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Ajax in the Trugrede

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

P. T. Stevens
P. T. Stevens
Affiliation:
Oxford
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Extract

A leading character in a play, at any rate in a major speech, is normally doing several things: he is saying what the development of the plot requires, and sometimes also expressing the dramatist's own tragic vision; he is also expressing his own thoughts and emotions, or saying what from his point of view the rhetoric of the situation requires. There are thus at least two questions to ask about the Trugrede: What is its function in the economy of the plot? Why does Sophocles give this speech to Ajax, and what light does it throw on his character as presented by Sophocles? The first question is easy enough to answer. There can be no doubt that this is a deception speech in the sense that Tecmessa and the Chorus are misled about what is going to happen, and at any rate part of Sophocles' purpose was evidently to achieve an effect of relaxation of tension or ‘retardation’. At first all is gloom and despair; then when the suicide of Ajax seems to be imminent, this speech leads Tecmessa and the sailors to think that he means to live on after all, and they express their relief in a joyful hyporchema. Then follows a messenger speech with warnings that dispel their joy but still offer a gleam of hope, until that hope is extinguished when they find the dead body of Ajax. Sophocles has thus contrived an arresting dramatic sequence to fill the interval between the opening scene and the discovery of Ajax' death. The main effect could have been produced by direct, unambiguous falsehood in the speech we are considering, but (still looking at it from the dramaturgical point of view) Sophocles presumably wished the spectators to be aware that the joy and relief were illusory, so that they could at once appreciate the tragic irony of the sailors' rejoicing. There was probably no way of informing the audience directly that the speech was meant to be deceptive, and Sophocles therefore included in it numerous ambiguous expressions which the Chorus and Tecmessa, eager to believe good news, interpret as indicating a change of purpose, whereas for the spectators, who are more detached and probably aware of the traditional version of the story according to which Ajax killed himself, they have ominous overtones and arouse suspicion, in the last lines verging on certainty, that in this play too he still means to take his own life.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , December 1986 , pp. 327 - 336
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1986

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References

1 Waldock, A. J. A., Sophocles the Dramatist (Cambridge, 1951), 79Google Scholar, surprisingly insists that the spectators have no advantage over the friends of Ajax, and is led to the conclusion that in hoodwinking Tecmessa and the sailors Sophocles could not avoid hoodwinking the audience as well, and was thus faced with a veritable technical impasse.

2 Howald, E., Die griechische Tragödie (Munich, 1930), 98Google Scholar. See also von Wilamowitz, T., Die dramatische Technik des Sophokles (Berlin, 1917), 63ff.Google Scholar

3 Reinhardt, Karl, Sophokles (Frankfurt, 1933)Google Scholar. See Johansen, H. Friis, ‘Sophocles 1939–1959’, Lustrum (1963), 177–8Google Scholar: ‘A healthy tendency may be discerned for preferring an interpretation which is not far from that of Reinhardt.’

4 Knox, B. M. W., ‘The Ajax of Sophocles’, HSCP 65 (1961)Google Scholar.

5 Sicherl, M., ‘The tragic issue in Sophocles' Ajax’, YCS 25 (1977)Google Scholar.

6 Op. cit. 34.

7 Op. cit. 91.

8 Op. cit. 12.

9 So Jebb, Introd. xxxv: ‘It would be a mistake to suppose that ancient Greeks would have seen anything unworthy or unheroic in the use of such deception.’

10 Perrotta, G., Sofocle (Florence, 1934), 157Google Scholar.

11 Another question: why does Ajax not kill himself in his tent? The Trugrede of course purports to answer this question, but if it is deceptive, what is his real reason? If this question is taken seriously it would provide an argument for the view that Tecmessa goes into the tent with Ajax. If, as I believe, this is unlikely, there is no obvious reason; but to assume that there must be one, other than the fact that this is how the dramatist chose to shape his plot, seems to border on the documentary fallacy.

12 Op. cit. 14.

13 Op. cit. 15.

14 Kitto, H. D. F., Form and Meaning in Drama (London, 1956), 188Google Scholar.

15 In addition to the opening lines see 664, 668, 679–82, and cf. Wolf, E., Sentenz und Reflexion bei Sophokles (Leipzig, 1910), 89–90Google Scholar.

16 E.g. Hdt. 5.9 γ⋯νοɩτο δ'ἂν π⋯ν ⋯ν τῷ μακρῷ χρóνῳ; Archil. 122 (West); S., Ph. 305Google Scholar; E. Fr. 761. In S., OC 609ffGoogle Scholar. a similar reference to changes brought about by long lapse of time is more appropriate, since spectators will think of the centuries between the time of Oedipus and the fifth century, whereas in our play very little time has elapsed since Ajax' harsh words in 579–95.

17 Dale, A. M., Collected Papers (Cambridge, 1969), 223Google Scholar observes that ‘When Ajax says that pity has unmanned him and made him change his mind, the falseness of this pretence should be so strikingly apparent as to warn us against believing the rest of the speech'.

18 This is the sense according to K.-G. 2, 484 21 Anm. 3 ‘aus Mitleid scheue ich mich sie zu lassen’, as in Hom. Od. 20.202–3. LSJ translates ‘I am sorry to leave you’, and Jebb thinks either meaning possible. There is probably deliberate ambiguity.

19 E.g. κ⋯τω (660) in Sophocles always refers to the underworld, as for instance at the end of the death speech, and λουτρ⋯ is often used of ceremonial washing of a corpse before burial, as in Ajax 1405, Ant. 1201, or washing one marked for death, as in OC 1602.

20 Or an orator; but to say, with Simpson, M., Arethusa 2 (1969), 88Google Scholar, that Ajax ‘transforms himself from a doer of deeds into a speaker of words’ is to discount the conventions of poetic drama. Sophocles is not seeking to correct Pindar's description of Ajax as ἄγλωσσος μ⋯ν, ἦτορ δ' ἄλκɩμος (N. 8.24).

21 What would happen if Ajax did not commit suicide is never debated or formally considered. In several passages the Chorus (227–30, 253–4) and Ajax himself (408) seem to expect the death penalty, but in 460ff. Ajax assumes that if he chooses he can sail away homewards, and the Trugrede is based on the assumption that to live on is an option still open.

22 Winnington-Ingram, R. P., Sophocles, An Interpretation (Cambridge, 1980), 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar puts it rather more strongly: ‘if there is anything in the speech which betrays its “insincerity”, it is this choice of words.’

23 Jebb, on S. Ant. 666, refers to Leutsch, , Paroem. App. 1.100Google Scholarκρεɩσσóνων γ⋯ρ κα⋯ δ⋯καɩα κἄδɩκ' ἔστ' ⋯κο⋯εɩν.

24 E.g. Pohlenz, M., Die griechische Tragödie (Leipzig, 1930), 177 ‘So ist das zweifellos bitterster Sarkasmus’Google Scholar; Perrotta, op. cit. 153 speaks of ‘fierissima amarezza’.

25 Taplin, Oliver, Greek Tragedy in Action (London, 1975), 131Google Scholar.

26 Gellie, G. H., Sophocles, A Reading (Melbourne, 1972), 22Google Scholar.

27 Op. cit. 96–7.

28 See Delcourt, M., ‘Le Suicide par vengeance dans la Grèce ancienne’, Revue de l'Histoire des Religions 119 (1939), 154–71Google Scholar, esp. 158–61.

29 Op. cit. 94.

30 Menelaus and Agamemnon do not of course agree with Ajax and Teucer on this, and Sophocles does not take sides. That Ajax bitterly resented the award is already implied in Homer's account of the encounter between Odysseus and the shade of Ajax, in Od. 11.543–64Google Scholar, but it may have been Pindar, (N. 8.24 ff.)Google Scholar who first explicitly represented Ajax as the victim of injustice, which perhaps became traditional; cf. Pl. Ap. 41b, where Palamedes and Ajax are linked together by Socrates as heroes who perished Std δɩ⋯ κρ⋯σɩν ἄδɩκον.

31 Cf. Heracleitus, Fr. 94 D.—K. “Ηλɩος γ⋯ρ οὐχ ὑπερβ⋯σεταɩ μ⋯τρα εἰ δ⋯ μή, 'Ερɩν⋯ες μɩν Δ⋯κης ⋯π⋯κουροɩ ⋯ξευρ⋯σουσɩν and P1. R. 500c.

32 M. Simpson, op. cit. 98–9.

33 Diller, Hans, ‘Gottliches u. menschliches Wissen bei Sophokles’, Kleine Schriften (Munich, 1971), 258Google Scholar.

34 Knox makes the connexion seem closer by translating καρτερώτατα in 669 as ‘headstrong’; this suits Ajax, but why should night or day be so described?

35 This variant of a maxim attributed to Bias of Priene was probably known to many of Sophocles' audience. See Arist. Rhet. 1389b and 1395a, where it is mentioned among τεθρυλημ⋯ναɩ γν⋯μαɩ.

36 Cf. S., OT 614–15Google Scholar, where only the first line is strictly relevant to Creon's argument and the second supplies the converse.

37 The change from the impersonal ⋯χθαρτ⋯ος to the personal ὠɸελεῖν βουλ⋯σομαɩ may be significant in this respect.

38 Méautis, G., Sophocle(Paris, 1957), 39Google Scholar writes: ‘Tout change autour de moi, rien n'est stable, durable, solide’. This ‘Transcription en clair’ goes rather beyond what Ajax says, and when Méautis adds ‘Continuer à vivre dans ce monde? Je ne le puis, ni ne le veux’, he attributes to Ajax a line of thought which he has not expressed and can hardly be assumed to have adopted.

39 On their common characteristics see Knox, B. M. W., The Heroic Temper (Berkeley, 1964)Google Scholar, chaps, one and two.

40 This point is brought out by Winnington-Ingram, op. cit. 18–19.

41 As Jebb, Introd. xxxvi, and others have supposed.

42 Dover, K. J., Greek Popular Morality (Oxford, 1974), 168Google Scholar, points out that in Dem. 60.31 the speaker, when citing Ajax as an example of heroism, chooses to refer to his suicide, when he could have chosen instead to speak of occasions when he distinguished himself in the fighting at Troy.

43 Winnington-Ingram, op. cit. 31.

44 Cf. Diller, Hans, ‘Menschendarstellung und Handlungsführung’ in Sophokles, Wege der Forschung (Darmstadt, 1967), 195Google Scholar: ‘der Trugrede, in der e contrario klar wird, wie Aias keinesfalls handeln kann.’ For a similar line of thought see Weinstock, H., Sophokles (Berlin, 1937), 52–5Google Scholar, and Winnington-Ingram, op. cit. 47 n. 109.

45 See Taplin, O., Greek Tragedy in Action (London, 1978), 127–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Yielding to forethought: Sophocles' Ajax’ in Arktowos (Berlin-New York, 1979), 122–9Google Scholar.

46 This interpretation has the advantage of making the opening reference to ‘long and countless years’ more appropriate.

47 Since he maintains that Ajax speaks throughout without any deceit or sarcasm, he is obliged to argue that σ⋯βεɩν (667) can be taken at its face value.

48 Prima facie the death speech contradicts the Trugrede, but, as we have seen, the former actually confirms what the audience already suspected as they listened to the Trugrede.