Text Access
Euripides. 10 Plays. Trans. Paul Roche. New York: Signet Classic, 1998. (Available via bookstore.)
Journal Prompt
"Satyric" (not "satiric" — see further below) humor in Cyclops: sex jokes, ridicule, etc. etc. How is it funny, or meant to be funny? Has humor changed since 411 BCE — how might the horsing around in Cyclops be unfunny? Is the play serious in any way? Explain. . . .
Play Facts
Euripides' Cyclops is the sole surviving example of a complete satyr drama, a type of play that was fourth in the usual set of four plays entered into competition at the Greater Dionysia at Athens. In form satyr drama is very like a tragedy (prologue, parodos, episodes, agon, stasima, exodos). Still, it matters that it's meant to evoke a lot of belly laughs, indeed, to appeal to a rather puerile, arguably male-centered mentality, and in the case of . In that respect, at least, it won't be much like any tragedy you'll have read, though maybe the dress-up scene in Bacchae is somewhat similar.
This satyr drama was composed after 411, and probably produced in 408 BCE. It dates, in other words, from the end of Euripides' life. We do not, alas, know how it and the other plays (whatever they were) in its tetralogy placed in competition.
This play, though its chorus of satyrs are a goofy lot, deals in a lot of disturbing, at times violent, sexual and sexist humor. It thus becomes a lense through which to compare the value system that orginally gave birth to it and the value system that shapes our reception of it, yours and mine.
Genre: Satyr Drama/Satyr Play
Name. The name of the genre comes from the fact that the satyr drama featured a chorus of satyrs, creatures dedicated to drinking, sex, and the god, Dionysus. Satyrs are mythological creatures typically shown as human males, but with snub noses and the ears and tail of either horses or donkeys. They embody, in other words, pleasure addiction at its most masculine and animalistic. A close cousin of the satyr is the silen, a figure often confused with and indistinguishable from the satyr, is the silen. Both satyrs and silen are prominent in satyr drama.
The origins of the genre, like those of tragedy and comedy, are obscure, but seem closely tied to those of tragedy; early tragedy likely resembled satyr drama in terms of its ribald humor and overtly Dionysian orientation. Scholars think that the satyr drama became part of the playbill for the Greater Dionysia at Athens between (approximately) 510 and 500 BCE. Maybe it was a concession to popular taste when tragedy proper started getting more serious than we think it originally might have been.
(An ancient scholar named Chamaeleon tells us that, when tragedy had started to wander away from Dionysian themes, audiences for tragedy started complaining, "What's that got to do with Dionysus?" The introduction of satyr drama was, according to Chamaeleon, meant to address that.)
The satyr dramas that we know the most about come from the 400s BCE, when they formed part of the tragic tetralogies performed at the Greater Dionysia. They were the fourth play in the set of four, and were performed at the festival on the same day as the other three plays. Satyr drama continued to be composed and produced in the fourth century BCE, but soon died out.
Because satyr drama featured ribald humor, the antics of satyrs, and similar stuff, we often think of them as comedies, but that isn't right. Satyr dramas in form were very much tragedies, partly because they imitated tragic speech and other tragic features, partly because they were tragedies, not comedies, in terms of their form, as noted above. I would further posit that Euripides' Cyclops, the sole surviving satyr drama (so it's hard to know if this was typical of the genre), was distinctively tragic in its themes as well, namely, those of knowledge through suffering, knowledge too late, recognition and reversal, hubris, etc. With its heavily Dionysian themes and combination of tragic and quasi-comic elements, Euripides' Cyclops resembles the playwright's other Dionysian play, the Bacchae.
As noted, the defining feature of satyr dramas were their choruses of satyrs. Another feature was the ever present character, (Pappo)silenus, "(Daddy) Silen." He was their father. The plot of satyr drama typically took place at the intersection where two myths were made to cross. One of those myths will have been one of those well-known stories of heroes and such. In the case of the Cyclops, it's the story of Odysseus' encounter with the Cyclops of the play's title, a one-eyed fellow named Polyphemus, who figures prominently in book 9 of Homer's Odyysey (see below). The other mythical strand seems everpresent in satyr drama; it has to do with the desire of a wayward band of satyrs, led by their father, (Pappo)silenus, to reunite with their patron god, Dionysus.
And it's from the chorus of satyrs and their father, Silenus, that most of the humor of satyr plays derives. In Sophocles Trackers, we have an extended scene in which someone is trying, and mostly failing, to explain to a satyr what a tortoise is. In the same play, Silenus is terrified by the sound of an instrument never-before heard, the lyre, ancestor of the modern guitar. In Euripides' Cyclops, we'll see that we have evidence for satyric humor that isn't just silly but sexual, abusive, and violent.
The image above is a sort of reformatted and flattened-out version of the painted decoration on one side of a round and tapered vase, the "Pronomos vase," about which I write on this web site's home page. What is so incalculably precious about the vase is the fact that it shows the cast and others (with name labels) responsible for the production of an ancient Greek play, and a satyr play at that. Thus we see young men of the chorus in satyr costume: some with masks on, others with masks off, some dancing the sikinis (the satyr dance) and some not. In the picture there's also the actor playing Papposilenus holding his mask in the upper right. Facing Papposilenus is an actor playing Heracles; scholars think that this is the myth of Hesione, a Trojan princess whom Heracles saves from a sea monster. One imagines that in this play, as in other satyr plays, satyrs somehow get mixed up in the plot.
Does this depict the actual cast of an actual play? What we can be sure of is that it evokes the idea of a satyr play that has won the prize at the Athenian Dionysia. In the process, it relocates the victorious company to a quasi-mythic plane. The seated pipes player is decked out in a glorious outfit, and with the heroically nude lyre player gesturing to him from the left. The poet, likewise nude, likewise projects a heroic persona. At top are Dionysus and his consort, Ariadne, in amorous embrace.
I've said that satyr drama, especially as represented by Euripides' Cyclops, is closely modeled on tragedy and features tragic themes. Yet closer to its satyric essence is its ribald humor, which I've also mentioned: joking around based on sex, drunkenness, and the like. But from a modern perspective, much of that humor, at least in this play, is highly problematic, what with its focus on sexual violence and its willingness to ridicule the suffering of others. It thus becomes a fair question for modern audiences to ask: Is Euripides' Cyclops actually funny?
Situation
This play is a burlesque upon the story told in book 9 of Homer's Odyssey of how the Greek hero Odysseus, homeward bound from the sack of Troy, was captured by, and then escaped from, Polyphemus, son of the sea god Poseidon and a not very hospitable Cyclops — a monstrous being with but one eye in the middle of his forehead.
Into this treatment of the myth, Euripides has introduced a band of young and lusty Satyrs with their father, Silenus. Like Odysseus, they have been blown off course: they're on a mission to save Dionysus (aka Bacchus, Bromios "The Roarer," etc.), god of wine and their true master, who has been kidnapped by Lydian pirates. Having put in at Etna, a volcano on the island of Sicily, they've been taken prisoner by this same Cyclops, who has put them to work tending house and the monster's animals.
Characters
Chorus of Satyrs: Part human, part horse (horse-goat?), children of Silenus, the satyrs form an important part of the retinue (the thiasos) of Dionysus, their leader.
Dionysus: Aka Bacchus, Evoeus (both related to the cry, "Evoe Bacche!" "Hey Ho Bacchus!") , Bromios ("The Roarer," i.e., Dionysus as bull). Not actually a character in the play, more like a constantly felt presence-absence. Dionysus is the god of wine; of socializing, carousing, losing your inhibitions, your sense of separateness; of the erasure of borders (social, gender-related, etc.), of fertility; OF DRAMA. Silenus and the Satyrs are his followers: they are trying to be reunited with him after he has been captured by pirates.
(In the myth, pirates kidnap Dionysus, believing he'll bring a king's ransom. Dionysus turns into a lion and causes vines to grow from the ship. The terrified sailors — all of them, that is, but the helmsman, who recognizes Dionysus for the god he is — jump into the sea and turn into dolphins. Homeric Hymn 7 to Dionysus. In Euripides' version, the pirates are Lydian and plan to sell Dionysus as a slave.)
Silenus: He is an old satyr — old enough to be the father of the young satyrs making up the chorus. Actually, he is their father. In some ways he is like the chorus leader, but without actually being the chorus leader. He is in between being a separate character in his own right, and a member of the chorus
Polyphemus: Son of the god Poseidon, he's the huge, monstrous Cyclops (one-eyed giant) of the play's title. He lives in a cave on the island of Sicily (near Mount Etna, on the east coast of the island) — doesn't get out much, not much interested in religion or anything but his belly. But he's a clever fellow: skillful with words. Also, he has a yen for human flesh, among other things . . . .
Odysseus: He's headed home from the Trojan War. He got blown off course, though; arriving at the cave of the Cyclops, he's seeing what provisions he can pick up there by hook or by crook. Here, as in Euripides' Iphigenia, Odysseus is presented as the son of the evil trickster Sisyphus rather than of Laertes, as in Homer's Odyssey. But no human trickster outdoes Odysseus.
Further Questions
- How do you, a modern-day audience member, respond to Euripides' Cyclops?
- Do you
- like/dislike
- stomach/find repugnant
- the crudity and cruelty of the humor? Why or why not?
- Do you
- How do you respond to particular characters . . .
- Odysseus?
- Polyphemus?
- Silenus?
- The Satyrs?
- How do you think an ancient audience would have responded? Why?
- What, if any, "Euripidean" features do you find here? Possible other connections with readings for our class?
Notes on the Translation
"to us hungry tars." A tar is a sailor.
"Given me by no less than Maron, your wine god's son." Maron gave Odysseus a magic wine bowl capable of refilling itself.
"Like a little sip? It’s neat." "Neat" wine is wine with no water added. The ancient Greeks always diluted their wine.
sikinis. That's the characteristic dance of the satyrs.
crapulent. Drunken.
"he filled a ninety-gallon butt with their white milk." A butt is a cask or barrel.
"I’ve got my own little Ganymede here . . . He'll do . . . ." In mythology, Ganymede is a handsome and very young Trojan prince with whom Zeus falls in love. Zeus kidnaps Ganymede and makes him the cup-bearer of the gods. So Polyphemus, loosened up by the wine, is lusting after the elderly Silenus, his "Ganymede."