8/13/2019 P.Lit.Lond. 77: A Rebuttal
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P.Lit.Lond. 77: A Rebuttal
Author(s): D. F. SuttonReviewed work(s):Source: Zeitschrift fr
Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 56 (1984), pp. 33-34Published by:
Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, Bonn (Germany)Stable URL:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20184054.
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8/13/2019 P.Lit.Lond. 77: A Rebuttal
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33
P.LIT.LOND. 77: A REBUTTAL
It is a rare dramatic fragment that has been variously been
identified astragic, comic, and satyric. Such is the distinction of
this postclassicalMedea (for its postclassical dating cf. 112
XOPOY). First published as a1 ) 2)tragedy, ' it has been identified
as a satyr play, and more frequently as3)a Middle Comedy. '
The satyric diagnosis is the easiest to disprove. From lines
113ff. itis tolerably clear that the play's Chorus is composed of
Corinthian women,
4)not satyrs. One would think (as did Sir Denys Page) that
tragedy is alsoexcluded by two explicit mentions of the penis (85
e?x?vco cpAe?C , 97 eucpAe?ecx?pac), although nothing else in the
fragment is manifestly un-tragic. 5)Recently, however, R.L.Hunter
has restated the case for a tragedy. ' Hisarguments boil down to
two major points: in Attic comedy such a protractedparatragic
passage would be entirely unprecedented, and explicit referencesto
sexual organs are not necessarily out of place in tragedy (Hunter
pointsto Euripides, fr. 278 N.2 from the Auge).6'
The former point seems entirely tendentious; of all the major
forms ofclassical drama we know the least of Middle Comedy, and it
would be rash tomake pronouncements about what is and is not
possible for that genre. IfEuripides' fr. 278 N.2 were an entirely
unproblematic fragment, it wouldindeed constitute important
evidence and Hunter's call for a re-evaluationof the genre of this
papyrus would be in order. But this is not the case.
Fr. 278 N.2 consists of an entry from Hesychius, printed by
Nauck in thefollowing form:
x?pac ?pdiov f| (fi cod.) veupd. E?pirci?ric AeYeiA?*Yn
(eupircC?Tic ?? a?Y^lv cod.)
K.Latte (Hesych. x 82) prints the text differently:x?pac ?pdiov
fi veupd. E?pirct?ric ?? Auy?I.
. .
1) A.Croenert, Die Medeia des Neophron, APF 3 (1906) 1-5.2)
B.Snell, Szenen aus gr. Dramen (Berlin, 1971) 204 n.8.3) Cf. the
bibliography provided by C.Austin, Comicorum Graecorum Fragmentain
Papyris Reperta (Berlin, 1973) 347f.4) In the Introduction to his
Oxford Medea, p.xxxii n.6 (surely he had inmind these two lines).5)
P.Lit.Lond. 77 and Tragic Burlesque in Attic Comedy, ZPE 41
(1981)
19-24.6) If one were to look for allusions to penises in Greek
tragedy, he mightdo better to pursue a suggestion that at Aesch.
Ag. 1443 LcxoxpC?nc might be
an obscenity: cf. G.L.Koniaris and W.B.Tyrrel at AJP 101(1980)
42-46. Even ifthis suggestion were to find favor, I doubt that
Aeschylus is the best possibleprecedent to cite for something in a
postclassical tragedy: I should thinkthat postclassical tragedy
would be, if anything, more conscious of canonsof propriety.
