Variations of Dramatic Patterns and «Topographical Anachronisms» in the False Messenger Speech in Soph. El. 680-763 (with a Comparison with Eur. Andr. 1085-1165)

Abstract

Aristotle (Po. 1460a 11-32) gives as an example of something illogical (ἄλογον) a scene from Sophocles’ Electra (Soph. El. 680-763). Here, Orestes’ Pedagogue comes to Clytemnestra disguised as a Messenger to announce the false news that Orestes has died during a chariot race held in the plain of Crisa/Cirra, during the Pythian Games. The illogical aspect (ἄλογον) lies in the fact that the Pythian Games could not have existed in Orestes’ time, since they were established in 582 BC, about ten years after the end of the First Sacred War (594/3 BC). In this way, Sophocles creates a «topographical anachronism» – that is, he projects places of his own present back into the mythical past. Such an anachronism is prepared earlier in the parodos (Soph. El. 180-2), where the plain of Crisa/Cirra is described as “grazed by cattle” (βούνομον) – that is, forbidden for cultivation, in accordance with what was decided at the end of the First Sacred War. From a theatrical point of view, the Pedagogue’s report is a variation of an “arrival and death messenger speech,” a type of dramatic pattern especially favored by Euripides, in which a character arrives at a place, is violently killed due to a god’s hostility, and the body is then recovered. However, while the usual form of this scene includes showing the corpse on stage, this cannot happen in Sophocles’ Electra, because Orestes is actually alive. The paper is completed with a comparison with Eur. Andr. 1085-1165 (§ 4), another example of an “arrival and death messenger speech” that also shows similar «topographical anachronisms». Furthermore, in the first section of the paper (§ 1), there is a discussion of a difficult passage from Aristotle’s Poetics (1455a 23-9), for which a new reading is proposed (Ἀμφιαράος ἐξ ἱεροῦ ἂν ᾔει, instead of the transmitted ἀνῄει, which does not make sense).