In a line of Greek tragic verse, can there be any more than one interruption by a speaking character? I haven’t read enough to recall an example with more than one, but the thought did occur to me. E.g. could the Greek dramatist produce something like:
KING JOHN: Death?
HUBERT: My lord?
KING JOHN: A grave.
HUBERT: He shall not live.
— King John, 3.3
Or is it always a single line split by two people, as in
Πρ. ὤμοι. Ερ. τόδε Ζεὺς τοὖπος οὐκ ἐπίσταται. (Prom. Vinct. 980) ?
ΠΕΙΣΕΤΑΙΡΟΣ
οὗτος.
ΕΥΕΛΠΙΔΗΣ
τί ἐστιν;
ΠΕΙΣΕΤΑΙΡΟΣ
ἡ κορώνη μοι πάλαι
ἄνω τι φράζει.
ΕΥΕΛΠΙΔΗΣ
χὠ κολοιὸς οὑτοσὶ
ἄνω κέχηνεν ὡσπερεὶ δεικνύς τί μοι,
κοὐκ ἔσθ᾿ ὅπως οὐκ ἔστιν ἐνταῦθ᾿ ὄρνεα.
εἰσόμεθα δ᾿ αὐτίκ᾿, ἢν ποιήσωμεν ψόφον.
Not from tragedy but This from Aristophanes Birds (49-53) shows how a line can be split three ways.
I remember that Menander does it multiple times in Dyskolos (also comedy).
In Greek tragic iambics antilabe rarely has more than one speaker-change in a verse, though very occasionally the verse is split into three—but only between two speakers, as also in your exceptionally striking Shakespearean example (so your “Or” is not quite what you mean), e.g. Soph.OC 832. Antilabe is always carefully modulated.
Comedy, both Old e.g. Aristophanes and New e.g. Menander is much freer.
And welcome back Seneca, as I meant to say before!
Another example from comedy, Aristophanes Acharnians 45-6:
Ἀμφίθεος ἤδη τις εἶπε; Κῆρυξ τίς ἀγορεύειν βούλεται;
Ἀμφίθεος ἐγώ. Κῆρυξ τίς ὤν; Ἀμφίθεος Ἀμφίθεος. Κῆρυξ οὐκ ἄνθρωπος; Ἀμφίθεος οὔ,
Amphitheos goes on to claim that he’s immortal, descended from gods on both sides of his family tree (hence his name). The gods, he explains, have appointed him to go as an ambassador to the Spartans to make peace, but being a god he doesn’t have money for travel expenses, and he complains that the prytanies haven’t given him any. The herald calls for the police (the Scythian archers who served as a police force in Athens) and they rudely take him off the stage.
Michael, thank you. Good to see so many posters still around. I much enjoyed the Campus trilogy. Belated thanks for that too! Peter
cclaudian, Your question was about Greek tragic verse, but most of the responses concern Greek comic verse. I hope you’ll understand that while ancient Greek tragedy and ancient Greek comedy both use the same dialogue meter (mainly iambic trimeter), the verse structure is significantly different, tragedy being considerably more austere and restrictively rule-bound than comedy. Shakespeare doesn’t make the same distinction between the two genres, and (as your incomplete example shows) his pentameter can be much looser than even the Greek comic trimeter.
Thanks, yes, I’m aware of the register/metrical differences between comedy and tragedy - this thread has brought them out more clearly though. The context of my query was that of a verse composition exercise actually, so knowing that tragic metre is more restrictive on this point is very helpful
Good. The important point is that a metron’s third element cannot be long in either tragedy or comedy.
If you care to show us your verses we’ll critique them for you!