There are, however, strong grounds of internal coincidence for
believing that the
Electra is among the later plays
of Sophocles. It cannot, on any view, be placed more than a few
years before the Euripidean
Electra, of which the
probable date is 413 B.C. The traits which warrant this conclusion
are the
following. (1) The frequency of “
ἀντιλαβή”,
i.e. the partition of an iambic trimeter between two
speakers. The ordinary form of such partition is when each person
speaks once, so that the trimeter falls into two parts
(
a,
b). Taking the two latest plays, we
find 22 such examples in the
Philoctetes, and 52 in
the
Oedipus Coloneus. The
Electra
ranks between them, with 25. Next comes the
Oedipus
Tyrannus, with only 10. Further, verse 1502 of
Electra is so divided between two persons that it
falls into three parts (
a,
b,
a). The other Sophoclean instances of this are confined
to the
Philoctetes (810, 814, 816)
1,
and the
Oedipus Coloneus (832).
(2) Anapaestic verses (1160—1162) are inserted in a series
of iambic trimeters. The only parallel for this occurs in the
Trachiniae (v. 1081, vv. 1085 f.), a piece which
may be placed somewhere between 420 and 410 B.C. (Introd. to
Trach., p. xxiii). It was an innovation due to
the melodramatic tendency which marked the last two decades of the
century. In the earlier practice, a series of iambic trimeters could
be broken only by shorter iambic measures, or by mere interjections.
(3) The ‘free’ or ‘melic’
anapaests in
El. 86—120
2 are of a type which can be strictly matched
only in plays of a date later than
circ. 420 B.C., such as the
Troades, the
Ion, and the
Iphigeneia in Tauris.
(4) The actors have a notably large share in the lyric element of the
play. (
a) Thus the anapaests just mentioned are
delivered by Electra as a “
μονῳδία”.
Such a monody can be paralleled only from the later plays of
Euripides. It is characteristic of the new music—satirised
by Aristophanes in the
Frogs—which came
into vogue
circ. 420 B.C.
(
b) Again, the Parodos of the
Electra is
in the form of a lyric dialogue (“
κομμός”) between the heroine and the Chorus. Here, too, it
is only in the latest plays that we find parallels. A
‘kommatic’ parodos occurs also in the
Oedipus Coloneus. That of the
Philoctetes has something of the same general
character, although there Neoptolemus replies to the Chorus only in
anapaests. (
c) Another illustration of the same
tendency is the lyric duet between Electra and the coryphaeus in vv.
823—870, which may be compared with similar duets in the
Philoctetes (
e.g.
1170 ff.), and the
Oedipus Coloneus (178 ff., 1677
ff.). (
d) In the “
μέλος ἀπὸ
σκηνῆς” between Electra and Orestes
(1232—1287), the Chorus take no part. On the other hand,
the songs given to the Chorus alone are of relatively small compass
(472—515; 1058—1097; 1384—1397).
(5) The Parodos shows different classes of metre (the “
γένος ἴσον” and the “
γένος διπλάσιον”) combined within the same strophe;
and, at the close, the epode re-echoes them all. This “
πολυμετρία” is a further sign of a late
period
3.
When all these indications are considered, there seems to be
at least
a very strong probability that the
Electra was
written not earlier than 420 B.C. There is only one point that might
seem to favour an earlier date. The long syllables of the trimeter
are here resolved more rarely than in any other of the seven extant
plays
4. But, though a very great
frequency of such resolution (as in the
Philoctetes) has a clear significance, a
negative application of the test would be, as the
statistics show, most unsafe; and, in this instance, all the other
internal evidence is on the opposite side. Those, then, who hold (as
I do) that the play was produced before the
Electra
of Euripides (413 B.C.), will conclude that the years 420 and 414
B.C. mark the limits of the period to which it may be referred.
Ancient repute of the
play. Translation by Atilius. |
