Background: Satyrs and the Satyr Play

What is a "satyr"?

• Part goat, part human
• comically grotesque: visible phalloi as part of their "costume"
• led usually by "father" Silenus
• prone to crude behavior, like goats but also like men: overeating, overdrinking, sexual misconduct
• followers of Bacchus
• Some images:
• Dionysus with his followers, on a ship. Black figure amphora, ca. 510 B.C.
• Dionysus with 2 dancing Maenads. Amasis painter. ca. 530 B.C.
• The Sileni boogie down. Amasis painter. ca. 525 B.C.
• Dionysus with satyr. ca. 480 B.C.

• Our knowledge is limited: primarily to the Cyclops by Euripides, and to the extensive fragments of a satyr play preserved on papyrus (the Trackers by Sophocles)
• Picture of the papyrus that preserves Sophocles' Trackers

• For each of three playwrights, three tragedies + a satyr play (see notes on festival context)
• Satyr play as comic relief at the end of a tragic trilogy
• Elizabethan tragedies followed by jigs
• Japanese No plays followed by Kyogen
• Roman tragedy followed by Atellan farce (Bucco the clown, etc.)
• why??
• Note: The Alcestis was also presented as the #4 play of the day, in lieu of the satyr play
• scholars call such a substitution a "prosatyric" play
• we don't know how common it was to substitute for a satyr play, but it was not the norm

• Differs from the comedy of that day (so-called "Old Comedy," such as the plays of Aristophanes) in that there is absence of satire of contemporary people or events
• Uses same language, meters, and stage as tragedy
• But much more formalized, schematic, conventionalized; and shorter! than either Tragedy or Old Comedy
• alway a chorus of satyrs
• many of the characters (such as Silenus, or, often, Heracles) are traditional, predictable
• use of stock jokes: food, wine, sex
• Idea is that of burlesque or lampoon, to take tragedy (and epic) and poke fun at it
• Standard: satyrs with father Silenus are introduced into a mythological situation in which they have no legitimate place, creating an inconguity that is initially absurd and funny, and can be further developed

• Typically, subtle plots for overcoming ogres, monsters, and other villains, and wily schemes for deception: most usually the satyrs are  captured by the villain and rescued by the hero (often Heracles)
• essentials: villain, hero, deception, chorus of satyrs
• hero can be a straight man opposite Silenus (as Odysseus in Cyclops)
• hero can himself be an oaf: in this case, usually Heracles, as a gluttonous, drunk, wenching, comic "hero"
• treatment of the mythic situation can be irreverent and quite coarse
• Helen, since she's so fond of men, should have been gang-banged at the fall of Troy
• Polyphemus is stronger than Zeus b/c his farting is louder than Z's thunder
• homosexual dances
• Silenus as "Ganymede" (=passive homosexual partner) to the monster
• emphasis on the phalloi which are part of the costume
• what does this do to our reaction to:
• the satyr play?
• the tragedies that come before?
• not just any myths are used in satyr plays: usually, a part of the mythology that is recognizably akin to folklore and fairy tale
• examples: Cyclops, Proteus, Alcestic e.g.
• satyric hero is confronted by nurseryroom onsters like Polyphemus who are mock-terrifying straw men to be sent down to routine and predictable defeat
• Note how this differs from tragedy

The Cyclops as an example of the satyr play

• emphatically NOT a "real" tragic situation
• satyrs as chorus
• Odysseus' first words off the boat: "What? Do I see right? We must have come to the city of Bacchus. These are satyrs I see around the cave."
• the constant image of the satyrs lends a consistent aura of comic unreality to what might otherwise be a distressing situation
• Examples: as Od. is trying to get Polyph. drunk (remember the Odyssey!) Silenus keeps trying to steal the wine
• satyrs and their (comic) "assistance" with the blinding

The Cyclops as background to Euripides' Alcestis

• 438 BC: Euripides earliest surviving play
• presented as the fourth play, in place of the satyr play
• curious tone: fairy tale and comic elements

Elements of the "satyr play" in the Alcestis

• Phrynichus, an earlier writer of tragedies, had earlier produced a satyr play proper with this title! (what would a "real" satyr play on this theme be like? a good paper topic!)

 
• What is like a satyr play?
• fairy-tale aspects (see below)
• Heracles: drunk and rude at a feast
• pattern: Thanatos seizes our heroine, rescued by Heracles in fairy-tale fashion
• happy ending

Elements of the "fairy tale" in the Alcestis
 

• Thanatos (="Death"), NOT the god of the underworld Hades
• substitution of one person for another in death
• Heracles' struggle with "Death"
• general folk tale pattern (German, Greek, and Armenian folk tales):
• On the wedding day of a King, Death comes for the bridegroom; Death is willing to accept a substitute, but both the King's parents refuse the sacrifice; finally, the young bride intervenes and follows Death to save the life of her beloved (and in some cases the bridegroom fights with Death to save his bride)
• there is evidence that the ancient Greek tale USUALLY was told in a way very close to this: notice how unproblematical the bridegroom's position is as the tale is usually told!

FOR WEDNESDAY:

Alcestis: Tragedy or tragi-comedy?
Who "wins" the agon b/t Pheres and Admetus at 614ff?
Why does Alcestis never speak again once she returns to the stage? Folding in with that question: what is the tone of the ending? religious mystery? sardonic grin by the playwright? mechanically convenient happy ending?

• Silenus
• satyr
• Polyphemus
• Odysseus, as he appears in this satyr play