The Lyric Metres of Euripidean Drama - Universidade de Coimbra

Introduction
as with dochmiac, enoplian can be said to have been used by Euripides to
pull tighter, as it were, at the heart-strings of his audience, to cause lumps
to well up more readily in the listener’s throat. Interestingly, in his later
tragedies enoplian dochmiacs are put to an equivalent use at the other end of
the emotional spectrum, as in the reunion duo between Helen and Menelaus,
where the heroine’s dochmiac phrases, interspersed with enoplian, express
the sudden and unexpected joy of being reunited with a loved husband only
recently thought dead. 32
Other rhythmic genres are less easily pinned down as to their aesthetic and
emotional overtones. Ionic, for instance, is not really used often enough for us
to glean much information as to its specific dramatic resonance: in Bacchae it
is used as the ‘liturgical’ rhythm of Dionysiac μακαρία, 33 perhaps with oriental
overtones (compare the use of ionic in Aeschylus’ Persians), but in the parodos
of Supplices (42-62~48-70) it seems merely to add decorative colouring to the
lyrics sung by the chorus of Argive women. Dactylic and dactylo-epitrite are
generally dignified metres, best suited to lyric moments where elevated diction
and ‘high’ poetry call the tune. Iambic, described by Aristotle as μάλιcτα...
λεκτικὸν τῶν μέτρων (Po. 1449b), is possibly the blandest metre, a neutral
rhythmic vessel into which the poet could pour what mixture of lyric feelings
he wished. It suits the chorus’ mood of bleak despair in Troades as well as the
absurd ‘stream of consciousness’ ramblings of the Phrygian in Orestes. Trochaic,
on the other hand, is sparingly used in the lyrics of tragedy (see next chapter),
but the use to which it is put by Euripides evokes its threnetic, rather than its
‘fast and undignified’, qualities. 34 Lyric anapaests too are mainly linked with
lamentation (as in the anapaestic monodies of Hecuba and Creusa; cf. Tr.
122-52, Ion 859-922) and profound emotional distress. 35 It is tempting to view
the insistent use of anapaestic phrases consisting mainly or entirely of long
syllables (cf. below, p. 50) as somehow indicative of a more contained level of
grief than that expressed in dochmiac and iambo-trochaic, where the at times
incontinent use of resolution lends the suffering of the solo singer an almost
comic air of uncontrolled garrulity — something Aristophanes was quick to
parody in Birds, where heavily resolved passages in the Euripidean manner are
used to mimic meaningless twittering. The most noteworthy instance of this
32 Cf. Hel. 625-97 and Willink (2010: 132-168).
33 Compare the anacreontic song in Cyclops (495-518) which, although breezily demotic,
is a μακαριcμόc nevertheless: μάκαρ ὅcτιc εὐιάζει | βοτρύων φίλαιcι πηγαῖc | ἐπὶ κῶμον
ἐκπεταcθεὶc | φίλον ἄνδρ’ ὑπαγκαλίζων κτλ.
34 See below, p. 36, n. 48.
35 See for instance Medea’s opening anapaests (Med. 96-7, 111-4, 144-7, 160-7) or Phaedra’s
wilting, half-expressed longings (Hi. 208-11) or her unbridled ravings (Hi. 215-22, 228-31):
πέμπετε μ’ εἰc ὄροc· εἶμι πρὸc ὕλαν | καὶ παρὰ πεύκαc ἵνα θηροφόνοι | cτείβουcι κύνεc κτλ.
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