The Role of Pity in Euripidean Recognition Scenes

Owen E. Goslin (Wellesley College)

Euripides has long been known for his elaborate and theatrically self-conscious recognition scenes, particularly in his famous reworking in Electra of the token scene from Aeschylus’ Choephoroi (Burian 1997:196, Goldhill 1986:249). However the innovative construction of such scenes, I argue, reflects not only an interest in metatheater but more importantly the role that pity plays in cementing social relationships. Recent work on the anthropology and history of the emotions (Lutz 1988, Reddy 2001) has suggested that emotional statements serve to create and define relationships between individuals. Building on this insight I will demonstrate that pity (oiktos) in these Euripidean scenes emerges as an important social emotion for turning strangers (xenoi) into philoi.

The importance of pity can be seen in three plays that dramatize the reunion of long lost philoi – IT (472-900), Ion (237-400), and Electra (220-300) – in which separated blood-kin meet as strangers but proceed to draw close to one another through mutual pity for the other’s suffering. These affective scenes proceed without producing full-blown recognition of the precise identity of the other character (this is always the business of signs or tokens). Yet they create relationships that very nearly mimic the real kinship relationships that they presume to have lost: thus Creousa becomes a surrogate mother to Ion, Iphigenia a surrogate sister to Orestes. The ability of pity to create important bonds between strangers is confirmed and naturalized through the later discovery of their biological relationships.

I examine closely the meeting between Kreousa and Ion (Ion 237-400) to explore these dynamics of pity. Through observing each other’s pain the two characters are prompted to ask about the identity of the other: their homeland, their family, and their name. After learning these elementary details they then begin to reveal more fully their particular problem, and each expresses pity at the other’s suffering. What is significant about such scenes of recognition, I argue, is that they offer a successful model of communication in a genre that typically dramatizes the inadequacy of language to persuade or understand the other (Vernant 1988).

Works Cited:

Burian, P. 1997. “Myth into Mythos: The Shaping of Tragic Plots” in P. E. Easterling, ed., The

Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Cambridge.

Goldhill, S. 1986. Reading Greek Tragedy. Cambridge.

Lutz, C. 1988. Unnatural Emotions. Chicago.

Reddy, W. 2001. The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions.

Cambridge.

Vernant, J.-P. 1988. “Tensions and Ambiguities in Greek Tragedy” in Vernant and Vidal-Naquet,

edd., Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece. Zone Books.