Abstract
When the decision was made to present Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae, a number of problems presented themselves, not the least of which was the title. As that was least urgent and solved last, we shall leave the solution until the end of the discussion. The problems that first presented themselves were those facing the translators. Some of the problems were those common to every play of Aristophanes, and others were peculiar to this play.
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Notes
For an account of this production see J. Maitland, DRAMA band 2 (1993), 212–221.
See M. Detienne’s discussion of Thesmophoriazusae in chapter 5 of M. Detienne and J.-P. Vernant, edd., La cuisine du sacrfice en pays grec (Paris, 1979), and A. M. Bowie, Aristophanes: myth, ritual and comedy (Cambridge 1993), pp. 205–27.
This term is used in a similar way by K. McLeish, The Theatre of Aristophanes (London, 1980), p. 158. The process involved is thus to be seen as metaphoric rather than metonymic.
This, indeed, was part of the raison d’e’tre of Classical Greek theatre. Productions were financed and choruses trained on a competitive basis, and great honour stood to be gained or lost as a consequence of these performances. For a full discussion of the archaeological and literary evidence for the nature and complexity of choral song and dance, see T. B. L. Webster, The Greek Chorus (London, 1970). There is ample testimony to the financing of productions, and choruses in particular, in Greek inscriptions of the period. These have been collected by A. Brinck, Inscriptiones Graecae ad Choregium Pertinentes (Dissertationes Philologicae Halenses v. 7, 1873, p. 71ff).
For what is still the most useful discussion see K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (London, 1978), 135–153. Dover does not, however, refer to the interesting question of buttock hair.
With reference to compounds of nvyij:- Ach. 79 refers to XanKaords TE Kai’ Karanvyovas; this would seem to refer to men who offer sexual services (for a discussion of Xa►Kä;av and cognates see H. D. Jocelyn, PCPS 26 (1980), 12–66). In 664 XaKaranvywv refers to Cleon, and the term is coupled with SEads. Lysistrata (Lys. 137) reviles her feeble supporters with the colourful term mayKaranvywv. She uses strong language again in 776 when rallying the weakening women: KaTa7rVyWvEOTEpos• It would be tempting to think that Lysistrata uses common terms of masculine reproach to her associates, regardless of their suitability; however, when such a strong form of the term is used in 776 of the swallow, it becomes clear that we simply have here an exaggerated vulgarism. See Jeffrey Henderson, Aristophanes: Lysistrata, ed. with comm. (Oxford, 1987), notes on lines 137, 776, and p. 84; also on pathic homosexuality, The Maculate Muse (Yale, 1975), 209–13, and 2nd ed., (New York/Oxford, 1991), p. 249. These pejorative terms refer to weakness, passivity or inability to control sexual urges. npwKTÖS and its compounds are used much more frequently as routine insults and expressions of aggression. Ach. alone (104, 106, 716, 843 etc.) provides sufficient examples of the kind of insult that implies not only that a person is the sort to permit certain things to be done to his anus, but that his anus shows physical signs of this abuse. See Dover, above n. 15, pp. 140–3.
See Denys Page, The Homeric Odyssey (Oxford, 1955), pp. 101–30, 138–45; Page rejects this scene as spurious, while D. Wender, The Last Scenes of the Odyssey (Leiden, 1978), pp45–62, notes that Laertes is mentioned a number of times in a way that leads up to this episode. S. R. West, ‘Laertes Revisited’, PCPS 35 (1989), 113–43, points out correctly that these details are such as a compiler would add in the course of combining the various episodes of the poem.
I refer, of course to the well-known thesis of Foucault, largely developed in his History of Sexuality (Paris, 1984), vol. 2. For a useful discussion of Foucault’s contribution see David M. Halperin, One Hundred Years of Sexuality (London, 1990), pp. 62–71.
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© 1997 Springer-Verlag GmbH Deutschland
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Maitland, J., Buch, J. (1997). Translating the Metaphor: Problems Solved and Circumvented in Staging Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae . In: Zimmermann, B. (eds) Griechisch-römische Komödie und Tragödie II. J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-04271-2_12
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