement in sacrices.16 Feminist and gender criticism has focused on the role of ritual obscenity (aischrologia) as

Burkert 1985, 24243. Simon (1983, 1920) argues that the remains of the pigs and cakes (thesmoi) were laid down during the Stenia and recovered on the second night of the festival, namely, before the Kalligeneia. On the association between piglets, Demeter, and human and animal fertility, see Foley 1994, 73. 15 But see also Winklers (1990, 193202) critique of Detienne 1989. 16 Zeitlin (1982, 12957) argues that the Thesmophoria, despite its importance to the prosperity of the city, nevertheless did not rank as high as other Athenian womens civic rituals such as the arrhe\phoria, which were associated with the celebration of the citys origins. On womens exclusion from sacrices, see Detienne 1989, 12947. He is countered by Osbornes arguments that women were not strictly excluded from sacrices (1993, 392 405).
14

13

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evidence for a distinctly female voice. For example, Winkler (1990, 188 209) formulated a daring thesis, that the women may have celebrated their sexual and procreative superiority to men through mockery of male genitalia as inferior to those of women. In her analysis of aporrhe\ta, Allaire Brumeld (1996, 6773) points out that womens ritual license is a function of the normative gender roles associated with a shame-culture and that there is no contradiction between the modesty of citizen wives and the practice of ritual obscenity. Her point of view functions in an important counterpoint to any interpretation that presents womens autonomy in the context of the Thesmophoria as problematic or uses the festival primarily as evidence for womens actual social power. Also, Lucia Nixon (1995, 7596) suggests the possibility of a dichotomy between mens and womens perception of the festival. For men, the emphasis was on the production of citizens. For women, on the other hand, the presence of anaphrodisiac plants may have suggested the power to control their own fertility with reference to a mythical model of Demeter and Persephone that commemorated the strong relationship between mother and daughter even after marriage. ARISTOPHANES THESMOPHORIA Women and the Festival Parody of sacred elements of the festival is limited. For all its mockery of women, the play does not undermine the rituals of the Thesmophoria, from which men were excluded. The Kinsman imitates the womens ascent (Anodos) (27981) and offers mock-prayers to Demeter and Persephone. He also uses ritual obscenity, when he asks that his daughter Khoirion (literally, pigletappropriate sacrice for Demeterbut also xorow: female sexual organ) nd a rich husband (28990) and that his son Posthaliskos (diminutive of psyh: male sexual organ) have good sense (291).17 Women in this play are cast as participants in the assembly and at rst appear to be acting out male roles. In fact, some have argued that, by staging the festival as a political assembly, Aristophanes presents women as men in disguise. Angus Bowie notes some of the salient elements: speakers address the de\ mos of women (e.g., 335, 353); there is a parody
17 The Kinsmans undressing by the women may recall the womens handling of phallic objects (63648) (Bowie 1993, 212).

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of the arai (curses) that were part of the opening of the Boule proceedings (33151) and a parody of the minutes of the Boule (37279).18 The citizen-women (29394, 32930) are indeed represented as an assembly (84, 277): they camp near the Pnyx (623, 658; see note 8 above), where the Athenian assembly met regularly, on the middle day of the Thesmophoria, the day of Nesteia, a time when regular assembly meetings and court proceedings were suspended (7880, 37677). The plays characterization of the womens gathering as a political association, however, comes directly from the structure of the festival. Critylla, who leads the prayers, fullls the function of the priestess of the two goddesses (759; Sommerstein 1994 on 295). Unlike Aristophanes Women at the Assembly where women take over mens roles, the participation of citizen wives at the Thesmophoria in this play under the leadership of Critylla is rooted in the reality of the festival. These womens goal is not to intervene in mens business of running the polis, but rather to stop men from meddling in their own business of running the oikos. Elizabeth Bobrick, who argues that the representation of women as citizen-wives at the Thesmophoria is restrictive, emphasizes that the play does not afford women the possibility of redening their social roles beyond those of wives or mothers (a characterization that she considers to be negative). The women in Women at the Thesmophoria, however, do not set out to emancipate themselves from these roles. Even in Lysistrata and Women at the Assembly, where female characters take the lead, womens social redenition is short-lived; each play ends with an afrmation of womens traditional roles. Their position in the oikos and the polis is thus depicted positively; for womens contributions as wives and mothers are represented as valuable within the theatrical performance of the very festival that celebrated their fertility and civic presence. The women in Aristophanes play construct a reality that is wellsuited to the comic stage. They put Euripides on trial because his tragic portraits of womens illicit affairs arouse suspicion in their husbands, disrupting the smooth functioning of the oikos. In the comic universe Athenian women do not want to be tragic heroines like Phaedra and Melanippe (54448) nor to share in their grand passions. They want to silence Euripides, because his plays threaten to upset their domestic arrangements; namely, running their households as wives, even if they indulge themselves in a bit of drinking and a little hanky-panky on the side. The latter is afrmed in Crityllas parody of the curses at the begin-

18

See Bowie 1993, 20512, especially 209.

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ning of the assembly against state enemies, by listing as an enemy of the dem \ os of women whoever might reveal their private misdemeanors such as adultery, drinking, and even baby-swapping (33551). The parabasis most strongly exemplies women in this play claiming a share in the citys fortunes. In the parabasis (785845) women praise the female race (786) and refute mens criticisms of women as the evil in their house (78599)19 by praising instead the women of Athens for their civic contributions (799845). Despite its parodic aspects, the parabasis makes a number of valid points. Women rst parody male-speak by referring to themselves as to kakon (787, 789, 791, 794, 796, 797, 799). They then counter this characterization and expose male misogyny: Come on now, if were a bane, why do you marry us, if we truly are a bane, why do you forbid us to leave the house or even get caught peeking out of the window? (78890). As a result, they reveal mens obsessive need to control women as well as the hypocrisy inherent within this repressive context. For men, on the one hand, keep their women inside (79294) and, on the other, break their own rules by xing their eyes on any other mans woman as soon as she appears in public (79799). As a result, men, and perhaps the system that they seek to keep in place, appear far more ridiculous than the errant wives. Further, the women augment their critique of men by offering evidence of the womens civic excellence: they cite womens names that recall Athenian victoriesAristomache, for example, evokes the victory at Marathon (806). And they argue, just as Lysistrata does (Lys. 488500), that they would manage public spending much better than men do, just as they do at home (81029). They protest strongly against a system that does not recognize their civic contributions adequately. Men earn titles in their eld of action: taxiarchs and generals are recognized by rank. No such distinctions, however, are in place for the mothers who give their sons to the city; such honors, they suggest, ought to be instituted at the womens festivals, the Stenia and the Skira (83235). Women here speak as citizen-wives within a religious context that validated and promoted their contributions as wives and mothers.20

Gardner 1989, 5162. Blok 2001, 10916. For a fuller discussion of womens representation in the play and of women in Aristophanes play, see Henderson 1996b, 2029, 9097; my remarks are based on his discussion. On the use of negative comic stereotypes, see Loraux 1991, 20344. On the topic of male impersonation of female characters, see Sad 1987, 21748; Taaffe 1993, 74102.
20

19

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Ritual and Theater Ancient audiences could discern correspondences between mythical and ritual patterns, because they related theatrical and ritual performance to each other. As David Wiles has noted, there is no dividing line between ritual and theater, because tragedy and comedy were viewed as competitive rituals in honor of Dionysus.21 Religious rituals, on the other hand, often included events of a theatrical or paratheatrical nature. Athenians, who were versed both in the conventions of the theater and in the religious culture of their city, were more attuned to the afnities between ritual and theatrical performances than we are today. The audience participated as spectators or actors not only in the annual dramatic competitions but also in the religious rituals of the city, many of which shared important elements with theatrical performances (choral dancing, use of masks, various disguises and role-playing).22 The traits that religious and theatrical practice share enabled the audience to recognize potential connections between religious rituals and their dramatic representation. Bobrick, on the other hand, subjects the myth of Demeter and Persephone in this play to an analysis of gender roles and downplays the impact of ritual in shaping drama. She has argued categorically that the parodies adapt the female myth to male concerns, because Mnesilochus and Euripides gradually supplant the women and distort the representation of the myth of Demeter and Persephone23 by submerging the mother-daughter relationship in favor of a male-female partnership that leads to marriage (e.g., Andromeda-Perseus). However, Women at the Thesmophoria does not end in marriage, as do the female rescue dramas of Euripides, and this renders the deployment of Demeters and Persephones story more complex than Bobrick allows. More specically, in Women at the Thesmophoria there are signicant correspondences between the structure of the Thesmophoria and the theatrical program embedded in the Thesmophoria in Aristophanes
21 Wiles 2000, 29. For important recent work on the interaction between ritual and dramatic patterns, see Segal 1982; Bowie 1993; Seaford 1994; Zeitlin 1996a, 285340, 375 416; Lada-Richards 1998, 119, 1999; and Foley 2001. 22 This is not to say that there are no differences between theatrical and ritual performance. See Lada-Richards 1998, 1517 with relevant anthropological bibliography. The bear mask from the sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia (Simon 1983, p. 25) and the masks from the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia (Carter 1988, 8898) exemplify masks used in a ritual setting. 23 Bobrick 1997, 182 and 18289. On womens denition in drama through rituals, see further McClure 1999; Wiles 2000, 7677; Foley 2001.

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play. The performance of tragedy corresponds to the re-enactment of Demeters mourning. The four parodies of Euripides tragedies are appropriately placed during Nesteia (Fasting).24 These parodies re-enact Persephones captivity. On the other hand, the comic performance, which results in the Kinsmans liberation, suggests the transition to the third and nal day (Kalligeneia), the return of Persephone. The end of mourning is signaled by the increasing comic obscenity in the parody of Andromeda, which marks the shift from tragedy to comedy as well as the transition from Nesteia to Kalligeneia. The parallelism between the ritual and dramatic plot may be seen in Table 2. As the schema in Table 2 indicates, the conclusion of the ritual and comic plot also highlights male and female partnership through the reconciliation between Euripides and the women (116071). Just as the reconciliation of Demeter and Zeus suggests the return of fertility to nature (Hom. Hymn Dem. 32041), so does the reconciliation between Euripides and the women at the end of the play ensure dramatic fertility. Euripides succeeds in liberating the Kinsman by assuming the role of the female rescuer through a successful comic adaptation of the myth of Persephones rescue. In the end, fertility returns, Euripides succeeds, and tragedy must be abandoned in favor of comedy. By re-enacting the myth of Demeter and Persephone, the comic nale offers a special tribute to womens religious service at the Thesmophoria by integrating the myth of the festival into the comic plot. THE DRAMATIC PROGRAM When the women discover that the Kinsman is an intruder, they strip him of his female costume and imprison him. The Kinsmans plight now recalls the myths about men who spied on women: Battus of Cyrene is said to have been nearly castrated for attempting to violate womens religious secrets.25 The Kinsmans female disguise and inltration also resembles that of Pentheus in Euripides Bacchae, who is caught and subsequently dismembered by the maenads.26 But in Women at the Thesmophoria, even though the Kinsman inltrates the festival and is

On Nesteia, see also Bierl 2001, 11718 with n. 19, 161, 177, 247 n. 390. The sources are collected by Bowie 1993, 21213 (Hdt. 6.16. 2, 6.75. 3, 6.13436, Aen. Tact. 4.811; Plut. Sol. 8; Paus. 4.17.1; Ael. fr. 44 [Hercher]). 26 While Bacchae is a later play (406 B.C.), there are earlier dramatizations of myths pertaining to Dionysus and his opponents. The Proboulos scene in Aristophanes Lysistrata
25

24

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TABLE 2. Aristophanes Women at the Thesmophoria and the Myth of Demeter/Persephone Ritual Plot Abduction/ captivity of Persephone in the Underworld Female disguise of Kinsman and his capture Demeters quest and Persephones rescue Euripides/ Artemisia rescues Kinsman Zeus and Demeter reconciled = Return of fertility

Dramatic Plot (male inltration of female rites)

Euripides and the women reconciled = Dramatic fertility

condemned to death, he does not die.27 Instead, he pursues four strategies to liberate himself. When these fail, Euripides devises a fth and rescues him. The rst four stratagems are parodies of Euripides plays, while the fth is a comedy. The performance of the tragic parodies plus the comic nale in this sequence represents a tetralogy followed by a comedy. The tetralogy is composed of two plays whose central character is male (Telephus, Palamedes), followed by two parodies based on Euripides female rescue dramas (Helen and Andromeda). Tragedy is gradually transformed in accordance with the underlying rescue pattern of Demeter and Persephone. This is signaled by the Kinsmans changes of costumehe performs Telephus and Palamedes as a male actor in naked costume, but puts on his female costume for the female parodies. Tragedys repeated attempts at performing the female story fail; success is reserved for comedy. In other words, a competition between tragedy and comedy appears to be based on the adaptation of the female rescue pattern: comedy wins because it re-enacts Persephones rescue via the Kinsmans liberation by Euripides.28 Tragedy, on the other hand, offers only partial adaptation of the ritual plot of captivity/rescue, be-

also evokes the scenario of the maenads and Pentheus in Euripides Bacchae. An excerpt from Aeschylus Edonians, for example, in which Lycurgus corresponds to a Pentheus-like gure, is quoted earlier in the play (13045). See also Bierl 2001, 20913. 27 Zeitlin 1996b, 4023. 28 One may of course object that the audience would not be able to discern the quick changes in genre in the course of the parodies. Two general points are relevant in this regard. First, the audience of comedy was probably particularly attuned to differences between comedy and tragedy (e.g., dramatic technique, staging, language). Second, the repeated performance of the specic pattern of Persephones story would most likely alert the audience to the generic variations of the successive dramatic versions placed before them.

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cause all four parodies end in failed rescues.29 Table 3 schematizes the relationship between the rescue attempts and the ritual myth. The arrangement of the parodies also creates the impression that comedy is the end product of a linear progression from tragedy to comedy. Even though tragedy and comedy share different plot and staging conventions, Aristophanes arranges the plays so as to create the impression that some types of tragedy, particularly rescue dramas, and comedy are on a par because they both evoke the ritual motifs associated with the female myth performed at the Thesmophoria. Telephus and Palamedes In the rst two parodies, the Kinsman acts the part of a male character in captivity. He rst attempts unsuccessfully to bring about his own liberation by impersonating the hostage-scene of Telephus and then devises a trick, borrowed from Palamedes, hoping to effect the arrival of Euripides. Telephus featured a near-sacrice and presumably had a happy ending. Palamedes, on the other hand, was probably more somber, because it dealt with the death of Palamedes at the hands of the Greeks and Oiaxs attempts to avenge his brothers murder. Both plays are recast along the lines of a captivity/rescue plot, as the schema in Table 3 indicates. The parody of Telephus evokes Dionysus captivity and self-liberation since the Kinsman is impersonating a male character and attempts to bring about his own rescue by acting in this case against female antagonists. The self-liberation and punishment motif, which we nd time and again in Dionysiac myths (cf. Pentheus and Lycurgus), was enacted in tragedy and is also well known from the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus (1114), in which Dionysus prevails over the Tyrrhenian pirates, his captors, by miraculously breaking his bonds. Vines and ivy spread and entangle the ship, while the pirates dive in the sea and are transformed into dolphins. More specically, in Euripides Telephus, Telephus, the Mysian king, goes to the court of Agamemnon.30 In the parody of the scene that we witness, Telephus inltrates Agamemnons court disguised as a beggar. Upon the revelation of his disguise by Achilles, he snatches and threatens to kill the infant Orestes at the altar, should his demands not be met.

29 On the use of dramatic patterns as a basis for genre denition, see Mastronarde 19992000, 2339. 30 On the reconstruction of Euripides Telephus, see Collard, Cropp, and Lee 1995, 1752; Preiser 2000.

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TABLE 3. Dramatic Program and Ritual Myth

Genre Title Precipitating action Dramatic action Outcome

Tragedy

Euripides Telephus (438 B.C.)

Abduction of Micas baby (attempted sacrice)

Baby = wineskin (substitution of human victim by wineskin) No rescuer

Failed rescue /stasis

Euripides Palamedes (415 B.C.)

Captivity of Palamedes?/ Kinsman (male victim) Captivity of Helen/ Kinsman (female victim) Captivity of Andromeda/ Kinsman (female victim) Captivity of Kinsman/ (female victim)

Failed rescue /stasis

Tragedy, Female rescue drama

Euripides Helen (412 B.C.)

Euripides/ Menelaus (male rescuer)

Failed rescue /stasis

Euripides Andromeda (412 B.C.)

Euripides/ Perseus (male rescuer)

Failed rescue /stasis

Comedy

Artemisia and Elaphium

Euripides/ Artemisia (female rescuer) + Elaphium (female performer) Demeters quest and mourning (rescue pending)

Successful rescue (survival)

Ritual myth

Demeters quest for Persephone

Abduction of Persephone (death)

Rescue and return of Persephone (rebirth)

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In the parody of the hostage-scene (688764),31 the baby is not a boy, but a girl, and, even though it is slain, the presumed human victim is safely substituted by a wineskin, dressed in Persian booties, as illustrated on the well-known Wrzburg krater (Taplin 1993, 3641, plate 11.4).32 Sacrice is a hallmark of tragedy, and as a result the Kinsmans rescue-plot begins in a setting that distinctly evokes the Dionysian realm of tragedy.33 The avoidance of death demonstrates afnities with rescue-drama plots that revolve around violence threatened and averted as in the case of Orestes near-sacrice in Euripides Iphigeneia in Tauris. The plot unfolds along the lines of abduction/near-sacrice/survival, and yet the parody performs a more tragic and thereby more Dionysian version because the sacrice is not thwartedthe victim is slain and presumably even consumed. At this particular moment in the performance, the Kinsman, wineskin in hand, a naked male attempting to escape the women who have surrounded him, may have appeared to the audience as more appropriate for the part of a satyr. After the women and Cleisthenes undress him (63548), the Kinsman is left naked, that is, with padded leotards and hanging phallus.34 It is true that his costume is not satyric in any strict sense of the wordhis limp phallus and lack of a loin cloth perhaps disqualify him for the part of satyr. And yet, earlier in the play at Agathons house, the Kinsman picks the role of actor in satyr-play for himself, implying that Agathon would not t the part:
tan satrouw tonun poiw, kalen m, na sumpoi sopisyen stukw g Well, let me know when youre writing about satyrs; Ill get behind you with my hard-on and show you how.

(15758)

31 The play is more broadly parodied in Women at the Thesmophoria (see Rau 1967, 4250); it is also parodied in Aristophanes Acharnians (Rau 1967, 1942). In Women at the Thesmophoria the adaptation of the hostage-scene lies closer to the dramatic plot of the original than in Acharnians. 32 Iphigeneia in Euripides IT is not sacriced but replaced by a deer. 33 On the Dionysiac patterns of Greek tragedy, see Seaford 1994. 34 Stone 1984, 40710: The disguise leaves Mnesilochus in ruddy, bearded mask, padding, and phallus, over which are worn feminine headgear, clothing, and shoes; we suggested earlier (p. 119 n. 68) on the basis of a phlyax painting, that the hanging phallus is visible through the thin kroko\tos. It should be stressed that Mnesilochus is not an effeminate, and that the humor of these scenes depends on the incongruity of his masculine person (mask and phallus) with his feminine garments.

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Furthermore, Micas answer regarding the age of the baby girl/wineskin, which is estimated as three to four pitchers old plus the time since the last Dionysia (74547), connects the City Dionysia, the setting of the competition, with the Anthesteria, a time of Dionysian celebration of wine. This makes perfect sense in the context of comedy, but the reference to a time of Dionysian celebration such as the Anthesteria also strongly evokes the participation of satyrs, who were imagined as being among the gods procession, as the iconographic evidence on the choes indicates.35 Following the performance of the parody of Telephus, the Kinsmans attempts to escape explicitly remind the audience that he is performing, as he self-consciously turns to Euripidean dramatic devices in search of rescue (mhxan svthraw 765). His rst improvisational act is drawn from Palamedes, which was part of Euripides Trojan trilogy, produced in 415, and the Kinsman introduces his performance by referring to the title of Euripides play (k to Palamdouw, 770). Like Oiax, who inscribed a message on the oars of the departing ships to inform his father, Nauplius, of Palamedes murder at the hands of the Greeks, the Kinsman carves a message for Euripides on the wooden votive tablets near the altar on which he has taken refuge (77580). The situation of the Kinsmans captivity and his attempt at rescue does not conform to the plot of the original, which centered on the murder of Palamedes by the Greeks and Oiaxs plan to avenge his brothers death.36 The Kinsmans performance

35 Simon (1983, 9296) discusses the presence of satyrs in the iconography of the Choes-jugs associated with the Anthesteria and rightly remarks that it is difcult to separate myth from ritual practice in connection with the Anthesteria, because the myth and ritual form an entity when it comes to Dionysiac art. The presence of Satyrs, however, on the choes that depicted Dionysian subjects is well-attested (p. 96). On the latter, see Seaford 1994, 26667: At the Attic Anthesteria it seems that people dressed up as satyrs . . . In the depictions of Dionysos in the ship-cart he is closely escorted by satyrs playing pipes. This is a public procession, and so the painters were probably inspired by men dressed as satyrsrather than merely imagining satyrs, as they did when depicting female rituals they had not seen. This is controversial; Burkert (1985, 166) speaks of masked mummers based on Plato Laws 815b. But Hamilton (1992, 52) views this as stretching the evidence too far. 36 On the reconstruction of the plot of Euripides Palamedes, see Scodel 1980, 4363. Oiax is the author of the message according to the scholion on Ar. Thesm. 771 and Scodel 1980, 5859. I do not think, however, that it is necessary to infer on the basis of the Kinsmans captivity in Women at the Thesmophoria, as Scodel suggests, that Oiax also was held captive and that he resorted to the trick of writing on oars, because he was unable to send a messenger to his father (p. 58). Sommerstein (1994 on lines 77684) notes that the passage should be regarded as a Euripidean pastiche with comic elements incorporated.

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of Oiaxs trick is designed to alert Euripides that he needs rescue, not vengeance against the women. As such, the Kinsmans plight resembles the bondage of satyrs in satyr-drama.37 Satyrs, as is well-known, were often captives or slaves of an ogre (e.g., Isthmiastae, Ichneutae, Cyclops), whose servitude they must often escape to return to Dionysus.38 For example, in Euripides Cyclops the satyrs servitude ends when Odysseus arrives, punishes Polyphemus and sets the satyrs free. The Kinsmans parody of Palamedes lends itself to satyric treatment:39 both captive (Kinsman) and rescuer (Euripides) are male. Without seeing the parody performed, it is difcult to judge whether the Kinsmans efforts and blunders as composer and adapter were perceived as satyric by the audience. At the very least, this interpretation suggests that the elements for a satyric production were at the Kinsmans disposal. This Euripidean mock-tetralogy consists of four tragedies and lacks a satyr-play.40 This was possible since Euripides had already written a tetralogy in 438 B.C. that included the prosatyric Alcestis. The satyric ambience of the rst two parodies offers the closest approximation to a satyr-play in the rescue tetralogy. The evocation of the satyric here serves a specic purpose: to effect a gradual transition from Dionysian rescue plots to the female rescue scenario of Persephone and Demeter.
On the fragments, see also Jouan and van Looy 2000, 487507. On the parody, see Rau 1967, 5153. 37 Similarly, Dionysus is also envisioned as a liberator of women in the context of Dionysian cults (e.g., the servants description of womens miraculous liberation, Eur. Bacch. 43450). 38 On major themes in satyr-play (e.g., captivity and rescue, use of tricks, anodos), see Seaford 1994, 3344; Krumeich, Pechstein, and Seidensticker 1999, 2832. 39 For the transformation of tragic myths in satyr-drama, consider the satyr-plays in the thematically coherent Aeschylean tetralogies such as the Oresteia (Proteus) and the Danaid tetralogy (Amymone). Amymones rejection of the advances of a satyr in Aeschylus Amymone recalls the Danaids rejection of their Egyptian cousins in Suppliants, while Amymones marriage to Poseidon possibly parallels that of Hypermestra to her Egyptian suitor in the lost part of the trilogy. But the themes of rape and courtship, which link the trilogy with the satyr-drama that follows, are translated into satyric terms. The absence of violent murder in Amymone is one of the major traits that differentiate the treatment of the mythical material in satyr-play from its dramatization in tragedy (Winnington-Ingram 1961, 147). A satyric Palamedes is known by title and attributed to Theudotus. We do not know whether the satyric Palamedes dramatized the events at Troy as its tragic counterpart did or whether it treated the events of Palamedes visit to Ithaca to enlist Odysseus into the Trojan War. 40 Bowie (1993, 22425) suggests that Andromeda takes up the place of a satyr-play, but see Giberts reservations (19992000, 88n. 50). We also know of a nonextant satyric Iambe that featured Persephones descent to and ascent from the Underworld.

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Helen and Andromeda The tetralogy culminates in two tragedies with female victims. Now the Kinsman acts the new Helen in his female costume (85051). The parodies of two female rescue dramas (Helen and Andromeda) bring the dramatic pattern closer to the Demeter-Persephone story.41 By focusing on the plight of a female captive heroine, these parodies strongly evoke Persephones story.42 The familiar sequence of Persephones descent into and ascent from the Underworld is adapted in an analogous sequence of captivity/rescue, which parallels more clearly the Kinsmans imprisonment. Moreover, each of the parodies serves a different dramatic purpose. Helen calls the audiences attention to the connections between the dramatic plot and the ritual setting of the festival. The parody of Andromeda, on the other hand, includes more comic elements, which in turn usher in comedy. The shift from the Dionysian scenario of captivity/rescue to the female rescue scenario is signaled through performance, when the Kinsman decides to slip back into his female costume (851) and perform the lead roles of Helen and Andromeda. Helen and Andromeda fall into the category of plays that feature female heroines in danger in distant foreign lands. These plays, which end happily, are analogous to the story of Persephone, whose descent-ascent pattern emphasizes ritual survival from death.43 Moreover, the two female parodies are introduced by the parabasis (see above), which highlights womens civic role and is punctuated by cult-songs t for the occasion (9471000, 113659). This creates a closer connection between the female parodies and the festival of the Thesmophoria. Aristophanes cannot recreate authentic female ritual experience; and yet, the punctuation of the parodies by choral hymns communicates the solemn and religious aspects of the representation of the Thesmophoria through choral performance.44
41 On connections between female myths and rituals and Euripidean drama, see Gupin 1968, 12022 (Helen, IT); Foley 1992, 13360 (Helen and Alcestis); Zweig 1999, 158 80 (Helen); Tzanetou 19992000, 199216 (IT). Bierl (2001, 25176) discusses these two parodies in light of models of female initiation. 42 The similarities between the story-pattern of Helen and Andromeda with that of Persephone are evident: the captivity and rescue sequence is adapted to dramatic plots, which end in either marriage (Andromeda) or remarriage (Helen). 43 Such plays also looked back to the Odyssey and other tales of adventure, as Mastronarde points out (19992000, 3637). 44 Zeitlin 1996b, 403. For the distinct nature and function of choral performance within the play, see Bierl (2001, 10550). For a different perspective on non-Thesmophoric elements in the choral songs, see Habash 1997, 1940.

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The parodies reduce the plots of their originals to the essentials by reproducing the structure of imprisonment-liberation. The plot of Helen follows the alternative tradition of Stesichorus and Herodotus, according to which a ghost (eido\lon) of Helen went to Troy instead of the real Helen, who is transported to Egypt by Hermes. All references to the eido\lon are omitted in the original. The philosophical and tragic underpinnings in the original are not part of the comic adaptation. In the parody, the captivity/rescue sequence focuses on the recognition scene between Helen and Menelaus, probably the scene most familiar to the audience from its performance the year before. Similarly, the parody of Andromeda revolves around the pivotal point of its original, Perseus falling in love with Andromeda. Both parodies therefore draw upon the romantic encounter/rescue scenes of their originals. In his Helen, Aristophanes draws on the setting of Euripides play: Helens sojourn in Egypt and Menelaus arrival after the end of the Trojan war.45 The connections between Helen and the myth of Persephone are clearly marked in Euripides original play. For example, Egypt is imagined as the Underworld; Helen explicitly draws attention to similarities between herself and Demeters daughter (17576, 24446) and nally there is a long ode to the Great Mothers shift from mourning to joy (Zeitlin 1996b, 404). The parody itself is a performance of the recognition scene (Hel. 52896) with the Kinsman as Helen and Euripides as Menelaus (Rau 1967, 5365). The Kinsman emphasizes Helens plight as captive-suppliant attempting to shun the advances of Theoclymenus by taking refuge at Proteus tomb (87780, 88589) and directs the script by asking Euripides to take her away, choosing the moment of recognition for the purpose of escape:
xrniow lyn sw dmartow sxraw, lab me lab me psi, perbale d xraw. fre, s ksv. pag m pag pag pag me labn tax pnu. O timely come into your own wifes charms! O hold me, hold me, husband, in your arms! Come, let me kiss you! Take, oh take, oh take me away posthaste!
45 Foley (1992, 13360) and Zeitlin (1996b, 4034, 40616) argue that the interrelationship between the myth of Persephone and its dramatic representation in Helen, for example, offers a useful framework for exploring issues of female reputation and marital identity (Foley) or for exposing the afnities between imitation, illusion, and the feminine in Greek literature (Zeitlin).

(91216)

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Critylla, who is guarding the Kinsman and does not recognize the parody being performed, repeatedly interrupts the performance. She draws attention to the Kinsmans theatrical acting by accusing him of playing the woman yet again (86263). Critylla objects to the designation of the Thesmophorion as Egypt (87790) and of the altar as the tomb of Proteus, where Helen took refuge in the original play (88688). Men try to turn the Thesmophorion into the theatrical space of performance; Crityllas insistence sets in relief the reality of the womens festivalserious businessagainst what men are doing: playing (880). As a religious and theatrical space, the Thesmophorion links the performance of the parody of Helen both to the performance of the festival and to the underlying ritual pattern of Demeters mourning and rescue of her daughter. When Critylla refuses to participate as actor in the parody, the performance makes the connection between the parody and its ritual underpinnings. This is one of the most important moments in the play; for Crityllas interventions clarify for the audience the function of the ritual setting of the Thesmophoria. The womens festival retains its integrity, as a ritual space reserved for women, even though it is being used as a theatrical space for male performance (Bierl 1991, 17276). The tragic plot of Andromeda dramatizes the story of Andromedas exposure by her father Cepheus, king of Ethiopia, to a sea-monster as an expiatory victim for Poseidon, followed by the arrival of Perseus, his falling in love with her, and Andromedas rescue.46 The Kinsman/Andromeda is cast in the role of the captive maiden and Euripides/Perseus in the role of male rescuer. The economy of adaptation again follows the captivity and rescue sequence. The parody offers yet another version of the female rescue story. In addition to female captive (Andromeda) and male rescuer (Perseus), a third character, however, is added: the Scythian Archer plays the part of the blocking character, the sea-monster, and on the level of the ritual myth he evokes Hades. The Kinsman receives his cue from Euripides/Perseus to perform Andromeda using his chains to evoke his/her captivity:
nr oiken o prodsein, ll moi shmeon pedlvse Persew kdramn, ti de me ggnesy Andromdan. pntvw d moi t dsm prxei. dlon on <tot> sy ti jei me ssvn: o gr n parpteto.

(101014)

46

On Euripides Andromeda, see Klimek-Winter 1993, 55315.

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It seems the man wont give up on me: he just popped up as Perseus, meaning Im supposed to be Andromeda. Ive certainly got the requisite chains, and hes obviously on his way to rescue me; otherwise he wouldnt have zipped by.

The Kinsman draws attention to his role as actor by referring to the theatrical props (the chains) that he employs to play the part of the captive Andromeda. Andromedas plight, a maiden bound to a cliff at the edges of the earth, evokes obvious similarities to the Kinsman, who is shackled on a board against the wall of the ske\ne\ (10017), and to Persephone as a captive in the Underworld. Andromedas lyric monody and her lyric exchange with the chorus47 form part of the parody, when the Kinsman as Andromeda performs a lament that emphasizes her captivity and exclusion from the ritual choruses of her co-evals and from wedding celebrations (gamhl mn o jn paini, 103435):
rw, o xorosin od f lkvn neandvn khmn sthk xous, ll n puknow desmosin mpeplegmnh ktei bor Glaukt prkeimai.48 Behold, not now in dances nor with girls my own age do I stand wielding a votive funnel; nay rather enchained in tight bondage am I set out as fodder for the monster Glauketes!

(102933)

These lines evoke what has been aptly named the girls tragedy, which refers to a familiar story pattern of a girls violent death before her marriage (Burkert 1979). The ritual overtones inherent in such stories link Andromeda to Persephone, since the latter is the bride of Hades. The Kinsman rst plays the role of a married woman as Helen, but then takes the role of a maiden as Andromeda, a transition that subtly evokes
47 See Stehle in this volume on the parallelism between Agathons and the Kinsmans performance. 48 In the passage quoted above, as Sommerstein (1994 on line 1031) points out, the Kinsman uses khmn xous (holding a voting urn by the funnel) instead of kmon gousa (leading a group of singers), a pun that reminds us that womens civic role was expressed within the ritual sphere and mens in politics (Bierl 2001, 15354, who argues that through his lament, the Kinsman joins mimetically the chorus role as Nymphs).

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the citizen wives reversal of status from wives to virgins in the context of the festival. Womens ritual language becomes an integral part of the parody and enhances the connections between Andromeda and Persephone, especially as the Kinsmans lament becomes conated with that of Andromeda.49 I limit my remarks to the increasing comic tone of the parody of Andromeda since other aspects of this parody have been examined in great detail.50 The main goal of the parody appears to be the distortion of the scene of Perseus falling in love with Andromeda, which brings tragedy to an end and leads to comedy. The Scythian guard misinterprets Andromedas effect on Perseus as lust instead of love.51 The increasing presence of obscenity at the end of this parody underscores the transition from tragedy to comedy. The Archer rst draws attention to the Kinsmans phallus (1114) and then concentrates on his pro\ktos and on anal sex (pugzeiw, 111920, pgiso . . . jpisto prktison, 112324). He fails to recognize Euripides lofty address to Andromeda as a theatrical performance; for him Perseus eros for Andromeda suggests that Euripides wants to have anal sex with an old man! As a result, the Archers interventions have an additional effect: they tip the performance of the festival of the Thesmophoria toward comedy. The Archers confusion between the maleness of the Kinsman and the female role that he performs produces laughter by evoking humor routinely directed against pathics (cf. the Kinsmans aggressive humor against Agathon, 200201, 206). Pyge\-jokes, however, are also relevant to hetairai and their customers and evoke not only a sexual, but perhaps more specically a sympotic atmosphere.52 Viewed from this angle, it is perhaps the Scythian Archers interest in sex that suggests to Euripides the idea for the nal comic trick. This is no ordinary Hades: his concern is not for marriage,

49 There is also an interesting parallel between ritual and theatrical acting. The Kinsmans dressing and undressing himself with the saffron robe to act the female parts is reminiscent of a womans preparation for ritual service (104346). On the kroko\tos and its connection with Brauron and girls rites, see also Bierl 2001, 254. 50 Rau 1967, 6589; Zeitlin 1996b, 4045; Gibert 19992000, 7591. 51 On the Archer scene, see Hall 1989, 3854. But pyge\-displays and fairness of buttocks, however, were also highly prized among hetairai (Alex. 103.1012). 52 At a later date there is even evidence of competitive displays of pyge\ between two hetairai at a drinking party (Alciphr. 14. 46). See also Ath. 12.554c regarding Aphrodite Kallipygos. I owe this point and the references to pyge\-displays to Laura McClure. For earlier and contemporary references for pyge\, see also Olson 1998 on 86870. On the pederastic overtones of this scene, see Bierl 2001, 26466.

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but for immediate gratication. Enter Euripides as Artemisia, accompanied by Elaphium and Teredon. Comedy Within the ritual framework of the festival, the tragic parodies with their re-enactment of Persephones captivity correspond to Nesteia. The appearance of obscenity in the parody of Andromeda signals the end of Demeters mourning and prepares the transition to Kalligeneia. The presence of obscenity suggests the practice of ritual obscenity at the Thesmophoria and marks a parallel progression from tragedy to comedy as well as from Nesteia to Kalligeneia. Comedy thereby comes closer to the celebration of ritual fertility by imitating womens ritual obscenity, even though male rather than female characters use obscene language.53 The connection between ritual and comic obscenity suggests broadly the arrival of Kalligeneia and that aspects of comic obscenity may have originated within the ritual female context. In the nal scene, Euripides enters as an old hetaira and brings onstage a dancing girl, Elaphium, whom he has instructed to dance provocatively (117274), and a piper by the name of Teredon, whom he keeps prompting to perform (1175, 1186). Euripides offers live entertainment to the Scythian Archer as a means of distracting him so that he can liberate the Kinsman. In this way, Aristophanes forces Euripides to resort to a truly comic script; its ingredients are basic: the use of sex to outwit an outsider, an ethnic character against whom actors and audience unite by placing him in the position of the evil blocking character.54 The myth of Demeter and Persephone is now nally enacted though parodically by two males playing female characters: Euripides, disguised as Artemisia/ Demeter manages to hoodwink the Scythian Archer/Hades and liberate the Kinsman/Persephone from bondage. The nal shift from tragedy to

53 The study of the differences between male and female obscenity in comedy is a separate topic. On comic obscenity, see Henderson 1991b. McClure (1999, 22835) pointedly draws attention to the fact that women do not utter a single obscenity in the Thesmophoria, because doing so on stage might have amounted to sacrilege (23031). It is true that obscenity within the ritual context was practiced by women only, whereas here obscene language is used for the most part by male characters. The relationship between womens ritual dramas and the origins of comedy may be alluded to in the play, but this is a separate topic that requires extensive study. 54 See Elizabeth Scharffenbergers paper in this volume.

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comedy is conveyed in terms of gender; everyone on stage except the Scythian Archer is in female costume. The nal scene therefore concludes Persephones story. The switch from male to female rescuer suggests a more faithful and thereby successful adaptation of the Demeter-Persephone story. Euripides/Artemisia acts the part of Demeter, and the Kinsman, who is stripped of any other tragic ctional persona, re-enacts Persephones part and remains silent while the plan is put in motion. Careful examination, however, suggests that the means (Elaphiums dance on the Archer/Hades lap and the offstage sex) employed to justify the end (the release of the Kinsman/Persephone) are more Dionysian than Demetrian. The play ends with release from bondage and the temporary liberation of Persephone from her marriage to Hades. The ending is both typical and atypical of comedy.55 There are no weddings (e.g., Birds, Peace) banquets (e.g., Lysistrata) or processions (e.g., Frogs), which often crown the victorious conclusion of a male comic enterprise. The mini-symposium is the last dramatic device (me\chane\n, 1132) that Euripides devises, by merging tragedyhis own rescue plotsinto comedy. When Elaphium comes onstage, Euripides announces that she is on her way to entertain other customers and this rst dance is just a warmup (117888). The Scythian Archer admires the dancers breasts (1185) and buttocks (1187); she proceeds to dance on his lap, and then they have sex offstage and it is not for free (119399)! Persephones role is not split in two, as Bowie (1993) suggests. Elaphium is no Persephone, nor is she victimized by marriage to the Archer/Hades. She conspires to save another woman and soon ees the scene to fulll other engagements. In one respect, hetairai and female performers were better off than Athenian wives: because they were more independent. Their exclusion from Athenian society tells of a bondage of a different sort, but, in the world of the play, they cannot be trapped by men or Hades. The Dionysian celebration, therefore, blends in with the Demetrian avor of the scene and becomes assimilated within the mold of female rescue dramas. The comic nale is plotted around the Kinsmans rescue, and the comic cast appears to be drawn from a more typically female comedy, the hetaira-comedy,56 for the sake of emphasizing the female
55 See Stehle in this volume, who emphasizes that the ending is uncharacteristic of comedy. She specically underscores the absence of sex. The Myrrhine-Cinesias scene of Lysistrata features sex as a weapon against a blocking character (830979). For return to normative roles at the end of the play, see further Bowie 1993. Bierl 2001, 27073 emphasizes the return to marriage: the Kinsmans return to his wife underscores the theme of marriage, which concludes most of the plots of Old Comedy. 56 Henderson 2000a, 13550.

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character of its adaptation. The cast and plot of the scene offers the best enactment of the female rescue plot, and with that the play ends with comedys victory over tragedy. The theatrical experiment comes to an end. The Kinsmans female costume and his performance of female roles fail to feminize him: Euripides instructs the Kinsman to run away like a man (1204), a reminder that he should abandon his role as Persephone and his feminine theatrical persona and resume his real nature. Comedy, however, under the auspices of the Thesmophoria, is feminized. CAPTIVITY AND RESCUE: DIONYSUS AND DEMETER The movement from the Dionysian pattern of captivity and selfliberation (Telephus, Palamedes) to that of Demeter and Persephone (Helen, Andromeda) also represents a move from tragedy toward comedy (Artemisia and Elaphium). As the play progresses, the female rescue pattern is gradually revealed, and the space of the ritual performance of the Thesmophoria is transformed into the theater of Demeter. This transition suggests a substitution of Demeter for Dionysus, the god of the theater. Their similar traitsgods associated with agriculture and fertilitysupport their theatrical partnership. Zeitlin has argued that Women at the Thesmophoria sustains a dialogue between Demeter and Dionysos, each representing a mode that denes the feminine and each furnishing a mythic scenario that can be related to both genres, comedy and tragedy.57 Building on her thesis, I argue further that Demeter replaces Dionysus as patron of comedy, based on similarities of their attributes. Even though Dionysus and Demeter are not often joined in cult,58 both are closely related with fertility and agriculture: the former with the production of wine, the latter with grain agriculture. Moreoever, the practice of ritual obscenity, which is an integral ingredient of Aristophanic comedy, may be traced to both Dionysus and Demeters festivals (Thesmophoria, the Haloa, and the Stenia).59

Zeitlin 1996b, 400. Burkert (1985, 436 n. 62) cites only one example of Demeter Phylaka and Dionysus Kaprios. Demeter and Dionysus are seated next to each on the north side of the Parthenon frieze. See Harrison 1996, 206 and Neils 2001, 164, 188. 59 Iambes jesting (Hom. Hymn Dem. 200205) explains the ritual jesting at the festival of the Thesmophoria (Apollod. 1.5.1). On Baubo and ritual obscenity, see OHiggins 2001, 13942. McClure (1999, 20459) elaborates on distinctions between male and female obscenity with reference to the cults of Dionysus and Demeter.
58

57

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One might argue that Dionysus does not necessarily represent a male model for drama, given the gods connections with female cults as well as his own ambiguous gender identity.60 But Dionysus masculine side is asserted through his close association with the phallos, which symbolized the gods fertility and was a symbol of the extraordinary (Burkert 1985, 166)phalloi were paraded in the procession of the City Dionysia.61 Dionysus masculine side is especially prominent in comedy: the god was honored by the ko\mos, whose members in the performance, the comic actors and chorus, wear costumes with prominent phalluses attached to them.62 In dramatic terms, the similarities between Demeter and Dionysus are also shown through the performance of the captivity and liberation myths. The salient aspect of the Dionysian pattern is self-liberation and punishment, while the story of Persephone and Demeter, which is preserved in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, stresses cooperation between women and reconciliation between the sexes (Foley 1994).The latter is found in several Euripidean tragedies in which men (Menelaus/Perseus) rescue women held captive in far-off lands (Helen/Egypt, Andromeda/ Libya) by triumphing against a blocking character, a barbarian king (Theoclymenus in Helen) or even an ogre (sea-monster in Andromeda). These plays often end in marriage. In comedy, the same pattern surfaces in Aristophanes Peace, in which Peace is held captive in a cave by Cerberus/Cleon (31315) and is set free by Hermes (Olson 1998, xxxv xxxviii).63 As Helene Foley has shown for Helen and Alcestis, Euripides

60 The bibliography on Dionysus and his cults is very extensive. On Dionysus ambiguity, see for example, Burkert 1985, 22225. Most relevant to this discussion are Henrichs 1982, 1984; Segal 1982; Jameson 1993, 4464 and Bierl 1991, 125. Jameson, in particular, concentrates precisely on the contradiction between the different facets of Dionysus (effeminate conduct, ability to dissolve social and sexual controls imposed on men and women, his own detachment from sexual pursuits). He in turn cautions against attempting to construct a consistent whole and argues that the whole set of these attributes is not manifest in every context. 61 As attested in one fragmentary inscription (IG I 2 46.). See Pickard-Cambridge, Gould, and Lewis 1988, 6162 with n. 4. 62 Ibid., 22023. 63 Women feature less often in the role of rescuer. Iphigeneia in IT, which, like Alcestis, belongs to the pattern of female captive/male rescuer, plays an integral role in rescuing her brother from sacrice, but both Orestes and Pylades are also responsible for her escape from the land of the Taurians. Procne and Philomelas story is one of the few examples in which women act as rescuers. But because Procnes help comes too late after her sisters rape and mutilation by Tereus, this story tells more a tale of vengeance than one of rescue.

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female rescue dramas are patterned upon Persephones story (1992, 133 60). And the contemporary audience might well have identied Persephones captivity and rescue in this type of rescue drama. In Women at the Thesmophoria the ritual setting evokes the female rescue pattern even more readily and hence the connections between the ritual pattern and the rescue dramas parodied. In fact, faithful adaptation of the ritual pattern seems to be the key to a successful performance at Aristophanes Thesmophoria, namely, liberating the Kinsman. As they are depicted in this play, Euripides adaptations of the female rescue story in Helen and Andromeda are presented as inappropriate for the Thesmophoria. Both in the original and in the parodies, the playwright features a male (Menelaus or Perseus) rather than a female rescuer. Thus, while a male for a female rescuer works in the original plays and Helen and Andromeda are saved, in the parodies the male rescuer, namely, Euripides as Menelaus/Perseus, fails to bring about the liberation of the Kinsman acting as Helen/Andromeda. Here, only when both the rescuer and the captive are in female costume does the rescue succeed. Consequently, comedy rather than tragedy interprets the female rescue myth of the Thesmophoria more cogently by offering a faithful adaptation of the Persephone-Demeter scenario. TRAGEDY VERSUS COMEDY: A DRAMATIC CONTEST AT THE THESMOPHORIA? The idea that Women at the Thesmophoria concerns a competition between Euripides and Aristophanes and between tragedy and comedy is not new.64 Jeffrey Henderson (1996) has argued recently that Aristophanes puts Euripides on trial because his psychologically realistic portraits of women have violated the rule that tragedy must distance its ctions from contemporary reality. Imitation of contemporary reality is the domain of comedy, and Aristophanes ultimately sets out to defeat Euripides transgression into the comic genre. Thomas Hubbard and John Gibert have promoted aspects of the same thesis, namely, that Aristophanes is vying with Euripides over the shared territory of composing plays about women. Aristophanes presents women as the central characters for the rst time in Lysistrata and Women

64 Bierl 1991, especially 176; Hubbard 1991, 18299; Bowie 1993, 21725; Taaffe 1993, 9899; Henderson 1996, 9697; Zeitlin 1996b, 38799; Gibert 19992000, 7591.

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at the Thesmophoria, both of which were produced in 411.65 Because Euripides female rescue dramas, Helen and Andromeda, were produced in 412, both critics suggest that they inuenced Aristophanes treatment of his new subject matter, especially in terms of characterization.66 I suggest further that the dramatic imitation of Persephones story in the parodies and in the comic nale alike provides an effective theatrical solution for communicating concretely to the audience the rivalry between the two genres over the shared territory of dramas about women.67 The similarities between tragedy and comedy in their treatment of women cannot easily be evidenced, because Aristophanes comedies about women differ markedly from Euripides rescue dramas. In comedy, women are represented as being on top and making decisions on behalf of the city instead of men because the depiction of them often aims at critiquing aspects of the contemporary social and political system (Lysistrata, Women at the Assembly). On the other hand, the typical rescue plot of Euripides revolves around the return of a female heroine, whose wanderings or captivity in an exotic locale ends with the arrival of a male rescuer (Iphigeneia in Tauris, Helen). In Women at the Thesmophoria Euripides depiction as a misogy-

65 On the dating, see Sommerstein (1994, 13). Lysistrata was probably performed at the Lenaea (see Henderson 1987, xvxxv) and Women at the Thesmophoria at the City Dionysia. It was uncommon for two comedies by the same author to be produced at the same festival. 66 Hubbard (1991, 18299) concentrates on an intertextual reading of Lysistrata and Women at the Thesmophoria. In his analysis of Women at the Thesmophoria, he aptly notes that the new, softer, more romantic portrayals in Helen and Andromeda of 412 probably inuenced Aristophanes in turning his attention to womens themes in 411; however, Aristophanes felt that he could be more successful than Euripides in using female dramatic gures to inuence dominant social, political and literary values (186). Gibert (19992000, 7591) interprets the parody of Andromeda in light of its similarities with Lysistrata and argues that Aristophanes play is indebted to Euripides, especially for his treatment of eros as well as for the positive delineation of female characters. Both scholars acknowledge their debt to Hendersons discussion of Aristophanes as innovator in his women plays. See further, Henderson 1987, 1996. Whether Aristophanes actually aimed at critiquing Euripides characterization of women or choice of subject matter and orientation in his female dramas, or whether this rivalry concerns a perceived competition over the use of language, illusion and other aspects of tragic and comic representation, remains a matter of lively scholarly debate. 67 Agathons comments on issues of mimesis regarding gynaikeia dramata (151) address the representation of female characters by male actors. However, the emphasis on female dramas may be programmatic in light of Euripides and Aristophanes recent productions.

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nist68 becomes assimilated into the plays implicit strategy that comedy is closer to womens experience than tragedy. The trial of Euripides offers a pretext for evaluating his dramatic skill in portraying women, judged against the skill of comedy. The women put Euripides on trial because his portraits of bad heroines such as Phaedra and Melanippe impugn womens reputation (54448) and because Euripides slander disrupts the normal rhythms of life in the oikos and succeeds in awakening husbands suspicions regarding their own wives misbehavior (395432). By contrast, comedy represents women as bonding with each other and suggests that cooperation and reconciliation offers the prevailing paradigm of womens conduct in the oikos and polis. Comedy wins over tragedy because its script is based on a faithful adaptation of the powerful story of Demeters bond with her daughter Persephone. Just as Demeters ability to negotiate a deal in a mans world with Zeus that benets herself and her daughter underscores her power, so does the depiction of her story in comedy, because here, too, women are granted the opportunity to negotiate with men. Within this framework, I suggest that the rivalry between Aristophanes and Euripides is staged as a dramatic contest between the two major dramatic genres.69 The model for the contest is the program of the City Dionysia with which spectators were familiar during the Peloponnesian war: tragedy in the morning, comedy in the afternoon (if one takes f mw in Ar. Birds 789 to refer to comic performers).70 Tragic and comic contests were jointly held during the war, yet separately judged. Because tragedy and comedy were produced in the same day, however, Aristophanes suggested to the audience that they competed against each other. The grouping together of parodies from four Euripidean plays

First attested in Ar. Lys. 283, 36869 (Henderson 2000b, 307 n. 27). Aristophanes rivalry towards Euripides is attested by Cratinus (schol. Pl. Ap. 19c, PCG III 2, test. 3). See further, Rau 1967; Rau 1975, 33956. For the rich and ongoing debate on genre as well as relevant bibliography, see most recently, Depew and Obbink 2000. 70 First suggested by A. Krte, RE Komdie, 1229, based on the arguments to Ar. Clouds, Peace, Birds (City Dionysia) and Acharnians, Knights, Wasps, Frogs (Lenaia); PickardCambridge 1988, 66, 83 with nn. 1 and 2 and followed by Mastromarco (1975, 46973), who argues that the restriction in the number of comedies performed was operative only in 426 421 and 415402 B.C.); Slater 1988, 44 with n. 7. Against this view are Luppe 1972, 5375; Luppe 1982, 14759; 2000, 1920; and Dunbar 1995, 78689. There is no extant hypothesis for Women at the Thesmophoria. See also Sommerstein 1996 on Ar. Frogs. 376, who points out that the reference after lunch indicates that: Aristophanes knew that his play would be performed in the afternoon.
69

68

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may suggest a tragic tetralogy (Telephus, Palamedes, Helen, Andromeda). The Kinsman stages Euripidean rescue scenes to escape from captivity. As soon as his performance of Palamedes fails, the Kinsman is inspired by Euripides recent experiments with female rescue dramasboth Helen and Andromeda had been performed in the previous year, following the failure of Palamedes and the Trojan trilogy in 415.71 The parodies of tragedy followed by comedy suggest a contest between two genres (even though tragedy is represented via parody) and the two playwrights (even if Euripides scripts and performs the nal comedy).72 Dramatic virtuosity is judged according to free dramatic adaptations and variations on a set theme, t for the occasion of the Thesmophoria: captivity and rescue. The ritual plot of Persephones story in this play becomes the standard for evaluating dramatic success in female dramas. Women at the Thesmophoria constitutes a unique example because the performances of the parodies and of the comic nale are embedded within the framework of the festival of the Thesmophoria. The re-enactment, therefore, of the story of Demeter and Persephone in tragedy and comedy alike functions broadly as the equivalent of the ritual drama. By presenting the rivalry between comedy and tragedy as a dramatic competition, Aristophanes engineers the inevitable victory of comedy in this internal competition, which is contrived in every respect by the poet himself! Because the performance of tragedy and comedy within the festival re-enacts the story of Demeter and Persephone, the parodies and the comic nale serve symbolically as the religious rituals that women performed in the festival. Nonetheless, tragedy and comedy retain their character as competitive rituals within the setting of the festival. As a result, the Kinsmans performances of parodies of Euripides plays within the festival mobilize a different chain of symbolic associations in the mind of the audience.73 The performance of the parodies within the festival reproduces a setting equivalent to the one spectators associated with the annual dramatic competitions at the festivals of Dionysus.

71 Bowie (1993, 22425) briey suggests that the four parodies constitute a tetralogy. He does not consider further that this set-up suggests an actual contest between the two genres. Many have argued that comedy wins: Bowie 1993; Taafe 1993; Zeitlin 1996b; Bierl 2001, 159. 72 Metatheatrical interpretations of this play include Bonanno 1990, 24176 and Slater 2002, 15080, who weaves metatheater into a political interpretation of the play with special reference to the events of 411 B.C. 73 On the Aristophanic comic audience, see Slater 1999, 35168.

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Aristophanes reproduces the audiences experience by staging its double: that is, the parodies constitute plays within a play, but they are also framed by the festival of the Thesmophoria itself. As a result, the theatrical spectacle calls attention to the experience of the audience who were watching the performance of the comedy at the theater of Dionysus at the City Dionysia. The metatheatrical imitation of the Dionysian festival and the dramatic competition engages the audiences knowledge and consciousness of the theatricality of the spectacle in two specic ways. First, it draws attention to the substitution of City Dionysia for the Thesmophoria and, second, to the rivalry between Aristophanes and Euripides as a theatrical contest that gradually becomes focused on dramas about women. Figure 1 claries the theatrical experience of the audience. CONCLUSION This attempt to relate the action and meaning of Aristophanes play to what can be recovered about the Athenian Thesmophoria joins the debate surrounding the play on a number of signicant issues: the representation of women in drama, the competition between tragedy and comedy, and the intricate relationship between ritual and theatrical representation within the plays larger commentary on the nature of mimesis.74 Studying the theatrical connections between ritual and drama offers insights into a variety of levels of Women at the Thesmophoria. The plays metatheatrical attention to the convention of male actors impersonation of female roles sets in relief, certainly for modern audiences, the incongruity between the male actors female costume and mens attempt to reproduce womens experience in ancient drama. For women in Athenian drama are really men in disguise: men author and play womens parts. More importantly, men in female costumes can only imitate what they dont have by natureto echo Agathon.75 Aristophanes, like the Kinsman, intrudes on the festival and breaks the code of secrecy and silence. Ignorant of womens secrets, he offers instead the male view of womens ritual secrets and speech.

74 On Agathons theory of mimesis, see Muecke 1982, 4155; Stohn 1993, 196205. On mimesis in general, see Srbom 1996. 75 On mens failure to perform womens ritual roles, see Stehles incisive discussion in this volume.

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Audiences reality City Dionysia

Theater of Dionysus festival program in 411?: tragic tetralogy (morning) + one comedy (afternoon) Aristophanes Women at the Thesmophoria

Thesmophoria festival
Theater of Demeter

Theatrical program : tetralogy + one comedy

parodies of scenes from Euripides, Telephus, Palamedes, Helen, Andromeda and a scene from a comedy written and directed by Aristophanes/Euripides featuring a rescue scene in a hetaira comedy.

Theatrical/onstage reality
Figure 1. The Theatrical Context of the Thesmophoria

And yet, the parallelisms between the ritual myth, the events of the festival, and the complex dramatic structure of the play are striking. The womens dissatisfaction with Euripides causes infertility; when parodies of Euripides plays are produced on the comic stage during Nesteia, they fail. Success and dramatic fertility as the equivalent of Kalligeneia return when Euripides and the women are reconciled. Euripides will continue to write plays. Their reconciliation parallels the return of fertility on earth after Demeters reconciliation with Zeus. Once Euripides capitulates, the nal scene is successful but this nal success is credited to comedy. Aristophanes stages Demeter and Persephones story, a model of a powerful relationship between a strong and independent mother and her daughter within the patriarchal paradigm of Athenian society. The adaptation of the ritual myth in comedy yields a positive representation of womens role in Athenian society that counterbalances the appropriation of their functions in drama. For the

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play afrms not only womens roles within the oikos and the polis but elevates women to the status of purveyors of dramatic fertility. That comedy afrms womens status in accordance with ofcial ideology is not a novel idea. But in this play, the entire action revolves around the imitation of a ritual myth that celebrated womens unique contributions to the community. Unlike the women in Lysistrata and Women at the Assembly, who abandon their status as political agents and return to their homes at the end of the play, in Women at the Thesmophoria it is men who must abandon their female roles and return to normality: the Kinsman ees from the theater to his oikos. This serves as a reminder that here, too, the inversion of male for female roles is temporary and does not threaten the status quo, but rather reinforces it. Initially Aristophanes plan to join ranks with the women against Euripides, their mutual antagonist, appears solely opportunistic. But the performance itself, under the pretext of exposing womens ritual secrets and defeating Euripides, ironically discloses comedys true afnity with womens rituals; for both afrm, celebrate, and promote the continuity of human life.76
CASE W ESTERN R ESERVE UNIVERSITY e-mail: axt31@po.cwru.edu

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