Classical Studies XI

  • Noriko Yasumura, Demeter, Mater Dolorosa.
  • Hideyo Nemoto, Some Remarks on the Change of the Picture of the Amazons.
  • Tsugunobu Uchida, Odysseus and His Wife.
  • Kazuhiko Tange, Kaine Helene --on Euripides'Helen--.
  • Hakumei Tanaka, Fact and Instruction: On Mycalessus' event, Thucydides 7.29-30.
  • Taro Yamashita, Virgil's Description of History: The Interpretation of Aeneid 6.
  • Tsutomu Iwasaki, The Unity of Tibullus 1.7.
  • Hiroyuki Takahashi, On the Second Choral Ode of Seneca's Troades.
  • Kozue Kobayashi, Disintegration of an Impossible Marriage --What Seneca Contributed to the History of "Medea" Plays--.
  • Kenji Kimura, The Structure of the Octavia --From the Viewpoint of Audience--.
  • Tokuya Miyagi, Tradition and Innovation of Epithalamium-Statius and Claudian.




    Demeter, Mater Dolorosa

    Noriko Yasumura

    In my previous paper it was proposed that the goddess named Potnia had been worshipped inthe Mycenaean Period and that information from the Linear B Tablets strongly indicates that she had been a kind of Mother Goddess. After the Dark Age, then, what sort of goddess can we find as her successor in classical Greece? All of the Olympian goddesses seem moreor less to have inherited characteristics of the Mother Goddess, even Athena and Artemis. However, it is Demeter who, of all prominent goddesses, is the most likely to be theMother Goddess. It is my purpose in this paper, therefore, to look at Demeter concentrating on her aspect as the Mother Goddess through a study of the Odyssey, the Hymn to Demeter, the Theogony and the Works and Days of Hesiod.
    In Book V of the Odyssey the marriage of Demeter and Iasion is related by Calypso. Although this story is introduced as only one example of the love affair between a goddess and a mortal man, it interests us very much because it shows traces of the old agricultural cult. One of such echoes is the phrase, "eni tripoloi", in the thrice-ploughed field. The other is Iasion himself. He seems to be a very strange figure because his character or individuality has never been established even though he is mentioned by some Greek and Latin writers such as Diodorus (5,48), Theocritus (3, 50), and Ovid (9,422). Who is Iasion, and why is he treated as such an insignificant figure? In my opinion, Iasion had been the young son or husband of the Great Mother Goddess. Whenever the marriage of Demeter and Iasion is mentioned, the word tripolos is also mentioned (e.g.the Theogony 971), and Iasion is the husband of Demeter when she is strongly recognized as the Mother Goddess.
    In order to examine this idea the study of the Anatolian and Egyptian religion is very helpful, in both of which the Mother Goddess being always accompanied by her young husband or a son who dies and rearises annually as a spirit of plants: for example, Dumuzi, Tammuz, Baal, Hadad and Horus. It seems, therefore, it was Demeter and Iasion who realized in Greece the idea of the Mother Goddess and her young husband. But Iasion is a surprisingly inconspicuous figure, compared with the Anatolian and Egyptian young god, this intimating that this kind of Oriental religion was unacceptable to the Greeks. One of the reasons of their rejection is the concept of a god who has to 'die', and the other is that of a male-god who is under the control of a great goddess. In all Indo-European religions, the supreme divinity should be the male-god of Heaven, and the Greeks could not accept the Great Mother as the highest divinity. Therefore it was quite natural that Iasion was defeated by the thunderbolt of Zeus. Actually it was the young god of death and resurrection, not the mortal lover of Demeter, who was thus overthrown.
    In the Hymn to Demeter we can find the same reminder of old myth as Iasion, that is, Demophon, a son of Keleos, who was brought up by Demeter. In Demophon we can see the reflection of the young god of the Mother Goddess because at first Demeter must have been the mother of Demophon, instead of his nurse. According to the similar myth of Thetis and Achilleus (the Argonautica, 4,869-879), Thetis condemned her baby, Achilleus, to the flames in order to make him immortal, because she was the mother of the baby, and so was Demeter. Secondly the actions of Demeter itself shows the power of the Mother Goddess, who can exert incomparable influence upon the region of death and life. Thus, according to the story, Demeter tried to give new life to her son, but failed, revealing the fact that Demeter was deprived of her power, and her son Demophon could never be revived but was completely destroyed, as was Iasion.
    In the Theogony it is mentioned that Zeus married Demeter as his forth wife (912-3), meaning that Demeter was incorporated in to the order of Zeus. Furthermore, in the Works and Days Hesiod says that a farmer should pray to 'Zeus Chthonios' and Demeter before he  sets  about his autumn work, implying that Zeus takes over the role of the young god as an agricultural spirit. Besides Zeus became even the lord of death and new life, because in Creta he was looked upon as "dead  Zeus" and "Zeus resurrected", Callimachus informing us of a tomb there (the  Hymn to Zeus, 8-9). In this way Zeus defeated the Anatolian young god, took over his main functions, and deprived Demeter of her husband, son, and all her power and vitality as the Great Mother. Now she becomes just  a wife of Zeus, suppressed under the power of his world  order. In other words, she could only survive as a goddess without any great and supreme power of the Mother Goddess, and in the depth of her consequent sadness she may well be called the prototype of Mater Dolorosa.


    Some Remarks on the Change of the Picture of the Amazons

    Hideyo Nemoto

    @@ Among the various motifs in the Amazon legend the following ones belong to the older stratum: 1)their invasion into Lycia and repulsion by Bellerophon, 2)their invasion into Phrygia and repulsion by Priam, 3)Heracles' plunder of the queen's  girdle, 4)Theseus' capture of the queen and her girdle, and 5)their reinforcement to the Trojans. In 1) and 2), the oldest references to Amazons, "antianeirai", a keyword to the understanding of their nature and customs, is to be interpreted not as "man-hating", but as "equal to men"; to conquer an Amazon will contribute to the glory of the heroes' deed as their "aristeia". Also in the word used for the queen's girdle, "zoster"(not  "zone") the "aristeia"-character of the motifs is shown. In the older stratum of the legend their hatred against men can not be traced.
    In the Amazon episode of Hdt.4.110f.is emphasized not their hostility to men,but their exotic way of life, which is demonstrated in the emphatic use of the personal pronoun "hemeis"(twice in 114.3). They  are not antagonistic to men in any way.
    In the Hellenistic sources (e.g. Diod., Iustin., Strab.) Amazons are clearly described as hostile to men, as reigning over men, keeping them in servitude, to bring up the children and do other domestic labours. Their ignorance of "maza (barley-cake)" (Diod.2.44ff.) shows that they live in a remote Utopian place beyond the influence of civilisation. In the episode of the Amazon queen's interview  with Alexander(Iustin. 2.4.1ff.) is shown not only Hellenistic romanticism, but also the Hellenistic appraisal of the Amazon's militant mentality in regard to the desire to bear the hero's offspring. They are also portrayed as so cruel as to kill their own husbands as well as male babies, in order to retain their gynaecocratic military society.
    This negative picture of them goes back partly to Classical writers, as shown in "straton stygen'" in Aischyl. Prom.723f. Hdt.9.27 as well as the funeral orations of Attic orators (Lys., Isoc., Dem., cf. Pl. Menex. 239 Af.) prove that the legendary Amazon invasion into Attica was regarded as an example of the folly and misdoing (hybris) of "barbaroi", which was used as a warning against the political crises of the time. Thus effective use was made of such negative pictures of the Amazons for the protection of the democracy.


    Odysseus and His Wife
    Tsugunobu Uchida

    In the first half of the Odyssey, both the hero's longing for his wife and her attachment to her absent husband are emphasized. This could suggest to the audience that the poet would reproduce the original naive world of the homecomer, but in the second part the hero manifests mistrust of women in general, and would not confide his true self or intention of revenge to his wife. It is  only after he successfully fights off the suitors that Penelope acknowledges him as her husband. She was excluded from the fighting but, in the underworld the ghost of a suitor tells of Penelope's assistance to her husband with the plot. Thereupon, Agamemnon praises Odysseus for having Penelope as his wife, which again reminds us of the romantic world of the folk tale. It would have been easier and his victory more certain, if Odysseus had really gotten Penelope's aid, as may have occurred in the original tale. But to Odysseus, who represents the modern man, such a world was alien. The discrepancy between the two worlds creates irony.


    Kaine Helene --on Euripides'Helen--

    Kazuhiko Tange

    Aristophanes called Euripides' Helen ten kainen Helenen(Thesm.,850). What did he mean by this? The new characterization of Helen is not the only innovation of the play. Euripides intended to create something more novel in this work.
    From the beginning of the play, Helen already knows much about the divine background and has a sense of her destiny because of prophecy by Hermes (epos Hermou 56-7). The word tyxe appears in the play frequently and every character, Helen and Menelaus as well, feels  his own conduct ordained by tyxe. When one knows one's own fate, or when one regards one's fate as tyxe, one can no longer enact the role of tragic hero. Helen's character differs from that of Medea and Phaedra in this respect.
    In this play, the old portress and the servant of Theoclymenus, the so-called small characters, do not speak less actively (ouden hetton Aristophanes Frogs 949) than the leading characters. This can be called democratic(demokratikon ibid.,952), but "democracy" is the contrary concept of tragedy.
    The proportion of stichomythia in each play of Euripides grows higher with the lapse of time (Medea;5.7%, Helen;16.5%). This indicates that the number of dialogues, instead of monologues, are increasing in the scenes, and that the author's interest in the psychological analysis of the leading character is progressively declining. "The new Helen" does not refer only to the new characterization of Helen.
    We are struck by the frequent recurrence of the contrast between onoma and pragma. The belief in the significance of a name and its relationship with the person or the object that bears it was common and unshaken before the sophistic period, but the disjunction  between onoma and pragma becomes clear with the lapse of time. We can see striking examples of it, not only in Helen, but also in Iphigeneia among the Taurians(504) and Orestes(390).Thucydides also felt a difference between the name and the reality of an object(III, 82,4). It seems that the disjunction of onoma and pragma in this drama reflects a social phenomenon in the late fifth century of Greece. The name does not always signify the reality of the object and the human intellect can not recognize this fact. Teucer and Menelaus can not  distinguish the true Helen from the false, because their eyes are diseased(omma nosei 575). This diseased eye symbolizes an intellectual decline in the late fifth century of Athens.
    Following the idea "Phantom Helen" that Stesichorus worked out, Euripides represents a new tendency of society to deviate from the traditional standard. This play must be seen in that social context.
    Helen is not only a romantic tragicomedy or melodrama, but a realistic drama that describes the phases of the age, and in this respect we can call this play the new Helen - ten kainen Helenen.


    Fact and Instruction: On Mycalessus' event, Thucydides 7.29-30

    Hakumei Tanaka

    This essay analyzes the details of the massacre  of  Mycalessus,  as presented in Thucydides 7.29-30.
    I think this event bears a remarkable resemblance to the twentieth-century situation.
    Thucydides narrated the facts (res gestae) dispassionately.
    This record of the terrible massacre of a defenseless town provides considerable insight into human nature (anthropeia physis) as well as historical description (historia rerum gestarum), making it both shocking and instructive.


    Virgil's Description of History: The Interpretation of Aeneid 6

    Taro Yamashita

    At the beginning of Book 6 (20ff.)  we find a poetic technique called echphrasis. The episode involving Daedalus discussed here has much in common with the main themes of Book 6. However, the parallel in Book 1 (Aen.1.466-93), where the same technique is employed, provides another hint; Virgil seems to imply the very way in which he could describe history in a most proper way.
    In this connection, we should first notice the invocation to the gods of the underworld (Aen.6.264-7). This is closely related to that in the Iliad (2.484ff.), where the poet draws a clear distinction between (A):the knowledge of the Muses and (B): that of mortals (the poet). (A) is firsthand and integral (cf.Il.2.485 pareste te iste te panta), while (B) is secondhand (cf.Il.2.486 kleos) and imperfect. However, the  poet states his firm will to enumerate all (Il.2.493  propasas) with the assistance of the Muses. In fact, the following catalogue (2.494ff.) succeeds in giving an impression that the whole has been fully detailed. An elaborate selection holds the key of this.
    The distinction between (A) and (B) is also noted in Aen.6.20ff., where the picture on the temple doors represents Daedalus' firsthand experience, while the poet, on his part, not only admits his own incomplete knowledge (cf.6.14 fama) but also suggests the possibility of describing the whole story (cf.6.33 omnia). A deliberate omission (i.e. Daedalus did not describe his son's death) paradoxically asserts  the authenticity of the whole mythological episode.
    The same pattern is apparently found in the description of Tartarus (6.548ff.), which is introduced as a story told by Sibylla who  has  once been there herself and expected to tell the truth (cf.6.100, 188-9). Aeneas knows nothing about it, and carefully listens to what Sibylla  has experienced. Further, there are some significant expressions which remind us of the invocation in the Iliad (cf.Aen.6.560-1, 625-7).
    The motif of describing the whole is repeatedly found at the end of this book (Aen.6.679ff.). There are not a few verbal evidences confirming this. However, we should also notice another important motif which is related to the tense of each episode. In the epilogue, Virgil predicts a great number of honorable deeds found in the history of Rome as if they were going to take place in the future, while to the eyes of the contemporary readers, each incident belongs to the past. A reader of this poem, though not present at the scene, is quite sure of each historical event, and feels as if he knew the  entire  history  of  Rome, just like Anchises, who is telling the fate of Rome (cf.6.683,759). It is also noteworthy that the action of Aeneas is shown to be preceded by episodes such as that involving Daedalus and Theseus, who usually appear only in myths. In other words, Virgil makes it possible for a reader  to regard these mythical events as historical.
    The relation to Book 1 might provides a new perspective. Before the description of Juno's temple, for instance, we read a conversation between Jupiter and Venus (1.223ff.), where Jupiter declares his  eternal promise of the perpetual prosperity  of Rome (1.257-8). This promise applies not only to Aeneas and his contemporaries  but also to the present and future people of Rome. Next comes the echphrasis  presenting the Trojan War. At the sight of the picture, Aeneas shed tears (1.459) remembering his own past experiences. These tears authenticate the truth of the story presented in that section.
    To sum up, Virgil, paying attention to the words in the invocation to the Muses in the second Iliad, tries to recount the following: Virgil's original viewpoint may lie in the fact that he predicts the past of the readers as the future in the  poem:(a)'=(b). Moreover, Jupiter's promise in the first book refers to the future of Aeneas and the readers as well: (a)'=(b)'. As the  outline above suggests, Virgil tries to describe the past, the present, and the future of "all" people including future generations, to whom the words of Jupiter, "imperium sine fine (1.279)", will also be applied. This poem, though confined to the story of Aeneas, includes all dimensions of human affairs. Book 6, thus interpreted, implies that the poet's intent was to describe the history of humankind, or a universal truth.


    The Unity of Tibullus 1.7

    Tsutomu Iwasaki

    There has been much discussed on the unity of Tibullus 1.7 regarding the function of the Osiris Hymn (29-48), which is often considered as a digression. Some scholars find a parallel between Osiris and Messalla as benefactor, and believe that by this comparison the poet emphasizes the praises to Messalla for his achievements in peace and war. Others believe that Osiris has a close connection with Tibullus' world, because he is represented as the originator of pastoral life and the giver of wine, dance and song. The poet, contrasting Messalla's big world with his small world, shows the relation between the two worlds and the possibility of their coexistence.
    I think, however, that Osiris is represented as the god who produces fruit by combining hard substances and soft ones. Osiris first turned the soft ground with the iron plow (29f.), and gathered fruits (31f.). He showed how to join the tender vine to the pole, how to lop its green leaves with the hard pruning-hook (33f.), and gave wine to men (35f.). Hardness is a feature of Messalla's ability to win a victory but it sometimes causes toil and pain (39-42). On the other hand, softness is a feature of Tibullus' world, especially of his song which alleviates pain and sorrow. The poet suggests that Osiris' benefaction has two sides, hard and soft, which are related to Messalla's activity and that of Tibullus respectively.
    To praise Messalla on his birthday, the poet sings of his recent triumph in an epic style (i.e. hard style) in the beginning of the poem (1-12). But after the hymn to Osiris, in the last lines (55-64) he sings of Messalla's services to everyday life in a lyric style  (i.e. soft style) which is suitable for Tibullus.


    On the Second Choral Ode of Seneca's Troades

    Hiroyuki Takahashi

    The second choral ode of Seneca's Troades denies the existence of life after death, saying that nothing is after death and death itself is nothing. This view of death is inconsistent with the mood of the chorus in the rest of the play, especially at the commos where they are in grievous mourning. This paper attempts to interpret the inconsistency as representing a psychological conflict in the chorus' minds, and thereby characterizing their tears as fletus cum sapientia, in contrast not only to those of the turba in Act 5, but to Andromacha's and Hecuba's in Acts 3 and 4 respectively.
    The commos in Act 1 is led by Hecuba's impatient urge, "lamenta cessant?"(63), answered by the chorus, "non rude vulgus lacrimisque novum/ lugere iubes...non indociles lugere sumus"(67-8, 82), because not a day has passed when they did not shed tears since the Trojan War began ten years before. Why, then, had they ceased weeping at this moment, just after the fall of Troy, which should have most naturally incurred their most painful lamentation.
    The reason for this hesitation of the chorus about lamentation at the beginning of the commos should be sought for in the second choral ode, because it is, as Owen(1970a) has convincingly demonstrated, represented as simultaneous with the event in Act 1, and therefore we can assume that the thought expressed there is also in the chorus's mind at the commos. The ode, with a suspicious questioning about life after death(A: 371-81) and its definite negation as a fancy(A': 397-408) in the outer frame, balances an end-of-the-world image reminiscent of ekpyrosis(B: 382-9) with similes of smoke and cloud scattered by the winds which recall Lucretian passages(B': 392b-5), embracing in the center the sententia that the dead are nowhere(C: 390-2a). Therefore, the two imageries(B-B') are structurally represented as closely connected with each other and unfolding the chorus's thoughts. No doubt the fall of Troy has brought the image B to the chorus's minds, and the image B' is recurrently used of the fall of Troy(cf. 17-21, 1053-5; Aisch. Ag. 818,  Eur. Tro. 1298-9, 1320-1). Then, here it seems to be implied that the chorus, experiencing the fall of Troy, have come to the wisdom on life and death, and that is the inner voice which held back the chorus from weeping. We may compare with Andromacha. She, for whom Hector was Troy itself, had fallen into apathy at his death, and subsequently had been incapable of mourning(409-17).
    Bearing in mind this wisdom, which denies the existence of the dead, however, the chorus resumes lamentation, complying with Hecuba's urge. To consider the mourning the chorus puts on, first, it should be compared with the tears shed by the people in Act 5 who gather to watch the deaths as if acted on the stage(spectator: 1087; theatri more: 1125). The same words are used for those people(turba: 1077, 1081, 1099, 1119; vulgus: 1078, 1093, 1128, 1143) and for the chorus(turba: 63, 409; vulgus: 67, 81), but the former is just a crowd moved by transient emotions while the latter call themselves non rude vulgus lugere(67f.), non indociles lugere(82). These expressions suggest that, unlike the turba in Act 5, in their weeping they are eruditae and doctae, that is, having philosophical learning, which probably refers to the learning to be expressed in the second choral ode. When the chorus resumes lamentation with all the wisdom, their tears will be given great weight, as they come from the eyes with profound insight into life and death.
    We can also see the chorus flentes cum sapientia, looking upon the stage throughout the play, bring into relief the illusions or misunderstandings involved in Andromacha's and Hecuba's tears for their children, as is examined below.
    Schetter has ingeniously illustrated Andromacha's illusion about her husband's power to save her son in Act 3. She suffers another illusion when she bids her son farewell in tears. She must have believed that her words could relieve him from fear of death(789b-91), but his cry to her, "Miserere, mater"(792), ironically sounds as if he was afraid of his mother as an enemy threatening his life, for it echoes the very words the mother herself used twice to supplicate Ulixes to spare her son: "miserere matris"(694, 703).
    In Act 4, Polyxena's soul, describes Andromacha, is mighty enough to be joyful(laetus) in knowing her doom(945), while, according to the usual interpretation of the text we have in the MS, Hecuba sees tears burst out from Polyxena's eyes and tells her to be joyful(laetare)(965b-7a). To solve this  inconsistency, most modern editors except Zwierlein have accepted Richter's suggestion that ll. 967-8 be put after 978, attributing the tears to Hecuba and providing an answer to Helena's words in l.978. This transposition, however, does not fulfil the purpose since it still remains that the person who is already joyful is urged to be joyful. We should begin again by considering the incongruity as it is.
    At the same time that Polyxena happily hears her fate, Hecuba faints and falls down(949-50), so we can imagine that she has had no time to notice Polyxena's reaction. Soon she returns to life(954), but there is no indication that she has stood up. Here we may compare with Eur. Tro. 462ff., where, after Kassandra is taken away, Hekabe falls down, declines a hand offered by the chorus to help her rise, and chooses to remain lying down as she does because that posture is fitting for her mishaps which she now begins to tell. For Hecuba here also it is natural to lie down, probably with her eyes down to the earth, when she weeps over her sufferings and wishes for her soul to slip away(955-64a). If so, she is not yet likely to look at Polyxena. And the moment she utters the word funeral, tears come down(remitte funus|inrigat fletus genas: 965), as if the thought of the funeral has drawn out the tears. The situation here seems that Hecuba, buried deep in grief and remembering innumerable funerals she has attended, sees Polyxena standing on Achilles's tomb for her wedding-funeral in an illusory vision: there she sheds tears for Polyxena, and encourages her to rejoice because she believes her daughter must be in great sorrow as she herself is. Andromacha's following words(Nos, Hecuba, nos, nos, Hecuba, lugendae sumus: 969) sound appropriate to recall Hecuba from such a vision back to reality: she is trying to wake Hecuba by calling her name twice and make her aware by triple repetitions of "us" that it is not Polyxena, who will have her resting place, who should be grieved, but rather the Trojan women including Hecuba who will go far away to unknown lands. If Hecuba has come to herself by this call, and is somewhat relieved to see Polyxena's appearance, then it is understandable that there is no mention of her until Pyrrhus appears to take her away.


    Disintegration of an Impossible Marriage
    --What Seneca Contributed to the History of "Medea" Plays--

    Kozue Kobayashi

    The object of this paper is to present a new viewpoint for Seneca's "Medea" and to study as well the nature of its influence over some "Medea" plays in Modern times.
    It is evident that Seneca's "Medea" owes very much to Euripides's masterpiece tragedy, but nonetheless it shows a clear break therefrom.
    Euripides created a shockingly powerful human tragedy, in which a once devoted wife, after suffering  much  because of the husband's betrayal, invents and executes the cruelest punishment for him one can ever imagine: the murder of her own children.
    Seneca, on his part, did not want to follow in the same footsteps when he tried to write a new "Medea" play. Perhaps we'd better say  he could not, because all his literary audience must have had full knowledge of Medea's ultimate deed in Euripides's tragedy. And it would not have made sense for him to write a new play without considering the audience's knowledge of the story. We may be allowed to say that, after Euripides, the name 'Medea' has become a sort of sign to signify 'woman who kills her innocent children to punish the unfaithful husband whose life she spares'. It was open to everybody to utilize  this  sign for writing a new play, but nobody could alter its meaning.
    So, for one thing, Seneca chose to omit from his version Euripides's Aegeus-scene in which Medea learns how much the children mean to the father; he decided that, in the environment where everybody knew the heroine would eventually kill her children, the scene of "inventing" the kind of punishment by the heroine would not have as dramatic an impact on the audience as it did in Euripides's play. What Seneca presented instead was the repeated suggestion by Medea herself even in the prologue that she would murder her children. From the beginning of the play the readers or audience are made to confront the insinuation of the outcome they already know but don't want to see, and they are already in suspense. It was this suspenseful atmosphere that Seneca intended to create as the dramatic  effect for his "Medea" when he  wanted to compensate for the absence of the scene in which the punishment is invented.
    The well known significative value of the word 'Medea' also made it possible for the author to write words such as "I will become Medea!" (171), or "Now I am Medea"(910) to convey  the  meaning that she is going to, or has determined to, kill her children.
    Expressions like 'I will become Medea', 'I am Medea' are also uttered by the heroines of the "Medea" plays of Corneille, Grillparzer and Anouilh. This is one example of the close relationship between  Seneca's work and theirs, which has been more or less neglected. These Modern times dramatists had the same advantage and handicap as Seneca did when they wanted to write their "Medea" plays; the audience already knew what the heroine would ultimately do. In other words, they were able to (and at the same time they had to) use the word 'Medea' as a long established and too-well known sign. So, in the same course, they would rather rely on the dramatic effects invented by Seneca than those by Euripides.
    Actually, the influence Seneca's "Medea" exercised on these Modern times dramatists can be perceived in their borrowing not merely of the heroine's words from Seneca's work but also the  principal framework of his plotting composition. The plotting of Seneca's "Medea", as I interpret it, is as follows; a supernatural female marries a human male because of her juvenile love, and she tries hard to adapt herself to her husband's world. Eventually she encounters the 'inescapable' betrayal of human beings, and she goes back to her own place after punishing the human world in her harshest way. In a more general and shorter expression, we can summarize it as the story of 'an inevitable disintegration of an impossible marriage'.
    In order to write a  story of 'impossible  marriage', one must present two oppositive and unreconcilable worlds, which Seneca did in a meticulous way.
    First, Seneca reversed the heroine's character from the almost completely humanized one in Euripides's work to its mythical archetype, i.e. a sorceress with full witchcraft capacity and  inclination. Furthermore, he set her in isolation not only in the actual condition but also in the concept of those who surround her. The Chorus is not only hostile to her in contrast to Euripides's version but also describes her as "the evil worse than the sea"(362) which mankind had not known before their first navigation to violate the sea.
    Jason is portrayed as being able to claim a certain amount of sympathy. He is being pursued by Acastus so that he is pressed, for the safety of himself and his children, to depend on the help of either Creo, i.e. his saviour from the human world's side, or Medea, i.e. from the nonhuman world's side. Medea tries to retrieve Jason to her own world with the declaration of her willingness to commit further crimes for his sake (525-528), but he chooses to belong to the human world and consequently deserts her.
    When Medea kills her children, it is not only to punish Jason, but also to severe all relationship with the human world. She asserts that any child she got by Jason is Creusa's (921-2). She also expresses  her children as "quondam mei"(924) and "non mei"(934), which are quite contrastive to Medea's word "philoi" in the similar situation of Euripides's version (1250). Finally she casts down the bodies of her children to Jason, again in contrast to Euripides's, and the story of 'impossible marriage' comes to a conclusion.
    In my opinion, it was Seneca's most valuable contribution to the history of "Medea" plays to transpose her story from that of 'revenge of a wronged woman' into that of 'an inevitable  disintegration of an impossible marriage', and it is this kind of plotting that Corneille, Grillparzer and Anouilh owe most to Seneca.
    A shaky marriage with a nonhuman being (animal, specter, natural phenomenon personified etc.) disguised in human shape and its  ultimate breakdown is the motif in many Japanese  folktales, of which Lafcadio Hearn's "Yuki-Onna" is one example, and it is given a  collective nomination as 'irui-kon_'in-tan' (roughly translated, 'tale of marriage with an alien'). 'Irui-kon_'in-tan' is not identical to the folktales in the West which are  classified as the tales of 'supernatural or enchanted spouse', because these are mostly about human beings who are temporarily forced to take disguise in nonhuman shape. Though I could not find the terminology in the Western languages that is exactly identical to 'irui-kon_'in-tan', there are literary pieces which could belong to this category in the West, too. As we saw, Seneca's "Medea" is an exemplary case. Fouqu_{_'s  "Undine" and its theatrical adaptation "Ondine" by Giraudoux are among other examples.
    Now, I would like to suggest broadening the implication of 'irui-kon'in-tan' to denote all the stories of 'an inevitable disintegration of a marriage of a pair from two different worlds unreconcilable to each other', and to apply the concept to Occidental literature. Then we may be able to grasp more clearly, for one thing, the place Seneca's "Medea" occupies in the series of "Medea" plays.
    Among the three Modern dramatists mentioned, Anouilh employed the thematic scheme of 'impossible  marriage' more consciously than the others. The meaning of the fact that he borrowed many expressions directly from Seneca's work must be interpreted in correlation with this thematic borrowing. In my own terminology, Anouilh perceived Seneca's "Medea" as 'irui-kon'in-tan', and he himself wrote his own version of the same motif.


    The Structure of the Octavia --From the Viewpoint of Audience--

    Kenji Kimura

    The Octavia is an unfortunate work, because there always stand two obstacles before we investigate it as a work of theater.
    One of them is a matter of authorship. This problem has long been argued since the 14th century, and even now it has not been completely settled. Most of the scholars, however, think that the Octavia was not written by Seneca, but that it was wrongly attributed to him. The present writer agrees to this opinion.
    The other problem is how Seneca's plays and the Octavia were performed. This is also a controversial problem and there are two interpretations. One is that Seneca wrote his tragedies for performance in the theater and the other is that he wrote them merely for recitation. If we define performance in a wider sense, then those plays for recitation can also be included in plays for performance. And I presume the Octavia as such.
    These two matters having been settled, the next step I took was to analyze the plot of the Octavia from the viewpoint of audience.
    The whole work is usually divided into five acts, but this division does not always reflect the true structure. So I reconsidered the plot of the Octavia from the different angle, namely the viewpoint of audience, which, I believe, will disclose the hidden structure of the Octavia.
    The result is that this work is incidentally divided into five parts, or five days: 1st day: ll.1-645; 2nd day: ll.646-689; 3rd day: ll.690-761; 4th day: ll.762-819; 5th day: ll.820-982. The chorus of the Octavia, which is another controversial thing, marks the turn from the 2nd day to the 3rd day(689), from the 3rd day to the 4th day(762), and from the 4th day to the 5th day(819).
    Thus we could confirm that the plot construction is not the same  as the formal construction and that the plot construction is the essence of theater which can be recognized only through the viewpoint of audience.


    Tradition and Innovation of Epithalamium - Statius and Claudian

    Tokuya Miyagi

    In the tradition of "epithalamium", Statius in the first century has a special position.  He introduced some new elements to the conventional literary form, "epithalamium", which had been established as a model for later poets by Catullus during the first century B.C. The principal new elements Statius introduced are as follows: (1)positive employment of epic techniques, such as digression, description, etc.; (2) application of words and motifs used in love poetry and the insertion of fictional love story; (3) the influence of pastoral poetry which is a sophisticated literary form originating from simple folk songs similar to "epithalamium"; (4) creation of a special function of Venus as "coniugator" and "pronuba".
    All of these elements also appear in the epithalamia of Claudian in the fourth century.  Although  Statius was approximately forty years younger than Seneca, the philosopher whose "epithalamium" in his tragedy, "Medea", was typical of the tradition and Statius lived more than three hundred years after Claudian, the epithalamia of later two poets have far more similarities. The epithalamia of poets after Claudian including the Renaissance poets also contain many of the elements Statius introduced. Statius can be called an innovator in the tradition of "epithalamium".
    Claudian also has an important place in the tradition. He added four lyrical poems called "Fescenninae" to his stereotyped  epithalamium and revived the lyrical beauty and energy that marriage hymns originally had. He dedicated his epithalamium to his patron and became a model to his successors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
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